TIPsy Tuesday - Cardstock Deck Updated

Earlier this year, I shared my version of a color chart for Stampin' Up! colors.  I call it a Cardstock Deck similar to a paint deck.  Since SU! updated their color families, I had to update my deck.  Also I really wanted to create one by color - like the rainbow - rather than by family.  The main purpose of this deck is to determine which cardstock I will use to match a photo or non-Stampin' Up! designer paper.  So it is much easier to have all the reds side by side so you can pick out just the right shade rather than flipping through a bunch of pages.

Stampin' Up! has created a new color coach with swatches of each color.  I haven't seen it.  I understand from someone who has that the colors are very close but perhaps not exact.  This version took me a little time but also allowed me to add all the discontinued colors I still have paper for and Papertrey Ink colors plus have the exact cardstock to match.

To make one or both decks,

1. Follow this link to Splitcoaststampers for Word documents you can download.
   files on Splitcoaststampers
2. If you are using the "By Color" deck, you may want to remove or add color names based on your own stash.  (The only two discontinued colors not listed are Barely Banana and Almost Amethyst as I was out of both of these.  There are some PTI colors left out since I don't have all of them.)
3. Print out the Word documents on white cardstock.
4. Cut into strips 2 3/4" wide.
5. Cut your paper swatches to fit below each color name and adhere.
6. Place grommets at the top of each page of the deck and put them on a binder ring or chain.

Here, I'm using the deck to match colors to a photo.  I wanted a cardstock just slightly lighter than the flowers because I knew I was going to distress the paper a little before putting it on my layout.  Summer Sunrise from Papertrey Ink turned out to be the perfect one.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me.  Happy crafting!

The Bundt Pan story

For stamp club this month, it was my turn to be hostess.  We have blueberries ripe so I picked a few and baked this Blueberry Lemon Bundt cake from Martha Stewart.  It got rave reviews at club.  Here is the link to the recipe:  Blueberry Lemon Bundt Cake

Also, if you are ever in the market for a Bundt(r) pan, I highly recommend the real Bundt brand pan from Williams Sonoma.   Linked here:  Bundt Pan

When I was a young woman, my mother did the smartest thing she has probably ever done for me (and that is saying a lot!).  She started a 'hope chest' for me.  Now this is sort of an old fashioned idea but it was terrific.  In the late 1970's there seemed to be a lot of discount stores in our area going out of business so there were opportunities to stock me up on a few household items at good prices (I'm still using a lot of those heavy duty wood coat hangers we bought for a nickel apiece!). 

Best of all the 'hope chest' gave my grandparents an easy way to gift shop for a teenage girl.  They had no idea what type of music or clothes I liked but my grandmother and my aunt knew cooking.  They knew what it took to keep house.  Every birthday and Christmas I got a few things for the soon overflowing chest - a wicker trunk in my bedroom.  One year, my Aunt Margie got me a real Bundt brand pan from Smithey's department store.  It cost her over $25 she wasn't embarrassed to tell me.  Meaning - 'you'd better take care of it.'  She knew the value of a good pan and it lasted me for decades until finally a couple years ago the inside coating began to come off.  Until then, it had made countless wonderful cakes.  I experimented with another pan, but never liked my replacement.

Then one day, I saw a promotion for Bundt and a new anniversary pan offered at Williams Sonoma.  They say everthing costs so much more now, but the new version is only $34 even all these years later.  And if possible, it is even better.  The old pan needed a little seasoning before it would turn out a clean cake but the first one I baked in the new pan came out perfect and they have ever since. 

So thanks to Aunt Margie I've always preferred baking pound cakes to anything else.  And thanks to my mother, I moved into my first appartment with everything I needed.  It was a wonderful gift from a practical, enthusiastic, loving woman - who doesn't like to cook but loves to shop!

