Farewell Colored Swallowtail

As you have probably already heard, Stampin' Up! is doing another color refresh. While it's always fun to have new colors to play with, the down side is saying goodbye to some colors we already love. In my case, I will miss Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Certainly Celery, Regal Rose & More Mustard the most. I decided to create a card in honor of my favorite departing colors...minus the Mustard because it just wouldn't have looked too good with the other four colors.

You cannot see so much from the photo but the main panel just shimmers when the light hits it. After stamping the butterfly & background I spritzed it with my homemade shimmer mist. To make this all you have to do is combine 70% alcohol & several drops of Frost White Shimmer Paint in a Stampin' Spritzer.

Stamps: Swallowtail, En Francais, Creative Elements & Teeny Tiny Wishes
Inks: Certainly Celery & Not Quite Navy
Card stock: Certainly Celery, Not Quite Navy, Regal Rose & Baja Breeze
Accessories: Basic Rhinestones, Frost White Shimmer Paint, Stampin' Spritzer, Needle Point Border Embossing Folder, Modern label Punch & Word Window Punch

Today is the last day to take advantage of the FREE shipping promo, so I'd recommend stocking up on your favorite colors before they are no longer available. I know that several different colors of the re-inkers have already sold out...so place your order soon!

What colors will you miss the most?

Color Refresh & FREE Shipping!

That's right! Two big announcements from Stampin' Up! this morning.

First...FREE SHIPPING!!! on all orders placed on April 6th - 8th.

Also...there's going to be a shake up within our existing four Color Families. That means saying goodbye to some of our favorites and welcoming some new colors to take their place.

I'm saddest to see Baja Breeze & Not Quite Navy go. I used those two colors often. Also sad about More Mustard which I use a lot in the fall. Certainly Celery has always been a favorite, but Pear Pizzazz is a good replacement for that one...I used to get them mixed up all the time when Pear Pizzazz was an In Color. You'll notice that quite a few existing and past In Colors will be brought into our four Color Families. I am so happy that we get to keep Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder...I LOVE those!

Make sure to place your order soon for all the color items that will be discontinued...they are available only while supplies last!

See more on the 2013 Color Refresh in this video.

Rubber Room Renovation Part II

Yesterday I shared some photos of my newly cleaned stampin' space, but since the post was getting kind of long I decided to share the rest today. I saved my favorite part of my room for last. It's the wall with my stacking cubes. I got these at Michael's when they were on sale.  For the top, I bought a white laminated shelving piece at Lowe's and had them cut it to the size I wanted. The cubes were really easy to put together...except the ones with the four drawers, they were a bit time consuming to assemble.

Even though the four drawer units were a pain to assemble, they are my favorites. They hold my Sizzix Bigz dies perfectly. The Bigz XL do not fit in the drawers, but I have them on one of the open shelves and they fit perfectly there. I labeled the drawers using some DP and then wrote the contents on white card stock and punched it out with the Word Window Punch.

I store all of my cut up pieces of card stock in the expanding file folders on top of my storage unit. Each pocket holds 2 colors and each folder holds a Color Collection. That was a big job going through and removing all the retiring colors and re-labeling the files with the new colors...but glad it's done! I now have 2 more expanding file folders to hold all my retiring colors.

Above my card stock scraps I have a french memo board that I made. It was a fun project my Mom & I did one winter day.

All it took was a piece of foam core board, fabric, batting, ribbon, hot glue & buttons or large brads. I used Build-a-Brads for mine, and stamped the centers using my Always stamp set in colors to match my room...Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise & Regal Rose. It makes a great spot to hold photographs, sketches and cards my friends & family has made for me.

Next to my cube storage is my book case which has books - of course!, my most recent photos stored in photo boxes, mini photo albums & my music.

Next time I share my stampin' space with you I hope it's because I got ambitious enough to haul everything out of there to paint and replace the hideous carpet! I would love to paint the walls a lovely shade of celery. For now, I'm just happy to have an organized space to stamp in! Thanks for joining me on my tour!

Rubber Room Renovation

Last time I posted photos of my stampin' space was right after the New Year in 2008. Since then I have made some more improvements, but never took the time to take photos and post. Over this past week I've spent most of my time in my room, BUT unfortunately NOT to stamp. With the new color renovation and the new catalog starting soon it was the kick in the butt I needed to get re-organized. While my room is still clean, I took some photos and thought I'd share my hard work with you.

