Isn't Life Bootie-ful?

I have been spending a lot of my time lately trying to figure out how to get people interested in Stamping. It's a hobby that I love, I really wish more would get into it! Since becoming a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I have struggled and struggled with workshop attendance and meeting my $300 minimum order requirements. When I get stressed out or discouraged I do something to try and take my mind off of it. I with either knit and watch I Love Lucy, or Stamp and watch I Love Lucy.. Lucy seems to be a running theme. I have made many different things now since I have started knitting. I have done hats, cowls, and blankets. The one I am working on now is probably my favorite of all of my knitting projects I have ever done!

It's not a great picture, but it's what I've got right now. Its cable knitting and extra wraps. I love it! I will probably make another one with this pattern and different colors. Now on to the reason I made this blog post in the first place! I have fallen in love with the new stamp set from Stampin' Up! Bootiful Occasions!

I sat one day and just made a series of cards using this set. The more I created the more I fell in love with it! It's just so versatile! I made Halloween, spring fever, and Christmas cards with it. I love it!

Fancy Witch Card

If the Shoes/Hat fit!

Let the Sun Shine Card

Red Glitter Boots Card

Blue Winter Booties Card

Best part about these cards is that they were super easy to make! I love creating new things. If you can figure out how I can get more people to attend classes or order from me please share your tips!! 

   

There's a new baby at someone's house.

I love being 25. This is the age that all of my friends and family (my age) are having babies and getting married. Things have been utterly crazed in my life for the last several months. With substitute teaching that I started in February, followed by a crazy busy summer, and then getting back into the swing of things this fall, I have definitely fallen behind on my blog. I would like to get back into it though. After almost not reaching my quarterly goal with Stampin' Up! I realized I needed to get back into blogging and getting new followers. 

I have started a love affair with Pinterest in the last few months... It brought me to another hobby that I have taught myself and successfully honed since March. Knitting. So when I found out that one of my good friends was having a baby boy right around the start of football season I knew exactly what to make her. A football shaped cocoon and matching team color hat. They went quickly and easily. 

The best part about making this was the reaction she had when she opened it up. This is the first thing that I have made that I have been able to give to someone. Before this I have just made stuff for myself because it took me so long and I worked so hard, I just could't bear to give it to someone else. 

I taught myself how to knit by watching knitting videos on YouTube, anything I didn't know how to do, I looked for a video! 

But with this gift I had to make something else, the thing I started this blog to share... a card. :)

I used Early Espresso, Pool Party, and Whisper White. I put the Pool Party into my dots embossing folder, and stamped the feet from Baby Prints . I added some dotted brown ribbon to complete the look.

 All in all I think it was a successful gift. I can't wait to see her little guy all tucked inside of this football and hat. 

I love making cards and showing what I can do. If you do too then follow this blog, if you know people that do, send them my way!! It's a great hobby, it can sometimes be expensive, but it's always worth it to see the look on people's faces when you hand them a home-made card or gift. 

Birthday Cards Class

This Thursday I am having a Birthday Card Class. I am very excited. I made 2 masculine cards, 2 feminine cards, and 2 child's birthday cards. They all turned out so nicely.

This card was my first Masculine one for the bunch. I used the DSP Beau Chateau, cut it into 1 1/4 inch squares and rounded the corners opposite of each other. The card base was done in Cajun Craze, with a piece of Whisper White on top and Happy Birthday from Curly Cute stamped in Cajun Craze. It's not overly masculine but it's manly enough that a guy would (I think) appreciate it.

This is the second Masculine card of the bunch. I cut the base of the card from Cherry Cobbler, long ways 11 by 4 1/4 and folded it so the crease was on the left side. I added a piece of Whisper White on top cut to 4 by 5 1/4, and added a small Cherry Cobbler strip cut to 1 inch by 4 1/4 inches. The last bit of paper added was the beige and white stripes from Pocketful of Posies cut to 4 by 3/4 in. I then stamped the birthday selection from Delightful Dozen on the front in Cherry Cobbler.

Sadly I cannot take full credit for this card. I got the main idea of it from Pinterest. I used the flowers from the Sale-a-bration set Fresh Vintage. The crisp look of the black in the white made this a very elegant card. I stamped the Happy Birthday from Elementary Elegance and then punched it using the Curly Label punch. I then added it to the front. Crisp clean and beautiful.

This the second feminine card that I created. I used a 1 by 5 1/2 inch strip of each So Saffron, Pool Party, Concord Crush, Melon Mambo, and Pear Pizzazz paper, and scallop punched the edge of each. I adhered them to the front of a Whisper White card base and stamped Happy Birthday from Create a Cupcake in Pumpkin Pie.

This is one of the child's cards that I made for the group of Birthday Cards. I used one of the pennants from Pennant Parade and made it into an ice cream cone using Early Espresso ink, I then used the cupcake top from the Create a Cupcake stamp set and used 3 different "ice cream" colors to make a tall cone. Added the cherry on top and adhered the white onto a piece of Pool Party. I took the Whisper White card base stamped Happy Birthday from Create a Cupcake in Melon Mambo and ran it through the Big Shot with the Perfect Polka Dots Impressions Embossing Folder. I finished by adding the ice cream cone to the front.

