Signs of Spring

One of the signs of spring I look forward to most  is the blooming of the Cherry Blossom trees. My childhood home had a weeping cherry in the backyard and I had a tire swing hanging from it. As a kid I could just disappear behind those flowering branches and feel like a princess.

Looking out my window, the snow from earlier this week has all melted but there are few (if any) signs that spring is around the corner. If I look closely at my maple tree I can see buds. With today’s 60+ degree weather(!!) it was the perfect day to open the windows and tackle the SoShelli.com Creative Challenge for this month: Spring! Because I can’t make things easy on myself I decided to also do this week’s Cupcake Challenge.

I’m so pleased with the result, I have to make the picture extra big!

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Olivia’s Birthday Card

My friend’s daughter Olivia turned 3 last week and this is the card I made for her. I didn’t really have a plan for this card other than using her favorite color, yellow. As it turned out I used a lot of retired Stampin’ Up! product on the card.

Over the holidays I made cute little pointsettias using the 5 petal punch, so I decided to make some flowers for the card the same way. I stamped So Saffron and Perfect Plum card stock with the now retired Posy background stamp. The Pretty Petals or Boho Blooms backgrounds on Pp128-129 of the current catalog would also be great for this! Then I punched out 3 flowers of each color, and glued them together using Tombow Multi. (more…)

Autumn Swaps

I just got back from a great trip to Boston. I got to do a fair amount of stamping with folks in my Upline (an upline/downline is like a “family” of Demonstrators). I’m fortunate to have a fabulous upline that are supportive, creative, and fun. My whole upline is in the Boston area, so I miss out on a lot of great meetings/events.

I lucked out that my trip coincided with my up-up-upline Diana’s downline meeting this weekend. I had such a great time – we chatted about creative projects and business ideas. We also swapped! Swapping is a way for card makers to share ideas and get creative inspiration. Diana asked us to do fall/Halloween themed cards. Here is mine, using the Level 3 Hostess Set Window Dressing:

This may look familiar…it is pretty much the same sketch as the card I did for my friend’s daughter’s birthday in July. The pumpkin and apple were colored with Watercolor Crayons – my new favorite Stampin’ Up! product! The grapes were colored with Stampin’ Pastels

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