Dining View page

For this page about the abundance of butterflies on our zinnias this year, I tried a few different things.  Some worked for me and some didn't:

• The butterflies are cut with the Cricut and the Storybook cartridge.  I cut a slightly smaller individual butterfly in white paper to go with the black border butterfly on the left.  I inked the white butterfly thoroughly in Versamark and then applied pastels working from the center out.  It was a little too much contrast so I went over it with a black swirl stamp.  This is similar to a pretty butterfly card in the SU! catalog. 
• For the journaling, I tried a technique frequently seen in scrapbook magazines.  Apply some paint.  After it dries, write the journaling on over the painted area.  I liked this although I have a terrible time keeping my writing straight :-(  I didn't want to draw in writing lines because I thought they would be hard to erase off the paint.  Maybe next time I'll stamp a journaling block over the painted area, but I'll definitely do this one again.
• The little black butterflies help balance the layout and cover up a place I smeared the photo when pulling it off the printer.
• 'view' is American Crafts Dear Lizzy vinyl puffy stickers and I love them!  More of these for sure.
• Probably the biggest thing on this layout I hadn't done in a very long time is to use a single piece of designer paper for the background and not break it up with borders or other designer papers.  I kept thinking it looked bare and throwing more stuff on the layout.   Fortunately, I'd saved this DSP from several years back.  It is so hard to find good purples.

To match the cardstock to the photos, I used my new Cardstock Decks just updated with all the new colors from SU!  Also, I did a deck by color - all the reds together, for example.  Visit this Tuesday for the details and links to files to make your own. 

Happy day...

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Flourishes Vol2 from Autumn Leaves
Ink:  Basic Black by SU!
Paint:  Folk Art and Anitas - mixed a couple of colors since I never have the right one on hand.
Cardstock:  Summer Sunrise from PTI; Pale Plum by SU!; Black from Hobby Lobby

How could I miss it?

For this quick Kristina Werner inspired card, I cut and assembled everything and then went looking for stickers for "home."  I searched through all my partial sticker sheets constantly coming up short on letters - usually the 'e' when it finally dawned on me there was a set of stickers right there on my work table.  I'd been using them on a scrapbook layout just a half hour earlier!  And they were perfect!  Sometimes it is what is right in front of you...

The card accompanies some cushions I finally got done for my Mother while she and my Dad were away on vacation.  I've had the cheery fabric for months!  I'm afraid I put her and me behind my customers.  Now that her cushions are done, I can finally make a bedskirt for my upstairs bedroom.   Once I get the right bed risers, that is.  My bed is comical right now as it is way too high off the floor for the size bed and headboard and without a bedskirt it just looks silly.  But it sure does give me lots of storage!
Ingredients:  DSP:  Fly a Kite and Thrift Shop by October Afternoon
Cardstock:  Kraft
White gel pen
Flower:  Petaloo colored with Summer Sun ink
Button:  Basic Grey
Stickers:  Crate Paper Lemongrass collection

Unusual card sketch

Here's my entry for this week's sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  This was an unusual sketch having angled pieces hanging off the edge of the card.  The card base had to be cut smaller so that it would still fit into an envelope.  

Project Notes:

• All the designer paper is from one collection which included journaling cards and buttons.  To make cutting a little easier, I used the reverse side of the printed papers for the matting on each of the angled pieces.
• The quote is stamped on a journaling card.
• The ribbon flower is made by sewing a thread through one edge of the sheer ribbon and pulling it all together.  Then I sewed the button on through the cardstock.  No glue!

This will be a great card for either of two special birthdays coming up in September.  I love this quote and I hope the recipient celebrates a bunch!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Cloud 9 
DSP and button:  Delight by Fancy Pants
Cardstock and ink:  Choc Chip by SU!

Trip Prep page

So good to be back to scrapbooking.  Here is a Project 365 page for the first week in July.  Not a lot happening during this week yet it I never really capture the effort that goes into getting ready for a trip. 

Project Notes:

• The sunflower is a white papery flower from Petaloo.  I added a few drops of Summer Sun SU! craft ink to water and soaked the entire flower.  Then while still wet, I used a paintbrush to add a little more slightly diluted summer sun ink to darken the center of the petals.

