My Stamping Garage

Finally Done!!

I have been a bit absent on posting over the past coulple of months. I have been re-doing my stamp room. What a HUGE task that has been! I certainly wouldn't have chosen to do this during my busy travel season, Sale-a-bration and tax season, but that is just how the timing worked out. Sometimes you take what you can get! I got a great deal on some shelving units when our local Linens and Things went out of business and sold off their display units. With some modifications by my dear hubby, they fit wonderfully into my room. Of course this involved moving EVERYTHING out of the room - not a small task when you have accumulated 9 + years worth of supplies!

After much pitching, sorting and saying good-bye to many of my beloved stamping supplies, I finally have gotten eveything organized and put into place! What a sanctuary this has become! I feel so peaceful when I walk into this room now!

Here is a sample of my new studio. It finally really FEELS like a studio, so now I feel like I can call it that - ha!

 

 

Behind the cabinets you see here, I have my office space. I am still working on that, so I am not sharing those pictures yet  - I love that I have a semi separate office space within the same room. It is easy access, but I am not always staring at my desk.

Now that I have my room completed, I will be able to STAMP again!!  I have missed it SO MUCH!

Stay tuned.....

KIM

Birthday Gift

Okay, my family outdid themselves this year for my birthday! My husband took several of the kids' artwork that we had saved from over the years, and had them framed to put on our wall. What an awesome gift!

I have to share the picture that my daughter made for me for my birthday. My 16 year old drew this. She used various Stampin' Up! products to make the picture. I just LOVE IT!!

 

See how many SU products you can identify!

This will be hanging in a very prominent place in my Stamp Room!!

KIM

Spring Basket

Here is a fun basket that I used as an Easter Basket, but would also make a great May Day basket, or even a cute place setting for a Mother/daughter banquet.

 

You start by cutting out 4 of the scallop edge envelopes using the big shot dye.

Put the envelopes together by adhering the tab on one envelope to the side of the next envelope. Do this all the way around with all 4 envelopes. This will create the box. (I did this using barely banana card stock).Fold the flaps on the bottom up to form the bottom of the box. I adhered a 3.25 x 3.25 piece of banana card stock into the inside bottom of the box and the outside bottom of the box to make it sturdy. Next, I ran 2 pieces of 2.25 x 7 inch more mustard card stock through the big shot using the checked texture plate. I attached those to the outside of the "box" using sticky strip (the card stock will overlap - be sure to overlap so that the seams are not on the front of the basket.) Next,adhere the flaps of the scalloped envelopes down to the sides of your basket using sticky strip. 

Next, I took a 1.5 x 11 inch piece of more mustard card stock and punched each side using the eyelet border punch. I then attached this handle to the inside of the box using sticky strip. The flower embellishment was made using the daisy die with the big shot. The colors used were eggplant envy, orchid opulence and pink pirouette. I attached the flower using a round pink rhinestone brad from the circle fire rhinestone brad set.

This basket would also be fun using the pink and red checked paper from the Bella rose DSP set. It would then look like a picnic basket.

Have fun trying different combinations!

KIM

Tutorial - Matting using the eyelet border punch

This is a fun discovery I made when showing a fellow stamper a technique.

First - take a 2 5/8 inch x 2 5/8 inch square of cardstock.

Using the eyelet border punch, punch the first edge of the cardstock (centering the cardstock onto the center of the punch.

 

Turn your cardstock and continue to punch each edge, centering the carstock onto the center of the punch for each edge.

 

When you finish, you will have 2 new shapes to play with!!

 

The piece with the eyelet border works great to mat the new scallop oval punch

or the scallop square punch

 

or the curly label punch

Here are some samples I made with each shape. I didn't spend any time on these samples, so please don't judge the artwork. I simply wanted to show the various shapes in use.

 

  

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Kim

Aloha- I am alive!

I am finally back!  The last couple of months have been an extreme whirlwind!!  I totally remodeled my stamp studio and sorted through all of my 10 years of retired stamp sets and paper, etc..... I am going to be having a whopping garage sale this spring!!!

In the middle of remodeling, My husband and I went on the Stampin' Up! incentive trip to Hawaii!  What a fantastic trip!!  Between watching the whales with their calves swimming and jumping out in front of the resort, and snorkeling in a bay where there was a pod of wild dolphins swimming with us, life was pretty great!! Of course Stampin' Up! treated us like royalty as usual!  What an awesome company to work with!!

This was where we came to check in with Stampin' Up! when we arrived. They had fresh iced tropical juice for us when we got to the bottom of the stairs - what a treat!

 

This was the view that greated us from the balcony of our room! It was breathtaking! Looking the other direction, we could see the ocean through the palm trees.

As soon as I returned - you guessed it - the dreaded taxes!!!!  If I was a wonderfully organized person like so many of my friends, it wouldn't be such a big deal come April, but of course, I am not - so it is (a big deal). BUT - I am FINALLY done!  So here I am,finally updating my blog for the first time in weeks.  For those of you that had started to follow my blog - I apologize for the long period of abscence! I am going to try to get back into the routine of updating at least 2-3 times each week again. With all I had been doing, I really hadn't had a lot of time to create - so I actually didn't have much to share!  I finally got to play with my new toys again in the past couple of days - so here goes.

The first project I want to share is one of my latest layouts from my scrapbook club. This is a 12 x 12, 2-page spread made with the Sunshine Garden Simply scrappin kit.

  

Here is another scrapbook layout using some of the new large gromets and the great friends set from the Occasions mini catalog.

 

Be sure to check back tomorrow. I will be doing a tutorial on something new that I discovered when I was playing!  Lots of fun! See you tomorrow!! Aloha!

KIM