Last time I posted photos of my room I ended with this comment: "The good news is...I got my things put back into place and made room to sit and stamp at my desk. The bad news is...when I sit down and look ahead, this is what I see. (insert photo of messy closet)" If you want to see my messy room photos, and what my room looked like before my latest improvements, click here.

Since I ended last time sitting at my clean desk staring at my messy closet, I'm starting with my new and improved view of my now organized closet. (you can click on any of the pics below if you want to see them enlarged)

When you walk into the closet, on the right are my collection of stamps. The overflowing shelving unit on the left are most of my retired stamps and on the right are most of the current sets in my collection. Notice that there is now some room for new stamps! ;-) (I have another couple smaller shelves near my desk where I keep my backgrounds, sentiments and alphabets...so they are within easy reach)

On the left side of my closet are these plastic stacking drawer units. I stamped the labels with Eastern Blooms to make them look prettier. These hold mostly non-SU stuff craft supplies.

My friend was moving a few years ago and gave me this awesome paper rack that she had acquired from a scrapbook store. I use it to store most of my card stock. I can fit 3 packs per shelf. I used to have this out in the main room, but I like it much better in the closet. This also helps keep the paper out of direct sunlight.

Here is a full view of my room standing in the doorway looking in.

On this side of the room the biggest improvement I made since my last room post was the rod for my punches. I store the ones I use the most on the rod and the rest are stored in this wire rack on wheels next to my desk. This rack also holds the wheel handles and some of the wheels. My big old oak desk isn't very attractive (mostly due to the previous owners attempt to add a faux finish) but it is nice and sturdy and holds a lot of stuff. I love the pull outs...especially the little shelf to my right which holds my stampin' scrub. Someday I will re-paint or perhaps strip it down to it;s natural oak. (the front was never painted and that part I like.)

Next to the punches is a holder I made for some of my most used embellishments. I took a metal sheet (not sure where it came from originally, but had it hanging around) covered it with some cute Razzleberry Lemonade paper, punched holes in the top with my Crop-a-dile and ran celery ribbon through the holes as a hanger. I glued magnets to the back of my embellishment containers and now they are at my finger tips.

My very favorite storage piece I have is for my ink storage. I bought these on line several years ago by a company called Dzyntec. Unfortunately they have since gone out of business. The four units sit on a lazy susan so it it easy to grab colors as needed. I printed up myself some little cards listing the inks by the color collection so that I can get used to what color goes where.

This is the biggest improvement I made to my room since last time. I removed the drafting table, moved my paper rack into the closet and scooted my bookshelf down the wall and added these great stackable cubes.

I'll share more photos of this side of my room tomorrow. Now time to go mess it up some! Enjoy your day!

Boho Birthday

I had one of my All Occasion Card Classes during the week. I used many stamps and colors that will be retiring at the end of the month. Those that came to my class made three each of the four designs and choose the sentiments of their choice. I think this card was the group favorite of the night.

Boho Backgrounds is such a cute little set that I'm sorry to see retire. I'll also miss Sage Shadow & Close to Cocoa. I never used Cameo Coral very often, but LOVE it in this color combo. Here are the other cards we made at my class.

I'll share more about those in the coming week. Thanks for stopping by today.

Tropical Thank You

I got my veggie garden planted and my flower beds mostly back in order, so until all the weeds start popping up, I should have a little more time for stamping! Here's a card I made with some of the retiring colors and the Tropical Party set.

These colors...Taken With Teal, Gable Green & Pixie Pink will all be retired (along with 27 other core colors and 3 of the current In Colors) at the end of this month. Let me know if you need anything...I will be placing an order at the end of the week.

Stamps: Tropical Party & Teeny Tiny Wishes
Card stock: Taken With Teal, Gable Green & Pixie Pink
Ink: Taken With Teal, Gable Green & Pixie Pink
Accessories: Square Lattice Embossing Folder, Bermuda Bay Polka Dot Grosgrain, Large & Small Oval Punches, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Word Window Punch and Lots of Labels Sizzlet

I'm busy prepping for a card class I am having here later. Will share those cards in the upcoming days...so stop by again to see me. Have a good one!

