confession.

More Valentine's Day fun coming soon, but first I wanted to share with you these two cards using the "Of the Earth" hostess set.

Both use the same stamps & basically the same layout, but a few simple changes in the colors make it easy to create a gift set (for example) of coordinating, yet different, cards.

My dear sister-in-law (Hi Micaela!) needed a set of cards to use as thank you cards & farewell cards before she quit her job as a nurse to go travel & volunteer in Bolivia for 6 months. She was looking for something appropriate for co-workers/bosses/people who wrote letters of recommendation for her/etc. and I thought a set like this would be just perfect.








CONFESSION. You've read this far (thank you) (if anyone did...), so I have a stamping secret to share with you. I guess it's sort of a secret, sort of a bit of advice.

When you have all of your stampin' stuff out and you're having so much fun stamp stamping away and you come up with a gorgeous card design, make two. Vary it a bit, if you wish, like I did above... but make two. That way when you remember two minutes before heading out the door to go to a birthday party/baby shower/graduation/enter in your special event here you will have a stash of lovely & thoughtful handmade cards to choose to give the lucky recipient.

They can think you planned ahead & made it just for them & they don't even have to know it can from your secret stash. Not that I've ever had to do that...

smiles,
Kristi

Trendy & Easy ( ! ) Bird Candle

One of the things I love about stamping is it's not just for making cards. Stamping easily flows over into the 'home decor' and 'gifts' part of my life, too.

We needed a small gift for someone, so I made this cute little gift using a basic vanilla candle and the adorable little trendy bird stamp from Stampin' Up!'s "Of the Earth" hostess set.

A few easy steps of stamping in Chocolate Chip onto white tissue paper, carefully trimming and then melting onto the candle using a heat embossing tool, made something very plain into something quite beautiful, I think.

...Let me know what you think or if you have any questions on how to do this yourself!

Kristi

Bye, bye Branch Out

One of my favorite sets, Branch Out, is retiring on January 4th, so I wanted to make sure my Stamp Club ladies got to use it one more time. This "Dazzling Branch Out" card reminds me of a winter wonderland with the Dazzling Diamonds fine glitter.

Some things we learned & practiced with this card...
- How to use the sponge balls with SU! stamp pads to create fluffy snow
- How to apply Dazzling Diamonds to create sparkly snowflakes
- How to thread a button with a thin scrap of paper & attach it to a card using glue dots.

Branch Art Addition!

The branch art on our mantel needed a little friend to be complete, so check this out!

This is using the bird stamp from the "Always" set stamped with Chocolate Chip ink on a pretty smelling & looking vanilla candle.

I just love this easy technique of stamping to make a normal candle into a beautiful handmade piece of home decor.

Now I need to go to the store and buy more candles so I can make more coordinating candles for around the living room!