Bookmarks you will love to use!

I am a very avid reader. My mind often goes toward books, so when I needed a quick project for a Summer House Party gathering, I immediately thought of bookmarks! If you haven't been to one of these House Party gatherings, they are so much fun! My friend Rachelle had one and invited me to bring my Stampin' Up! stuff! These gatherings are huge because the hostess has people from a variety of direct selling companies come at one time. So I was there with Mary Kay, Thirty One, Premier Jewelry, Tupperware, and several others. I even behaved myself! I knew our new catalog was coming soon so I didn't want to spend all my money!  Here are some pics of the bookmarks I had for people to make. I love punch art but did not have the time to figure these up on my own, not completely, so I did a search on our demonstrator site and found some by Becky Robinson, that were so cute! I used hers as an inspiration. I think some might be exact, but others I had to switch out punches to match what I have.

Let me know if you have any questions as to which punches to use! Most are easy to figure out if you have that punch.

Here are all but the cupcake and flower ones. The owls, cupcake, and flower ones are just one punch, the Owl punch, the Build a Cupcake punch, and the new 3 step Flower Punch, just used different paper to put it together.

I designed the Koala myself, for my friend Nikki, who is a huge Koala lover!

Hope you enjoy!

Craft On!
Jean

Edible Rubber Stamping!!!

Long time no blog! I have many things I want to share since I have been in "summer hibernation" mode since school ended. Usually for 1-2 weeks after school lets out and I start my summer break I hibernate in the house and don't go anywhere! I catch up on reading, crafting, whatever I WANT! lol.

Every year I do a Luau with friends right before the end of school. I wanted to do something different, so I decided to mix my love of rubber stamping with cupcakes!  

 Since I did this sort of last minute - I didn't get the edible markers that you can use to write on cakes. I think that if I had those it would have made a cleaner image - but as soon as I try it out - I will share!!!
I started off with a white sugar sheet (designed for the Cricut Cake, but they make several types now). Fondant or gumpaste will work too!  Then I took food color spray and sprayed it on a paper plate. Then I stamped my stamp into the color, coating it well, then stamped it onto the sugar sheet just like you would with normal ink and paper!  I tried liquid food coloring, but it is just too liquidy and does not stick to the stamp well. Thats why I think the markers might work well. But if not, the spray worked great! I let it dry for a minute, then cut out all my pieces.

I know some people who use stamps to press into fondant and they use those stamps only for food to keep them food safe. I had only used one of these previously and I sterilized it well before using it. Since this was a personal project, cleaning it seemed fine to me. But if you will be using your creations for commercial use or for any other non personal use, I would recommend only using the stamps for food - keeping them separate from your actual crafting stamps.

I will blog more soon!! I have some cute crochet items I have made and some adorable bookmarks!

Craft On!!!

Jean

Fathers, Hope, and some Bling!

 I know its about time right! I posted these on Stampin Connection awhile ago and just haven't gotten to posting them here! I created these for my May 28th camp. Wow was it crazy! There were 11 fabulous ladies! We had tons of fun but it was quite hectic.

So our first card is for Fathers Day! I used Versamark, the splotch stamp from French Foliage (but others used just a Versamark  marker to make dots and splotches by hand) and black embossing powder, then used the heat gun to emboss. The colors I used were Not Quite Navy and Basic Gray I used aluminum foil, the big shot, and the diamond Impression Plate to make the one side of the swing card, then crumbled up a piece of Basic Gray and sponged it a little with matching ink for the other side.

 I got my swing card instructions from splitcoaststampers.com.

For my Hope card I used Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla and Pink Pirouette. I used the Mother of Pearl technique for the butterfly, H Hope, and side Vanilla piece. It is so easy! You just scrunch up some plastic wrap, dab it in some Frost White Shimmer paint, then dab onto the paper!  I then used some Pink Pirouette ink and sponged it on the butterfly, but its kind of hard to see in the picture. I also roughed up the edges of the middle vanilla piece, but those are hard to see has well.

