Thanks to my new friend Karina for showing me how to do a video, you’ll now be treated to some video tutorials now and again! Karina and I laughed our hineys off creating this video! Hey, it may not be perfect but at least we can laugh at ourselves along the way. Hopefully, you’ll put up with me while I master this new technology.

So without further introduction, here’s my goofy self attempting to teach you how to do this cutie patootie card I showed in a previous post. Click here and enjoy my  Coconut Cocktail Card Video Tutorial !!

Products Used:

119976 Stampin’ Up! Square Lattice Textured Embossing Folder (an exclusive) $7.95

118871 Stampin’ Up! Island Floral Sizzix Die (an exclusive) $21.95

118309 Itty Bitty Shapes punch bundle (3 punches to coordinate with Bitty buttons & Itty Bitty Bits stamp set) $16.95

117173 Island Oasis Designer paper $9.95

TOTAL $56.80

Purchase this bundle from me and I’ll send you the pattern to this card along with a half a pack of Bitty Buttons to go with your punch bundle!

Click here to order the Coconut Cocktail Card product bundle!

Click here for a preview video of other products in our new Summer Mini catalog!

Or just call or e-mail me and I’ll place your order! And, please ask me to send you a Summer Mini catalog if you didn’t receive one in the mail from me already!

Have a fabulous day!

Ahhh…Finished my last Eggscellent Eggs Eggcoutrements class today — so much fun! Now, I can finally post the step-by-step instructions for the Easter Egg Basket I’d posted here.

Step 1:

Cut out two Milk Cartons from the Big Shot with the Milk Carton die.

Step 2:

Cut the tops of the milk cartons above the score line as shown.

Step 3:

Cut off one of the end bottom flaps of ONE of the boxes.

Cut off one of the skinny side flaps on ONE of the boxes. 

Step 5

Apply Sticky Strip piece to the 2nd box’s skinny slide flap.

Step 6:

Apply two Sticky Strip pieces to the box that you didn’t cut a bottom flap off.

Step 7:

 Overlap the box with no bottom flap on the box in which you applied the two sticky strip pieces to create one long complete piece.

Step 8:

Bring the one end of the connected boxes around to meet the other skinny flap end to adhere to the applied Sticky Strip

Step 9:

 Fold down every other flap on the bottom of the basket until you have two left next to each other as shown and adhere the flaps so they’ll lie flat.

Step 10:

 Glue the remaining flaps down to complete the bottom. Wa..la! A Complete basket bottom. Add a 1" x 8 1/2" strip of card stoc, to each side of the basket to create the handle and you’re done!

Here’s my orginally created one. Here I ran the cut out milk carton dies through the Big Shot Texture plate and burnished it with ink. Decorate as desired!

That’s it…easy, right? Thanks for stopping by! I’d love to see what your basket turns out like! Be sure to share! Have a wonderful day!

When I was approached by my SAM to make some samples with the Sale-A-Bration Welcome Neighbors Designer paper, one of the projects was this cute little hand bag I’d swapped at Leadership Training in a Valentine’s Swap. I, of course, changed the paper so it wouldn’t look Valentine-ish and it was still so cute. So, when the samples were sent out with the SAM reports, I was sent several requests on how I did them. Hopefully, this visual tutorial will help support the typed ones I sent out to my fabulous stampin’ buddies who requested directions:

Project Supplies:

• Big Shot
• Two Tags die – To cut out two large tags
• Melon Mambo Classic ink
• Melon Mambo Polka Dot ribbon
• Welcome Neighbor Sale-A-Bration Designer paper
• Eggcoutrements Stamp set
• 1" Circle punch (ended up not using the Tag punch)
•  Pretty In Pink Epoxy or Corduroy Brads
• Tiny Tags stamp set
• Tiny Tags punch

Step 1:  Apply SNAIL adhesive below the score line of one of the large tags you cut out of your Big Shot.

