Valentine's Day is coming soon!

Next week I'll be teaching a card class for teens. My daughter's friends are signed up but there is still room for more! We'll be making five different Valentine's cards and having some healthy snacks. Check out my class schedule at www.desiree.stampinup.net. This card is just one of the designs. I used Blush Blossom, Whisper White, Ruby Red and Cameo Coral along with Ginger Blossom DSP and white taffeta ribbon. The stamp sets are All Holidays and Mark the Date.

Whew! Life has really kept me busy lately. My 2007 hostess appreciation breakfast went really well. People who know me know I am not into cooking at all, but I did it. We had a broccoli quiche (recipe found on http://www.allrecipes.com/), a fruit salad, blueberry muffins from scratch, and sausage. We mixed up an awesome punch. And I used lowfat ingredients, except the butter, heeheehee. So after munching we made a cool card mentioned in my previous blog. I gave them some small gifts, the Sale-a-Bration catalog and we chatted up a storm.

It was really nice to entertain. Now I am off to uploading my cards into my Splitcoast gallery. Look for a link to that soon. Toodles!

A True Friend

My hostesses are true friends and this is the card we'll be making at my 2007 Hostess Appreciation Brunch. The flower is inspired Mary Jo Albright's unique use of punches. Check out her blog!

Purely Pomegranate and Pretty in Pink rule the day for colors. I actually made several Valentine's cards for a teen card class I am having in a couple weeks so I was up to my elbows in pinks, and peaches, and pomegranates!

This card also uses Whisper White, Purely Pomegranate ribbon, Build A Brad, and Bali Breeze DSP.

I gotta run back to work!

Birthday Bonanza

Every January I like to have a Birthday Bonanza class because january is my birthday month plus since it's the beginning of the year it seems like a good time to stock up on some cards and packaging to be ready for upcoming birthdays. Last Thursday is when I held this class and we made three sets of cards with matching packaging. The first card was made with the Seeing Spots stamps, On the Spot background, Basic Black and Real Red inks plus red brads. For the wrapping paper we used the matching wheel. The words are from the All Holidays set. I love the red, white, and black combo because it is so striking. I designed the second card using Beate's weekend challenge #30 and the Splitcoast color challenge CC148. We used Time Well Spent, Print Pattern background, Blue Bayou, Barely Bananas, and Wild Wasabi. We stamped a gift bag to match. I love this color combo. You can't really see it but the flower is glittered up a bit. And we used a sponge dauber for the flower centers on the bag. The bag also has a simple topper of Blue Bayou cardstock with the ribbon weaved through it. Last but not least was our Eat Cake card. Along with we made a cake shaped box and a bow to match. Colors used on this set were Purely Pomegranate and Tempting Turquoise. Add a little glitter and you've made a really cute card. I learned how to make the bow on Mary Jo Albright's blog. I can't begin to tell you how talented she is. The cake box is from a template on the Stampin' Up! demonstrators Web site. This weekend I am off to a girl's weekend with my BFFs Susan and Jennifer. We'll be crafting, seeing movies, eating, and best of all giggling! To those of you that visit this blog, thank you!!!!

Coaster calendars!

This weekend I have been finishing up my New Years cards and will finally get them in the mail on Monday. I am including this cute magnetic coaster calendar for my customers. I cased them from Erika Martin's blog.

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Recipe for cards and calendars: stamps - A Beautiful Thing and All Holidays; paper - Old Olive, Soft Sky; River Rock, Ruby Red, and Fall Flowers DSP; white grosgrain ribbon, white brads.

Wow, Stampin' Up! has updated demonstrator's Web site for customers. Take a look at mine: http://www.desiree.stampinup.net/. I hope you like it. I've listed my classes for January and February, you can find current promotions, and creative projects. It's fun!

So I have taken photos of a bunch of projects and put them into a slide show (at right). You'll probably notice that I was inspired by MJ Albright, Erika Martin and others for some of the project ideas.

You've probably seen Dew Drops enhancing card designs all over the place. Well, I just love them. I found a link to Ellen Hutson's online shop: http://www.ellenhutson.com/ and she has Dew Drops! I am definitely going to order some.

Next weekend I will be having a 2007 Hostess Appreciation Brunch for the fabulous ladies that have hosted workshops for me this year. If you have some fun ideas that I can do for this event, please leave a comment. Meanwhile, here's the invitation I sent out.

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Recipe: stamps - Time Well Spent; paper - Blush Blossom, Whisper White, Old Olive, Ginger Blossom DSP; ink and marker - Ruby Red, Groovy Guava, Pretty in Pink; rhinestone brad

It's a brand new year!

Wow! Here I am blogging. Six months ago I was saying to myself "what's all the fuss about?" Blogging is for geeks anyway, right? NOT! About 2 months ago I happened on to a blog, I don't even know how I got there but it was a stampers blog. Then I started jumping around from blog to blog. I was truly amazed at all the creativity out there. It boggled my mind. Projects and stamps and tutorials and stuff I hadn't seen before. Crazy and exhilirating and the hours slipped by as I added blog after blog to my favorites. Then almost daily I was checking them out for their latest posts. Next I was trying the projects. So in December amidst a move, a computer crash, Christmas and all that entails, I decided I wanted to do "that". So here I am. I don't know if my creativity will be inspiring (I hope it will) or my writing will be interesting, but I am going to give this a try. Bare with me as I learn the technical stuff to making this blog attractive and useful. You'd think that managing my department's web site would give me an edge. I guess what I really need is more time -- isn't that what we all need? With that I will close post number 1. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!