Bella Blue of the Earth

Happy Memorial Day! We've been having such gorgeous warm weather here in Michigan the past few weeks that I've been busy working in my gardens and even enjoying the pool already. However, that hasn't left me too much time for stamping. That's why I haven't posted in a while. A dear friends birthday is coming up, so I had to get busy and make her a card the other night, so I thought I'd share it with you today.

I combined the Level 1 Hostess Set, Of the Earth with some of my fav DSP, Bella Blue. I also used several soon to be retired colors...Bordering Blue, Ruby Red, and even a bit of my soon to be mourned Mellow Moss...to ink the leaves on the main image.
I hope you are all enjoying our extended holiday weekend! Thanks for spending a bit of it with me.

Loads of Birthday Bliss

Here's a birthday card I made for my son using a few past In Colors that are soon to be part of the new Color Collections due to Stampin' Up's Color Renovation.

I stamped the truck image and then masked the bed with a post it note to stamp the cake image from Birthday Bliss. I then masked the cake and stamped some gifts to fill in the rest of the bed. After I watercolored the image, I created some rims for the tires by adding some grommets and filling in the center with Crystal Effects. It doesn't show up too well in my photo, but adds a nice detail in real life.

Stamps: Loads of Love, Loads of Love Accessories and Birthday Bliss.
Card stock: Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point & Tangerine Tango
Ink: Black Stazon, Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango & various to watercolor
Accessories: Texture Plate #4, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Aquapainter, 1" & 1-1/4" circle punches, silver grommets, Crystal Effects

Thanks for stopping by...enjoy your day!

A New Look!

For quite some time now I've been wanting to update the look of my blog using My Digital Studio. The announcement of the Color Renovation was the push I needed to take some time and give my little web space a renovation as well.

We will soon be saying goodbye to my beloved Mellow Moss, the primary color of my blog before my renovation, and hello to two of my favorite returning In Colors...Baja Breeze & Riding Hood Red. I combined those two colors along with favorite green (besides Mellow Moss ;-)...Certainly Celery.

I hope you like my new updated look! I'd love to know what you think. With the lack of comments lately I wonder if anyone even looks at my blog?

ETA: Thank you for the nice comments regarding my new look! Sorry I sounded a little whiney/needy yesterday when posting about wondering if anyone even looks at my blog lately. lol With all the time I spend on this stuff, I just hate the thought that it may be time wasted. I guess sometimes we all just need a little encouragement...so thanks!

A few asked if updating the blog was complicated? Well, I'm still do some tweaking and trying to get things to look right. To me this is the hardest part, because my HTML knowledge is very limited. The actual designing of the banner and buttons was fun & easy using MDS. The hardest part there was trying to decide which elements to use!  

Hello and Goodbye

When the new Idea Book & Catalog comes out in July we will be saying hello to some new colors and goodbye to many of the colors we have known and loved for a long time. I will be sad to see some of them go, but on the other hand I am excited to have some of my favorite past In Colors back...like Baja Breeze & Riding Hood Red! I was already starting to dread the retirement of my luscious Rich Razzleberry and the fun color of Melon Mambo...but those are going to join the new Color Collections!

Of course there are several colors I'll be very sad to see leave...such as Mellow Moss (guess I'll need to change my blog banner and background now, huh? ;-) Here's a card I made that uses a color combo of a few of my fav colors leaving, along with one of the present In Colors that gets to stay.

Stamps: Season of Friendship and Hello Again
Card stock: Melon Mambo (staying!!!) Sage Shadow (leaving :-( and Whisper White
Ink: Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink, Sage Shadow and Close to Cocoa (how I will miss thee!)
Accessories: Large, Small & Scalloped Oval Punches, Top Note Die, Perfect Polka Dots Impressions Folder, White Organza Ribbon

Here is a list of all the colors that will be leaving us at the end of June. (click to enlarge)

I'm sure if you are like me, there are certain colors you are really going to miss, I suggest that you purchase reinkers for your ink pads and any card stock and accessories you think you will need for future projects. That is what I plan to do. Here are the gorgeous new Color Collections. (click to enlarge)

Aren't the new collections gorgeous? I can't wait to see and create with the brand new colors...Daffodil Delight, Crumb Cake, Cajun Craze, Cherry Cobbler, Marina Mist & Early Espresso in real life!