This Week's Deal!

Buy the doctor's bag for your Big Shot for $49.95, which is $20 off the current catalog price! Go to my Stampin' Up! web site to order.

New In Colors, July Specials, and More!

I'm absolutely in love with the new colors offered by Stampin' Up! this year, and I've been playing particularly with a deep color called Razzleberry. At my June 19 Open House, you can play with Razzleberry, too, as well as with the Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper.

This card will be our featured free make-and-take for July:
Supplies: Razzleberry Card stock, Very Vanilla Cardstock, Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper, Crimper, Corner Rounder, Scallop Oval Punch, Large Oval Punch, and Fundamental Phrases Stamp Set, Razzleberry Classic Ink Pad.

I also made this cute little 3 by 3 book, perfect for a quick album:
Supplies: Razzleberry Cardstock, Very Vanilla Cardstock, Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper, Crop-A-Dile, Crimper, Scallop Oval Punch, Large Oval Punch, Fundamental Phrases Stamp Set, Razzleberry Classic Ink Pad.

Cut a strip of paper 3 inches wide by 12 inches long; score at three inch intervals, then fold accordion-style with the pretty side out. Punch holes and set gromets at edge. Crimp 1/2 inch strip of Razzleberry Cardstock; adhere. Punch Scallop Oval out of Razzleberry Cardstock; adhere. Punch large oval out of Very Vanilla cardstock; stamp with sentiment, and adhere.

Done!

Finally, a cute card I made with one of our new stamp sets, Animal Stories. It goes very well with the Garden Whimsy set, and I'm absolutely in love with the elephant.


Supplies: Razzleberry Cardstock, Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper, Razzleberry Ink, Creamy Caramel Ink, Nearly Navy Ink, Paper Snips, Animal Stories Stamp Set, Garden Whimsy Stamp set.


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July Specials: Stampin' Up! is offering a Deal of the Week each week in July. This week: The Scallop Edge Punch, just $10.99. Contact me to order or go to my web site.

At this month's Open House, you get to earn raffle tickets, and the grand prize for the drawing is a basket of assorted stamps and other goodies valued at more than $20! Get a ticket for coming; bringing a friend; placing a $25 order; booking a workshop (and setting the date) and winning small games at the party. It's July 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. Be there or be ... well, you know how it goes. :)

Also, get a first look at the new colors, the new catalog, and the new stamps out with this year's Idea Book. And buy last year's catalog--chock full of great ideas, techniques, and stamps -- for $3. Get a free new catalog when you book a workshop!

Happy Fourth!

Amy

Emergency Wrapping Paper

From the files of the panicked:

The Man of the Place and I are going camping this weekend to celebrate a number of family accomplishments, and we have gifts for several people, both birthday and graduation-type items.

I was all set to wrap them up today when I realized--all I had was Christmas wrapping paper!

Horrors!

We, unfortunately, have a great deal of Christmas wrapping paper; the MOTP got an entire case from his employer as severance when he was laid off at Christmas.

Waste not, want not, I thought.

With the help of the MOTP, I laid out a large sheet of the Christmas paper, printed side down, so that the white side was on top.

Then, I cracked open my Garden Whimsy set, handed him the Green Galore ink, opened the Brilliant Blue ink, and we just stamped the whole paper up randomly.


We ended up doing this three times in order to have enough paper to wrap all the gifts, and each piece was unique.

When we were finished, we simply wrapped up the gifts, stamped side out. Worked like a charm! And the cards that I made for each person heavily featured Garden Whimsy, coincidentally enough, so they all MATCH the paper.

How cool is that?

Try this the next time you're in a pinch! For that matter, you could easily adapt this to a kid project the next time they're bored. Just assign each child a color ink and a stamp, and let them stamp up the paper any way they want to. You'll have a stock of unique wrapping paper that shows off their talents.

Simple changes for Stampin' Up! fun!

So many of my new clients are new to stamping that I've decided to offer a monthly class time for basic stamping techniques. The first Sunday of the month, barring holiday weekends, Harmony's House will host a three-hour class that focuses on how to use the stamps you've already bought, and how to use the accessories to go along with it. The first stamping technique class will be held in August, unless there's a great demand for it. Cost, to cover supplies and snacks, will be $5 each. Reservations required.

Secondly, the monthly open house will now be held the third Sunday of the month at Harmony's House, starting June 21. Each open house has a different theme, and guests who join us will have the opportunity to make-and-take two new projects as well as participate in door prize drawings and see demonstrations of new techniques. This one's free--and June's will feature summer fun projects, such as the star-spangled box and the summer mini-album. Stop by--and bring a friend!

Finally, while there's a great deal of interest in the stamping club, we're not quite off the ground yet. I've been in touch with the owner of the Fill-In coffee house in downtown Mankato, and he's offered to let us use his big back room for a monthly stamping night! What's fun about this option is that none of us provides snacks--you can purchase your choice of snacks right from the coffee house. There's also plenty of room to spread out for as many people as can join us. If you're interested, email me.

Don't forget: if you need any supplies, you can contact me directly or go to my web site (link at left) to order online.

