Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

Alright, this is it. Down to the wire for Sale-a-Bration. You have today and tomorrow (March 31st) to place your Stampin’ Up order and choose free items. Don’t miss out!

I have a different type of project to show you today. One of the main catalog items that is available for free during Sale-a-Bration is the Flirtatious Designer Fabric. The pack of fabric includes three coordinated designs, each in an extra-wide fat quarter size (28″ x 18″). Eve has been really into sewing lately, so I picked up a pack of this for her. (Nice that it was free!) We made a dress for her American Girl doll by tracing one of the other dresses, and tied it with piece of the Whisper White Satin ribbon.

I love all of the different ways I can use my Stampin’ Up products for fun projects! I hope you will stop back later — I’ll have another post up this evening, with projects and information about tomorrow’s Stampin’ Addicts Stamp Jam. We have a virtual stamping party every time there is a 5th Saturday in a month. (If you are receiving this in your email, just scroll down and the post should be below.) I hope you will come join us!

I seem to have run out of time to show you the rest of my Valentine projects, since today is Valentine’s Day, so I’m just going to post the last three items here. First is the Valentine that Eve made for all of her classmates. This was a family effort again this year, with everybody but the dogs lending a hand. I am really proud of her for wanting to make her own again, and for coloring in all 44 bears herself! Here is the finished product. (I couldn’t take a group shot of all 44, because the last stop on our assembly line was stuffing the envelopes. This is a 3″x 3″ card. The little envelope is stamped on Pretty in Pink card stock, cut out, and popped up on a Stampin’ Dimensional.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends
Ink: StazOn Jet Black
Paper: Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Whisper White
Other: Watercolor Pencils, Stampin’ Dimensionals

The next project I want to show you is the Valentine that I made for each of the second grade teachers. I used Tanya’s amazing book box, with great instructions! It was perfect for me, as a librarian, to give out, and since it uses the Matchbox Die, it holds four Hershey Nuggets. The below picture shows it tied shut, the front cover without the bow, and what the inside looks like.

Stamps: Valentine Defined, Language of Love Wheel
Ink: Basic Grey, Real Red, Blushing Bride
Paper: Basic Grey, Whisper White, Love Impressions Designer Series Paper, Glimmer Paper
Other: Matchbox Bigz XL Die, Big Shot, Blushing Bride Ribbon, Full Heart Punch, Hershey Nuggets

I have a regular group of friends that I eat lunch with at work each day, and when I saw these amazing little nugget purses on Krystal’s Sunday round-up, I thought they would be a really fun Valentine treat to hand out. They are so cute! They would make great baby or wedding shower favors. Each one holds a Hershey Nugget inside. It’s a little hard to see because of the flash, but that is  little rhinestone on top of each heart.

Paper: Real Red, Love Impressions Designer Series Paper
Other: Real Red 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Small Heart Punch, Basic Rhinestones, Glue Dots

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you had a good one! I’ll be back tomorrow with some bold colors for the ColourQ challenge!

I have a special post for you today from my favorite guest blogger, Eve! She’s been having fun coming up with at all different color combinations using the color coach lately, and used it to pick this combo out. I’m not sure if she intends to give it to one of her friends who likes dogs, or actually to one of the dogs.

Stamps: Long Fellows, D is for Dog
Ink: Basic Black, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise
Paper: Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise
Other: Tulip Border Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Big Shot

I love stamping with her and seeing what she comes up with!

I can’t post some of the cards that I’ve been making lately, since they are gifts that have not yet been given. Instead, I have a special treat for you, a fantastic card made by Eve! First, I am happy to tell you, she can now use the Stamp-a-ma-jig by herself for perfect placement. Not bad for a 7 year old! She had a couple great ideas for this card. One is the girl bear’s tiara, which was stamped in Versamark and then embossed in silver. The other was to stamp the trophy separately, then cut it out and raise it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. She drew the speech bubble freehand.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Versamark, assorted Stampin’ Write Markers
Paper: More Mustard, Whisper White
Other: Silver Embossing Powder, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stamp-a-ma-jig

I love stamping with Eve! She’s so clever and creative.

It’s not just MY Digital Studio, it’s Eve’s Digital Studio, too! As many of you know, Eve is my seven-year-old daughter. After watching me create scrapbook pages on MDS, she wanted to give it a try, too. And she did a great job! She started a 12″ x 12″ regular scrapbook this summer, so I figured if she created her pages as 12″ x 12″ also, we could print them and add them to the same scrapbook.

As I was showing her around MDS, I realized it covered a lot of basic computer skills as well — Open, Save, Copy, Paste, Changing fonts & formatting, and more! Below is the page she made for her first day of school. Second grade begins the year with a space unit, so Eve wanted to make the page look like outer space. She started off with one of the page layouts that comes with My Digital Studio, then customized it. She created the stars with the star punch, and copied and pasted to create a bunch.

