Blog Archives

May23

Thailand Achievers Blog Hop – New Catalog… Fun New Sneak Peek!

by tamra on May 23rd, 2017 at 5:00 pm
Posted In: Stampin' Up! Projects, Tamra's Tips-n-Tricks!

Welcome everyone to another Global Trip Achievers Blog Hop! This month the theme is the a little sneak peek of the New Catalog that goes live on June 1st, 2017!

One of the many perks of being a demo is that we get to not only see the catalogs FIRST, but we get to pre-order and PLAY with a selection of products!  And that is just a great and exciting thing.

I was playing last week at my weekly gather for my team of TaDa! Stampers with the new Wood Grain Designer Series Paper stack and the super cute little ‘crate’ thinlits.  You will love these!

See how cute this wood grain DSP is?  Lots of shades and wood patterns, too!

 

Here is a pic of my pieces… there is a bottom to the crate, and you cut 2 pieces to assemble one crate.

However for my idea, I didn’t need the bottom, so I have just mainly cut the sides and then trimmed the rest of the bottom off with snips.

First I needed to make the card itself.

I chose to use last year’s in-colors and the stamp set Bella and Friends.

Yep, no denying I am a dog person!

The in-colors I used seemed fitting because they have some great colors to color a parrot with.

There are worse reasons to pick a color pallette, right?  lol

The colors all work great together, so it was a solid choice anyway.

Here is another little sneak peek of a wonderful new punch coming, the Pretty Label punch.

I looked at it and immediately thought it looked like a cloud!

It was just perfect to use as a template along with Pool Party ink to sponge some soft clouds around the card front.

This gave just the right amount of interest for the background of this card front.

 

Since there is a balloon on the stamp, and we just happen to have a balloon punch, I used my punch on the mat layer of Peekaboo Peach to punch shapes that will be covered in the final assembled card.

An easy way to coordinate cardstock with no waste!

So here is the completed card front,  cute with the balloon popped up with dimensionals and the coloring completed.

NOW, time to use the new crate and showcase that baby on the inside of the card.

I used the other in-colors in this group and punched a bunch of balloons.

Since these are obviously helium balloons like the one on the front (lol) they will need to ‘float’.

This is an easy effect to create using a strip of our Window sheets to adhere them to.

Using dimensionals just adds to the look of layers of floating balloons.

I used a piece of the side scrap or woodgrain DSP to create a middle ‘plank’ in my crate.

This allows you to attach the Window Sheet/Balloon elements to the front, middle and back of the crate to give the look of depth and of course the balloons floating right out of that crate.

I then attached the back and side of the crate to the card inside.  With no bottom, the crate will neatly fold with the card and open to reveal a fun pop-up card.

Add the colored stamped images and yes, a fussy cut little parrot on the inside and this fun card is complete!

It was fun to watch everyone’s face this past weekend at a stamping event when I showed this this card!

When something cool comes together and it better than you even thought it would be, you just HAVE to share it with your stampin’ friends, right?  That is why I am sharing it with you… go make your crate card and have fun sharing!

Add this crate to your ‘must have’ list for the new catalog shopping list.  There will be SO many cute things make with it for SURE!  If you live in the United States, I have a list of supplies at the bottom of this post to make it easy for you to purchase… will add the new product links after June 1st when they are available to purchase.

Ready for the next blog and the next fun project?  Click on the names below to see the other folks joining in on this GLOBAL blog hop.  Hope to see you next month!  #gvachieversbloghop


Product List

Bella & Friends Clear-Mount Stamp Sets 141870 Price: $20.00

 

2016-2018 In Color 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock 141413 Price: $8.00

Balloon Bouquet Punch 140609 Price: $18.00

10 Comments
Apr30

NC Demos Blog Hop – New In-Color Sneak Peek!

by tamra on April 30th, 2017 at 8:00 pm
Posted In: NC Demos Blog Hop, Stampin' Up! Projects

This month my fellow NC Demos are working on Mother’s Day ideas, but there is LOTS of fun stuff going on in Stampin’ Up! land that has us really excited as Demos.

The main thing is that we have a new catalog coming out very soon!

