UPDATED 10/9/07 – View step-by-step directions on my Project Gallery.

You say you missed our Team Stamp Festival this past weekend?!  Well, I am hoping to make you feel bad about it–so you won’t want to miss our Sell-A-Bration one!  The festival featured the Autumn Harvest set from the Holiday Mini Catalog which was included in the fee and was used in three of the four projects.

This easy accordion album covers were made from blank coasters… yes, drink coasters like you get in a bar.  I found that if you buy a few drinks you can grab a few coasters free (and oh boy, I needed like 80 coasters so you know what I will do for my customers to save them money, LOL!).

The coasters were basically 4×4 and the shock and wonder of it all was that this years corner rounder we sell–which is yet ANOTHER different size from all other previous years–matched those coaster’s rounded edges EXACTLY. (I figured my luck on that was so amazing that I am not going to bother buying another lottery ticket as my luck probably has been used up for a few years at least.)  So the cover was covered with 4×4 Old Olive paper layered over it and corners rounded.  The pumpkins and mulberry paper layer were added on top of that.

The accordion album part is 12  x 12 Old Olive cardstock, cut to 4 3/4 x 12 (and scored at 1 1/4 horizontally to fold up as the  pocket) and scored vertically at 3 1/2 intervals.  This leaves the last flap at only about 1 1/2 inches but I secured that to the back cover and covered it with a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 square of Olive and layered a ‘fold over’ layer in vanilla, to make a ‘book’ style back panel.

Let me know if you need any coasters… I know where I can get them free (heh, heh…).  Actually, my wonderful friend Amanda Coughlin gave me like 250 free because she loves me (and boy you should see her drink!).  Just kidding, she got them at www.americancoaster.com.

Well, I broke down and mailed Stampin’ Up!© three cards (Holy Triptych, Thankful Season card & the ‘Elegant Baroque Motifs’ cards shown in earlier posts), a 3D project (the altered clipboard shown in an earlier post) and the hardest thing–a scrapbook page shown above.  I am hoping to be chosen for a display helper for Leadership or Convention so wish me luck. I don’t love this page, but it did look better in person and I am really feeling ‘scrap impaired’ lately.

This 12×12 page is Always Artichoke with the ‘Batty For You’ wheel rolled in Artichoke ink.  The Autumn Harvest pumpkin set was stamped in black and colored in with my favorite things–watercolor crayons and the accent color is Pumpkin Pie but it does not photograph the right color and the coloring looks washed out to me, oh well! 

The ‘date’ elements are from the ‘It’s a Date’ set, which I absolutely love. One layer is the month, one is the day and one is the year and I circled the days and dates.

The Autumn Harvest set is the stamp set that you will receive at our Team Rubber Stamp Festival… my customers may sign up here. Don’t delay the registration closes in less than a week!

I will be sharing more ideas with this set in the next week or so (I do tend to fixate, don’t I?)  If you LOVE this set, remember to support the demo that supports YOU (but tell her when you buy it that she owes me 10% of her commission, LOL!).

 Again, this is my favorite Scrappin’ Memories Kit!  I do really love them all and will be publishing them in upcoming blog entries… a full tutorial on how to make these great 6×6 albums are on my Project Gallery.

On a personal note, I will be at the Stampin’ Up! Regional Conference on Saturday, September 15th in Philadelphia with some team members and friends.  I am so excited it is back on the East coast again!  Anyway, I was looking forward to enjoying it as a slacker UNITL I was called by Stampin’ Up! to share a “5 minute “Workshop WOW” while I’m there…  I’m not sure if the butterflies in my stomach are excitement (or if I’m just going to toss my lunch at the thought!).

I’m usually the ’big mouth in the back of the room’ so it should be interesting to present to a few hundred very saavy demonstrators (instead of unsuspecting, possibly creatively-impaired ‘friends of the hostess’ who came to her workshop because the hostess came to her Longerberger party, LOL!).

On another personal note, I am excited to be nominated as a “Creative Blogger” by Yvonne Campbell a demonstrator in the newly added (the the Stampin’ Up! world) country of Australia. You can see her site at www.campbellcreations.net)… give her your excitement and kudos for ‘going where few have gone before’ and conquering Australia for Stampin’ Up!

 I have also been tagged a “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” by Julie Ferguson (www.jadesbutterflies.blogspot.com).  I have taken too long I think to acknowedge these and I will be nominating my own picks very soon!

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I am excited to show my team what we will be making this at our Quarterly “Impress Me” Team Meeting, on August 13th.  I have been looking to make a WOW project to entice you ladies to think of stamping this summer!  

