Merry Christmas

Hope your Christmas season was filled with family, friends, and love.

Recipe Card (with links):
Cherry Cobbler Grosgrain Ribbon
Glimmer Brads - 123964    (I recolored one to a deep brown)
Very Merry Twenty-Five - 127756     (sentiment)
Old Saint Nick stamp brush set - 119094     (snowflake)
Bright Hopes stamp brush set - 127764 (snowflake)
Holiday Harmony II Kit - 128872     (DSP)
Any Day Label punch     (Sorry, not sure where this is from)
Snowflake Trimming punch - 128882
If you don't already have a demonstrator pick me (Amber Swift) to ensure you get the preferred prices!

2013 Calendar is Ready

Next year's calendar is ready! If you are curious why the pictures are missing, see my post from the 2011 calendar HERE.


I'm going to have these printed up through the Stampin Up print services and I'm excited to get the hard copies in my hands. And thanks to the new print prices they are more affordable than ever (only $18.95 plus tax/s&h)! Please contact me if you would like a copy too: swift.thinkin@gmail.com. Be sure to leave me a comment below too so that I can be on the lookout for your order.

Just remember, in order to have it by Christmas the order needs to be submitted by December 6th!

This Party is Tutu Cute (Part 2)

Great, you came back to see our Sesame Street Menu! I think the pictures do the talking great for this one, so enjoy!

We even managed to sneak a tutu onto the punch bowl :) Oh, and yes it was supposed to be blue punch, but it didn't turn out 'quite' right once we added the sherbet. Still tasted fantastic though!

Flutterby again soon.

This Party is Tutu Cute (Part 1)

Sorry to leave you all hanging on how the party turned out. We had such a blast last weekend! And since then it has been so busy I haven't even gotten most of the decorations down (which my daughter loves because it gives her more chances to give all her "friends" kisses- see the fun wall mural I found). So, without further ado, let's jump into the party!

The guests were first greated at the door by the adorable tutu wreath. I thought it turned out stellar (and the tulle was even sparkly for that extra girly effect)!

Then there was the desert and favor table. It of course would not be complete without a tutu of it's own!

Check out the cupcake toppers up closer. I printed them up and punched them out with the large scallop circle punch (want the printable? see this post: Dancin on the Cupcakes). I also punched out a plain white piece for the back. Using a little bit of sticky strip it was easy to then attach the two pieces onto a lollipop stick (available in craft isles). Fast, fun, and tutu cute :) Oh, and yes, that is a loofah on top of the cupcake stand- he looked like he was wearing a tutu!

Oh, and you can't miss the amazing favor boxes we had. I would love to claim they were made by yours truly, but they instead were made by my amazingly talented mom. The base for these bad boys is the petite purse big shot die cut (get it HERE). Then she dressed them all up in a punch art fashion. So Adorable.

Next, head on over to the drinks. We had all sorts of water and pop bottles with customized labels (want the printable again? see this post: Birthday Bottle Labels). AND I was sure to add a place to write the guests name this year (nothing is quite so frustrating as realizing halfway through the party that you are out of drinks not because you didn't get enough, but because people can't figure out which one is their's anymore).

And with that, I think I better say farewell. You didn't come here for a novel after all! Flutter back later to see our totally Sesame Street Themed Menu!

ThINKin' About Christmas: Card 3

Last but not least, we made a double pocket card for the class. I love how much easier this is using the Simply Scored tool!

I like to envision this card as having a picture in one pocket and the Christmas letter in the other. Wouldn't that be cool?

The stamp set I used for this card is "Watercolor Winter" which is hands down my favorite from the Holiday Mini Catalog :) I just love the feel of the rustic Christmas it brings. The sentiment is from "Many Merry Messages" in the main catalog.

The colors I used here are Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, and Chocolate Chip (ironic that all three are named after food... hmmm I'm hungry now). For the poinsettias I used the double stamping technique of stamping off once before applying the image to the card for the first layer. That way the second outline layer really shows up. And for the red strip in the middle I just sponged ink onto that section of the paper.

I can't believe how fast Christmas is coming! I hope this week I've inspired you to start working on your own Christmas cards. If you need supplies I'm sure the SU online store has got what you need. If you don't already have a demonstrator feel free to use me to get the preferred price!

Flutterby again soon. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the Sesame Street Tutu party coming up after this weekend!

