November, and the Last Paper Pumpkin

Hoping that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The night of Thanksgiving was always the beginning of the
Christmas season in my house while growing up, so I waited until today to post this month's Paper Pumpkin since it was a Christmas card.

Before I go into it, I wanted to let you know that this will be my final month of participating in Paper Pumpkin. It's a great concept, but I don't think it is being executed in an effective way. There are some really amazing kits that Stampin' Up is coming out with that give you a much better bang for your buck. Instead of paying $20 for 4 cards, you can buy the Everyday Occasions kit for $30 and have enough materials to make 20 cards for a variety of occasions.

BUT...this month was a really cute card so here it goes!

 The "Noel" piece on the flag was pre-printed. The two stamps you received were the star and the scripty "Wishing You A Merry Christmas" stamp across the bottom. I love the star garland! Sparkly and cute. So all you had to do to assemble the cards was stamp the star and gretting, wrap the garland around the flag, then attach that to the striped base layer. Easy and cute. The four cards are a welcomed addition to help me cover my list of family and friends that I want to send cards to this year!

Everyday Occasions Card Kit

This kit is hands down the best thing I could recommend someone new to card making to buy. For $30 you get stamps and materials to make 20 different cards. They are so easy, so cute, and so affordable. And it all comes in a box to contain your crafting mess, BONUS!

Once you pull out all of the materials you are looking at a LOT of options as far as paper products:

This picture gives a bit of an overview of the different colors, patterns, and sizes of the cards and embellishments that ALL come with the kit. In fact the only thing not included is the adhesive snail and my two TV remotes. You also get a set of stamps for a variety of common things you might need a card for:

These can obviously be used for ANY card or scrapbook, not just with this kit. Another plus!

With all of the options you can create gorgeous cards for lots of different occasions, and it also lets you experiment with a wide variety of products that Stampin' Up! sells on a regular basis. Here are just a few examples of some cards I threw together using the Everyday Occasions Kit.

The nice part is, if you don't feel confident designing your own, they give you a pamphlet with a lot of great "inspiration" cards to help guide you through the process.

I LOVE THIS KIT! I really can't stress enough how easy this makes putting together a lot of really good looking cards. You get a variety of items at an amazing price, and it makes paper crafting so easy and accessible to everyone! $30 = 20 cards plus stamps you can use again and again.

It really is an amazing deal and the best way for someone new to start a new hobby. They are only selling a limited amount of these so get your orders in early for the holidays!

Halloween Tricks and Treats

I've done a few Halloween posts already, but I am digging the holiday stuff and since my house is not decorated I might as well continue to decorate the blog with holiday themed stuff, right? Right.

PLUS...and this is exciting. I did my very first home party last week! I looked like Mary Poppins carrying around all of my stamp stuff in ginormous bags, but I had everything I needed and it went really well. The only person who had stamped before was the hostess, so I wanted to show how easy it was to make some really good looking stuff. I planned the following card and treat bag:

First, the card. The base is just white card stock, with a few layers of the AWESOME Witches Brew Designer Series Paper. I love the burlap ribbon, it just adds such an earthy but simple texture to anything you put it on! We used the handy dandy Hexagonal Punch for that nice flagging on the bottom. The only stamp on it is from the Halloween Bash set, and we did a a second layer for "Halloween" in orange to make it pop a bit. I always encourage people to take "artistic liberties" with my inspiration designs, I think it really helps people to see how easy designing a card can be. The paper is printed on both sides so it gives people lots of options. And this group NAILED IT! Look at all the different ways they put this card together:

I was so glad they had fun with it. It's always really great to see what other people create, especially when they mold it into their vision! Great job for a group of newbies.

The treat bag was simple but makes a bit of candy (or, almonds for those avoiding sugar) look much fancier and fun.

 Again, we just used some of that same Witches Brew DSP for the base and made use of three different punches for the layers. The "trick of treat" tag is from the Tags 4 You set in the holiday catalog and has options for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentines Day. It also has that lovely corresponding punch, which makes it super easy to use for whatever holiday you choose. Hah that rhymed! (PS - You can get that whole bundle for $26.96 in clear and $30.95 in wood. Worth it!) I finished it off with a little twine tied around the top (Life lesson: attached the twine BEFORE you staple the tag to the bag. Lesson learned.)