Our last project was fun and the younger girls loved it! I don't currently have a Crop a dile, so I had to purchase bottle caps with holes already punched in. But you can do these with any bottle caps! I then used the 1 inch punch to punch out some DSP, used a little Crystal effects to stick it to the bottle cap, then covered the inside well with the Crystal effects. I put a pinch of glitter, then gently put a rhinestone on top. I let it dry overnight. Don't put the Crystal Effects too thick or else it won't dry clearly. Then used some seam binding ribbon as the necklace part!

I will be posting some cute bookmarks soon so stay tuned!

Craft on!!
Jean

Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes!

So every month we have a birthday party for the kids in my classes who have a birthday at some point in that month. We used to do individual ones, but with a group of 16 thats a lot of birthdays!  The kids love cupcakes and they are much easier to deal with when serving a bunch of kids!  So this lately I have been dying to try and make Orange Creamsicle cupcakes. Well I usually start off with a basic cupcake recipe and edit from there, but, silly me used up all my flour and cake flour at my Cupcake Challenge a few weeks ago and didn't realize it! So I was forced to mess around with a vanilla cake mix. I was pretty nervous. I haven't done that! So here is my recipe for the Orange Vanilla Cupcakes and the Orange Buttercream Frosting!! It was a huuuuge hit and they were very yumm! Even my friend Stephanie who doesn't like Creamsicles liked these!

Orange Vanilla Cupcake

1 box vanilla cake mix
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (squeezed right from the orange!!)
1 tbsp or so of orange zest (I am bad with not measuring!)
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (not whipped)
a few drops of yellow and red food coloring to give a nice orange color - not required though

Just mix all together, then fill lined cupcake tins. I baked at 350 deg. F for about 15 min.  Pop them out to cool when they are done.

Orange Buttercream

1/4 cup fresh orange juice (squeezed right from the orange!!)
1 stick unsalted butter at room temp.
1/2 cup shortening - I used the white shortening sticks, not butter flavored
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp orange extract
4 cups powder sugar

I creamed all the ingredients except the sugar first, then added the sugar about 1 cup at a time. You can add more sugar or less  depending on the consistency and the sweetness that you prefer. The frosting I did came out light and fluffy, which worked great for the Creamsicle feeling!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Bake on!!
Jean

Mom's, Fun Fabric, and a Birthday Twist!

 I feel like it has been forever since I posted anything! Here are the 3 projects we made at my April 30th Stamp Camp. We made a bright flowery Mothers Day card, a fun birthday card, and a decorative plate for a pillar candle. 

For the Mothers Day card I wanted to use the new DSP from the Summer Mini Catalog, Beyond the Garden.  I love this paper! But since it is so bright and beautiful, it is challenging to try and use it all together! Love it, but definitely a paper to use more solids with than prints.  However, I did discover that by placing some of the bolder patterns with one of the more gentler patterns, it looked great!  I paired the paper with So Saffron for the main card, Wild Wasabi and Rose Red for the background pieces behind the DSP, and Rose Red and Garden Green for the tulip.  I used the Blossoms Petal Punch to make the tulip. The measurements/instructions for making this cute trifold card look hard, but are very easy! 

Main Color - 10 1/2" x 5 1/2" - place long side parallel to your cutter, and placed at the 1/2" mark, then cut from the 1 3/4" line to 8 3/4" line.  Flip and do the same on the other side. This gives you the pop part in the middle. Then score just the middle section (inside of cuts) 1 3/4" in from both sides. Score the entire length 3 1/2" from both sides. When folding - follow picture - its just folding the opposite way for each section.

2nd + 3rd Color - cut 2 at 1 5/8"x1 3/8" and 1 at 1 5/8"x 5 3/8"

DSP 1 and 2 - cut 1 at 1 3/8" x 5 1/8" and 2 at 1 1/4" x 1 1/2"

DSP 3 (middle section) - 2 at 1 3/8" x 3 3/8"

The candle plate is super easy! I love adding fabric to plates and bowls to jazz them up for parties and make nice decorations. For this, I measured my candle plate, and it is 6"by 6", so that is what I cut my fabric to.  I used spray adhesive to coat the back of the glass plate. I placed the fabric, right side to the glass, in the corner, and then stretched the fabric over the bottom, then stretched the fabric over the rest of the plate. The fabric may go over the edge slightly, just trim it.  Then I used glossy modge podge and painted it on the back, sealing the whole thing, including the edges. This keeps the fabric safe and hand washable, and seals the edges so they don't fray.  I did 3 layers. If you do this with a plate that sits up, you can also use more layers and some sand paper to smooth it out more if you want to make it smoother. This is sitting flat so no need to get fancy! I used the Spring Vintage Fabric and it looks great in my living room!

