This week's sales are all about the Big Shot!

I want it all! Especially this...

And this...

And I wouldn't mind this...

Or this...

Or even this...

I already have this...

...and I love it!

The only one I'm not sure about is this...

...but I'd probably find a use for it if I had it.

How about you? Which are your favourite? Least favourite?

Today is the last day to take advantage of the Sale-A-Bration deals! Get your order in quickly before it's too late, but you have all week to take advantage of the Weekly Deals and order the above items at the prices listed here.

Mother's Day is Coming...

I know it's couple of months away yet, but if you're like me, it's never too soon to start thinking about it and preparing.

I have a confession to make. I am a terrible card giver. I never give cards. I'm really, really horrible at it. I'm hoping to get better, especially now that I have all these cards on hand that I could give.

My sister recently bought the Mother's Love stamp set for me.

I'm thinking she did that in part hoping that I might finally get my act together and send our mother a Mother's Day card. I do have good intentions, but I seldom follow through on them.

This card, however, is really a card my mother deserves, because there really is no mother that deserves more love than her. She is so loving and generous and thoughtful. Maybe that's what happened - she got my share of thoughtfulness.  :-)

Here's the inside of the card

So, Mom, if you're reading this, this one is for you, unless I come up with a better one before Mother's Day.  We'll see.

If you'd like to use the Mother's Love stamp set to make a card for your mom, you have plenty of time to order it and get it in time to do so. If you'd rather not order the set for yourself, you are welcome to come use my set at one of my Whatever You Want Wednesday stamp sessions. If you'd like more info, use the contact form at the right to contact me.

Simple, but elegant card to show you care

Made this one a while back using the Thoughts and Prayers stamp set. It is so easy to make and uses very little product.

The card base I made from Very Vanilla cardstock. I inked the edges of the card base with Coastal Cabana using a piece of Stamping Sponge.

I cut another 4 x 5 1/4 piece of Very Vanilla cardstock.

I inked the D size clear block with my Coastal Cabana ink pad and stamped it in the middle of the cardstock. This works best if you have a Stamp 'n' Pierce mat, or something similar, under the cardstock while you stamp.

I stamped the image and the sentiment using Memento Ink and stamps from the Thoughts and Prayers stamp set.

Using a template from the Essentials Paper-Piercing Pack, I pierced around the edge of the cardstock.

I attached a piece of Coastal Cabana Ribbon from the Best Year Ever Accessory Pack to the bottom part of the piece of cardstock and tied another small piece over the top of the piece in a knot.

I then attached the piece of cardstock to the card front.

Simple, but elegant.

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March is Almost Over - Sale-A-Bration is Almost Over

Spring is in the air! It's kind of nice. It's kind of sad that Sale-A-Bration is almost over, though. Have you taken advantage of it yet?

You have just 4 more days after today to place an order and get to choose free products from the Sale-A-Bration brochure or the Sale-A-Bration Bonus Products Flyer . With every $60 you spend you get to choose a free item in the brochure or flyer, and there are some really nice things there.

Of course you've already heard me rant about my favourite stamp set in the Sale-A-Bration flyer - the Lotus Blossom stamp set.

My favourite paper pack in the Sale-A-Bration Flyer is the Irresistibly Your Designer Series paper.

I also really like the two accessory packs available in the promotion - the In-colour accessory pack

and the Best Year Ever Accessory pack.

If you want help putting together an order that will make you eligible to receive one of these items, drop me a line soon, before time runs out.

Check out the Sale-A-Bration brochure and the Sale-A-Bration Bonus Products Flyer and tell me what your favourite products are.

Loving the Hardwood Stamp!

I've had my eye on the Hardwood Stamp from the beginning, but didn't actually purchase it until recently. I am in love! You have got to try this stamp.

For the card above I used a card base which I made from Soft Suede cardstock. I stamped the image on Sahara Sand card stock with Baked Brown Sugar. I stamped the greeting with Blackberry Bliss using a stamp from the Butterfly Basics stamp set. The butterfly is cut from Blackberry Bliss cardstock using the Big Shot and one of the Butterfly Thinlits*. I put a line of Dazzling Details down the butterfly body to give it a little sparkle. The Blackberry Bliss twine and buttons are part of the In-Colour Accessory Pack.

The Dazzling Details is new to me and this is the first time I used it. It basically is a clear glue with sparkles in it. It makes it easy to add a bit of sparkle exactly where you want it. I think I'm going to like it.

