STAMP ORGANIZATION - Part 1 - Magazine Collection

NOTE!  I'm finishing up this project this morning! I worked all day on the breaking down of magazine components yesterday. The stamp/ embossing folders/ dies have been condensed to one photo box. 

I'm now in the process of copying anything from the magazines I want to keep so I can take the magazines to the thrift store this morning.  

Please come back here tomorrow morning for the final pictures!

A few weeks ago, I visited Angela @ Crafting With Jack. She shared in her WOYWW #671 post how she was dealing with the stamp sets she's gotten in magazines. 

So I thought I'd kick off what I'm doing with my stamp  sets with the boxes of magazines I have. I don't need the magazines any longer... share them with someone else. But I do want to keep the stamps. Did you know that the stamp sets you receive in those magazines are designed exclusively for that issue? They are not sold outside of the magazine. 

Here's what I started with:

Here's what I wound up with:

From here, the stamps will be divided by category/ theme and placed in their appropriate shoe boxes. 

How do you store your stamps?

Creative Blessings

~Kelly 

Magazine Monday - Really!

Happy Monday Everyone – Oh wait… it’s Tuesday (and evening at that). Monday was just nuts! I’m still trying to get the garden situated and the heat lately has been crazy hot. We were 103 yesterday… didn’t drop below 100 before 9 p.m. Tired of this already.

Add to this I have a visiting teenager. I’ve not seen Kassie in two years so we have lots of catching up to do. Luckily she likes to craft with me – still at 14! I’m so proud of her. She got in late Thursday night and we’ve been on the constant go doing stuff since she got her. Which means Monday was my catch-up day for business. All I managed to accomplish toward today’s post was to cull the magazines for the card I wanted to do.

My inspiration for the card this week came from a swap I’m in. Our challenge is to create a card showing our favorite things. I love flowers. Not necessarily daisies, though they are very pretty. My favorite is actually roses or lavender. But I loved the stamp set I bought and thought it would fit perfectly.

I LOVE Crafts n Things magazine. I get so many cool ideas. This week’s card came from the April 2008 issue and has been changed very little. Tracy Sauer’s card is called Twinkling Daisy. She used linen background, stampng the harlequin image in the same place I did with Certainly Celery. For her main image, she used a single large daisy

flower stamped using Twinkling H2Os in white and yellow against a harlequin patterned paper (the pattern is shadowed on a black background then the white daisy stamped in the middle). She matted the image on Certainly Celery CS then on black CS. Where I used the Pear Pizazz Ribbon Seam Binding (SU spring mini 2011), she used a sheer green swiss dot. I replaced her black accent knot on the beaded safety pin with a snag of white to offset the white mat.

I chose So Saffron as my base, stamping the harlequin image from SU Background Sampler in Certainly Celery. The image is from Studio112, a $1 stamp line distributed by K & Co. It’s called Love Grows in my Garden. Rather than brads, I let Kassie add the light green Stickles in a diamond pattern – her idea – to mimic the diamond pattern in the harlequin design. Told you she was crafty!

I’m really happy the way this card turned out and I hope the recipients in the swap are too. What do you think?

Magazine Monday!

And I've returned with a vengeance. I spent 9 glorious hours creating in my studio yesterday. Mind you, most of what I created had to do with swaps I'm currently in (5-total). But it was wonderful to sit and play. I was surprised when I looked at the clock to see it was way past my normal bed time.

One of the swaps I'm in is titled 'Welcome Baby'. There are three spots - Girl, Boy, Neutral - making 4 cards in each spot. Well with a new grand-baby coming in October I just HAD to play. And I HAD to take a spot in each one. Hehehe. So I went through my magazines yesterday and found three different layouts.

This week I'm featuring a card by Jenny Grothe from STAMP IT Cards 2005. The only thing I've changed about Jenny's layout is the image. She used Stampin Up products including the baby's left footprint (I'm Here - retired set) in pink ink to match the dark mat underneath it. Jenny also did a zigzag stitch the length of the DP on the left hand side of the card and her base CS was a darker pink.

I chose to go with softer tones but used the darker mat to coordinate with the 'baby' in the bottom corner so it would pop off the DP background. I didn't have a footprint stamp large enough but it did give me the opportunity to use a 2-step stamp I've had for about 6 years and NEVER used!