ThINKin' About Christmas: Card 2

Onto the second card from our Christmas class. This one features the mitten builder and new "Illuminate" ink pad.

There is a little bit of a trick to punching the second mitten if you want them facing opposite direction. First I stamped the double mitten stamp and punched out the easy side. Then, I stamped the double mitten again and this time I held it up to the light and made a rough outline of where the edges of the mitten were. This allowed me to flip my paper over and punch out the other mitten.

Also, do you see the shiny image in the background? It was done with the new Illuminate ink pad. It is essentially a watermark pad (like the versamark) but with some sparkle and shine added to it. It is hard to see in the picture, but in person it is gorgeous! Here's a little bit of a closeup:

Are you inspired to start making up your Christmas cards yet? I hope so! Flutterback on friday for another Christmas card idea.

ThINKin' About Christmas: Card 1

I recently held my ThINKing about Christmas card class, and we made 3 awesome cards! The first was this beauty (compliments of my mom's stamping collection):

Such a pretty card! And I love the beauty and wonder in brings to the viewer. It was definitely the favorite of the night!

For this card the background is Midnight Muse, with a coating of the silver foil smooch spritz on it. Makes a nice nighttime base for the card.

The sand dunes are made of Sahara Sand, ripped and sponged to give them the look of depth. Then it is just a matter of stamping (again in Midnight Muse) the images and the card is complete.

Hope you enjoyed! Flutterback soon :)

Setting the Scene

When people arrive at our house I want them to think Sesame Street right away. What better way to do that other than to have the iconic sign on our door!

The sign was actually really easy to make. A little text, some punches (square stretched into a rectangle, rounded corner squares at the end, and a circle) and it looks pretty awesome.

But the tutu is missing... Well, I'll just have to change that. I saw this adorable tutu wreath on pintrest

I figure if I make it in some bright bold colors and then add the sign to the middle it should be pretty sweet :)

After the party I'll have to post pictures of how everything turned out. Until then, keep fluttering by and I'll show you some pretty cards!

Dancin' on the Cupcakes

Now, of course we aren't going to dance on the cupcakes. But the Sesame Street gang is in their pretty tutus of course!
 

See the custom paper again! Love how we can do that :)

Once again the characters are from images I found online. I put them onto scalloped punches which I sized up to fit our newer 2 3/8 inch scalloped circle punch. I was happy that I could fit a full dozen on a page, PERFECT!

The cutest part was using multiple pieces of the tied ribbon (scaled down) to create little tutu's for all the characters. Do you like it too?!?

More to come! Flutterby soon.

Birthday Bottle Labels

Dressing up water bottles is all the rage these days at parties. So of course I have follow suit :)

I used my custom stripy paper from the invites and added some label punches. I decided there needed to be a place to write the name of name of the owner (don't you hate how during a party you end up with all sorts of unclaimed bottles since people can't keep them straight :)  ). The sesame street faces came from online (once again I used photoshop to crop out the background). Finally I added a ruffled ribbon around the middle. MDS didn't have all the colors I've been using (daffodil, wasabi, pacific, and real red) but no fear, the recolor tool came to the rescue! Now they are ready to print and tape onto the bottles to serve.

Flutterby again soon. Up next, cupcake picks!

Unique Birthday Party? MDS to the Rescue!

My daughter's second birthday is coming up. I can't believe she is getting so old! To celebrate her "2"s I wanted to have a 2-tu party. However, when I was honest with myself I knew that what would really excite her was an Elmo party. So.......

I decided to combine the too! Now, I highly doubt any store I could go to would have Elmo with a tutu on party supplies. So thank heavens for MDS!

Here is the adorable invite I created (5x7 postcard size):

I'm not sure where I found the font, but it is called Chalkduster. Isn't it just perfect for Elmo?! The Elmo image itself I found on the web by using a google image search and filtering only the large results. Of course it had a white background, so I had to use PSE to crop that out (and as long as I was in there I changed the colors to SU! colors... I know, I'm a geek like that). But everything else was done in MDS.

I created the custom stripy paper using square punches that I stretched, squished, and filled with primary colors. Best part is I saved it so I can use it over again in other projects for her party! Yay for being all matchy-matchy :)

I had so much fun making Elmo's tutu! It is pieces of the blossom petal punch. Go figure, a flower turned tutu (can't say the idea is mine... I saw it on pintrest on a ballerina card). I covered up the pointy part of the punches with an oval colored the same red as Elmo's belly, and then added a band of sparkly brads. Finally, I wanted Elmo's hand over the the tutu, so I made a copy of the embellishment and cropped it down to his had. Then I placed it in line with the original Elmo. Gotta love the new crop features in MDS2 :)

Hope you enjoyed today's post. Flutterby again soon for more of her party supplies.

