Pungo Stamper

Wanted to share my recent experience when traveling to California to see my youngest daughter. First let me just say, Never underestimate the power of a hand stamped card! Prior to leaving I grabbed about 6 “Thank You” cards and wrote the following message in each of them; “Thank you for your service today. I really appreciated it”. As it often happens, my flight was delayed causing me to miss my connecting flight in Atlanta. This also caused me to lose precious time with my daughter because now instead of getting to Sacramento at 11am, I would be getting in at almost 5pm and instead of one connection, now I had 3 more! Ugh! Anyway the flight attendant at the gate was very nice and was trying to get me aisle seats for the rest of my flights (3 more) but the computer only would allow him to get me an aisle seat for the next leg of my trip. I thanked him for trying and as I walked away I gave him one of my cards. Well even before my flight left the runway, I got an email saying that my next two flights had been upgraded to first class!!!! Thank you Tony!!! (The attendants name). On my way home, my oldest daughter was traveling with me and we both had aisle seats but not side by side but one in back of the other. So I went to the attendant at the gate and asked her if she could possibly arrange our aisle seats across from each other. She said she was busy at the moment but would see what she could do. Well about 15 minutes later I was paged back to the gate desk and the attendant had indeed arranged for our seats across from each other. It was a 5 hour flight so to be able to spend some time together was special. As we were getting ready to board the plane, I stopped at the desk to give the attendant a card but she was busy with another customer so I gave it to the lady next to her and asked her to give it to her. This lady turned out to be her supervisor. Well half way down the tube to the plane, the supervisor found me and told me Thank you so much for giving the attendant the beautiful card. That it meant so much to the attendant and also the the supervisor. She said it wasn’t often that anyone ever said anything nice to them. Usually it was always complaints. I told the supervisor that the attendant had been kind enough to honor my request even when she was super busy and was nice as well. So I know this is a long entry but I wanted to say a card can go a long way, not only for us but for others. Many of us hoard our cards and they pile up in a drawer somewhere. They are meant to be shared and to give others pleasure. So hope this helps someone else as it did me and a few flight attendants.

I am so excited about this little piece of heaven!  It will make your life so much easier when it comes to stamping multiples of the same card as well as wanting to stamp a succession of an image in an even sequence.  Plus you can use it with any size paper.  Watch the video and see for yourself what all my excitement is about.

For some, recipe books may be a thing of the past, but for others they are still loved.  I have been providing classes for several years now for some of my stamping ladies who still love homemade recipe albums with yummy stamped recipe pages.  We recently form a recipe club that meets once a month.  Each member provides the group with some of their favorite recipes.  These are incorporated into the recipe book.  This is a page we did last night for our new album.   If you don’t use recipe books because of Pinterest or Google or all the other internet possibilities, that’s great!  But what about those old family recipes that have been passed down or recipes that you made for your kids when they were growing up and they still ask for even though they are adults now and live hundreds of miles away?  What a great gift those old recipes would make put together in an album!  Think about it!  If you need any help getting started let me know.  I’ll be glad to help!

I love this background paper from Stampin Up and wanted to make a card for one of my classes with it.  It’s from the Christmas Around the World Designer Series Paper in the Holiday catalog.  It’s a busy background so  I knew I had to keep the rest the card design simple.  I was making this card late at night while texting with my stamping besties.  We were all stamping and sharing photos of what we were doing.  I don’t know if I was just tired or what but when I finished the card and shared it, I then started taking it apart, not liking it.  Not sure why.  Then my daughter tells me she loves it and it reminded her of Mary Engelbreit.  Well that just made me so happy.  I love Mary Engelbreit designs and so I put my little card back together and used it in class.  My ladies loved it!  So why do I doubt myself and never thing a card is good enough?  I love creating and need to learn to just go with it and be happy.  Do you ever find yourself questioning your creativity?

One reminder that Christmas is getting closer is in the stores.  I can’t believe how stores are already putting out decorations, gifts, and yes even Christmas cards!  It will be here before we know it but come on!  We still have Halloween and Thanksgiving to give our attention to.    I am gearing up with classes for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I know a lot of my customers don’t do Halloween cards but how fun would it be to send one to someone special anyway?  How about an older person who lives by themselves?  Or a niece or nephew?  How about the little boy down the street or a friend’s child?  Or maybe send one to the Children’s Hospital for a child lying in a hospital bed for Halloween?  I personally love Halloween and love the colors and the images that Stampin Up provides us with.   Thanksgiving time is when you are reminded of everything that you are grateful for.  Family, friends, home, health, and the food on the table.  So maybe your relatives live far away like mine do.  You can’t be there for Thanksgiving but you can send a card to tell everyone how thankful you are for them.   And then there is Christmas.  We tend to send more cards for this special day than any other.   I love making Christmas cards and have done it for many years.  Some stampers like to choose one image and make multiple cards with it.  Some want a simple card and some like to embellish, embellish, embellish!  That’s usually me!  But today I want to share a quick and simple card you can make.   You will need the Quilted Christmas Designer Series and the Christmas Quilt Stamp set.  