Didn’t she do a great job?

By the way, today is my two-year blogaversary! I hope you’ve been enjoying the journey. I appreciate your readership!

Both Eve & I decided to use Totally Tools to make Steve his Father’s Day cards this year. He is a wood-working kind of guy, though he hasn’t been able to do much since his knee surgery.  I’ve seen several of these cards with the tools hanging on the cute peg board. I’m not sure who came up with the idea originally, but I love how mine came out! Click on the picture for a better look, so you can see ALL of the holes I pierced to make it look like peg board! I stamped the tools on Naturals White paper so they would be a little thicker, and used my Watercolor Wonder Crayons to color them in. (Love those!) That great shape at the bottom is from the Matchbox Bigz XL Die. I always try to run a few extra tags when I make a matchbox, and I was excited to find this shape in my scrap bag. I was even more excited when I saw how well the Word Window punch fit in it! This card could easily be used for a birthday or any other occasion by changing the sentiment at the bottom.

Stamps: Totally Tool, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Chocolate Chip
Paper: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Naturals White, Travel Journal Designer Series Paper
Other: Paper Piercer, Mat Pack, Silver Brads, Word Window Punch, Matchbox Bigz XL Die, Big Shot, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aqua Painter

This is Eve’s fabulous card, made with Totally Tool as well. She used the Stampin’ Write Markers in Bordering Blue and Chocolate Chip to ink up only the images on the stamps (not the words), and placed them around the card. She also used Brilliant Blue ink and paper, since that is Steve’s favorite color. Didn’t she do a great job?

Stamps: Totally Tool, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Bordering Blue, Chocolate Chip, Brilliant Blue
Paper: Brilliant Blue, Whisper White

I love stamping with Eve. She has such a great vision!

I am really enjoying the new clear mount stamps and Stampin’ Up’s gorgeous acrylic blocks. They are so beautiful I just want to stack them up for display! Speaking of displays, here’s a look at Stampin’ Up’s display about them at the Leadership Conference last month:

One of the neat things about these is that you can create a little scene with your stamops by using one of the larger blocks. Eve did just that using the Sale-a-Bration set, Good Neighbors. (Did you know that you have the option to choose your FREE Sale-a-Bration sets in either wood-mount or clear-mount? Excluding the ones from the main catalog, of course.)

First she set up her scene on the acrylic block.

Then she colored each part with the Stampin’ Write markers.

Stamped it on the paper, and voila!

She’s such a good stamper! And she shares my love of these new clear-mount stamps.

Eve’s first grade class has just finished their desert unit. Next up is a winter unit. (I love that Brentwood teaches in thematic units. It makes my job as a librarian so much easier!) Here in Southern California, there is not a lot of real winter weather. But last year, when we were living in Central Massachusetts, we experienced an ice storm of epic proportions. We thought it would be a good thing for Eve to share with her class during their winter unit. So we put together a presentation. And we decided to create it in My Digital Studio. It was quick and easy to put together, and super easy to export. I exported one version onto CD to play on the Smart Board in the classroom, and uploaded another, smaller version to YouTube to share here. The one we will be showing in class has the pictures at much higher resolution. It will also not be automatically forwarding the pages, instead Eve will click to forward when she is ready. I was excited to see that a copy of the “My Digital Studio Viewer” is also automatically included on the CD, so it can be played on any computer.  There is no sound with it, because Eve will be reading the text aloud to her classmates.

I am so impressed every time that I use My Digital Studio. I just love it more and more! And don’t forget, if you purchase it now, you also receive a FREE Décor Elements piece (up to a $16.95 value).

My in-laws were out of town for about five weeks on an amazing vacation. Eve made them an adorable card for my husband to bring with when he picked them up at the airport. That’s Eve in the middle, with Grandpa and Grandpa on either side. Eve did all of the stamping and coloring herself, except for the arms. I stamped the arms, since they can be very frustrating. Especially when they are the last thing you stamp. She blended the Yo-Yo Yellow and Only Orange Watercolor Wonder Crayons to make the skin on the faces.

Stamps: All in the Family
Inks: StazOn Black
Papers: Pixie Pink, Orchid Opulence, Naturals White
Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons (Bold Brights), Aqua Painter

Grandma & Grandpa were thrilled to get this card, and I was happy to have some stamping time with Eve!

Eve, who is 6 1/2, decided to give the Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge a try this morning. She wanted to make a card for her cousin Sophia who will be 2 on Monday. She liked this sketch a lot.

What could be better for her two-year-old cousin than a Build-a-Bear card? Eve did all of the designing, stamping, and coloring herself. I just helped by cutting the layers.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: Basic Black, Orchid Opulence, Pixie Pink
Paper: Pixie Pink, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, Pawsitively Prints, Designer Series Paper
Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons

I love stamping with Eve! She’s so much fun — and talented and creative besides!