The In-Colour Accessory Pack is one of the items in the Sale-A-Bration Bonus Products promotion. It is only available til March 31 and is free when you purchase $60 worth of merchandise. I can help you place an order if you are interested and you can also earn Jac's Stampin' Rewards towards more free product.

*The Butterfly Thinlits were so popular that they sold out! They are, however, expecting more so should be available again soon.

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Trying out new-to-us products

Trying out some new stuff with the neighbour tonight. We're both in love with the Hardwood Background stamp.  If you look close you can also see part of a card the neighbour made with the Mother's Love stamp set. Also on the table are two Sale-a-Bration items - the In Colour Accessory Pack and the Sheer Perfection Vellum Stack. I'm sure you'll see all these things featured in upcoming creations.

Working on Paper Pumpkin While Waiting

My "almost double digiter" had play rehearsal today so I grabbed my paper pumpkin kit to keep me occupied while I waited for her rehearsal to be over. You can really tell in the picture, but I was waiting in our vehicle. I had read about others taking their paper pumpkin kits with them to work on while waiting different places so I decided to give it a try. I didn't get a lot done, but it did keep me occupied while I waited.

In case you missed it, here's the video of this month's paper pumpkin kit contents:



Wednesday night is Paper Pumpkin Party time at my house! Come check out, and play with, the Paper Pumpkin kits that I have. Can't join us in person, join us through Facebook. Check out my Paper Pumpkin Party Event page.

Treat bag and card set

Still having fun with the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits. Made this cute little treat bag and card tonight. The card fits in the bag, so you could use it as an envelope type thing if you wanted instead of like a treat bag, or you could put a treat in the bag. I cut a window sheet to put inside the treat bag so treat wouldn't fall through the cute little cutouts.

Short and sweet tonight - just like me.  :-)

Beautiful spring day, not much stampin'

It's late and I'm only just getting to play now. I was enjoying the beautiful spring day and went skiing. But now I am playing. The picture above shows what I'm playing with. The Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies. What a lot of stuff in this set!

See the little bag on the left there? That's part of what you can make with this set. There's one that I made in the picture above on the left, but then, while looking for ideas of what to do with the set on google tonight, I came across instruction on how to make a bigger treat bag with the set. That's what's on the right in the picture above. So cool!

And there's so much more cool stuff you can do with all the dies in this set! Stay tuned! I'm off to play some more.

If you want to see some of the neat things you can do with this set, check out Stampin' Up!s video:

Hummingbird Reflections

Still working on trying to get my friend to like the bird in the A Happy Thing stamp set. :-)

This card was inspired by two, well actually three, card challenges.

The Strawberry Super Stampers are a group of Stampin' Up! demonstrators in Newfoundland and Labrador and they've started issuing challenges on their FaceBook group page. The latest challenge was a colour challenge. We were to use Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, Pear Pizzazz, Coastal Cabana, and Bermuda Bay. All I had in Tangerine Tango and Pear Pizzazz was cardstock, no ink, so I used Pear Pizzazz for the card base and Tangerine Tango for the strip. I used the heart die in the Mini Treat Bag die set to cut a heart out of Daffodil Delight and I stamped the greeting in Bermuda Bay. I used a combination of Bermuda Bay and Coastal Cabana to sponge on a sky and water reflection. I stamped the image with Memento Ink and sponged the birds with Daffodil Delight before using blender pens and Pistachio Pudding and Tangelo Twist to add a bit of colour to it. The branch was coloured with a blender pen and Baked Brown Sugar and the same was also used to draw the shore line. Pisstachio Pudding was used to add a bit of grass to the shoreline.

I created the reflection using the method I learned about in the Mirror Image Stamping Technique YouTube video, but instead of doing a mirror image I did a reflection. So this card also fits the Try a New Technique Challenge at SplitCoastStampers. After I coloured the bird in the reflection, I sponged a bit more of the sky/water colours on top of it and added a few wavy lines with a blender pen.

I used the sketch in this week's Sketch Challenge at SplitCoastStampers as inspiration for the design of the card. I changed it up a little, but not too much.

The joys of joining together

I love card challenges, and I love seeing if I can make one card fit more than one challenge. I managed to make this card fit three challenges, so I'm pretty happy. I'll tell you more about the challenges in a bit.

I have a son and a daughter getting married this summer two weeks apart, so weddings have been on my mind a bit. In light of that, my sister decided that I needed a wedding themed stamp set and ordered the Your Perfect Day stamp set. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of that set on my blog in the days to come.

The birds on this card are from the A Happy Thing stamp set. You only have til the end of the month to get this stamp set, as it is a part of the Sale-A-Bration product and after March 31 it will no longer be available.