Hybrid Card (Part 3 of 3)

Here it is, the final product:

I decided to jazz up the top section of the z-fold with the lattice embossing folder. Then, it was just a matter of punching everything out and assembling. The punches used for this card are:

• Scallop Trim Border
• Scallop Trim Corner
• Word Window
• Modern Label

I really hope you enjoyed this processes and are inspired to make your own hybrid projects now! These were well received at the shoebox swap I brought them too- especially since most of the others there didn't know that MDS was so flexible :)

Flutterby again soon to see my favorite swaps that I got in return for this card!

Hybrid Card (Part 2 of 3)

Welcome back as we continue designing our hybrid card. The next steps are cleaning up the overhanging stamps and preparing it for mass printing.

Remember how the two pieces of vanilla were added using punches? Well, I changed those punches to white and exported my project (I wanted a white background so it wouldn't try to "print" the vanilla color on the vanilla cardstock when I got to the printing stage). Then, I deleted off all the stamps and for the two (now white) punches I choose the fill with picture option. Then it was just a matter of navigating to the jpegs I had just created and centering the punches in the right location.

Yey! No more stamps hanging off the vanilla (white) paper :) Now I can see what my project will really look like!

Now for the really fancy part. I was using this card for a swap, so I wanted to print off my stamped portions multiple times, but I didn't want to use a sheet of paper for each of them (they were small enough to fit multiple to a page). So, I started a new project as an 11x8.5 and added two square punches and re-sized them so they were the same as in the card. Then, it was just a matter of filling these punches with the pictures like in the step above. I was able to fit 8 of the top piece onto a sheet of paper (I rotated them to achieve this), and 4 of the inside piece onto a sheet of paper.

Since I needed 12 of these babies for the swap I was in I needed a couple more of the top layer, and I decided to make use of the rest of the paper by printing all sorts of fall sayings, which I sized down to fit inside the word window punch. That way each person could pick whichever sentiment fit their needs best.

These were all printed off on Vanilla Cardstock. Feel free to save the jpegs above to print and make your own cards. I made sure to upload them full size so they would print nice for you! All I ask is that if you do so you leave me a comment letting me know how your card turned out :)

Flutterby again soon to see the final assembled product!

Hybrid Card (Part 1 of 3)

MDS is for so much more than just digital scrapbooking. It is also great for making cards and having them printed through the professional services... or making party favors... or personalizing journals... even just designing the card before breaking out the "real" supplies... the possibilities are endless. In the next series of posts I want to show you how I used MDS to make a hybrid card!

Once my card was put together I wanted it to be a z-fold card. In case you aren't familiar with that term, that means that I cut my paper the long way, folded it in half and then folded the top portion back in half again so it forms a z shape (albeit with a very long bottom). So, in my digital version I showed this by adding cardstock as a layer to half of the top and dropping a shadow. Then I set out designing.

I liked the idea of having a layer ontop surrounded by the scallop trip border and edge punch, so I added that first (this would only be attached to the cardstock half on the left so the card opens nicely).  I also added a layer of vanilla under the top cardstock section to form what would be the inside of the card. Both pieces of vanilla are added as punches (you'll see why in part 2). Then I set out decorating it with the French Foliage stamp set. I didn't worry about the stamps "falling off the edge" because that will get fixed in the next step of the hybrid process.

As you can see, the inside right side of the card is the same as what you can see peeking out on the front. I pretty much designed it to look nice while closed, and then moved these elements to their own page so that we could see what just the inside would look like. The pretty fall colors I have here are Cajan Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, and Early Espresso.

Flutterby again soon to see the next steps in the process!

Frog Talk

I just adore this cute little card. The frog makes me smile, he's so cute!

I especially love the use of the chevron embossing folder on the background sheet. It picks up the pattern of the frog jumping and just plain meshes well with this card. The color scheme would be great for a little boy. It is hard to make masculine cards, so one for a boy is fantastic!

Scrap Map 1 Challenge

MyDigitalStudio.net is now hosting weekly challenges! You've gotta go check them out and submit an entry. If your project is picked you get a FREE download the next week. WooHoo!