In other news:

The Last Chance list is out, and some of our old favorites are on it! Contact me right away to see what you're missing, or go to http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net. The new catalogs are out July 1, and I will feature project using the new colors at the July Open House. Come check us out!

And, the project of the week:

I've been playing with making bakery bags using the Designer Series papers, and I've discovered that a six by six inch square of paper makes a perfect little favor bag. It's ultra simple: just score the paper at 1, 1.5, 2, 3.5, 4 and 4. 5 inches; turn and score at .5 and 5.5 inches.

Fold in the sides, adhere, trim the bottom and adhere. Fold in the top, punch and put a ribbon through it.

Pictures next, I promise.

Peace,

Amy

Celebrating Graduation...

Well, this isn't a Stampin' Up! post; it's a post about my other world of academia.

My favorite part of the year, and my favorite ceremony, is graduation.

I've come to realize that not all professors share my enthusiasm for watching their students celebrate this milestone. I've attended every graduation ceremony I could since I got my doctorate and started teaching myself. And each time, I get one or more colleagues who offer their sympathy that I've drawn "graduation duty." I've gotten suggestions to bring papers to grade with, or a paperback slipped up a sleeve of my robes, or other materials to take away the tedium of the speeches and the calling of the names as students walk across the stage.

I find it rude.

Maybe that's because I have a slightly different perspective on graduation than some. I earned my education. I paid for it myself, with burns from deep-fat fryers, sweat from midnight deadlines at the student newspaper, many versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" sung for four-year-olds at the campus day care center, and hard studying to keep my four-year full tuition scholarship. I was one of the first in my family on the Mattson side to get a bachelor's degree, and I value it. I recognize the blood, sweat and tears it takes to get that degree.

And I believe we all should celebrate it.

Both universities at which I've worked as a professor have student bodies comprised of working-class students. Very few of these students have a great deal of family money to help them over the hurdles of tuition and books. Most are working in addition to going to school; some have families; some are single parents, reaching for that degree.

We in the professoriate should honor them for their hard work and the significant achievement of attaining a bachelor's degree. They could have given up on it at any time. We could have given up on them.

But they didn't, and we didn't.

And that's worth celebrating.

To Oval All, or Not To Oval All ... Well, Why Wouldn't You?

I'm in love with the new Oval All stamp set in the Mini Occasions catalog, the large oval punch and the large scallop oval punch. In minutes, I made this card:This card uses the Echoes of Kindness and Oval All stamp sets, the large oval punch and large scallop punch, and Walk-in-the-Park Designer Series paper, in Nearly Navy ink, matted on Nearly Navy card stock which is, in turn, matted on a Very Vanilla cardstock card base. (Tough to see here.)

It's remarkably easy to use these sets! And as you can see, the results are very nice.

I spent a good hour Sunday playing with just scraps of paper, the Oval All sets, and the punches, creating easy gift tags. I've got stacks, now, let me tell ya. Some samples:


The far right, top tag was the inspiration for the card above.

Quick tip of the day:

When matting on cardstock, cut each piece a half-inch smaller than the piece before it to get a nice, quarter-inch border on your card.

For example, if you're making a standard 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches card, size the next piece of stock at 5 by 3.75 inches, and the next one up at 4.5 by 3.25 inches. The standard sized border there is actually an historically accurate measure called a pica, and in journalism, we have research that shows us human eyes like that border. From the files of "Who knew?"

Probably only PhDs in mass communication.

Happy stamping, and don't forget to visit my other website: http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net.

Books, brads, and banter ...

Well, all right; I only added "banter" to keep the "b" alliteration going. Once a writer... well, you get the idea.

I've been psyched this weekend after the discovery of a great book about making books! It's Esther K. Smith's book about book crafting, purchased for me by the Man of the Place, and I'm already head-over-heels for the ideas inside! They're simple ways to make small-to-large, handcrafted books, content not included.

I immediately went to work with plain typing paper and a scissors, and got the techniques down for a 3 by 5" book, a 2 by 2" accordion-style book, and another 2 by 4" book. These all can be generated from single sheets of paper, folded and cut properly. I also crafted a single, multi-paneled 3 by 3 inch accordion-folded book that I wrapped in black designer paper to create a really unique little album-style book. It would really be perfect for gifting, set with individual pictures of family members. Or a neat little alphabet book for a shower gift. 

I also made two small notebooks, using the simplest form of the beginner book folding technique, designer paper covers, and brads to hold it together. I presented the first one to the Man of the Place in thanks, and he loves it. He plans to use it for taking notes during his martial arts lessons. If I can wrestle it away from him for a few seconds, I'll scan it it in for y'all. And yes, I'm still waiting on batteries for the camera.

Finally, a note about brads: I'm now completely in love with these little decorative elements. As a journalist by trade, and therefore, a book-o-phobe (there's gotta be a better word for that), I love how I can use brads to bind and hold things together. However, just lately, I've been using them purely for decoration on certain cards. I'm also using them on the belly-bands that keep the accordion-style books and mini-albums together. There's a beautiful line of decorative brads available through Stampin' Up!, and I'll have to get some more.

That reminds me: Paper's on sale this month! Buy three designer packs and get one free. Check out my other web site: http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net  for more details.

Peace!