Father's Day Cards 2012

Notice the faint water-colored smoke sizzling out of the grill?  The greeting is embossed in black which adds a little extra shine to this summertime themed Father's Day card. 

Stampin' Pastels add the faint color tints to the bear images.  He's such a cute little guy!  He reminds us of all the fun, rough and tumble times dads bring about during our lives.  Even if your papa bear isn't roaring at little kids anymore, I bet he's still a lovable, huggable bear like this one.  I'm grrrrrrateful for my own papa bear!

I love the simplicity and somber tone of this Father's Day card--appropriate for any father or man on another special occasion.   There's something about the majesty of lions that reminds me of the things I love about my masculine men.  This card was also colored with Stampin' Pastels.

These cards are all available to order!  Just $3.50 per card includes my shipping to you.  I can always change the greeting words too, in case you need a masculine card for another occasion.  Just send me a note or leave a comment : )!

Mother's Day Cards 2012

There's just something special about this card that I can't put into words.  I love so many different elements of it though.  It was fun to design a Mother's Day card that didn't have the traditional "feminine" colors in it--because we all know that not every woman loves pink, right?  Or at least we don't all love pink ALL the time, so it's fun to change it up.  I enjoyed making the ruffles for this card with the ribbon punch--it was easy to ruffle it up after I crumpled and scrunched it up (the "card stock ribbon") in my hands for a minute.

I'm going to miss this Tote-ally Tess stamp set, which is being retired this month from our catalog.  She's such a pretty little stamped lady!  I was glad to get one more smile from her featured in a stamp camp, and I thought she'd be the perfect image to tell many of the mothers in my life of my admiration and gratitude for them!

(Sorry this one is tilted.)  Isn't this a pretty bunch of flowers from the Vintage Vogue set?  The pearls in the center add an elegant and fun extra polka dot element to the centers of the smaller flowers.

I wanted to show in this photo the gorgeous card under my finger tips that my cousin Radene made, which inspired my floral design.  Also here you can see how I used a Mother's Day greeting on the front of that card (my floral one) which I sent to my wonderful mother.  That was my camp for May...I'm grateful to all those who attended and enjoyed this stamping time with me! 

Spring is in the Air

MARCH STAMP CAMP 2012

I love these Spring designs!  I just had to have a stash of them for myself, so I stamped myself silly after the stamp camp, and this is what I got : ).  Lucky me!

I'm really having fun with this emboss resist technique lately.  The focal point here was created on white card stock:  I embossed the flowers with clear embossing powder (clear on white matched the white paper better than my white embossing powder on white paper).  Then I sponged the colored inks around the flowers, and stamped the French Script print in blue (Marina Mist) on top of the flowers as well.  Of course, the embossed flowers resisted all of the new ink.  This card looks so "soft" to me, I love it.

I did it--I made a card with yellow as one of the main colors.  Not an easy feat for me, but Springtime is just the right time for such an undertaking.  Combine Daffodil Delight with Almost Artichoke and Certainly Celery and with this, my favorite butterfly set, "Flight of the Butterfly", and I couldn't lose.    Isn't it Springy and happy?

I laugh now about how much I love butterflies because it makes me remember the time my mom and I were driving through town forever-ago, and when I saw some fake huge butterflies stuck to the side of someone's house, I thought that was the ugliest decoration I had ever seen.  And so Mom and I have laughed about butterflies ever since (no offense to the real ones that always make me smile when they fly by).  But now, I love using them in my creations, especially when they're little, or teeny-tiny like some of these!  This card design followed one that I found online, at least in part...but I changed a few things.  And, since I didn't have the cool designer series paper that the other artist used, I made my own!  The butterflies were die-cut from what was originally plain pink card stock (Regal Rose), which I decorated with my own stamps and ink (Elegant Eggplant, Rose Red, and White ink with Vintage Vogue images in a very "sloppy" random pattern).   I love these almost Christmassy colors made into a Spring theme.  (And I just love that teeny-tiny butterfly!)

I hope you enjoyed these designs, and feel inspired to create or send or give something Springy on your own!