Step 2: Place the 2nd tag over the adhesive area of the first tag so that the scored areas overlap as shown.

Step 3: Take a 1 x 6 " piece of coordinating Welcome Neighbor Designer paper and feed it through the open slit that’s just below the curved top of the tag.

Step 4: Slide the 1 x 6" piece of paper through the second slit on the other tag and tighten to form a tent shape with the two tags as shown below:

Step 5: Wrap the 1 x 6" piece around the purse and glue to the bottom. This is what holds the purse together in its "tent" shape.

Step 6: Out of a scrap sheet of card stock, punch out a small oval with the Small Oval punch. Place the Wide Oval punch over the small punch opening and punch to create an oval donut as shown.

Step 7: Snip off the bottom part of the donut as shown to form the handle of the mini hand bag.

Step 8: Apply a glue dot to each end of the "handle" and insert it between where the two tags meet at the top of the "tent" then pinch so that it glues shut.

Step 9:  Apply a Pretty in Pink Corduroy Brad through both holes of the purse through to the other side and close the brad.

Step 10: Stamp the bunny image from the Eggcoutrements stamp set in Melon Mambo on Whisper White card stock. Punch out the bunny circle with the 1" circle punch and add a Stampin’ Dimensional to the back. Glue the circle to hide the prongs from the corduroy brad.

Step 11: Stamp the friends greeting and dotted tag image from the Tiny Tags stamp set in Melon Mambo and punch out with the Tiny Tag punch as shown.

Step 12: Punch a hole in the stamped tag with the 1/16" hole punch and thread with our linent thread and tie around the purse handles. Add a piece of Melon Mambo Polka Dot ribbon with a glue dot to complete the project!

WA LA–You’re done! Cute as a button! Hope you enjoyed this Mini Two Tags Hand Bag tutorial! Go stamp some for yourself to see how easy they are. HINT: You can fold down the rounded tops to create a different look that shows the opposite side of the Designer paper. See  red bag in  the first photo again. Can’t wait to see what you come up with so don’t forget to come back and share!

 Hello my patient pals!

Sorry for the delay in posting the Blog Winner. I kept hoping that someone would send the right answer. ) I had you stumped for awhile! But we did get a winner! Linda Leonard…I want to send you the project kit for my Glassine Envelope Bag Book! Congratulations! Just e-mail me your address and it will be mailed out right away! Thanks for playing everyone!

Here’s the recipe so you can make this cute lil’ guy for yourself!

More punch art will be posted soon so stay tuned! How about I post another cute scrapbook page tommorrow? Have a great weekend!

. . .Another Tutorial Treat!

You can never get enough kisses, Valentine’s Day or not, right?

Here’s a project I’ll be teaching at my Stamp Vamps team meeting tomorrow as well as at my With All My Heart class on Tuesday. It starts out looking like a cute little purse like this…..   

But take the clip off (Take it off, BABEEE! Wooooo!) and it opens up to reveal some lovely see-thru lingerie like this:   

Can you see the hidden Kisses yet?

How about taking a little more off?

Oh yeaaaa!!!

Well, if you still don’t see it — here’s a close up of the Kisses:

Okay, I’ll quit teasing…Kisses is the beautiful white die-cut piece on the pink card. It’s a new product offering in our Occasions Mini catalog (p. 19) and I think is awesome for sending love notes. I actually ran this Kisses Love Note through our Finnial Texturz folder before gluing it to a pink 2 x 2 note card I cut. I then punched out a pink 1 3/8 circle from our punch and layered on a Mellow Moss stamped flower from the With All My Heart set that was punched out with the 1 1/4" punch. I then just added a pink Epoxy brad for my fun finishing touch!

But what I thought was pretty cool was the fact that the Small Square Glassine Envelopes that were meant for these Kisses Love notes, fit perfectly in out Rectangle Glassine Envelopes (these were made for the Hugs Love Notes in the mini).