• "prep" is stamped, colored and cut out. 
• Printing some of the photos in black and white let me focus on just a few colors.
• I just love working with grid paper; it makes a project go so quickly when you are placing a lot of photos and stickers.  Everything just lines up magically!
• When I got finished, it seemed a little out of balance so I added some punched, stamped circles of yellow to the circle print background.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Fun Alpahbet by Inkadinkado; Little Bits by SU!
Ink:  Chesnut Roan fluid chalk by Colorbox; various yellow markers by SU!; More Mustard
DSP die cut and stickers:  Crate Paper; More Mustard for title
Font:  French Script
Ribbon:  So Saffron grosgrain by SU!

TIPsy Tuesday - Cardstock Organization

I stock Stampin' Up! and some Papertrey Ink cardstock.  Since Stampin' Up! has introduced new colors and reorganized their color families, my paper needed to be rearranged also.  I did use the same organization system I had been using -the clear storage envelopes available from craft stores.  I keep the envelopes in a paper storage unit purchased from AC Moore.  It is a bit 'rickety' but I have it and it works.  I'm also a big fan of the 12x12 Sterlite storage drawers from Walmart.  You can see them peeking out on the right.  These are used mainly for designer paper packs though I keep a few heavily used neutrals like white and vanilla in them.

One change I did make was to label each section.  I "knew" where the envelopes should go before but sometimes I got lazy and just stuck them in a slot that was close.  Maybe the labels will make me a little more diligent.  :-)

Neutrals are at the top, followed by In Colors both current, and discontinued.  Then I have my Papertrey Ink papers.  In the bottom half of the unit are slots for each of the other current color families:  Brights, Subtles and Regals.  The last few bins are for the old color familes:  Soft Subtles, Earth Elements, etc.

The envelopes are labeled with the color family and the colors per envelope.  I divide up the colors to 3 or 4 per envelope and try to keep similiar colors in different envelopes.  For example, Pink Piroette and Pretty in Pink are definitely in different envelopes as I find these colors easy to mix up.  (Seriously, did we really need two pinks so close and no lavendar???)

I used markers to label the color names to make it super easy to find the right color.  Since I don't have all the new markers yet, I used the closest marker I had and that seems to work.   The labels are nothing fancy, just some white cardstock taped to the clear envelopes with regular Scotch tape. 

Most of my storage envelopes are clear 12x12; however, I have a few 8 1/2" x 11" that I bought at Office Depot (quite a bit cheaper than buying them at the craft store.)  I like these envelopes because I keep all scraps with the paper.  I've tried a scrap bin I don't like looking in two places for a particular color paper.

I've used this system for a couple of years now and it works for me.

One other new feature this year was to break down some of my well-used designer paper packs and store DSP with cardstock.  Most SU! designer paper has at least one side of the paper tone-on-tone.  I stored theses papers with the matching cardstock as shown here with Rich Razzleberry color from the Raspberry Tart designer paper from last catalog. 

If I still have a lot of a DSP left, I just kept it all together in a coordinating collection. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  Feel free to leave a comment with your paper storage ideas to share.  Thanks!

Raspberry Tart Farewell

When reorganizing all my cardstock and designer papers for the new Stampin' Up! color families, I broke down some of my designer papers that were getting low.  Raspberry Tart was really down to scraps so here is one of the final cards from this paper.

Project Notes:

• The medallion designs are stamped using the Stamp-ah-ma-jig for placement.  They are stamped in Versamark and embossed in white.
• I use Creative Memories circle and oval cutters all the time.  One of the circle cutters rounded the edge on the cameo coral desigener paper.  One of the oval cutters is a great fit for the stamped image around I love you.

Be sure to visit tomorrow for TIPsy Tuesday.  I'll be showing how I organize my cardstock - the current colors, retired colors and Papertrey Ink colors.  Happy Monday!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Baroque Motifs, Vintage Labels by SU!, Mailbox greetings by PTI
Ink:  Versamark, Rose Coral and Warm Red from Colorbox
Designer Paper:  Raspberry Tart by SU