Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

Some great St. Patrick’s Day colors from ColourQ today. I paired them with this week’s MDS Monday sketch challenge today, which also includes a subway art component.

I may have said it before, but St. Patrick’s Day is the second biggest holiday at my school, second only to Halloween. The picture below is Eve in second grade with our resident leprechaun.

To create the shamrock background, I used a trick I learned from Alesha Walls. I used a digital stamp of a Lucky Limeade shamrock on a Lucky Limeade background, and then added a drop shadow at 75%. This gives it an embossed look. And yes, I did paste the same shamrock a gazillion times. Thank goodness for copy and paste!

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching, and luckily I was able to combine the colors from Nacho Average Challenges with the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches to make another quick and fun St. Patrick’s Day card.

Gumball Green is just perfect for shamrocks — so bright and fun! The only way to make it more perfect is to combine it with the Champagne Glimmer Paper. I also love how the polka dots on the patterned paper are almost a perfect match to Certainly Celery.

Stamps: Got Treats, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Gumball Green
Paper: Gumball Green, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, 2012-2014 In Colors Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack, Champagne Glimmer Paper
Other: 1 1/4″ Square Punch, 1 3/8″ Square Punch, Word Window Punch, Modern Label Punch, Gold Brads

I realized after I finished that the sentiment was not in the right spot. I tried to move it, but it just didn’t look right there.

I love March. It means that I’ve made it through the craziness of February, that Spring Break is near, and that St. Patrick’s Day is coming! I’ve loved St. Patrick’s Day with all of its greenness since I made green tuna sandwiches in junior high. I am fortunate to work at a school  that celebrates it as one of the biggest holidays of the year. As you can imagine, I was very excited to see the new Lucky Day stamp in the spring catalog. I used it for one of my swap cards way back in December, but I saved it to show you today.

Stamps: Lucky Day
Ink: Lucky Limeade
Paper: Daffodil Delight, Lucky Limeade, Whisper White, Brushed Gold, Sunshine & Sprinkles Designer Series Paper
Other: Perfect Pennants Bigz Die, Circles #2 Die, Daffodil Delight Statitched 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Square Lattice Embossing Folder, Gold Brad

I used the Brushed Gold paper on this because I thought that the Champagne Glimmer Paper had been discontinued. Good news though, it is still available and just perfect for all of your St. Patrick’s Day projects!

I went to a shoebox swap last month, where one of the women made super cute Valentine’s day treat holders that held Giradelli chocolate squares. I loved the cute and easy design, and realized that they work perfectly with the single St. Patrick’s Day stamp in the Occasions mini catalog. This also works perfectly for this week’s SUO Challenge of using green. Each of the girls in my after school class made a couple of these to give out.

Stamps: St. Patrick’s Day
Ink: Garden Green
Paper: Garden Green, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White
Other: Pumpkin Pie 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Word Window Punch, Crop-a-dile

If you want to make your own, start with a piece of card stock that is 3″ x 8″. Score it at 3 7/8″ and 4 1/8″. You will want to punch the Word Window twice to make it wide enough to fit the chocolate square.

Now that we are well into March, I am getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day! The Pals Paper Arts Color Challenge and the Friday Mashup worked fabulously together to lead to a great St. Patrick’s Day card.

For my third color I chose bright & sunny Daffodil Delight. The two punches that I used for the Friday Mashup were the Full Heart punch for the leaves and the Wide Oval punch for the stem.

Stamps: Happy St. Patrick’s
Ink: Always Artichoke, Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight
Paper: Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight, Always Artichoke, Whisper White, Regals Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack (Always Artichoke)
Other: Full Heart Punch, Wide Oval Punch, Brights Buttons, Every Day Enchantment Taffeta Ribbon

Both the button and the ribbon that I used on this card were FREE with my Sale-a-Bration order! You have until the end of this month to continue to earn free Sale-a-Bration goodies. Don’t miss out!

Another great sketch from Stamping 411 this weekend. This is one of those versatile sketches that I could see myself using over and over.