So, just as I did in the previously posted Glassine Bag Photo book, I cut both ends of the Rectangle Glassine envelopes off and made it the insides of my little mini purse to hold two of the Kisses tags. I glued the rectangled glassine envelope to the purse insides to keep it stable.

The Mellow Moss outside card stock measurements:  3 x 6" scored at 2 3/8 and 2 5/8" & 5 then punched on the short scored end with the FREE ! I Then just punched holes on this sides scored lines to add the Pink Taffeta ribbon to make the purse handles. To keep it closed, I used Wide clip from our Clips Assortment pack (112580 $6.95) to hold the purse shut. So sweet and adorable!

Again, all these Glassine envelopes and Love Notes are on page 19 of the Occasions Mini catalog. You can download that from my blog right sidebar . To place any order, feel free to shop my web site http://amanda.stampinup.net .

Why not go treat yourself to a Valentine’s Day goodie. Give yourself a Stampin’ Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy!

Glassine envelopes are all the rage right now and Stampin’ Up! has three different sizes! The first size I’m going to focus on is our Glassine Bag. The following project uses these bags to make a little photograph bag book with pull out pages! Isn’t it beautiful?

1. I took too Glassine bags, cut or punched both edges to creat openings and folded them in half. This is the center pages of the book.
2. I then measured the folded bags and doubled those measurements to create the "cover" of my book. I did add a 1/4" all the way around to make sure I’d cover myself if I slipped on the hole punching in the next step.
3. I punched two holes close together in the glassine pages and cover and threaded a piece of celery grosgrain ribbon through the cover and bags and tied a bow to bind the book.

4.    I then cut card stock to the size that could slide into my glassine pages and attached tabs punched from the tab punch staggered down the pages in the book interior.

5.    I decorated each of the pages and stamped an outside design using theWith All My Heart stamp set an dpunched a flower for the cover. The wings of the bird punch made the flower leaves and the stem was free-hand.

Above is a close-up of the flower. the bottom layer is just the Extra Large flower punch from the mini punched out in Lavendar Lace and edged with the glue pen and the Orchid glitter from the Fine Cosmo Stampin’ glitter (Item #108796). I then stamped the white flower with the With All My Heart stamp set in Lavendar Lace and topped it with a So Saffron flower punched from the Boho Blossoms punch. The little tag hanging on the step comes from the Tiny Tags stamp set #118091 (p. 28 of the mini) and punched out with the Medium Jewelry tag punch (p. 11 of the mini Item #117190). I tied it on with our Linen thread.

Our Glassine bags (Item #117228 in our mini catalog, p. 19), sized 4 3/4" x 6 3/4", come in a pack of 25 for only $6.50. That will make 12 of these cute little books!

Well, I’ve run out of time! I’ll have to post my last project for the With All My Heart class tomorrow. Don’t forget, today’s the last day to register!

Click here and register now!

Ahh…the questions! Several of you have peppered my e-mail and blog comments with questions about Sweet Treat cups. But before I answer your questions, let me share another fun Sweet Treat cup sample with you (scroll further down for a cute punchy sample using Sweet Treat cups and another cute cup offering shaped like a heart!):

This is my workshop card make & take through Valentine’s Day! So, if you’d like to make this one, book a workshop with me and you and your workshop guests, too, can make this little beauty! Sweet, huh?

Card Ingredients:

• Whisper White, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink and Pixie Pink card stock
• Basic Brown Stamp Pad
• 117153 Sending Love Specialty Designer Series paper ($11.95) It’s got some beautiful glittery diesigns built right in!
•  117688 Wood Mounted 118589 $27.95 Unmounted $19.95 Something Sweet stamp set
• This stamp set makes such cute stuff! The small petals next to "you are my Sunshine" make a cute flower stamped all around the circle. the "bat-looking object" added to the circle makes an adorable rattle or mirror for baby and there’s lots of little stamps to fill up the gumball machine!
• 1 3/4" Circle punch
• Designer Label punch
• Chocolate Satin Ribbon (new in the mini catalog) LOVE IT!!
• 116802 Sweet Treat cups — Quantity of 12 for only $2.95 CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?