And with each new catalog, there is a new set of In-Colors… those fun and trendy colors that we will be seeing everywhere in this coming year.  Clothes, home decor, linens and paint.  And yes, in our papercrafts.

It is fun to be right on trend for sure!

So I was looking at some of my stamp sets that will be going away with the new catalog, and a safe bet is always the Hostess Sets in the previous catalog.

Thankful Life Photopolymer Stamp Set 143202 Price: $13.00 This host stamp set is only available with Stampin’ Rewards.

My Mom loves flowers, but now lives in a facility where she really can’t have real ones.

So a fun stamped vase of flowers will last longer anyway.

She also doesn’t really know the actual ‘day’ that it is anymore, so the sentiment in this hostess set in the Occasions Mini Catalog is also a nice one for EVERY day.

And that will be great for my little Mama.
mama card 1Since I was playing with stuff I hadn’t yet used AND new things I just received, it made sense to use the new In-Colors with this wonderful layered stamp set.

 

Here is my finished card, using all five of these wonderful new colors!

And what is that on the right of my card?

Why it is a Clear Wink of Stella Glitter brush, of course!

I love adding sparkle to my creations, and Wink of Stella is the go-to sparkle.

Well, that and some added Basic Rhinestones!

I snuck a few of those babies in the bouquet as well.

 

mama card close

 

Here is a close up of that wonderful sparkle and these colors.

The names of these new In-Colors just make you mouth water… just the NAMES!

They are Fresh Fig, Lemon Lime Twist, Berry Burst, Powder Pink and Tranquil Tide.

OK, OK, Powder Pink and Tranquil Tide aren’t food things, but they are great things and look great as the new colors.  😉

Get ready to grab yours starting June 1st for customers.

Having trouble waiting?

As a demo, we get to order some selected stamp sets, bundles, punches, embellishments, such beautiful things that many of us demo will be awake in the night to order as soon as the computer system of SU! lets us.

Guess what?

If YOU want to join the TaDa! Stampers Team after May 2nd, YOU can add these wonderous new products to your Starter Kit order and get all YOUR Stampin’ Up! products at a discount always.

In fact even your Starter Kit is giving you a discount… pick up to $125 worth of products for $99 (plus tax) and Stampin’ Up! will even cover the shipping of your kit to you.

Do as much or as little with your Stampin’ Up! opportunity as works for you.  Only want to get the discount for yourself?

Hey, that is why I joined.  🙂

Contact me with any questions or click on the ‘Join SU! & the TaDa’s’ graphic in the right side column to learn more!

Now go visit some other NC Demos and see what they have created.  We have some very talented stampers here in NC, I am so proud to be in their company!

Next up, my amazing friend, Jo Anne Hewins.  Can’t wait to see what she has for us!blog hop next

 

Here is the whole list of this month’s Blog Hoppers

Tamra Davis – You are HERE!

Jo Anne Hewins

Michelle Irinyi 

Melissa Kerman

Tracie Evans Langley

Sharon Maranich

Laurie Meier 

Lisa Tedder

Frances Wagner 

5 Comments
Mar21

Thailand Achievers Blog Hop – Sale-a-Bration 2017 Last Chance to Sparkle!

by tamra on March 21st, 2017 at 6:00 pm
Posted In: Stampin' Up! Projects

Welcome everyone to this month’s Global Trip Achievers Blog Hop! This month the theme is the LAST Hurrah for Sale-a-Bration!

I chose to highlight the wonderful Free Glimmer paper that was a freebie with a $50 purchase.  I say WAS, because it is OUT in the US, the other markets still have it… for now!  But this is a global blog hop, and my project is really cute, so I decided to still do it.  😉

glimmer paper SABThis is the package.  Such a pretty display of Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaron, and Sweet Sugarplum.

Isn’t it awesome?

This is the lesson… do NOT hesitate!

If you see something awesome available from Stampin’ Up!, get it right then!  In the US, I will be very happy to help you with that.  😉

 

glimmer pieced 4

 

We have been playing with this glimmer paper for 3 weeks at my weekly team gathering… we can’t get enough!

This first card is a take off from a sample in the catalog.