Wow!  I am a real slacker in blogging.  I can’t believe it’s been a year since I wrote anything here!  I promise you that I haven’t been slacking in the stamping world but I sure have in the blogging world.   I just got back from a stamping cruise and it lit a little fire under me!!!  If you want a good time, stamping with some awesome ladies, and sunshine on the high seas, then you should look up Jenn Gulch and sign up for her Stamping Cruise next year.   So much fun, stamping, and networking with fellow stampers and demonstrators.  This was my second cruise with her and I came away very happy!  Jenn is the reason for the sampler below.  Last year we did this cute Christmas sampler and when I got home I bought a frame for it and sat it in a chair in my stamp room.  When the ladies came to classes they all saw the sampler and wanted to know if we were making it in a class.  I had no idea that anyone would be interested because honestly I had never really been interested.  Well 24 samplers later and I was made a convert!  Since that class I have created sampler classes for Valentines, St. Paddy’s Day, Spring, Summer, and the Fall one below.  We made another one on the cruise using the Smitten Mittens set.  So cute and you can bet I will be having a class for that one too!

I used quite a few stamp sets for this sampler.  Love the Painted Harvest set with that watercolor sunflower stamp.  It’s a two stamp image that you can use so many different color combos with and each one turns out so beautifully.  Another set that I have come to really love is the Gourd Goodness set.  The pumpkin image looks so real doesn’t it?

One of my favorite ribbons this year is the 5/8″ Crinkled Seam Binding and the Peekaboo Peach is perfect to use for fall creations.  One last thing I wanted to point out is the Kraft background paper.  It’s not Crumb Cake but actually a different shade that is close in color.  So thanks for stopping by.  I hope to be better with my blogging!  (How many times have I said that?)  But seriously I am trying to do better with all the social media that is available.  So hope you stop by again soon.

What a gorgeous set this is.  The stamps (142110)and the framelits(141840) make for a beautiful card.  Today I used unconventional Christmas colors.  Island Indigo and copper.  WOW!  I cut out the bigger star using copper foil and the smaller star using the copper glimmer paper.   Before adhering it to the Island Indigo, I embossed the circle images and words with Versamark and copper embossing powder.  I also added a little copper metallic thread and of course a few rhinestones.

Did you know you can get the stamp set and framelits as a bundle (143508)and save money?  Well you can!

If you are interested in all the ingredients for this card, leave me a comment and I will be happy to give you them!

Yes, I am a “Wizard of Oz” fan big time and this little guy reminds me of the scarecrow in the classic movie.   This image is part of the stamp set called Cookie Cutter Halloween.  It has so many cute  little guys in it and I couldn’t wait to get a hold of this guy which was the main reason I bought the set.  You can buy it too starting September 1st.  Click on the Stampin Up image in the upper right corner to get started.

Summer isn’t even over and there is already Halloween items in the stores!  EEK!  I do love Halloween which is right in the middle of my favorite season!  Love, love, love autumn.  What’s your favorite season?

So I’m no better than the stores because yesterday I pulled out my Spooky Fun set from the Holiday mini and played with it!  So many cute stamps in this set.

Sometimes I forget about all the cool things I already have from SU such as the window framelit that I used in this card.  Stamped a few spider webs, sponged around the edges with Basic Gray ink and added it to the piece of Hollywood Night Specialty paper.  Love the brick!  The tree and bat are part of the Halloween Scene Edgelits.  So fun.   The Halloween Night Baker’s Twine completes the card.

If you like this card and want to make it, click on the Stampin Up image in the upper right corner and it will take you to my store where you can shop for items you may need.

I will be happy to help you with any questions you may have.

Happy Wednesday!

I love this set.  It is so versatile.  And the more I looked at it and played with it, the more things I realized could be done with it.  I find myself most times with stamp sets, just using one or two images and moving on!   Do you do that?  With this set you can do so much more.  From summer to fall and winter and Christmas!  Oh the possibilities.  So when I saw this palm tree in the set (which I didn’t even notice when I ordered it) I figured I should use it now before summer is over.  

I used Crumb Cake and Pear Pizzazz markers to color the tree.  Of course I didn’t realize there was a shadow stamp that can be used with the palm leaves as well.  I will try that next time.  I then stamped the sand with Crumb Cake ink and watercolored some water with Pool Party.  Then I had an “aha” moment.  I had used some of the new burlap ribbon from SU in another class demonstrating how you can pull the fibers out to use as single twine.  But what was left was really cool as well.  Can you see the clear fibers that I thought looked like waves?  Pretty cool.   Next time I will pull out that top fiber as well.  I finished the card off with words from the Watercolor Wishes on the Oval framelit cutouts.  Love those.  The base of the card is Pool Party with a layer embossed with the new Seaside embossing folder.