I used Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo and a Making Memories Maddi Narr Stripe. The background stamp on the tag mat is from Fresh Fillers (SU-retired). I added yellow glaze pen to the nipple. Ribbon and fiber were from my ever-present stash.

Next week I'll introduce you to the Baby Boy card.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday!

First off, I want to apologize for not running the pics last Wednesday. I spent the morning in between storms trying to get the house presentable before my husband got in. When he's gone for three weeks at a time, I always spend the days he's on the road driving to and from Chicago occupying my mind with house work. I totally spaced even turning on the computer. I do have those pictures and weather permitting, they will post on Wed. We've been dealing with lots of storms and lots of rain, having acquired 12 inches of water since Thursday evening. Storms have also meant very little internet time. I'm squeaking this post in between storms.

For my Magazine Monday challenge this week I pulled a copy of Stamp It Cards 2005. However, I did not select a card from one of the projects. Instead, I took my inspiration from a card in a Stampin Up ad. I just liked the card and new it would be perfect. I needed Mother's Day cards for the Little Rock Arkansas Ronald McDonald House.

The card in the ad used an image of a cake and a frame from FRAMES & GREETINGS (Su 2005) I chose to use a variety of stamps Many Thanks, Dear Friend, Days Gone By, Studio G and Hampton Art. I did eight cards in Almost Amethyst and eight in Pretty in Pink for a total of 16 cards. I watercolored the images.

The inspiration card included eyelets on the four corners of the very vanilla mat. The mat was also background stamped with a scroll image and then LOVE from another SU set stamped in black near the top. Sage organza ribbon went across the bottom of the card about 1.5 inches up from the bottom.

I didn't have a ribbon I liked to match either of my CS colors and try to reserve my metal embellishments for cards I know are going to be kept. My take on this card was just to do it simple yet perfect for a child to give to their Mom.

With this week's Magazine Monday I encourage you to donate your creative work to a deserving group. It might be your local hospital, senior center, assisted living or someplace such as Ronald McDonald House or St. Jude Children's Hospital. Let your creativity bring joy to someone you don't know :-)

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday - on Tuesday

Good morning friends.

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday. I spent the entire day in a funk. I thought it was because I'd gone back to bed at 5 a.m. and not gotten back up til 10. Going back to bed in the mornings will give me that 'drugged' feeling so I try not to do it. I found out later, it was probably had more to do with a soul visit from a dear friend.

A couple months ago I posted an eagle 'get well' card that I'd made for my friend, Wally Bailey. I've known Wally, his wife Sonja and their families (both immediate and extended) for over 20 years. Yesterday we all had to say goodbye to the husband, father, grandfather, our friend. It's a difficult time and my heart aches for them. The only thing I know to do from this distance is to offer up prayers of healing and to pour my feelings into my art.

We had been told on Friday it was about making Wally comfortable. So the first card I made yesterday morning was a sympathy card I knew I'd need. I just didn't realize how soon.

The card was inspired by the March Card Kit Swap Soni and I both belong to on Splitcoaststampers. The Kit Hostess for March 2011 was Dody and she sent a great envelope of things to play with. I came up with 7 cards mixing and matching Dody's items with my own images and paper scraps.

The design idea came from the April 2003 issue of Crafts n Things Magazine and artist Melanie Douthit. She is a talented freelance artist who morphed into using scrapbook supplies in her art. I hope you'll take a few moments to click on her name - linked to her blog.

Here is the sketch from the inspiration:

And here's what I came up with from Dody's kit. This is the only card of the seven I didn't add anything to except Wild Wasabi card stock to accent the yellow and the scalloped circle Dody included.

I'm going to miss Wally. All of us who knew him, will. But it seems appropriate the items to make this card came from within Soni's circle of card artists to send her comfort and love.

Magazine Monday!

Happy Monday, everyone!