January Stamp Camp: Birthday Cards

Anytime I create with bright colors, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone, but I love to do it because it adds variety to my card stash.  Plus, the bright colors can be the happiest colors!  What I love about this card are all of the "stand-out" elements.  Those tiny butterflies couldn't be more adorable!  They are the best thing to come out of my Big Shot (die-cutting machine) since embossed backgrounds, like the one it made for this card  And it was fun to crank up the crimping tool for the Pink Pirouette strip as an alternative to ribbon.  Lastly, my Stampin' Write markers came in handy for the coloring in of the "i" in Birthday, and for coloring the word "HAPPY" using the omitting technique (the words "Happy Birthday" are all part of the same stamp).  I made sure to make several extra copies of this card (as well as the following ones) for my own personal birthday card stash for 2012!

This new dinosaur set really caught my eye; I am really excited to have it and use it, a lot.  I'll definitely be pulling it out again for my "Cards for Men and Boys" camp in May, if not sooner...but I couldn't pass it up for the Birthday Cards camp.  I loved the connection between the diamonds in this Big Shot embossed background and the pattern on the dinosaur's back : ), which we enhanced with the rubber brayer and a little Crumb Cake ink.  One of the most fun features of this card though was getting to use the Stampin' Pastels (the chalks) to add the dinosaur's color.  Very soft and subtle against the bold and fun patterns, don't you think?

I love this fold pattern!

You gotta love the cute sayings that come with this stamp set.  The other word stamp included says "I dig you."  Love it.

We didn't make this card at this month's camp; it was made at one of my camps in Oregon.  I just wanted to show it to you here because it is what I used as a model for the folds and the layout of my dinosaur card above.  It's fun to showcase two very different looks for the same layout. 

The greens used in this card (Wild Wasabi ink and card stock) are almost identical in real life, but my camera didn't pick them up equally (not sure why)...so just pretend that they look the same here too, k?  : )  This card's focal point was brightened up with the emboss-resist technique;  we used sponges to add the color on top of the clear embossing.  The Big Shot supplied the Polka-dot background, a Stampin' Write marker helped again to make the little flowers under the focal point, and the Scallop Edge Punch and the sparkly rhinestone added the finishing touches.  I like the "classy" feel of this design.  

Is your card stash full enough to get you through the year?  Don't forget that through the end of March we're having our Sale-a-bration special, which is the best time of the year to stock up on any supplies you might need!  And...if you have supplies but you just need a little motivation to get creating again, please drop me an email and we will put our heads together to see how I can help you get some cards made...even if it means me designing some cards and sending you the pre-cut card stock!  I would love to help you be prepared for your special occasions this year, so please stay in touch!  Inky hugs to all of my favorite stamping friends!!   -Jenna

It's a "Jenna's Back in Business" Sale!

Click HERE to see the full e-card--and learn the details of my FREE SHIPPING sale! 
offer ends September 24th.

The Holiday Mini Catalog is Here!

It's my favorite Mini Catalog of the year--the Holiday Mini! It's full of exciting and new products for Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Fall, and of course products that can be used all year when you let your creativity run free.  Enjoy the pages in this booklet and start planning your holiday projects today--and then make sure you share with me your excitement...it's more fun when you share, right?

Happy Stamping!
-Jenna

Click here to flip through the new Holiday Mini Catalog

Farewell Oregon Stamp Camp

There are no new fancy techniques for this card, just simple stamping with gorgeous Stampin' Up! Designer papers.  Don't forget the Stampin' Dimensionals to make the center piece stand out a little more.

Artistic Etchings is one of my favorite stamp sets.  I don't have a personal connection with the Eiffel Tower, but I just love the artist's pen-and-ink style of these images, combined with two of my favorite background stamps, En Francais, and Baroque Motifs.  Notice also the pretty scallop edge, which is actually half of the length of a Ribbon Punch "ribbon".  Oh, and the faux pearl--so pretty!

Pick A Petal, perfect for bug wings and leaves and of course, flower petals.  And flower centers (if you stamp and then use your circle punches).

This was a card we made a couple of years ago.  I borrowed this design to inspire my new project for this camp, below.

Sponging around the edges of each piece of the mosaic, and adding a few scalloped edges here and there made this card a favorite for me. 

Jenna asks:  can you think of one or two people that deserve a thank you card this week?  Send one!  You'll be glad you did. 

I really and truly appreciate your comments : )!