As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, The Angel Company™ just launched a new promotion. For those of you who celebrate Halloween, there are some fun new Spooky Sets available to order right now!

And, if you’re like me, it’s always better to have plenty of time to make your holiday projects well in advance, just in case. Just in case? Well, let me show you what I mean.

I needed some projects to post on my site last Fall, but it was already into October. And, even though I was scrambling to get something posted, I had a lot of fun making this card. I wanted to get a good photo of it, full of great atmosphere, so I of course thought “candle light”! The photos were taken with my old Olympus, and you can see that the candle light wasn’t working so well. (It looked really cool in person.)

So, I moved the card closer to the light source. I have this candle that is inside a tea cup. Yep! I really did balance the card on the rim of the cup. I was so busy trying to get this cool effect, that I failed to notice the card was catching on fire!  

The aftermath… I spent a lot of time desigining and making this card, so I couldn’t completely destroy it by getting it wet. So, I put out the fire by pushing the card down on the divider in my kitchen sink, hence the “dome” shape.

Moral of the story… don’t wait! Start your Fall stamping projects now!

Visit my Specials Page for complete promotion details and a downloadable flyer.

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Whoo whee! Just got back from the Wilde Hare Summer Festival here in Pocatello, which ran Thursday through Saturday. I shared a both with my older daughter Sarah, who makes greeting cards and custom invitations, announcements, thank-yous, etc. She uses only TAC™ stamps and has been stamping for quite awhile. She has a new website, so you can check out her work at ThirstyLittleFish.com (By the way, the photo of the bride & groom is of my husband and I twenty seven years ago!)

Anyhoo, now that the Festival is over, it’s time to finally wrap-up the studio re-do, and get on to some new projects! The Angel Company™ also has some new promotions starting, so check back in tomorrow to get the latest!

Tonight it’s grilled chicken, grilled seasoned tomato halves topped with mozzarella, fresh corn on the cob, salad, and Avatar. (NOT the 3-D version, so I can actually watch more than 20 minutes without getting a headache!)

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If you’ve ever been a The Angel Company™ demonstrator in the past, now is the PERFECT time to re-activate your demonstratorship!

From now until July 30th, you have two ways to become a TAC™ demonstrator again:

1) Sign-up and purchase a new demonstrator kit. You will receive your choice of 1 Each of a Level A, Level B, and a Level C Hostess stamp set from ANY of the three current TAC™ publications.

OR

2) Take advantage of your LAST CHANCE to re-activate for FREE! If you have gone inactive or have resigned, you have until July 30th to re-activate! Contact me, or the TAC™ home office at (785) 820-9181 for more information.

The Angel Company™ is more committed than ever to the rubber stamper, and our newest catalogue reflects that committement with fantastic new products. And, our new Career Plan is better than ever, so what are you waiting for?!

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For this week’s Random Stamping, I thought I’d share some cards that I made with the wedding season in mind.

I decided to come up with a single basic design , and then created three variations. I’ll be posting a couple more color schemes later, but you’ll see that some designs vary little from card to card, while others have more obvious differences. The idea is that once I’d chosen my stamps and colors, it was just as easy to make three cards as it was one, but still let me have a little more fun than making the exact same design over and over again.

The first three cards feature the TAC™ stamp set T-2803 Aged Ornaments, S-960 Tea Leaves VersaMagic Chalk Ink, Green Bazzill Monochromatic cardstock, V-222 White Ultrasmooth cardstock, and V-851 Catelynne™ FWIC cardstock.

The first version uses a wide pale green grosgrain ribbon and small “Crystals”. It’s sort of hard to see the “Crystals” in the photo, but they’re in in lower center portion of each of the stamped ornaments. These clear “Crystals” are flat on the back and are attached with D-99 Zip Dry™ Paper Glue.

The second version uses green crystal brads in place of the clear “Crystals”, and a simpler ribbon treatment. As you can see, all the cardstock panels remain the same; it’s just the embellishments that are different. You can see all three cards also have a coordinating stamped V-226 white envelope.

The third and final version features self-adhesive white Pearls, and a fun ribbon treatment. To achieve the gathered look of the ribbon, I cut a length of ribbon about 2 1/2 times the length of the card front. I then ran adhesive from my F-611 Scotch ATG Adhesive Gun down the entire length of the ribbon.  Wrapping around from the back of the cardstock panel, I alternately adhered the ribbon directly to the cardstock or pinched the ribbon together to create “pleats”. I spot glued a couple of areas where I wanted the ribbon to lay flat on itself.

These are just three examples, but the variations are limitless!

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This weeks Scraps N’ Stash is more about the stash, than the scraps!

Here’s what I already had on hand:

The clear gusseted cello bags, paper shred, iridescent Easter grass, ribbon, Copic Ciao Markers, white cardstock, V-855 More Mimi and V-845 Penelope cardstocks, envelopes, TAC™ stamps sets: T-3208 Coffee Talk, T-3182 Sending A Latte, T-3205 Tea for Two, inks, and Clever Lever Punches.

The inspiration came in the form of 5 Coffee and 3 Green Tea gift sets that I got on clearance right after Christmas. Each set came with a screen printed mug, a canister of either green tea bags or powdered coffee mix, a metal teaspoon measuring spoon, and either a package of cinnamon sticks or crackers.

What I did:

First, I broke down the unattractive original packaging on the coffee and tea sets. I did away with the crackers, cinnamon sticks (saving those for a future project), and the teaspoons.

I purchased “photo” tote bags from the dollar store. I also bought a HUGE container of biscotti from Costco, you know the one I mean!

Here’s the Coffee tote with all the goodies inside. The stamped panels are virtually the same for both themed bags. I used the same 2 cup images, the spoon for the coffee and tea bag for the tea, and then two theme appropriate sentiments. I layered the stamped panels on slightly larger patterned cardstock panels, although they don’t really show in the photos, especially on the coffee totes.

The Coffee tote with the goodies on the outside. You can just see the letters on the mug peeking through the paper shred. They spell out COFFEE and are almost the same color as the ribbon. I put 3 biscotti in each mug, added shred, and wrapped the whole thing up.

I used my Clever Lever Oval and Scalloped Oval punches to create a custom gift tag, and attached with the organza ribbon. I also made a coordinating blank card, so that these bags could be given as gifts for any ocassion. You can’t see the card, because uh, I forgot to take it out of the bag!

Green Tea bag outisde. I was excited to find the green bags. The patterned cardstock framing the stamped panels shows up a little better here.

Green Tea bag with the goodies on the outside. Same as the Coffee version, including the biscotti. You can have chocolate biscotti with your tea, right?

You can see the TEA printed on the mug and the canister of green tea on the right. I didn’t have any appropriate color green shred or Easter grass, so I went with the iridescent. I think it works! The tag is from the More Mimi Collection.

Overall this was an inexpensive projects, that didn’t take much time. The coloring took the longest, but it was actually quite fun!

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