The glimmer peeking out from under a thinlet cut out is SO pretty.

 

So that brought us to the place where we were like hmmmm. what if we did some paper piecing with the glimmer.

And the Dragonfly Dream suite is the perfect thinlet to use for this.

glimmer pieced 5

This was so fun that something really unusual happened here in the studio… we got QUIET!

This was some serious creating we were doing here!

The cool thing about doing this kind of paper piecing is that when you cut one out of each color, that means you can make multiples by rearranging the colors.

And you can also SHARE with your friends.  Lots of little bitty teeny tiny pieces involved here, so the sharing go really interesting.  lol

glimmer pieced 1Here is a closeup and yes, the black glimmer is retired.  Remember when I said when Stampin’ Up! has something cool, don’t hesitate, GRAB IT!

Any color of glimmer is a must grab.  Grab a LOT!  You will thank me later, like now when you see how gorgeous these cards turned out.

So this last week, we got out the new Timeless Tags thinlets and went nuts.  Well maybe we went ‘eggs’, but that isn’t a thing.  lol

And here is the result of this past week, a cute seasonal piece to hang on the wall .

The ‘So’ of the so sweet is the ‘s’ of Thanks and the ‘o’ of Hello.  The end letters had great ‘tails’.

Get creative with your thinlet words.  That is always a good time to spell other stuff.  glimmer pieced eggs

So there are the fun glimmer projects I have been doing.  And yes I have a few pieces of this Glimmer paper left, MORE playing to be done!  What can YOU make with it?

Ready for the next blog and the fantastic project they will surely have?

Click on the names below to see the other folks joining in on this GLOBAL blog hop.  It is so fun to be a part of the Global Stampin’ Up! community.  See you next month!

 

10 Comments
Feb26

NC Blog Hop – Oh So Sparkly!

by tamra on February 26th, 2017 at 8:00 pm
Posted In: NC Demos Blog Hop, Stampin' Up! Projects, Tamra's Tips-n-Tricks!

Welcome the another NC Demos Blog Hop!

This month I am showing off one of the new Sale-a-Bration items, new glimmer paper in 3 yummy new colors!  Mint macron, Sweet sugarplum, and Bermuda Bay!  There are 4 – 6″x 6″ pieces of each that are available as a FREE gift with a $50 purchase in my Stampin’ Up! store.  (Click on the shopping cart in the right column to shop)glimmerdsp

So now that you have it, you can see how just a little bit can really change up the look of a card!  A mat layer of the awesome glimmer would, too, but why waste all the glimmer underneath?  Here is a tip for something I have been doing that works GREAT!

I needed to make a wedding card for a friend and TaDa! Stampers team member last week.  The fun new bundle, Dragonfly Dreams, is so pretty and has some really great sayings in it… even one  great for a wedding and really now, who doesn’t love dragonflies?

And of course, an occasion like her joy filled wedding deserves some BLING! At the time I just had one package of this (have ordered and received more as a free SAB gifts now… you should get some, too!)

Here is a quick tip to make that precious glimmer paper go a little bit further!

glimmer paper stretchingInstead of making a full mat for the card, cut it into strips 1/4th” wide!  I think I have shared this before, but what a great time to share this tip again.

Glimmer paper is so shiny, the light tricks the eye.  You can’t tell where 2 pieces connect.

This makes it easy to be very frugal with it and bling up more stuff.

I cut a mat piece of Whisper White cardstock to be my base.  then I ran a line of snail adhesive around and very close to all edges.  Now attach the glimmer strips like a pinwheel and easily trim off the excess.

You are left with a glimmer edged mat that will be easy to attach you top piece to, either with snail in the middle or even dimensionals.

I had plenty of glimmer to cut out some dragonfly wings using the thinlits in this bundle. Actually, I let the body hang off the paper as I cut the wings.  Didn’t need it, no need to waste the glimmer paper to cut it out.  Thinlits can be very flexible like that!

glimmer paper stretching 2Her colors were navy and a light blue/minty color.

So I took some of one of the other Sale-a-Bration freebies, the Inside the Lines Designer Series Papers, and our foam roller and created a colored background paper in a flash.