Simple Starter Series: Happy Hour

Here is another one-set creation from the Happy Hour set. I'm a fan of wine. And martinis (with olives). And champagne. And - well, you get the drift. This set was on my "want" list for a while and I decided to go for it at my last party. It's cute and versatile. There are actually 17 different stamps in the set, which is a lot compared to most sets. There are the five "drinks of choice" with seven drink decorations and five greetings that you can choose from. Here is a screen shot of all of the different images:

So here are two cards that I have made so far with this set. I'm sure I will have plenty of others in the future but wanted to show it off now.

We just did this last night at a class. First the all-black image is stamped onto the white card stock. We used makers to color in the "liquid" on a second sheet of scrap paper and then cut out the "liquid" by hand. Adhere the colored drinks over the original black image and you have four cups filled with color. You could very easily step this up by adding bling, or by framing the drinks with some more colored card stock.

The second card I was shooting for a black/white/red-retro-mad men esque theme:

This was so simple. Black ink pad, red marker, and some washi tape. Just an easy and fun card to send to a friend to say hi, even if you can't meet in person for happy hour.

This set sells in wood for $29.95 and clear mount is $21.95. It also comes in French if you are feeling particularly fancy. Au revoir, mes amis!

Paper Pumpkin: October

This month's Paper Pumpkin speaks to me. It tells me it is ok to be a Type-A, overachieving, list-making person. In fact, it celebrates those things. I took enough time this month to document how lovely it looked when it arrived. Nicely gift wrapped and adorable.

 But once I opened it up I was pretty thrilled to see this month's project:

If it weren't for my planner that I use at work, I would forget to do most things. To-do lists are how I get through my life on a daily basis. And this one is so cute! Again, everything you need is included with Paper Pumpkin including the green ink pad (except adhesive, if it's even needed which is was not for this). Here is a closer shot of the three stamps it came with:

These would be great to use again if you wanted to add some personality to a set of note cards or post-it's, or decorating a notebook or planner. 

Paper Pumpkin is an all-in-one craft kit delivered to your door once a month for and for only $20 has everything you need to complete a project. Sometimes it's a card, other months may be a project like this one. If you are interested in signing up go to https://mypaperpumpkin.com/en/ and everything can be done there. If you would be so kind as to list me, Melissa Solomon, as your demonstrator, it would be much appreciated : )

Household Halloween Decorations

While most of the time I am creating cards, there are also many other options to use Stampin' Up products for. Scrapbooking, party decorations, and home and holiday decor. Here are two projects that I did for Halloween. The first is SUPER easy. Like, just grab two markers and color kind of easy. The second is a little more complex but isn't as complicated as it looks.

Here is the first one:

This is one full sheet of the 12x12 Witches Brew Designer Series Paper as it comes on the left. To create a more colorful design you simply take a few markers and color in whatever spots you want. You don't even have to stay inside the lines because the black background covers your mistakes! Easy and cute. I just bought a cheap record frame and put it in there and it now greets people next to my card tree in my entry.

The second project is smaller, but involves more effort.

 The background squares are all cut 2x2. I used the Toil and Trouble set as well as Halloween Bash for all of the stamped pieces. The most fun thing about a piece like this is that you can play around with whatever embellishments and punches you have at your disposal to create an individual design. I threw in some washi tape, and a little texture with the reptile skin and chevron embossing folders. Anything I didn't have a punch or a framelits for, I just cut by hand with good old fashioned scissors. I had a class at my house make this and even though there were new people, everyone really did well with it and went home with some great new handmade Halloween decor.

Operation: Use Up Scrap Paper

Scrap paper is quickly building around my craft table. I have, literally, at least 6 different bags going. SIX, people! And since I've been focusing my crafting efforts on all things Halloween, much of it is green, orange, purple, and black.

I find it to be a fun challenge to take those scrap pieces and see what kind of new stuff you can create with it, making sure you don't waste any of your lovely paper, and therefore your lovely money! And it forces you to come up with new designs, which is sometimes tough for me to do. This is one of the results of my personal "get rid of scrap paper" challenges:

I used two of this year's Halloween sets: Halloween Bash (text) and Toil and Trouble (skeleton). I had some skeletons lying around from another project, and a few leftover 2x3 rectangles that fit the "celebrate" stamp perfectly. The rest was from one of the six scrap bags plaguing my dining room table. The hexagon punch is great for creating the flag tips! I was so excited when I figured that out. (I'm still kind of a newbie. It's the simple things, really).