Tootsie pop Valentine Flower Favor

These Tootsie Pop Valentine Flowers are a cute little favor which are great for Febr. 14th. Of course, using the Big Shot make these a super easy project! I've made up several dozen of these flowers to swap at the Ft. Collins 1/2 day regional this coming Friday.
Enjoy,
Jennifer

Heart Treat Cup on a Stick!

Here's a cute Valentine's Day idea. I revamped the project from this month's stamping classes to include a brown/pink color scheme.

January Class projects

These are the projects from this months stamping class. The Two-Step bird punch is in the Occassions mini catalog. The box is made from the Matchbox die for the Big Shot machine. The heart treat cups can be ordered is a box of 12 for $2.95....plan ahead for Valentine's Day projects!
If you missed class this month and would like the projects just contact me,
Jennifer

BRRR.....

The snowflake punch is perfect for cards and scrapbook pages this time of the year. Here is a quick 6x6 layout with my favorite little Reese all bundled up in her winter coat and stocking hat.
Stay warm,
Jennifer

Two-Step Bird Punch

I just love the new 2-step bird punch. It is in the latest Occassions Mini Catalog. I used my Big Shot machine for texturizing the flowers in the background....I really like the look of the sahara sand cardstock with the layer of the embossed piece on the regular cardstock. Using the Big Shot and the dry embossing folders are a really quick way to dress up your cards!

You can view the Occassions Mini catalog through my website....of let me know if you would like a copy in the mail!
Enjoy,
Jennifer

Merry Christmas!

Here is a project I made up last spring for the annual Stampin' Up! Artisan Award contest. I earned a place as a finalist for this award so I was thrilled. I love Christmas and thought these Santa pants would be a fun party favor or little gift bag. I used the Stampin' Up! "Baskets & Blooms" XL Bigz die for the main part of this project.

I also wanted to remind you that many of the stamp sets currently on our dormant list have been available for a year and now it is time to be discontinued. The following stamp sets will be discontinued on January 4, 2010. If they are on your wish list you will want to order before Jan. 4.
Item Number Stamp Set
113407 Back Woods
114492 Beautiful Baby
114486 Birthday Wish
113200 Branch Out
114496 Celebrations
113732 Central Park
113206 Classic Sketches
113226 Classy & Fabulous
114498 Flowers in Silhouette
113405 Font of You
113216 For the Bride
114494 Forever
109425 Friend by Definition
114488 Fun Flowers
113716 Garden Greetings
114490 Glad Friends
111580 Grand Soiree
113242 Hit the Road
113710 Lexicon of Leaves
113236 Man's Best Friend
114423 Ocean Commotion
113728 Playful Petals
109276 Polka Dot
111544 Putt Putt
113240 Quilt Quips
113754 Really Retro
113403 Sip by Sip
113726 Sweet Stems
113250 That's Funny
113688 Wonderful Watercolors
114028 Para la novia
114032 Acuarelas Maravillosas

Hope you all are enjoying the snow, cold and getting ready for Christmas!
Jennifer

Potter Stamp Class - November 10th

Here's the samples of the projects we will be making at the card making class in Potter on November 10.
Class will be at 6:30 p.m., back meeting room at Bags' Bar, material fee $10.
All patterns will be supplied for these fun folded cards.
Please contact me for more information or if you would like to sign up for this class.

Build-a-Bear Girls Workshop

Here are some photos from a recent Build-a-Bear workshop for a bunch of little girls. My niece Audrey was the hostess for this event. We had a great time and these girls, ages 4+, enjoyed creating the 4 bear projects: favor box complete with a candy necklace, a stamped bear card, a bear cut die card and and a decorative lunch bag to carry all our goodies & extra bear parts and clothes home.

I would love to do more of these workshops so please let me know if there are any Build-a-Bear creations we can make with you and your group of friends or children!
Jennifer

Swap basket contents

Here's a closer look at the contents of the swap basket mentioned in the last post. Many of these favorites will be inspiration for cards to make at future stamp classes this fall. Hope to see you at a stamping class this fall,
Jennifer

Monthly card projects

Here's a picture of my swap basket full of goodies ready to go to card classes and workshops this month. The samples inside the basket are swaps from Stampin' Up! convention this past August. Many of you haven't seen these so bring your cameras when you come to class this next month and feel free to photograph your favorites. The projects sitting outside the basket are the projects at stamp classes this month. I have to tell you that my adult stampers are having just as much fun with the Build a Bear items as my younger stampers are. I'll have more about a little girls bear workshop in a future post. So if you haven't joined a class yet this month there is still time. I'll travel to Chappell, NE on Sept. 22 and of course would set a workshop up for you and your friends, just let me know.
Happy stamping,
Jennifer Thomas

Holiday Mini Catalog.....starts today!

The Stampin' Up! Holiday mini catalog sales period starts today! If you are attending a stamping class with me in the next 2 weeks you will get your mini catalog at class. If you want a mini mailed to you please let me know.

I have been with Stampin' Up! for almost 13 years now and this mini catalog is the best one yet! It is full of adorable stamps, Big Shot die cuts, jewelry, embellishments, treat cups & DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE!!!!! You just have to see it. We will be using alot of the new items from this mini in our upcoming stamp and scrapbook classes this fall.