Added a full dragonfly shape from Night of Navy cardstock and layered that on top of the Mint Macaron glimmer wings.

And then added  the saying on a scrap of Mint macaron, cut with the banner end punch and popped up with dimensionals.

See the little pieces of glimmer behind the saying?  Those are the too long pieces of 1/4th” strips I cut off the edges.

Oh yes, we crafters make every scrap of that precious glimmer paper COUNT!

TaDa!  The card is finished!

Now on to the blog of my friend and extremely talented artist, Jo Anne Hewins . The full list is below, a small but talented group of stampers, thanks for joining us!

blog hop next

February Blog Hoppers – Full List

Debra Ballance-Byrd

Tamra Davis  YOU ARE HERE!

Jo Anne Hewins 

Michelle Irinyi 

Melissa Kerman 

Tracie Evans Langley

Sharon Maranich

Laurie Meier

Lisa Tedder

Frances Wagner 

3 Comments
Jan29

NC Demos Blog Hop – That’s Glue? Who Knew?

by tamra on January 29th, 2017 at 8:00 pm
Posted In: NC Demos Blog Hop, Stampin' Up! Projects

Welcome to another NC Demos Blog Hop!  I am going to show you something I have named the ‘Raised Ink’ Technique, and it is soooo cool!

The first project I am showing today is one that was also a project at our recent January Quarterly Meeting of our NC Demos FB Group.  My team of TaDa! Stampers and I were the hostesses for this quarterly, and with such a talented bunch of stampers here in NC, it is always a bit of a challenge to WOW these folks… yep, they have seen it all!

So when I saw something NEW done by the Shelli and Sara at the OnStage Live in Brisbane, Australia this past November, I just knew this was to be at least ONE of the QM projects!  They were using the fine-tip glue with a few drops of reinker in it to color in the ‘monster’ on one of our fun new stamp sets, Yummy in my Tummy!

Now this kinda blew my mind.  The good part of our now retired Crystal Effects, with faster drying and the coloring control of the fine tip.

My ONE reservation was that I might want to actually use it as glue again.

And I would want it to dry clear in that case, so I started playing around to see if the only way to use it to ‘color’ with was by adding reinker.

NOPE!  It is cool on it’s own without color added, too!

This technique works on the Framelit shape, or the stamped image.  As a matter of fact, it ‘raises’ the ink a bit and makes the early espresso ink really look like hot fudge!

I warned the meeting attendees not to lick their cards, but it looks just that fudgy!  Amazing!

Here is another card I made for some swaps earlier in January.

Once I started, it was really hard to stop.

So I was playing with the other colors of ink to see if they did as well as the Early Espresso did.

Talk about yummy!  I love this technique!

So what about on a popcicle for another color?

This COOL looking popcycle was Emerald Envy Marker on a Crumb Cake cardstock cut out thinlit popcycle.

The lines made by the marker made this look even more ‘icy’ and cool.

 

And what kid (or adult for that matter) wouldn’t love a card whose whole purpose was to comment on their coolness?

I know I would like it!  😉

Here is yet another swap card I made with this and a super close-up.

Can you  see the thickness the glue adds?

It behaves really well, too.  These runs were on the stamp, no ‘extra’ ones since the glue is nice and thick!

Since this is close but NOT the same thing they did on stage in Brisbane, that adding the fine-tip glue over the ink of a stamped image and ‘raising’ it up was something that came out of my playing while working on swaps…I am going to say that I MADE THIS TECHNIQUE UP!

Yes, I said it, and the other TaDas and the other stampers at our Quarterly meeting had never seen this either, so I am taking full credit for this bad boy!

Feel free to pin these images and tell your friends to try my ‘Raised Ink’ Technique done with our Stampin’ Up! Fine-Tip Glue!!

I can’t get enough, and hey, no calories!

Now on to the next player this month, the talented JoAnne Hewins!

blog hop next

Here is the whole list if you get lost –

Tamra Davis –   You are here!

Jo Anne Hewins

Michelle Irinyl

Tracie Evans Langley 

Sharon Maranich 

Laurie Meier

3 Comments