After a storm moved through here in the wee hours of the morning, disconnecting my power for a few hours, I'm happy to see blue sky, sunshine and have power again. :-)

Friday night and for almost 11 hours on Saturday I had a BLAST at Virtual Stamp Night (VSN for short) over at Splitcoaststampers. Awesome hostesses put together a series of challenges - one new posting every hour - around the theme, You Make My Heart Sing. I'll try to squeeze in some of my favorites of the SEVENTEEN cards I made for the event. But it was one of the participants' take on a texture challenge that had me thinking. Then when I went magazine cruising for this week's card, the VERY FIRST one I came across lent itself to the technique. I had to do it!

This week I used Christmas Crafts for Kids - a Better Homes and Gardens publication from 2002.

Here's the sketch:

The sky blue background with blue and white snowflakes almost looked like a stamp resist. The mitten on the outside mimics a row of 3 hanging 'clothes line' fashion across the center of the opened card.

What I liked: The busy background and the layers

What I didn't like: Lack of real 'image and lack of texture. The background was busy but it was too flat for my taste.

So I inked up the inside front of my Cuddle Bug snowflake folder with Bashful Blue ink (SU), then proceeded to emboss the front panel with textured snowflakes. I loved how it came out:

Instead of one big centrally located, multi-layered panel I did 2 separate panels to incorporate an image and make it more Christmas rather than just winter. I haven't settled on an inside quote yet. I'm still shopping. But for the most part, I have 12 of these made to complete the Christmas Card Challenge for February at SplitcoastStampers.

Are you thinking Christmas cards? I guess now is as good a time as any to remind you there are only 10 months till Christmas!

Creative Blessings

Magazine Monday - on Wednesday!

Yep. I'm late. Between being gone over the weekend, Monday being the 28th Valentine's Day I've spent with my husband, and his last day home before leaving for three weeks... well, creating just wasn't on the agenda. Tuesday are always spent cleaning. I fret like you would not believe knowing my husband is out on the highway for that 8-hour trip to Chicago. I clean like a madwoman the days he's traveling so I don't have time to worry.

So, here it is Wednesday. And I have a springy card that will work for lots of occassions. I am sharing it with a lady who fell on the ice and broke her wrist. Can you imagine being a stamper and having a broken wrist? I'd be going nuts. So I thought this card might brighten her day.

The card I'm featuring this week is from Take Ten Volume 4. It is on page 4, 2nd row, 2nd card. Artist Marianne Harris did a great basic card using Close To My Heart stamps - including a butterfly. Her card is almost identical to mine minus ribbon. I liked the color tones, the layout and the stamped background. But I thought it needed some texture.

RECIPE:

Paper - GP White, Lavendar (Anna Griffin), misc swirl

Butterfly - Anna Griffin

Sentiment - SU Three Little Words

Ribbon - stash

Ink - background Almost Amethyst (ret. SU), butterfly - Lavender Lace (ret. SU), sentiment - LePlume Amethyst

The bow is done in 2 pieces. The band of ribbon is attached to the card front, then the bow was tied and adhered in place with a glue dot.

Magazine Monday!

What spurs you into making a card? Is it the desire to be creative? Is it because you need one for an occasion?

For me this week, it happens to be both. I love to play... I've done more of it than writing this year. But I also have a very dear friend who's finding himself unable to do the things he's used to doing on a daily basis. It's trying for him and for his wife who has gone from having her daily routine sidetracked. I've been there and I know what she's going through. Maybe I should have sent her a card this week. Hmmm

But I knew Wally could use some cheering up so when I sat down to create the card for Magazine Monday last night, I knew it had to have a masculine flair.

I chose a card from the May 2005 Cardmaker Magazine. When I pulled the magazine off the shelf, it literally fell open on the desk to Butterfly Wishes by Karen Robinson . The card was all soft green and leaf patterned paper with a butterfly and sheer green ribbon. AND it was a Get Well card.

I thought it a bit feminine for Wally's card. So I pulled out the Elegant Soiree paper from SU. Have you seen this? It's beautiful, elegant and goes great with Baja Breeze SU CS. I just got this package and am already planning on ordering more next month.

Okay, back to the card. I followed Karen's basic design layout. Where she stitched around both mats as well as where the two papers met, I chose to only do the latter. She used a gold all-purpose sewing thread and machine stitched. I chose to hand pierce and stitch with a blue-toned crochet thread. I replaced the butterfly with an eagle. Wally likes eagles. I also bypassed on the ribbon and just added a touch of the Baja Breeze CS beneath the sentiment mat.