A couple of weeks ago the challenge was to use this layout:

And here is what I came up with:

Now, I'm not really a vintage style person, and I'm definitely not a "crooked picture" person, but I love how this turned out. I really wanted to use these two pictures together, but the colors didn't look nice side-by-side and it created a very busy look. Thus, I decided to try the sepia tones and was very impressed with how it pulled them together. After that I vintaged up the page a bunch more- paper flowers, antique brads, and the flower embellishments from the "You're My Sunshine" kit.

Now, if you are familiar with the "You're my Sunshine" kit you might object- those embellishments are all grey and yellow... but I would tell you that MDS2 has this great new feature for recoloring embellishments! To match the blue from the paper I recolored the flowers by picking the dark shade in the upper right corner, and to get the browns I just used Espresso (same as the journaling). Cool right?

To see how you can do this yourself just check out this tutorial video SU! put together for MDS2. Enjoy, and flutterby again soon :)

Black and White Affair

Do you have a wedding coming up? If so I've got just the card for you today!

Isn't it so cute! I love how they used an embossing folder to make "lace" on the wedding dress. After that, all it takes is a little cutting by hand to make the dress shape and a slit in the black paper for the grooms tux (fold the slit back into two triangles to make his lapels). Add two pearls for buttons and a little tie, and ta-da you're done. So quick!

Thanks Trina Congie for the great swap!

Flutterby again soon!

Its the End of the Trip (as we know it)

My Branson album is almost done. Whatever will I show you now... I'm sure I'll think of something :) I hope you enjoy seeing an entire project come together instead of just bits and pieces. I'm one of those people who likes things "matchy matchy". Thus I pretty much always do two page spreads (it bothers me when they don't go together, LOL). And when I can I do theme albums so that the flow goes throughout. So, if you're like me, I sincerely hope that my full albums give you ideas for your next project too!

Alright, enough fluffy stuff. On to the good stuff. I saw this layout and loved the simplicity of it. It has nice clean lines and allows for some bigger pictures. I also LOVE alphabet punches! That is how I wrote Dinosaur with spotted DSP. Seriously, if you haven't yet invested in a digital alphabet punch it is time to do so. You will fall in love too!

If you ever go to the Titanic Museum you will find that they don't let you take pictures inside :( . Boo. However, I was able to find a handful of decent pictures on the internet (I did a google search for only large pictures). This layout worked nicely for only a handful of pictures. Then, I scanned in our tickets and "tucked" them behind the photos. Great thing about scanning- even though I only saved two tickets I was able to make it look like I had them for all four of us. Yay!

Well, that brings us to the final page of my project. Thanks for coming along on my journey :)

Flutterby again soon!

Emboss Resist

It has been so long since I have used embossing powder. But this card makes me want to break out the heat gun! It is so simple and yet so pretty. You can achieve this look yourself by using embossing powder and then sponging ink on top of the embossed design. The ink will stick to the paper but not the shiny embossed area. Sweet right!

And think of the possible color combinations... I'm thinking white embossing on white paper, and then start with yellow in the middle and blend outward into orange then red. If you know me you know I love bright colors :)

Thanks Cindy Buczkowski for this cute swap card and reminding me about this simple elegant trick!

Photo Background Paper

I love the fact that with MDS you can have a FULL PAGE picture as your background paper. Yeah, that's right- the whole thing can be a picture. Now that's something you can't do with traditional scrapbooking (at least not without paying an arm and a leg for a huge print).

Now don't get me wrong. I love using DSP for the background. But sometimes there is something so cool about "setting the scene" with a picture of just that- the scenery :).

However, if you like to do 2-page spreads as I do, I find that sometimes using a full page picture makes the pages not look "matchy matchy" so I always like to add some similar elements on top of the picture to tie the two together. Here I used a strip of DSP that matched the first page, along with repeating the double layer ribbon embellishment.

Hope you enjoyed today's layout. Flutter back soon!

Two Cool MDS Tricks Today!

As promised, more pages from my vacation album :)

For this first page I wanted some elegant eggplant DSP that would match my theme. But no such luck in the kits that I started with. So I made my own! On a blank page I set the background color to eggplant and then started adding stamps from the Day of Gratitude stamp set. I decided I liked the big one the best, so I layered that all over the page in black. Lastly, I selected all the stamps and turned down the opacity until the black started to look like a darker version of the elegant eggplant- as if stamped in a versamark. Brilliant! Tone on tone DSP to match my project :) All I had to do now was export it to a .jpeg and use it like a picture.