I have a friend who thinks the bird in this set is ugly. Actually, she didn't like anything about this set, until she got it this week, and now she kind of likes the lemon. I'm on a mission to make her like the bird too.  :-)  To be perfectly honest, I wasn't crazy about the bird or this set either at first and it was the last item I ordered from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue, but the bird is starting to grow on me.

SplitcoastStampers posts new challenges in their forum every day. If you scroll down on their main page you can see a list of the challenges for each day of the week and there are links beside the days to the actual challenges.

This card was inspired by three challenges posted at SplitCoastStampers this week.

The Try a New Technique Challenge this week was titled Mirror, Mirror and the challenge was to stamp a mirror image of one of your stamps. I was thrilled to learn this technique because there have been a number of times when I wished I could stamp a mirror image of one of my stamps, and now I know how to do it.  I found a Mirror Image Stamping Technique YouTube Video for you to check out to see how easy it is.

The Colour Combination Challenge this week was titled Whispers of Smokey Wisteria and the challenge was to use Whisper White, Smokey Slate, and Wisteria Wonder, with a touch of green. I coloured my birds' heads, tails, and wings with Smokey slate. I also stamped the greetings and inked the edges of the Whisper White card stock with Smokey Slate. The card base is Wisteria Wonder. I coloured the birds bellies with Pistachio Pudding, using a blender pen to pick up ink from an ink pad, and put a strip of Pistachio Pudding behind the Whisper White.

The Clean and Simple Challenge this week was to not use any patterned paper. That's actually not much of a challenge for me because I hardly ever use pattern paper.

The funky slant to the Whisper White card stock was a happy accident. I stamped the images on a little slanted and then I decided to just go with it and make the slant part of the design. I really like how it turned out.

The quality of the picture is not that great because I took it at night. I may have to take a new one in the morning and update the picture. We'll  see.

If you're interested in trying out any of these stamp sets, let me know. We can arrange a time for you and your friends to come to my house and play, or I can bring my stamps to your house. If you're interested in purchasing any of these stamps, let me know and I'll help you place an order so that you can earn some of my Jac's Stampin' Points.

It's here! March 2015 Paper Pumpkin has arrived!

We're going to have fun with this one! Interested in trying it out? Let me know.

Connecting with some great ladies

Last night I attended a Connections event at our local church. Connections is the Ladies group at the church. They meet once a month with a different theme each month and it's usually pretty fun. Last night the theme was Winter Warm Up and they invited everyone to come in their jammies for a relaxing evening and hear some people share about their hobbies. I was asked to share about my card making and I had a great time doing it.

Another lady shared about her hobby of making homemade soap. It was so interesting! You can check out her Made by M.E. Handmade Soap website and check out some of the cool soap she makes on her Our Collection page. It looks, and smells, good enough to eat!

The card above is one I made in preparation for my presentation. I wanted a card that would allow me to demonstrate a few different tools and techniques. Here's what I did:

I used my trimmer to cut the card base and the card mat out of Very Vanilla cardstock.

I put the 4 x 5 1/4 card mat through the texture boutique machine with the Lovely Lace embossing folder.

I used sponges to apply some colour to the embossed flowers with Crisp Canteloupe and to the embossed leaves with Pistachio Pudding, though the Pistachio pudding had a brown tint to it so I'm thinking I must have accidentally put the sponge in baked brown sugar at some point and not realized it. I sponged the edge of the mat with Pistachio Pudding.

I used a piece of the left over Very Vanilla and the Big Shot to cut the middle size butterfly of the Butterfly Thinlits*. I sponged a little of the same two colours on the butterfly and around it's edges.

I stamped a greeting from the Good Greetings hostess set** onto a thin piece of cardstock and used the What's Up Punch to make the v's in each end (a neat tip I learned from the Back to Black Funky Fruit Card post at Patty's Stampin Spot).

I adhered it all together and Voila! - an elegant looking card appeared.  :-)

It was a fun night at Connections and I'm hoping maybe it may inspire more people to join in the fun of cardmaking!

Anybody that was there last night, and even if you weren't there, and you are interested in learning more about cardmaking, trying out some of my supplies, or taking a class, let me know and we'll set something up. I'd love to hear from you.

*unfortunately the Butterfly thinlits were so popular that Stampin' Up! ran out of them! They may have more in the future so keep your eyes open.

**the Good Greetings hostess set is no longer available for purchase.

February Paper Pumpkin stamps are great!

I love the stamp set that came with the February Paper Pumpkin kit. I made this card with stamps from that kit and with the ink from that kit plus the ink from the January kit.

