Saturday, August 25, 2012

Stampin Up! punch art and gift card holders

This past week was full of events that were begging me to make some cards for those special people in my life!

From a birthday, to a graduation, to an engagement party..... it was a blast putting these cuties together!

I am always amazed at the talent out in the punch art world! Although I cannot come up with the designs myself, I'm very thankful for those ladies (and gents) that come up with very cool punch art!

First up, a mario brothers birthday card for my 12 year old brother..... yup, you read right~!


I had a few things that weren't Stampin UP products on this card..... the grass was punched with Martha Stewart's grass border punch, the stamped design on lucky limeade was a "Mod pattern" rubber stamp by Judi Kins, and then for the coins I used mini gold beads.

I cased the punch art from Tere Giordano, with a few changes... 
To make Mario's head, I used the following:



Supplies used for Mario card:
  • Cardstocks: real red, whisper white, early espresso, black, lucky limeade
  • DSP: summer smooches
  • Punches: all of the above for Mario, word window, label, 1 3/4" circle punch (for clouds)
  • Inks: lucky limeade, baja breeze, real red
  • Stamps: embellished events (for the happy birthday greeting)
 
I made another punch art gift card holder for a friend of ours that graduated yesterday from Oklahoma State university as an HVAC technician. These wrenches were perfect for a guy like him! 

 
To make the punch art wrenches I used the following:


 Supplies used for wrench punch art gift card holder
  • Cardstocks: crumb cake, basic black, basic grey, more mustard (for banner)
  • Punches: all the above for the wrench, word window
  • Inks: basic grey, basic black, more mustard marker
  • Tools: color spritzer tool (for banner)
  • Embellishments: neutrals brads
  • Big Shot square lattice embossing folder 
  • Non-SU!:  metallic gray paper (t0 make it look shiny)
 
Now for the gift card holder, I used the template that Patti Chesky made in her video below. So very simple and cute!



Here's the other gift card holder I made for a co-worker of mine who recently got engaged. I LOVE IT!!!




 Supplies used for engagement gift card holder
  • Cardstocks: crumb cake, real red, whisper white
  • Punches: word window, 3/4" circle (for inside), label, owl (for the hearts on inside of card)
  • Inks: real red, crumb cake
  • Embellishments: rhinestones
  • ribbon: real red (retired)

I sure do hope that you enjoyed looking and maybe even inspired you to make something like it for the special ones in your life! For any questions about the supplies I used, e-mail me at jretana06@gmail.com

Let me know what you think about my projects by commenting below! I want to hear from you! Until next time...



Monday, August 20, 2012

Stampin UP Promotions August 2012


Every time the opportunity to join Stampin' UP! arrives every month, I think to myself, this is the BEST offer.........yet, during the pass months, since I've joined, it only seems to get better and better!

Let me break this down for you. During the month of August, if you sign up for a starter kit, you will receive this COOL Howl-o-ween printer's tray project kit (everything you see is what you get!)

What is the starter kit, you may ask? Well, It is a kit of YUMMY Stampin' UP supplies that you can customize Your Way. You can choose $125 worth of any traditional or digital supplies for 
ONLY $99


You will receive your $125 worth of supplies PLUS the Howl-o-ween project kit (a $60 value)! AWESOME!!!

Now hear this.......if you sign up for a project kit this month, you will not only get what I described above, I will throw in a $30 gift card for you! Wow, that's like having about $116 in FREE stuff! Tell me you are EXCITED about this deal....... don't pass it on!

 To take advantage of Stampin' UP's offer, click on the image above to start choosing your starter kit products! You will then receive an e-mail from me to get you rolling with your gift card. 

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at jretana06@gmail.com 



Saturday, August 11, 2012

Stampin' UP perfectly preserved projects

There's nothing like a good jar of homemade pear preserves to go with a perfectly preserved recipe holder! My stamp club this month put together a quick recipe holder that includes the recipe to the 4 oz. jar of pear preserves I made ahead of time for my stampers.

These little jars were just right in size for us to decorate! Anybody would love to receive these cute little things!

 Supplies used:
- retired Deck the Halls fabric (5" squares) (ONLY $.99 until it's gone!)
- PUNCHES: 2 1/2" circle, 2 3/8" scalloped circle punch
- PAPER: crumb cake cardstock
- STAMPS:  perfectly preserved, itty bitty banners 
- INKS: summer starfruit, cherry cobbler, early espresso marker
- MARKERS: early espresso, blender pen
- cannery framelits
- itty bitty banner framelits
- 4 oz jar filled with pear preserves 


 A simple technique that my stampers enjoyed discovering about coloring stamps is using a blender pen to remove ink from the seeds in the center of the pear and then coloring it in with some early espresso. I love how simple and easy it is to do that to make my stamped images POP with color!

Naturally, my stampers asked how I made the pear preserves. It's a good thing I knew they were going to ask ahead of time so we can put together a holder for the recipe.


Supplies used: 
- PUNCHES:modern label
- PAPER: crumb cake cardstock, early espresso cardstock, very vanilla, orchard harvest DSP
- STAMPS:  perfectly preserved 
- INKS: summer starfruit
- linen thread





I made the recipe card with My Digital Studio 2 (MDS2) ........and I must say "OMGoodness!" I absolutely love the new features on there! If you haven't tried MDS, then you must try it! Click HERE to learn more. The template I used is the Orchard Harvest swatchbook digital template from pg. 28 of the Holiday catalog.

It all came together very quickly thanks to MDS! It almost always gets me out of a bind when I don't have certain supplies on hand!


If you have any questions about our projects, please feel free to contact me at jretana06@gmail.com or make a comment on this post below!

Thanks for lookin'!