Mine isn't as elegant as Karen's. It's more basic and simple. But sometimes it's more about letting you someone know you're thinking of them than it is about the decoration.

Creative Blessings!

Kel

Magazine Monday!

Can you believe this is the final Monday of January, 2011? This month just seems to have flown by.

How many years have you found yourself scrambling at the last minute to get your Christmas cards made and ready to mail? Or ::: gasp ::: caving in to sending store bought cards. If you are an avid card maker, you know how painful that last ditch effort to wish everyone merry is for you.

On Splitcoaststampers, I belong to a thread called the Christmas Card Challenge 2011 (CCC11). The concept is to have all of our Christmas cards ready to mail by the end of November, rather than waiting until the last minute to get them finished. You determine how many cards you need to mail and divide it by 11. That is your target number of cards to make each month, January through November. By December 1st your handmade cards are finished, ready to mail and you can stress over something else about the holiday. (You know you will. We all do!)

My target goal per month is to make 10-12. Technically I only need 10 per month but I seem to have started doing things in sets of 12 lately so I’m adjusting my goal. This month I pulled an idea from the December 2007 issue of Stamp and Scrap Magazine. This card is designed by Sandie Bachand. I wish I could have found a blog or website for Sandie. She does lovely work. For this particular article she chose to showcase the fundamentals of 4 stamping techniques – embossing, masking, direct-to-paper and watermark inking. I did a modified version of her MASKING technique.

Sandie’s card LO is close to mine. her matted JOY is more centered, with 3 red rhinestones in a column below it (near the edge of the printed mat) , and an Antique Gold Snowflake charm.

We both used an A2 card for our base. However, I liked positioning my JOY mat lower – eliminating the rhinestones at the bottom. I didn’t have a Cuttle Bug embossing frame so I chose to just cut the center out with my Sizzix Md Square sizzlit, but keep the deckle edge. It still gave it a ‘framed’ look.

Recipe:

Tools- Sizzix Md. Square Sizzlit, Fiskars Deckle

CS- GP White, SU Wild Wassabi

Stamp- Village Arts Press (VAP)

Ink- VersaMark

Embossing Powder- Stamp n Stuff Red Tinsel and Gold Tinsel

Accessories- Folk Art Metallic Inca Gold acrylic paint

So January cards are done. Now to figure out what I’m doing for February. It’s a short month so imagine how fast it will pass. ::: smile :::

So, are you thinking Christmas now?

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

Happy Monday!

I’m really enjoying Magazine Monday. It encourages me to go through the stash of magazines I have and actually try some of the projects that have caught my eye.

This week I pulled out the Feb. 2008 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. The designer, Lindsey Botkin is multi-published in magazines and is a SplitcoastStamper member . I hope you’ll check out her blog and her GALLERY. She does great work!

Here is a sketch of the card Lindsey created. If you can get a hold of the magazine, check out her color scheme. It is pretty and went well with the verse image she used.

She used Dutch Girl Collection – Audrey papers, black buttons, a white heart, and narrow

black organza ribbon with white polka dots.

I kept the sketch as it was but changed it up a bit.

I substituted the buttons for bling to help pull the bling from the sentiment mat. I also chose to go with a more Victorian look with the lace and color tones.

The papers are from a K & Company vintage slab.

What magazine do you have stashed back for 'someday'. Pick your 'Someday' and play!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Magazine Monday! - On Tuesday

Yep... a day late and I apologize. I took off yesterday to make use of the WiFi connection in town so I could work a little quicker in getting caught up. Left the house with out the flash drive holding all of my pics.

So here we are today - Tuesday. I'm showcasing another one of the items I created for the Babies Are A Blessing swap on SplitcoastStampers This one comes from PaperKuts - Pure Girl 2003 Page 24. This was a special issue from PaperKuts that if you held it right side up on one side - it was all Girl pages half way through the book. Then turn it over/ flip it up and you had all Boy pages coming at you from the other direction. I fell in love with the Angel page for a single photo layout... something I don't normally do. I like to put lots of pictures on a page but this one just grabbed me.