Here's another one made with a different stamp from the same kit and the same inks:

Both these cards are made to fit in a normal letter size envelope. Simple, fun cards that you can make if you received both the January and February Paper Pumpkin kits.

The March Paper Pumpkin kit is due to arrive any day! I can't wait!

Chase away the winter blues with stampin' and tunes

My "almost double digiter" "CASEd" my Easy Stained Glass Look Butterfly card. I love what she did with it! She embossed the card front with the Lovely Lace embossing folder. You can get the rest of the instructions on my Easy Stained Glass Look post.

Here's what she wrote on the inside:

Isn't that cute!?! What a great way to make a blue day brighter.

My oldest daughter is singing her Winter Blues away. This is a song she wrote and recorded recently. Have a listen. Maybe you'll be like me and think she must have been inside your head and stole your thoughts when she was writing the lyrics.

So, if you're suffering with the blues, maybe some stampin' and tunes will turn your day around, I know it does mine.

bokeh and butterfly basics

I created the bokeh piece on this card when I was preparing for the Bokeh card class I did a short while ago. I had seen Lisa Young's beautiful card on her Details for the Butterfly Bokeh Card post and loved it so I decided to CASE it.

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Peek-a-Boo Balloon Birthday Card

This fun card was inspired by SplitcoastStampers Peek-a-Boo Card YouTube video, which is also available on the Peek-a-Boo Card Tutorial page. I absolutely love the card she made in the video and wanted to try the technique but didn't have any stamps and punches or die cuts that I thought I could use. Then I had a thought. Maybe I could do it with the Celebrate Today stamp set and the Balloon Framelits dies. I decided to give it a try.

To make things even harder on myself, I decided I wanted a normal 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card, rather than the larger card she made in the video. It took some time to figure out the measurements I needed but I finally figured it out.

Here's what the card looks like opened up:

You really don't get the full experience of the card until you watch it open. I wanted to do a video to show that so I asked my "almost double digiter" to help. Sorry for the quality, but it gives you an idea of what it's like.




I sponged the background for the card using three colours - Bermuda Bay, Lost Lagoon, and Coastal Cabana. I used very little of each and just played with it til I was happy with it. I sponged the edges for a little more punch. I stamped the butterflies in Blushing Bride using a stamp from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set. The string was stamped with Baked Brown Sugar, the streamers with Hello Honey, the balloons with Pistachio Pudding, and the word Happy with Wild Wasabi. All the stamps in those colours are from the Celebrate Today stamp set.

The card looks a little funny standing on it's own but it's not too bad:

If you are interested in the measurements for making this card, let me know.

I held my first Paper Pumpkin Facebook Party!

Paper Pumpkin turned 2 yesterday, and I held my first Paper Pumpkin Facebook Party the day before.

I love Paper Pumpkin! I look forward to my monthly emails telling me the kit is on the way, and I look forward to the delivery of the kit to my door every month. I love to share about Paper Pumpkin with everyone, any way I can because I really do think it is a great program.

I had recently heard about facebook parties and I decided to throw a Paper Pumpkin Facebook Party.

It was my first experience with a Facebook party of any kind and I thought it went pretty well. It was neat to be able to connect with people near and far at the same time. I shared information about the Paper Pumpkin program, answered questions they had, and we had some fun sharing pictures of your stamping supplies and using them to be creative.

This is the card one of the attendee's made for a challenge I gave them during the Facebook party.

This is the card created by another of the attendee's for the challenge.

And this was my card for the same challenge.

These cards were all CASEd from this card in what used to be the welcome kit, the Hey, There Paper Pumpkin kit. This kit is still available for purchase by current subscribers.

You'll have to excuse the pictures because they were taken at night and posted quickly to be done before the party was over. I think we all did pretty good for the time we had.

I have a feeling this won't be my last facebook party. I already have ideas for another one.

If you are interested in attend a Stampin' Up! Facebook party, let me know, and I'll be sure you know about the next one I throw. I'd love to have you join me.

I want it all!

Have you seen this week's deals at Stampin' Up!? I want it all!

To be honest, I wasn't at all interested in the weekly deals last week, but this week I seriously want it all.

And then there's this new Just Kidding photopolymer stamp set:

How much fun is that!?  I want it too. 

Just added it all up to see how much it would be - $61.57 - That means I could pick a free item from the Sale-a-Bration Brochure or Sale-a-Bration Second Release Flyer.  Hmmm...must see if I can sweet talk my way into making an order for my birthday, which is coming up soon.  :-) One of my customer's had her husband place a surprise order for her last week. Maybe I can get him to plant the idea into my husband's head.  :)

What is your favourite thing in the weekly sales this week? Would you like to have the new stamp set?