I love this next layout. It is so simple and clean, and when I saw it I new I wanted to replicate it in my album. I will also call your attention to the pinecones in the corner (you may want to open the picture up by clicking on it to see them bigger). I started this corner splash out with the pine branches, berries, and pinecones all just stamped on- but I immediately noticed that the pinecones seemed to get lost in the busyness of it. So, in order to make them stand out better I colored them a darker brown and then put a light brown shadow on them (centered and at full opacity with only a tiny blur). I then copied and pasted them in place until I got the "shadow" to fully fill in the open areas in the pinecone so that the branches behind would not be seen through. This is a nice way to make it look like you stamped something on another sheet of paper and cut it out before putting it on the scrapbook page.

Hope you enjoyed todays pictures. Flutter back soon!

Christmas Boxes

I know it seems too early to think about Christmas... but it is past July so I should be in the clear. Besides, I spent the day with some awesome Stampin' Ladies recently and they had these cute boxes on display that I just had to share.

This first one is super cute and easy peasy. Just wrap some DSP with a decorative border around one of the craft boxes, add some die-cuts from the new snowflake set in the holiday mini catalog, and finish it off with an antique brad. So cute!

The second box shows off some more of the holiday products. The brown scroll design paper is from the new co-ordinations cardstock. This paper is colored on the outside, and then has a neutral tone inside. In the project it was ran through and embossing folder and then sanded to bring out the design. Also you can see some of the cherry cobbler tulle fluffed up on the card. Adorable right? Puts me in the mood for Christmas!

Edit: Haha, I didn't look at the picture close enough... that second one is a card not a box. BUT, it could be made into a box and it would be a dang cute one :)
Flutterby again soon! I'll have some more pages from my Branson album for you.

31 Days of August, 31% off!

Have you heard about the awesome digital sale Stampin Up! is having to celebrate the 31 days of August? If you haven't heard about it you have to check it out here "31% off Digital for 31 Days!" They have 31 things on sale, as well as most print projects. Which is why I am so excited that I finished my Branson vacation album- considering I'm printing 3 copies that is almost 1 for free!

Speaking of my album, I'm sure that is what you are here to see. So, without further ado here are some more visual images for your MDS enjoyment!

If you ever find yourself near Branson you have to check out Silver Dollar City. It reminds me of a Renaissance Festival, but set in the old west. They have a couple of rides there, but the real attraction is the exhibits and demonstrations that they have for you to see. Also, make sure to leave time for the musical in the evening- it is a rockin' good time :) 

They also have a cave underneath the park. You can go on tours down inside, but it is not for the faint of heart (or knee) as you walk a couple of miles under the earth and it can get very dark if the lights go out. Then again if you are really adventurous you could sign up to go on the specific candle light tour (we were NOT that daring!).

Hope you are inspired to finish up your projects now to, and remember to take advantage of the 31% off sale! I hope you flutterby again soon :)

Finished!

I was on vacation recently, and was able to use the time to finish up my album from Branson! So excited to have these printed for the three families! So, in honor of a completed album I'll share extra pages with you today :)

 This was my title page. I was so disappointed to get back from vacation and find out that we had forgotten to take a group picture. So, instead of doing another collage like the cover this is what I came up with. Love, love, LOVE the Fifty Nifty kit with all the state punches. I had put this suggestion into the Sandbox (a place for demonstrators to leave suggestions for Stampin Up) and they actually took my idea! Proud moment for me :)

This was one of my "random" pages in the album. I'm big on two page layouts, but when I don't have enough photos for one I have to try to fit two separate pages together. I'm fairly happy with how this mismatch turned out. And I had a ton of fun making the little punch art lighthouse on the second page. Took me quite awhile, but it was so worth the effort :)

Last but not least was our visit to the College of the Ozarks. Did you know that students graduate from this university debt free?!? I thought that was pretty cool. They had this pretty little pond near the front of the campus with swans in it- did you know that they have feathers growing out of their nostrils? Neither did I until then, but I found it quite interesting.  Also, they had these little aquifers popping up all over campus, so it was lined with little rivers all over. Elli loved playing in the freezing cold water, such a funny little girl :)

Hope you appreciated all the extra stuff today! I've got a lot left to share yet, so be sure to flutter back soon!