Let me know if you need a mini catalog,
Jennifer

Build-a Bear Workshop

On Sept. 12 I'll be presenting my first Build-a-Bear Workshop. Instead of going to the Build-a-Bear store and making your own stuffed animal the attendees get to create several fun papercraft products. I'm still busy working on my projects but here is a sample I from convention which is a great inspiration. I will post my projects when I get them completed. There will be a $5 fee for each attendee and this first class is hosted by my 9 1/2 year old niece Audrey. We hope to have a room full of giggly little girls! Keep this in mind for birthday parties, scout meetings, daycare projects and whatever else you think will work with these fun new products.

College Kitchen

Here's a picture of the canisters Alexis and I made for her college apartment kitchen. The vinyl art work is the hostess level one set in the Decor' Elements line from Stampin' Up!. These were super easy to make. Bought the containers at a local outlet store for around $10 for all three.
The vinyl images also included "coffee" & "tea"....which she didn't want so we just used the artwork without the words for the one canister and her and her roommate can use it for candy or hot cocoa etc. Thanks to my hostess free items these girls might have one of the most stylish kitchens at Univ.-Nebr.Lincoln! :-) Go HUSKERS! :-)
Jennifer Thomas

Adorable train project

I think this is just about the most adorable train project I have seen with this train set. This is from the convention displays in Salt Lake City earlier this month so I don't even know who made it so I can't list any names. I think this is just adorable. What a fun idea for decorating a baby's room or for a baby gift. You could even personalize it to make it extra special.
Happy stamping,
Jennifer Thomas

My Convention Swaps

I made 2 different cards to swap at convention this year. Here is a sample of those cards and also a variation of each card. I made each card simple and then a little more "involved" using either a jumbo grommet or adding designer papers, both which would make great upsell items.
I love all the new embossing items for our Big Shot Machine. I used the Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder on the Bermuda Bay & Melon Mambo card. The Rich Razzleberry card used the "HI" Embosslit Die. Both are on page 195 of the Stampin' Up! catalog.

Artisan Award Finalist!

One of the highlights for my convention was finding out I was one of the 30 finalists for the annual SU! Artisan Award. To enter that contest you have to create and send in 10 items (5 cards, 3 scrapbook pages & two 3-d items). When I was first considering entering this annual contest again this past year my first idea was this fun 3-D Santa's Pants favor. So once I dreamed up the pattern for this (the bottom of each leg uses the die cut piece from "Baskets & Blooms") I decided I needed to create the other 9 projects to enter this fun Christmas project for that contest. The pants are complete with suspenders, belt and a barn door on the back! :-)This project was also on the display boards at convention this year.

I think this pattern would also be fun as blue jean overalls: with a little boy theme and fill with gummy worms. Or complete as red overalls and fill with corn (pop corn, corn nuts etc.) for all those HERBY HUSKER NEBRASKA CORNHUSKER FANS!
GO BIG RED!,

Jennifer

One of my favorite parts of Stampin' Up! Convention is the display boards. I could spend hours (and I did!) looking at all the samples on these displays. They are color coordinated or grouped by new set samples and it is kind of tricky to fight the crowds to get in close enough for a photo. Since I spend alot of time throughout the year creating ideas for monthly/yearly contest and stamping challenges it is always a THRILL to see your artwork up on display! I found 9 different projects of mine on the display boards so I was thrilled! :-)Here is 12x12 scrapbook page that I entered in the Artisan Award this past year. I'll tell you more about that in a future post. :-) These are my kids, photo taken back in February, and they look very similar but Kaleb just got his braces off so now I can scrapbook him without the "tin grin". LOL!
Jennifer

Build-a-Bear products!

We have so many new products including the Build a Bear Workshop line and the company mascot came to Salt Lake City for our convention. We got to pose for a photo with the mascot. That new product line will be fun for kiddy workshops and scrapbooking layouts. Last year I was excited to see the Sizzix/Big Shot product line and I'll continue to be excited about the Big Shot with fun new dies like these. I'll be setting up some scrapbooking and card making classes with this theme so look for future details on that.

Jennifer

Stampin' Up! Convention 2009 was awesome. The theme for convention was Inspire,Create, Share. We saw fun logos at the Gathering Place and at the Stampin' Up! Headquarters. Here are my roomies (we had a big fun suite!) left to right: Holly, Laurie, me, Lynne, Kyle, Kim, Joanne.
Look for samples in future posts of all the fun things I saw at convention,

Jennifer

Cupcake card

This cupcake image is from a new hostess set in the 2009-10 Stampin' Up! Catalog & Idea Book called: "The More the Merrier". Stamp the row of cupcakes a few times to fill up your cardstock piece with lots of cupcakes, YUM! Of course you need a little Dazzling Diamond Glitter to finish it off!
This card shows the new inline colors for this catalog year, and these inline colors also come in the markers now too and they match the Razzleberry Lemonade designer paper used for the quilt block square type of design. The polka dotted ribbon is also a coordinating product in the Rich Razzleberry color.
Jennifer