Virtual Stamp Night Creations

This past weekend I participated in SplitcoastStampers Virtual Stamp Night (VSN). It was so much fun! I have participated in online stamping, scrapbooking events in the past and thoroughly enjoyed them and this just reminded me of how much fun they are. The cards above are the ones I created for challenges in the VSN.

Here's a closer look at them:

I think this was my favourite of the night. It was completed for an X Marks the Spot Challenge. You were required to use the spotlight technique. I had never heard of this technique before and I didn't know how I was going to do it because I have so few punches and no nesting punches. I almost decided not to try it, but then I had an idea. 

I stamped the flower from Butterfly Basics onto a 4 x 5 1/4 piece of Very Vanilla card stock for the card front and the flower part onto a smaller piece of Very Vanilla with Baked Brown Sugar. I punched the top of the flower out with the Pansy Punch and then coloured it with blending pens and Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding and Hello Honey. Using a sponge, I inked the edges of the pansy with baked brown sugar. Using a Stampin' Dimensional, I adhered the coloured image and then stamped the rest of the images. I rounded the corners with the envelope board punch and adhere the card front to a Soft Suede card base.

This one was completed for the Welcoming Door challenge. You have to us a door on your card front and include a welcome sign. I was stumped! I did some searching for inspiration and came across one I liked. Unfortunately, I can't find it again to give credit, but this is a case of a similar card. Cutting out the windows was a bit of a pain, using only my paper trimmer, but I was fairly pleased with it in the end. A window sheet is in place for the window pane. Inside is a half wreath hanging from the top and lots of space to write a personal message of welcome to a new family in the neighbour hood or social group. 

This one was completed for the Dig Deep challenge and you had to bury your image under something. The challenger suggested some ways to do this. I decided to try the Cracked Glass Technique. Problem was I only had iridescent embossing powder to work with, and not a lot of that. It didn't quite work out like it was supposed to because it didn't get thick enough to crack, but it did kind of bury the image under a nice shimmery coating. Stamped with the Lotus Blossom stamp set using black, blackberry bliss, and melon mambo, I think.  The card base is Blackberry Bliss.

For this challenge you had to case a card from a hostess. I chose to case this card. (not sure if that link will work or not but I can't find another link to the card) I rubbed the Whisper White Craft ink pad over the Lovely Lace enbossing folder and pressed the Calypso Coral card base onto it. I then sprinkled white embossing powder over it and heat embossed it after shaking off the access. I was hoping for a clearer image but the slightly distressed look is growing on me. I made the 3D flower by using the Pansy Punch on Calypso Coral cardstock and following the instructions on Carolina Evan's blog post. This is actually a 6 1/4 x 3 1/2 card made to hold a gift card and to fit in a normal business size envelope. Stamped with the B.Y.O.P stamp set and crisp Canteloupe.

For this challenge you were supposed to use a Spring Blossom. Once again I was stumped because I didn't have any spring blossom stamps. I did have the Lotus Blossom stamp and it has always reminded me of a tulip so I decided to get creative with it. I inked the stamp up with strawberry slush and wiped the ink off the part of the stamp that didn't look so much like a tulip before stamping it on very vanilla cardstock. I inked part of a stamp from the Butterfly Basics stamp set with wild wasabi to add leave to the stem.

The challenge for this card was to create an easter card and include an easter egg on it. Once again I was stumped. I don't have any easter stamps. I was checking through my stamp set for stamps that might be easter egg shaped when I had an idea. One of the trees on the Newborn King stamp set kind of reminded me of an easter egg, even though it wasn't fully shaped. To me, easter is all about the death and resurrection of Jesus, which wouldn't be possible without his birth so maybe I could create an easter card with this stamp. I stamped the image with an early espresson Stampin' Write marker, only inking the part of the image that I wanted to use. I stamped it on very vanilla cardstock and finished drawing in the easter egg shape and the design with the marker. I coloured it with a blender pen and ink pads. A very different easter card.

For this challenge you were asked to use a treasured memory as inspiration for a card. One of my most treasured memories is of my Grandmother's prayers. I made this simple 3x3 card using the Thoughts and Prayers stamp set. I coloured the stamp with Stampin' Write markers before stamping. I was pretty excited when this one got picked for one of the CAS (Clean and Simple) cards of the week.

It was a fun weekend playing along in the virtual stamp night. I'm looking forward to the next one.