For the last card of the bunch I made a River Rock base. I cut a piece of Whisper White and punch 4 1 1/2 inch circles from Lucky Limeade, Pacific Point, Real Red, and Pumpkin Pie. I then punch 2, 3/4 inch circles from each of the colors as well. I placed them about in a pattern I liked, stamped the corresponding color star (from Pennant Parade) and stamped the sentiment Wish Big from Pennant Parade and ran the whole thing through the Big Shot with the Perfect Polka Dots plate. I adhered it to the top of the River Rock base and it was all done!

These are the 6 cards that we will be making on Thursday!

Free Class Thursday!

I have been trying to do, once a month, a free class for all of my wonderful Stampin' Up! Customers! We usually make 3 cards and 1 3-D project (usually involving some kind of chocolate!) This month was a little bit more difficult for me to come up with wonderful projects that my girls would love to make. I finally used some unconventional materials and different card layouts and came up with a wonderful array of projects for them to make. I think they turned out quite fabulously!!

Our first project used Poppy Parade, cut to 3x5. I then scored it at 2" and 3" so that I had a 1" base in the middle to add 3 Hershey Hugs for our 3-D project. I stamped the flowers all over the paper using the Create a Cupcake stamp set. For the top I scallop circle punched a piece of black paper. I punched the corners with the ticket corner punch, adhered the black scallop, put 2 holes in it at the top and then tied a black ribbon through them to make it look like a small clutch purse!

For our second card of the night we used a certain a la carte stamp that fits perfectly well with what is currently trending, Many Mustaches! I bought the stamp and could not figure out what to do with it. Since it comes with 4 mustaches on the stamp, it was difficult to come up with an original minimalistic idea for a card. But I cracked it! I used Pear Pizzazz cut to a half sheet of paper (5 1/2 x 8 1/2) then folded it in half. I then cut a piece of Whisper White to 4 x 5 1/4 and stamped the mustaches in Early Espresso to the left of the piece and then the word "Hello" from Elementary Elegance (a wonderful new Sale-a-bration set!!). Simple and still fun!

The next card was fun to play around with. I used 3 different stamp sets to achieve this next card. It takes a little while for me to come up with fabulous new ideas for cards because I only have a few current stamp sets that I can use for Stamp Camps! But that's beside the point, lets get started with this one! I took a piece of Pool Party, cut it to 4 1/4 x 11, scored it at 5 1/2. Folded it. I took the word window punch (and now pay attention to this!!) I flipped it over, and lined it up on the front bottom left corner of the card so that the paper was flush with the bottom cut line, and it wouldn't cut the leftmost curve of the punch. I then repeated these steps on the right side, only difference is I didn't cut the rightmost curve. This will leave you with a small catch for a closure. Flip the card and make a punch with your word window for your catch to slip into so that your card will close. Punch it in the middle of the bottom-most section of the card about a 1/4 of an inch from the bottom. NOW! Since the card base is all ready to go, its time to make the layers and stamp! Cut a piece of Real Red 4 x 4 7/8, and adhere it to the Pool Party card, next take a piece of Whisper White and cut it to 3 3/4 x 4 5/8. Now here is the fun part. Take the small pumpkin from Jack of All Trades, ink it with Real Red and stamp it about a half an inch from the top of the Whisper White paper. Next take the dotted cupcake bottom from Create a Cupcake, ink it in Soft Suede, and stamp it about an inch from the bottom of the Whisper White. You want to make sure that you have enough room for your greeting. Take your Pool Party marker, and draw 4 lines connecting the Balloon to the basket of your hot air balloon, take the curly vines from Jack of All Trades, ink in Pacific Point and make a line across your balloon. Finally ink the word Congratulations from Curly Cute, in Pacific Point and stamp it at the bottom. Adhere your White to your card and Voila! You are finished!

For our final project of the night we made a very lovely Birthday Card. I used Whisper White as the card's base, cut a piece of Basic Gray to 4 x 5 1/4 and used the Big Shot Embossing Templates to emboss Elegant Lines (or Swirly Doo's as I called them all night). I used the Create a Cupcake punch and punched out an Early Espresso base, and a Blushing Bride top. I stamped the sprinkles in Blushing Bride on the frosting of the Cupcake, and adhered them to the bottom right hand corner of the card. Next I stamped "Happy Birthday" from the same stamp set in the open spot in the upper part of the card. I did this in Basic Gray. On the inside I stamped "There's something special about your birthday, must be you." Again, your card is finished :)

If you liked any of what you have seen here you can order Stampin' Up! products through me at hilaryreid.stampinup.net. You can also order these cards already made by finding me on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/HER-Cards/104257022283

New Year New Look!

My great friend totally hooked me up last night. She spent 2 hours with me redoing my whole blog! It looks fantastic!! I have been working on a lot of new things over the last few weeks and I can't wait to start posting about it. I have a wonderful Valentine's Day class on February 2nd at 6:30. Here are the designs:

My October Class List!

Here it is! My October class list, to make it bigger, just clicked on the picture!

Fall Leaves Tree

I made this beautiful card for our SUO Challenge using fall colors. I love using this set for just that. I have made countless projects using these trees because they are so versatile. My favorite use for this set is with my students. I use it to make a 4 seasons picture as the culmination of a Seasons Unit. They love to play around with the leaves and make them different colors.

I used a white card base, with Pumpkin Pie cut to 4 x 5 1/4. On top of that I used confetti cream cut to 3 3/4 x 5 with the tree stamped in Chocolate Chip, and the leaves stamped in Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, and So Saffron. The bottom piece is Naturals Ivory, scallop punched and rubbed with Chocolate Chip, I used the same color ink to stamp "In everything give thanks".