Lift Me Up On Cloud Nine

Happy Friday! Here we are...the last Friday of 2016! It seems unreal just how fast this year has flown by! It flew by almost as swiftly as a hot air balloon...like that segue?! ;-)

Well, that segue may not have been the best...but this bundle sure is! I think if I were told I could only select ONE (that would be awful hard to just pick one! lol) bundle from the entire Occasions Catalog it would be the Lift Me Up Bundle...but I LOVE hot air balloons! Luckily for me, nobody told me I only had to select one bundle because there is a LOT of great new product available in the Occasions Catalog starting on January 4th.

The Up & Away Thinlits Dies are really cool...I love that I can cut the super detailed balloon as well as sections of solid pieces to layer behind it. It sure makes paper piecing easy! The hardest thing was trying t decide on colors. I chose a couple of the colors used from the awesome Cupcakes and Carousels DSP Stack. The patterns in this stack are great, and have a vintage feel to them which I love.

This is more than likely the last post of the year for me. I hope 2016 was a good year for you and I hope 2017 is even better! I wish you much happiness, good health and lots of creativity in the New Year!

Baby's 1st Year Album

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We had a lovely few days with family here in Michigan. I've been pretty busy the past few weeks working on Christmas projects and haven't had a chance to share anything here. One of the projects I had been working on is a 6x8 scrapbook to record the highlights of our grand daughters first year. (she's due to arrive very soon!)

I wanted a small leather album (in pink of course!) that will hold up to little hands flipping through the book over and over when she's old enough. (my boys always loved looking at their albums of baby pictures) Unfortunately SU! doesn't offer the album I had in mind so the one I used is from Simple Stories. Here's a look at some of the pages...

I used a combination of SU! products - current and retired mixed with Echo Park Bundle of Joy papers.

I used some photos from her gender reveal party...

as well as from the baby shower.

I used temporary adhesive to hold the embellishments in place until we have photos to add.

I did some paper piecing on the house and trees. I love the way they turned out. I also used the Flower Patch stamp set along with the coordinating Flower Fair Framelits.

Then for each month there is a spot for her monthly photo as well as other cute photos,

and cards to journal those highlights.

I used the Layering Circle Framelits, retired Little Number Framelits and the Labeler Alphabet to create the little badge for each month.

For the 8 month page I used a new Sale-a-Bration set called Delicate Details to create the border along the bottom. Here's a closer look.

The Echo Park Bundle of Joy papers have several colors that are a good match to SU! colors. So I used Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose & Sage Shadow throughout the album. Good thing I still had those retired colors in my  stash!

As you can imagine, we are very much looking forward to the arrival of our first grandchild! I'm sure I will be posting many scrapbook pages featuring her in the future!

Cake Crazy & Balloon Adventures

Oh my goodness! I've been so busy with Christmas festivities and preparations that I haven't had any spare time to blog or stamp! I'm sure you all can relate! I actually did really good this year on getting my cards finished and in the mail early (for me!). I took photos of the 4 cards I designed and mass produced (about a dozen of each) to share here....but then deleted them off my camera thinking I had already uploaded them! Three of the designs were ones I shared here previously, but the fourth was something new...and I sent them all!

Oh well...on to other fun stuff! I received my pre-order box of goodies from the upcoming Occasions and Sale-a-Bration Catalogs! MERRY Christmas to me! Other than looking at everything and putting it away I haven't had time to play. waaa waaa! However, I did take time to make one card for a dear friends birthday.

The Cake Crazy stamp set is going to be a lot of fun to create colorful cards for both guys and girls! I used the color combo of Watermelon Wonder, Bermuda Bay, Pear Pizzazz & Pool Party for this card. Because I didn't have much time, I was in a hurry and dropped a stamp...which of course landed on the Whisper White background with my finished cake...#@%!!! So to salvage the cake I had to fussy cut it all out, but it ended up looking super cute popped up on the embossed background. But...the really fun part of this card is on the inside...

I used the new Balloon Pop-Up Thinlits Dies and Balloon Adventures stamp set. How fun is this!? There are some really great pieces included in both the dies and stamp set. I love the "PARTY ON! saying...it reminds me of Wayne & Garth! LOL

Actually, while I thought both were cute, it didn't make my "must have list" until I saw this video...


I may not have time to get another post in before the holidays, so if that ends up being the case...HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!!!

Flippin' Flashback Friday: Joyous Snowflake Card

Happy Friday! Today's card is a double Flashback Friday! Before SU! retired all the flip card dies, I used to share flip cards on most Fridays and I called those posts Flippin' Friday. Recently I started sharing creations using some of my favorite retired items and I call it Flashback Friday...anyways...today's card uses retired items along with some current items as well!

Remember the Letterpress Winter stamp set with the coordinating Snowflake Card Thinlits? These great products were featured in the 2014 Holiday Catalog, but they are brand new to me! I purchased them last year (I think?) when they were either on Stampin' Up!'s Clearance Rack or another sale of some sort. They had been on my wish list, but I hadn't ended up getting them. Seeing them on such a great discount I just couldn't pass them up!

Yesterday Stampin' Up! released their Year End Closeout Sale...featuring many items at reduced prices! There are all sorts of items - some will be retiring from the current Holiday Catalog, some over-stock merchandise that is being offered at much reduced prices from the current annual catalog, as well as retired Clearance Rack merchandise. It is definitely worth a look to see if there is anything there you have been wanting! Check it out!

The flip side of the card uses a sentiment from the current Christmas Pines set. I masked over it before lightly stamping the large snowflake. It is stamped high enough to leave room to sign the card. I also used the tiny snowflake and dot image from the Christmas Pines set inked in Whisper White to stamp over the snowflakes on the left panel of the card. The right panel is embossed with a pretty snowflake and swirl embossing folder...it's not SU!, but it's so pretty I HAD to have it! (I believe I picked it up at Michaels.)

The gorgeous Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper along with the Fancy Frost Sequins make this card sparkle! Have a wonderful weekend!