The last thing we made was a birthday card. I got the inspiration for this card at http://walkruncraft.blogspot.com/2011/04/birthday-present-card.html. I found it through a great website for Demonstrators. Mine is slightly different in size and design, but hers is way better. I just saw the picture and recreated it on my own because I had some extra stuff I wanted to use, but her instructions are great! 

I plan on trying out doing a video tutorial soon! I am 1 of 2 Junior Class sponsors at the high school I teach at. We have prom this weekend, so I am a bit crazy with that. But soon, very soon, I will be breaking out my camera!

I am also getting super excited about Convention! Myself, and my two uplines are going to the Stampin' Up! Convention in Salt Lake City in July! I am getting so excited, especially now that hotel and plane stuff is all situated. Yay!

I promise to update more often as I will have lots more time soon!

Craft on!!

Jean

I have not disappeared!!

Just wanted to throw out an update! I have not disappeared! I am crazy busy right now with work. I am a full time Special Ed. teacher and it gets a little crazy with paperwork. So sadly I have not been crafting much :(  Plus, my wonderful Mac laptop is dead. Two of my dogs, Belle and Charlie, were playing and somehow got hooked together, Belle's tooth/jaw was caught in Charlies collar. Let me tell you, I was freaking out! Charlie quite making noises - the collar had twisted so much that he couldn't breathe! Well when I finally got them unhooked and checked over, I realized my laptop was swimming in my coffee. Ugh. So now I am using my work computer and begging to use my hubby's laptop. Not a happy camper.  So as soon as I have some more to post I will! Hopefully on a new computer!
Craft on!!!
Jean

PS - Both pups are fine!! They act like nothing ever happened, except now I am a paranoid doggy mommy and won't let them play unless collars are off!

April Stamp Camp

I am really excited for my April Stamp Camp. First, I wasn't able to have my March one, which really was awful because that is my favorite month!
So in Winchester, which is where I work and is right around the corner from where I live, we have a festival every year called Apple Blossom. Its a BIG deal here. We even bring in famous people for Grand Marshals and such. Last year we had Val Kilmer! So this month we are doing an Easter Card, an Easter Treat, and an Apple Blossom flowers pin!

The ADORABLE cupcake bunnies and chick are a CASED item from http://www.simplysimplestamping.com/ 
I loved them so much that I didn't even change much! I really like Pink Pirouette right now, so instead of using the pink she used, I chose the lighter Pink Pirouette. These are super easy because it is just using the Big Shot and the Top Note die and a variety of punches! They are fairly inexpensive as well - especially if you buy the larger packs of cupcakes. I used the Happy Easter sentiment to cover up any of the sell by dates printed on the package.

The flower is like some of the others I have posted, using the Big Shot, Fun Flowers Die, buttons, fabric glue, starch, and a hot iron. Cut out your fabric, spray starch the flowers, then use a hot iron on them. While hot and damp, crinkle them up. Let them dry, then glue together! I love these! I have many different kinds, and I use them for pins and hair bows!

I wish I could say that this is all mine because it is soo cute! I wanted to do another punch card, because they are so fun and easy. And I wanted a bunny card, so I started playing with punches, but at the time I just didn't have the right ones. Its hard to visualize when you don't have the right tools! So I went searching on this great website for Demonstrators. And looky what I found! I changed it up a bit- it was originally a much more flowery and bright card, and the bunny was brown. I wanted to use the Sew Suite Paper shown here because it looks like little radishes! I also wanted to use the Good Egg stamp set. So, looking at her card, which she cased as well, I figured out which punches I needed!

I will post specific punches and such needed for the projects at another time. For now, I have assignments to finish grading!

Craft on!!!
Jean