Let’s have some fun at a workshop so you and your friends can make this card and get some FREE Sale-A-Bration product!

Here’s a photo of a Sweet Treat cup

Answers to your Sweet Treat cup questions.

I always forget that not all my blog readers come to my classes. Some might not have a clue as to what a Sweet Treat Cup is. ) I live in my bubble world and just need little reminders to explain!  Sorry ’bout that!

Sweet Treat cups are one of the latest new products that Stampin’ Up! added to our product line-up last Fall. They are wonderful clear cups with an adhesive rim that can be added to any card to hold candy, money, keepsakes, scrapbooking brads, buttons or eyelets,  jewelry –ANYTHING that can fit in that 1 3/4 inch mini cup. If you don’t care if someone rips up the card to get to the cup’s contents, just peel of the adhesive on the rim of the cup and stick it to the card. If you want them to be able to keep the card intact, but still get the contents out,  there’s several ways to do that, too.

For instance, here’s a cute Sweet Treat project we did in my January Get Punchy class:

For this particular sample, I punched a hole with our 1 3/4" circle punch (112004 $15.95) and built in a trap door on the inside of the card to be able to get the money out (unlike my Trickster Nephew’s $20 basketball card in my previous post)

Here’s the easiest way to make a trap door:

 Just glue a 3 1/8 x 3 1/8 Mini Square envelope (107309  $7.50 for 40) on the inside of your card with the flap removed. (You can position it to open left, right, up or down–whichever you prefer)

Punch a hole with the 1 3/4" circle punch all the way through all layers of your card and glued-on envelope.

Cut a 3×3 inch piece of card stock to insert in the envelope (here I added our Round Tab Punch (108340 $15.95) to create an easy-to-pull tab to open the trap door.

So, now you can take the money out and slide the trap door closed again. ) SIMPLE!!

Don’tcha just love it!? I KNOW!! It’s killing me, too! But wait! Stampin’ Up!’s outdid themselves again! They’ve added another Sweet Treats cups option!

So stinkin’ cute…can ya stand it?

Here’s the stamp set:

 Sweetheart Stamp Set of 4 stamps

120415 Wood mounted $21.95   Unmounted $15.95

Here’s the Heart Sweet Treat Cups

120435 $2.95 for 12

 You may want to also consider the following:

113693 Heart punch $15.95

116911 Sweet Treat cup padded envelopes ($2.95 for 3)  to mail your masterpieces:

And guess what? If you ordered this stuff–you’d be eligible for a FREE Sale-A-Bration product! Ain’t that nifty?

Well, hopefully that covers what ya’ll needed to know about those Sweet Treat cups. Now aren’t you glad you asked? ) Me, too.

Now go stamp something!

 Light up your holidays with this simple but elegant project. And I think the dazzle of this project comes from two things:

1) The beautiful Rich Razzleberry ink and coordinating ribbon

2) The Dazzling Diamonds glitter on the dove.

If you haven’t ever stamped on candles OR just haven’t done it in a long time–you’re gonna get addicted again. Especially when you can create an elegant gift for peanuts in these tough economic times.

All I did was take a 3" pillar candle from Walmart (a little over a buck), stamp in Rich Razzleberry ink on tissue with this lovely stamp from the Gifts of Christmas stamp set. Cut out the image and lightly glue it to the candle with a glue pen. Slowly (and I mean SLOOOWWWLLLLYYY!) heat up the image on the candle with a heat gun until it starts to "sweat" or "glisten" as the wax starts to melt. The tissue will soak up the SLOW melting wax and disappear like MAGIC! Once you see all the tissue disappear–you are DONE! Wrap a coordinating ribbon (I used the reverse side of the Rich Razzleberry Polka Dot ribbon) and add some glitter and you are done in less than 15 minutes!

