Do you like these un-traditional colors for a baby card?

I had a plethora of the striped paper left over from the ‘Autumn Traditions’ designer series paper and I am a sucker for stripes and baby cards!

I do love this bear and ‘I’m kind of a BIG DEAL’ stamp really does say it all when it’s your own brat, right?  The set is ‘Cute and Cuddly’ (#113682, 6 stamps for $26.95) and includes a ‘Baby Shower’ invitation stamp (which aren’t easy to find anymore).

The flourish stamp is from the awesome ‘Priceless’ set (#115052, 11 stamps for $28.95) which I hope NEVER retires as it has fabulous elements of design including two great flourish stamps.

Sets:
Cute & Cuddly, Priceless
Accessories:
5 ½ x 8 ½ Sahara Sand cardstock
5 ½ x 3 inch Artichoke cardstock
5 ½ x 2 Autumn Traditions DSP stripe
2 ¼ x 2 ¾ Vanilla (for bear)
2 ¼ x 1 ¼ Vanilla (for tag)
1 x 3 Vanilla (for extra ‘head’ & ‘nose’)
2 ¼ x 2 ¼ Elegant Eggplant c/s (star)
Artichoke grosgrain ribbon
Corner Rounder, Rectangle Punch, Scallop Trim Border
Artichoke ink and sponge daubers
Black StazOn™
Earth Elements Watercolor Crayons
Aquapainters
Dimensionals®

This adorable new set ‘Teddy & Train” is gently watercolored with the Earth Elements watercolor crayons and layered with the ‘To the Nines Specialty” designer series paper (#114038, $11.95)

I brought out the Sage Shadow stripe in the designer series paper with a horizontal ‘laced’ edge as a border between the dots & stripes.  The edging was achieved with the Eyelet Border punch (#113692, $15.95)

The bear is stamped on Whisper White cardstock and the bow is white taffeta (109070, $6.95 for 10 yards) held on with glue dots.

I like to color and it just took minutes to watercolor the bear and stamp the greeting.

Be sure when watercoloring to use Black StazOn (#101406, $7.95) so that the ink doesn’t run (READ: don’t try that with just any black ink pad).

Enjoy… now to find a baby that needs a card, LOL!

How do you like my new “look”?! I’ve been working on it for over a month and decided to take the plunge.  My Gallery is still not completely with the program, but I decided the greater good was to keep it up and running until I move it into the blog format.

This adorable baby ‘onesie’ card has been shamelessly CASE’d from a swap I got from Kevin Theesen, SU’s first male demonstrator!

In searching  for a baby card idea, I found this adorable card in the shape of a baby ‘onesie’ and remade it in Amethyst and the new Designer Series Paper ‘Tea Party’.

CORNER CUTTING ALERT:  I make the card four inches wide (instead of the regular 4 1/4 inches) so that I could maximize the Designer Series paper.

I am bummed my scanner is broken or I would share the template, but it really isn’t a difficult card to re-make. (Everything electronic is working against me!)

The colors are Almost Amethyst & Barely Banana. The stamped image is from Nursery Necessities.

So, besides from that… how DO you like my new blog design?!

I’m counting down the days to the new catalog which is VERY easy with four cases of new catalogs sitting in my living room!!!  I can’t wait for my New Catalog Open House on January 17th…

All of these samples are made with Brocade Blue ink & cardstock and Bashful Blue ink and the card is Whisper White and the book & 6×6 scrap page is Very Vanilla giving it a more ‘sleepy’ quality, I think.

In all my free time (yes, that’s a joke!), I have been doing an redesign of my main website at www.ustamp4fun.com and I have been getting many requests to update the gallery of samples by set.  (None of these requests of course are coming with an offer of money, LOL, but I will try to be better about keeping that up this year as one of my new year’s resolutions).  So, I have made a set sampler HERE for you to view all the samples I have made with this set!

It’s always fun to play with new sets!  These are two of the display items I made for Leadership using Nursery Necessites (a new set coming in January!) using plain drink coasters.  The one on the left is a mini ‘clipboard’ type altered coaster (thank you again Trisha Wampler for that idea that I am using to death) and the one on the right is a mini book with the coasters as the book covers.

The elephant (left) was embossed in white on Pretty In Pink and cut, the background papers are "Flowers for You" designer series paper and the set "It’s a Date" will be sorely missed when it expires 12/31/07, I do use it a lot!  The book cover is Very Vanilla cardstock stamped and layered with Brocade Blue & Bashful Blue, wave caps sponged in white crafters ink and, of course, glitter.

My favorite stamps in that set however are the crescent moon and star!  See the entire set of 12 stamps in the Preview Mini Catalog (go to page 12–and don’t forget to notice the matching jumbo alphabet wheel on page 13).

I really do love this set “Bundle of Joy” set.  The colors are Mellow Moss & Bordering Blue and the stripe and fleur de lis paper is the new Designer Series papers “Jardin”.  I took the color combinations from the designer paper and did the coloring with watercolor crayons and Aquapainter.  This was a quick and simple card!

Here is another “version” of the card but with the “announcement” stamp that comes with the set.

The blue I used on this card is the new Soft Sky which is alot like a ‘robins egg’ blue.  Very soft and almost a hint of green to it.

The blue in the designer series strip is more like Bordering Blue or Bashful blue, but the Soft Sky also worked.

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