I decided to use this sketch for a St. Patrick’s Day card to make with my after-school kids’ class. I had a bit of a dilemma with the image though. I understand that fundamentally gnomes and leprechauns are entirely different creatures. But that little gnome stamp makes such a cute leprechaun, that I had to use it anyway.

Stamps: Gnome Sweet Gnome, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Old Olive, Pear Pizzazz, Blush Blossom, Pumpkin Pie
Paper: Old Olive, Whisper White, In Colors Patterns Designer Series Paper Pack (Pear Pizzazz)
Other: Old Olive 5/8″ Satin Ribbon, 2 1/2″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle #2 Die, Gold Brads, Champagne Glass Glitter

So what do you think? Does the gnome make a good substitute leprechaun?

I am fortunate to work with a lot of amazing people and incredible teachers. One of them truly must be part leprechaun, and because of her we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at school like nothing I have ever seen. We start with bagpipes in the morning, move on to dancing jigs on the tables, and all of the kindergarten teachers’ feet turn green. Her birthday is tomorrow, so I wanted to make her a leprechaun birthday card. I pulled out my Gift Givers set from the Holiday Mini Catalog and used the great little leprechaun stamp.

Stamps: Gift Givers, Perfectly Penned
Ink: Stazon Jet Black, Garden Green, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Blush Blossom, Chocolate Chip, Basic Grey, VersaMark
Paper: Certainly Celery, Garden Green, Brushed Gold, Whisper White, Regals Patterns Designer Series Paper Pack
Other: Champagne Glitter Glass, Gold Embossing Powder, 1 3/4″ Circle Punch, 2 3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch

Today is the last day to order from the Holiday Mini Catalog, which means it is also the last day to order this adorable Gift Givers stamp set among others. Be sure to get the items you want before it is too late! Notice how they all match punches? I love that!

Whoo-hoo! I did it! I finished Eve’s first grade scrapbook in time to have it printed at 30% off during Stampin’ Up’s National Scrapbooking Month sale! I want to share with you another one of the pages that I made for it. St. Patrick’s Day is HUGE at the school were I work and Eve attends. Probably because we have our own resident leprechaun to make sure the festivities are second to none. In this page, she is dancing on the table with Eve. It’s not quite as big a deal in first grade — in kindergarten all of the teachers’ feet turn green!

Now I just need to finish up the one for my mom… Don’t worry, Mom, I’m working on it!

I had some great luck this morning! After my husband left for work at 5:15 this morning, the dogs let me go back to sleep until 8:00! I feel like a whole new person! I was able to combine the clean&simple sketch challenge, the Stampin’ Royalty Color challenge, and the Stampin’ Celebration Inspiration Challenge to create a cute card for St. Patrick’s Day or any other time you might want to wish a person luck.

Both the shamrock stamp and the saying are from the free Sale-a-Bration stamp set, So Happy for You. I stamped first on the Whisper White piece, than ran it through the Big Shot for a variation on the Inlaid Embossing Technique.

Stamps: So Happy for You
Ink: Garden Green, Wild Wasabi, Sahara Sand
Paper: Garden Green, Wild Wasabi, Sahara Sand, Whisper White
Other: Square Lattice Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Dotted Scallop Border Punch, Decorative Label Punch, Small Heart Punch, Basic Rhinestones

I love that you can use a heart punch to make a shamrock!

St. Patrick’s Day is huge at my school. HUGE! I can’t even begin to describe how thoroughly it is celebrated. Everyone wears green, of course, and some of the teachers’ feet even turn green magically! Because of this, I am always excited to see new St. Patrick’s Day stamps. The new single stamp at the back of the Occasions Mini Catalog was no exception! This is a swap card I made with. The greenish tint to the River Rock card stock was just perfect for it.

Stamps: Lucky Shamrock
Ink: Garden Green
Paper: Garden Green, Early Espresso, River Rock, Whisper White
Other: 1″ Circle Punch, 1 3/4″ Circle Punch, 2 3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, Early Espresso Satin Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Vintage Wallpaper Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Big Shot

This stamp is available in a wood-mount or as a digital stamp brush as well.