Hope you’re able to get to some homemade holiday gifts this year! I know I’ll be making some more of these. I think our awesome regular server at our local Friday’s Restaurant will be getting this one! )

Ahh…the Saturday house vacuuming and class set up for this afternoon is calling my name. Thanks for stopping by! Taa!

Did you hear a bunch of really loud squeals of delight last Tuesday?

I thought so.

It was my crazy stampers getting a big kick out of this card.

I know…I know…STINKIN’ CUTE!! Wish I could take the credit. :O)

Well, I’ll take credit for the card design. But the actual punched pilgrim (Yes, I did say PUNCHED pilgrim—he is made out of all SU! punches!) himself was designed by Ellen Kemper on her Blinkin’ Thinkin’ Inkin’ blog. What a hoot!

Wanna know how it’s done?

Hey, whoa–take ‘er easy, pilgrim, you can make one, too! Here ya go:

Pilgrim parts:

Feet: Butterfly punch cut in half

Buckles for hat and shoes: Slit punch first, then Word Window cut in half and edges rounded

Ankle/Calves: Word Window

Legs: Small Oval

Belly: 1 3/4 Circle punch

Collar:  Half a tag punch with cut triangle slit

Arms: Small oval first with Wide Oval punched over to make oval donut )

Head: Ornament punch

Ears and Nose: 1/2" Circle punch

Eyes: 1/4" Circle punch

Hat: Tag punch trimmed

Hat brim: Word Window punch extended in length (if you want) by feeding cardstock threw the back opening of punch

Hair: Just the Ornament punch again — cut on the edge and slit up randomly to make the hair strands.

Cuffs were just freehand cut squares.

Other materials for card :

More Mustard, Basic Black, Blush Blossom, Whisper White Card Stock and Night and Day Specialty paper from the Holiday Mini Catalog. White gel pen for the white accents in eyes and buttons. Black marker for the smirk. ) Blush Blossom marker for ear accents and tiny freckles (can’t see it in the picture).

Greeting was from Grateful Greetings set in the Holiday Mini catalog stamped in Basic Black punched out from the large oval punch. Accent ribbon across the middle of the card was 5/8" Black Grosgrain. The whole front panel was glued to a Whisper White card.

Side Note: Be careful about how much you spread apart the Word Window and Small Oval punches for his legs and ankles. Some of my punchers left a little too much space and their pilgrim was a little too tall for the card. So go easy, pilgrim!

Great idea to even use this lil’ guy for fun Thanksgiving decor like place settings, menu or scrapbook pages after!

I know!! I know! Just flippin’ adorable! I can hear you squealing from here. Geesh! Go make your own and have fun!

Ta for now!

It’s All About the Packaging?

This was one of our projects at our recent stamp camps this month. Yes, I know, you’re really sad you missed it, huh? It is also a project that is a lesson in patience. My dear customers had a difficult time holding back their enthusiasm and their heat gun when it came to making this project. Stamping on candles requires a lot of patience as overheating will pool the wax and cause you to have a bumpy candle. Check out this link Stamp On Candles to learn how! The biggest mistake most studentx make when creating a candle is holding the heat gun too close to the candle. If you’re able to be patience, hold the heat gun a good six inches away from your candle and WAIT…patiently…for the wax to melt and soak into the tissue paper, you will master this project!

Project Ingredients:

• Scandanvian Season Stamp set
• Scandanavian Stampin’ Around Wheel (candle bottom)
• Gold Encore pad
• Gold Embossing Powder
• Ruby Red marker
• Old Olive marker
• Riding Hood Red Ribbon
• Silver Cording
• Large gusset cello bag

• White Stazon Pad

  To create the cello packaging, ink up your image in Stazon White and stamp it randomly all over the cello bag.