Stamperwithdayjob

Hello everyone. I have some good news. I think I've finally been noticed as a blogger. I've been blogging since October, 2007 - so that's almost a year, so I'm very excited. I have to admit I haven't been faithful in posting so that probably has something to do with it. In any event, glad to see some of you on board. I hope you'll come back often and maybe even post something. Maybe I'll offer a gift for a card challenge. Keep checking back often and maybe I'll start that in September or early October - once my monthly meetings start back up.

Aside from that, I wanted to talk about some cards I made over the weekend. Whenever I'm in a creative slump, I will go to a stamp magazine and start to get the creative juices going. This time it was the new Stampin' Up catalog. I try to make something that doesn't require a stamp set because the new catalog has so many new stamps that I don't have yet, so I just take out some patterned cardstock and use that as my background and then I look through my stickers and work around that. For instance, I've been making a lot of "girlfriend/wine" type cards for my female friends to give to their female friends. I found a sheet of stickers with a wine theme in mind and went from there. See what I'm talking about here:

The "friend" rub on is a Stampin' Up rub on and on the "i" in Friend and the flower centers, I put a crystal in the center to give it a little bling.

I made several different versions of this card and then I dove into making a birthday card for my sister-in-law who turns 50 on Monday.

I wanted to use Stampin' Up's "Mark The Date" stamp set. See the card below. The background pink paper is from the Level 3 hostess set and the stripe on the side is the reverse of the brown dot on the chipboard flower. The blue scallop (using the new Stampin' Up scallop border punch) is punched in Baja Blue CS and the little fringe is from the dollar bin at JoAnn's. This turned out so incredibly cute.

I don't have a stamp set that has all of the months, and so I just went to my computer and typed in the month of August. You'll see in the next card I post that I also made another one for August using fall colors and a September one using fall colors. First I measured the calendar across and it was 3". So I set my margins at .5 on the left and I believe 5" on the R. You'll have to double check that when you get out of that, look on your ruler on the top and see what your right margin is. Type augst and make sure the "t" in August doesn't go past the 3" mark - if it doesn't print it up.

I had to hand write the dates in the calendar too. There's probably a way to format that on your computer too but I didn't have the time to figure it out. So here are the other 2 I made with a Fall theme.

The thing I did different with these 2 cards, other than the color, is I wanted to make these generic, so whoever purchased this card from me could put the little circle wherever they wanted it to be. So after I printed up the calendar, I attached it to a sheet of magnet and cut it out - I believe that measurement is 3x3-1/4". I then found out that you can punch magnet sheets with punches and so first I used my 1/2" circle punch to make the inside hole and then I punched over that using my 3/4" circle punch to create the little ring. I did the same thing with patterned card stock on the one and then just used 2 way glue pen to adhere it to the magnet. Now whoever sends it out can put the magnetic ring over whatever birth date "their" friend's is. I thought that was pretty clever. You could also use flat metal washers from your husband's tool drawer as the rings if you don't have these punches.

The only thing I did that I would suggest you do differently if you case the card is: instead of printing the month on white cardstock (which is what I did), I would print it up right onto copy paper. That way you may have a stronger hold with your magnet. I think the cardstock is a little too thick and the magnet ring I made doesn't stay in place because it's not making a great connection. Also as a side note: magnets have a right and wrong side. So you may want to punch your little ring out first and make sure it sticks to the right side before attaching your calendar to it.

Well until next time. I hope you'll leave me some feedback and let me know what you think or want you'd like to see. I love to see a fall creation you've come up with. I'll post it on my blog for everyone to see - so don't be intimidated. All of my customers are great students and I know if you believe in yourself you'll be proud to show off one of your creations - this is a great place to start.

Trish

stamperwithdayjob