Their ANGEL and live joyfully quotes came from Deja Views. Not having the items, I recreated them in my Print Shop Program.

I chose Marina Mist (current) and Blush Blossom (retired) SU CS/ DP for my color pallet. The vine paper in the middle is from my scrap drawer.
The 'a' was cut from Base Camp, the scalloped mat from Lacey Labels and the flowers from Recollections Boutique Fleur. The butterfly in the top of the ANGEL quote is a Martha Stewart image stamped in Marina Mist and given dimension with a Pop Dot. You can't see it well in the photo but to create the antenna, I dyed a 1.5" length of paper twine by coloring it with a black perma marker, bent it in half and secured with a glue dot.

I hope to do an Adrian page very soon to show you what this layout looks like with a photo of my ANGEL of a granddaughter.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

This week I'm going to give you a peek at a swap I took part in over at SplitcoastStampers. The swap was entitled "Baby's Are A Blessing", inspired by the hostess who will become a grandma for the very first time on Feb. 11 of this year. She's so excited. They've just closed on a new home so she's in a decorating frenzy, she's going to be a grandma... her year is off to an awesome start!

Anyway, since I've not actually STARTED my grandtoddler's book yet, the swap seemed like the perfect fit for me. It was the largest swap I've ever taken part in, object wise. I normally stick to ATC's, Tags, Cards, Images - that kind of thing. But this one just called to me to play. There were three categories: Card Candy, 2 pg LO - components only (no background page) and a 1pg LO all inclusive.

For the Card Candy category I found the CUTEST project in ScrapbooksEtc - Baby 2007 on Page 29. It's 1.75 x 3 mats - one for each month of Baby's First Year. Great for doing an 8x8 album.

The items at the very bottom were bonus for the packs. But I love this set and can't wait to put them to use.

Magazine Monday!

This week we're going to visit Crafts n Things Magazine

I'm in a swap at SplitcoastStampers to create Valentines for the children at Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock Arkansas. I have the most adorable stamp set from Stampin Up called Greeting Card Kids. I've combined it with some $1 stamps from Michaels and HEARTS stickers from EK Success . The CASEd pic (removed for copyright purposes) is from February 2008 Crafts n Things Magazine.

In making these cards for kids, I've modified it a bit but the basic sketch is there. I used ValuCardstock in Baby Girl and Seaside collections. The stripe through the center is from ThePaperStudio. I stamped my own DP on the Baby Girl CS using a $1 stamp and SU Regal Rose. Both the little girl and the sentiment are matted on the SeaSide mint green. After coloring with Memory Maker pencils, I added a puffy heart sticker to her hand and smaller ones as an accent.

I made 5 of these for Ronald McDonald House - Little Rock AR. I have 5 I'm doing with the little boy from this same set. I used the school boy but eliminated the bundle of books from the image and placed a heart in that hand. I'm using Blue tones of the CS. I've also created this same layout in Lavender using a bear image. He appears to be drifting through the sky with a bundle of heart shaped balloons. Hopefully 15 children will like what I've created for them and make them smile when there are days they just don't feel like it.

So, What's in your Magazine?

Creative Blessings!

Happy New Year!

Yeah! A new year, a new start, and my time is my own again. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED spending time with my granddaughter. I wouldn't have traded the time I spent with her for anything. That said, it does feel good to be playing in the Studio again.

The remodel of the Studio is nearly complete. Just a couple of decorator touches like the table skirt and finding a place to put my Christmas presents :-) We measured the finished area last night and I'm working in 73 square feet of space! On one hand that isn't a lot of space. But it does put everything at my fingertips.

Yesterday I finally got to sit down and PLAY. I'm going to be posting at least 3 times a week. Once everything gets into a routine I hope to post every day.

Mondays will be Magazine Monday. What is Magazine Monday?

How many scrapbooking and stamping magazines do you have on your shelf? Have you bookmarked projects you want to try? How many of them have you ACTUALLY tried?

Well, I've pledged not to buy another magazine in 2011 until I've used everyone I have bookmarked as a spring-board for a project. And every Monday you get to see what I've come up with. I'll tell you which magazine it came from, a shot of the project I cased (if it's a really old magazine), and direct you to their website for current projects.

So let's get started!