And as if that isn’t enough, our special guest is the lovely and talented Amanda Coughlin who will be up from Florida to share her stamping magic with us at this meeting as well.  For my customers: LOOK for a class for this in September… check for my upcoming newsletter.

I used the new 9×9 chipboard clipboards that we sell with my new favorite Scrappin’ Memories(r) kit “Secret Garden”… fabulous papers in the new colors. 

I accented this clipboard with the “Pretties” kit which includes diamond rhinestone brads, pearls (and “half pearls” suitable for gluing on a flat surface) and silk flowers that dye easily.  I used my sponge daubers to dye some flowers and also used a few drops of re-inkers diluted in water to dye others. 

You can dry the dyed flowers immediately by pressing them in paper towels.  I glued these embellishments on with Crystal Effects–I discovered the amazing permanent gluing capabilities of this product when a bottle of it opened in my luggage coming back from Convention 2005!

There is a ‘fold out’ accordion book made from the papers included in the kit.  Actually, this didn’t even take half of all the paper and pre-adhesive dye cuts that come with the kit!  I will be posting the 6×6 memory album that I made with it (gotta take a picture!)

This is the Accordion card that I made my husband last year for Father’s Day.  The papers used are called “Weathered” from Stampin’ Up!’s “Timeworn Collection” of background papers.  They are different wood grain textured papers that are *very* realistic!

The “card” itself is a 12 x12 sheet scored in half to make it 6 inches high and scored at 3 inch intervals for 4 panels.  The link to my project gallery for this project in more detail is here.

What I did for the one I made for my husband (top) is have each panel feature one child, three photos total each child… the two on the front of the panel are of them at approx. 2 years old and then 5 years old and then current age on the pull out bookmark.  They each wrote a message to their dad on the back of the bookmark.

We made one for our Grads & Dads class this month (see second sample).  It was a bit plainer to allow for more journaling.

This is an accordion book made from the Accents & Elements “Little Reminders” stickers and the tin itself!  This is another teaser for tomorrows Stamp Festival for those of you who are attending.

This view is the back side of the album which I used the Cool Carribean & Certainly Celery cardstock as the fold out pages.  This design used quite a lot of the stickers and I LOVE this tin–once the “belly ring” slips off there is nothing but this fabulous shiny tin that cries for decorating.  I made my own “ring” from a 2 x 11 inch piece of cardstock I trimmed from one of the pages and then decorated it with the stickers.

 So, how’d I do?

I mourn the loss of Petal Prints, a wonderfully artistic set, in advance of its retirement in June. 

I am hoping that I get a similar one in it’s place and/or a combination of the Petal Prints II set (last year mini catalog) and this set “resurrected”.  I can only hope!

The colors are Always Artichoke, Kraft paper, Vintage Violet & Cranberry Crisp–again paper colors that I will miss.  I also used the “All About U” set as well.

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I love these easy to make paper “albums”!  I will be teaching this class at the ScrappingGetaway.com event in Philadelphia this weekend (and I offer it quarterly).

 This album is exactly half of a Scrappin’ Memories(tm) kit and I will be uploading the photos of all the different books that I have made with the different kits. Until then, you can view the ones on my Project Gallery which include directions on how to make them!

This is a teaser for one of our Stamp Festival projects!  You have to be there to make it.

The idea comes the inspiration by Amanda Coughlin my very talented friend from the very lovely Tampa, Florida.  If you are near Tampa, you’ve got to look Amanda up and tell her that I sent you.  They LINE UP for her classes–she has to beat them away!

She had this idea to make an accordion book with the “long notes” cards that we sell in the new Spring Mini Catalog.  She was going on and on very excited (you know… blah, blah blah,  blah blah… ) but it didn’t HIT me what she was talking about (I am a very visual person so I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about at first).  I other things I had to do (including laundry but that doesn’t really count) and couldn’t concentrate, so I tried to do what she was saying and then it did hit me!  The girl’s a genious.

Well, I guess you can figure out construction from the photo showing how the card was scored and fits into the fold over envelope.  I put a bunch of photos together to show some detail–but not all!).  My customers can construct one at my Stamp Festival in May! 

You can view Amanda’s which is a gift accordion album to her mother (very sweet) here.

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I love the “Doodle This” set!  Of course ‘Office Accoutrements’ is used all over as well.

This is a fancy cover for a (very) small white sandwich bag.  It is actually only 3 3/4 inches across, 2 inches deep and 6 inches high.  It gets a lot of mileage out of a LOT of accessories!

The “handle” is the ‘key tag’ punch and I rounded the corners and went completely punch happy with the new ‘spiral tab’ and ’round’ tab punches.  Very little coloring was necessary, I used sponges and markers.

I plan to make another one with mostly the Petals & Paisley papers but the hubby wants me to work on my taxes!