Hi stampers!  It's day SIX of the blog hop, wow!  Today's post is kind of short.  I have one project but it's super cute!  But it's a bad picture!  I took these before we left for Thanksgiving and this one didn't turn out so great!  I'm so sorry!

But you can't deny that the Myths & Magic suite is perfect for scrapbooking!  Ian is obsessed with dragons (especially the How To Train Your Dragon movies) so this was so perfect.  His grandparents brought him a little wooden sword from Portugal and he calls it his dragon slayer, LOL!  He also has a couple of dragon stuffed animals and those are usually the two (out of many he sleeps with) that he wants to bring down with him in the morning.  So here is my little dragon slayer!


Again, sorry for the terrible angle, I must have forgotten to take a better one!  The DSP was the perfect focal point for this page!  I could have even cut some out had I been so inclined (but you know I'm a lazy stamper lol).  A bit of washi tape and glimmer paper from the suite made the perfect little accents.  That DSP is pretty busy, so I wanted to keep it simple elsewhere.

Make sure to come back Sunday for the final day of the hop and don't forget to hop on over to Charlet  right now!

div style="text-align: center;"> Cathy Caines
Diane Browning

Denita Wright-Smee

Stesha Bloodhart

Carolynn Sander

Aurelie Fabre

Josie Dean

Danielle Bennenk

Hi stampers!  I couldn't figure out what to share today as I was out of pre-edited projects.  As I was browsing my phone for photos, I came across the album I embellished the other day so I can put my project life pages from this month in as I get them done.  I'm trying to work little by little all month :-)

I love Project Life!  It's so easy to keep your memories without having to spend a ton of time on complicated scrapbook pages and it's CUTE!  Even if you don't memory keep or scrap much (or at all) Christmas is the prefect time to make an exception and the Hello December kits make it so simple!

I've never decorated one of my albums before but I'm glad I did because it turned out SO flipping cute!


Sorry about the shadow in the picture.  I have to work on my photography skills a little!

Here's how I decorated my album:

• I stamped the little stars from the accessory kit stamp set in white craft ink and added a few of the adhesive stars.
• The main panel is one of the PL cards and I overlayed it with one of the acetate cards from the accessory pack (the 2016).
• To help the overlay stay down I added some of the washi tape in the accessory pack
• I cut a few pine branches from emerald envy and then the mistletoe sprig is vellum (pretty pines thinlits).  I layered those behind a stitched shape.
• And finally, I added one of the wood trees from the accessory pack. 

I'll share a few of my pages soon!

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  Is anyone else thinking that it's crazy that Thanksgiving is NEXT week already?  Whoa!  Anyway, I'm sharing more display samples today!  Today I'm going to show you scrapbook pages I did.

For this page I used the all year long kit.  The bottom card is actually one of the larger cards with a 3x4 card on top of it.  The leaf is from the accessory pack.  Project life makes is quick and easy to make gorgeous pages that really focus on the photos!


My second page had to be Christmas, right? Two of my 2x2 squares are just regular card stock that I embossed.  Don't forget that you can make your own PL inserts!  The emerald ribbon is a little sneak peek!  It's so pretty!  And the other great thing about PL is that you can play around with your layout until it's just right.  I just laid my squares out on top of the page and moved them around until I felt they were balanced.  I didn't have to worry about gluing them down in the "wrong" spot!


And finally, a traditional scrap page.  The places you'll go set makes a great scrapbook page!  I heat embossed the globe on some watercolor paper and then just colored away.  And project life grid cards make it easy to journal...even if you don't like your handwriting ;-)

Hi stampers!  I'm back with my final batch of display samples or stamples as I've been known to call them!  But first I just wanted to say what a huge honor it was to be chosen to do this and work along side some wickedly talented artists!  Here we all (I hope all of us) while setting up the boards and a big thanks to Linda Heller for the picture!  How amazing do those boards look back there????  Gah!!!!


And here's a shout out to all of the stampers who were at the local events!  They may not be in the picture but they created some awesome stuff as well!  If you missed it on my previous post, you can find a joint Pinterest board with our samples HERE which includes our international friends!

So, watermelon wonder is our color for the day.  I resisted this color for quite a while but earlier this year I started to warm up to it and utilize it more!  My first project uses some new DSP from the affectionally yours suite.   This paper has kind of soft prints on one side and more bold designs on the other and then two sheets are metallic but we'll get to those later on.  Again, this card is a simple sketch but I wanted to make sure most of my projects were easy to reproduce.



Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Endless thanks
Paper:  Whisper white, daffodil delight, night of navy, watermelon wonder, affectionally yours specialty DSP
Ink:  Night of navy, watermelon wonder
Accessories:  Metallic foil doilies, watermelon wonder 5/8" min striped ribbon

Next up is a little 3D pouch that I created with one of the fun copper metallic prints.  I just found a template online and printed it out then traced it on the back of the paper (the foil prints are only one sided) and cut it out.  There are TONS of templates if you search google or Pinterest!  The doily is actually one of the metallic ones just turned backwards so that the white from the back side shows.  You can see how shiny that paper is near the bottom.  It's very pretty!  This pouch would hold a gift card or maybe a sweet treat ;-)



Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Sunburst sayings
Paper:  Watermelon wonder, 2015-2017 in color DSP stack, affectionally yours specialty DSP
Ink: Watermelon wonder
Accessories:  Foil metallic doilies, linen thread, watermelon wonder 5/8" min striped ribbon

I have one more scrap page for you and I have to apologize for a few reasons here.  Sadly, it is the same layout as my other page but I saved these until the last minute and didn't know that my Selphy photo printer only came with ink for FIVE photos initially so I only had two photos printed out and no time to get more ink or get more photos printed.  I had planned a 12 x 12 with this layout and at least three pictures but that  didn't pan out which may have been a good thing since the boards were REALLY full of amazing projects :-)  This page is 8 x 8.  And also, I need to apologize for totally spacing out and using the wrong Project Life kit on this project.  Somehow I got totally messed up and thought the kit from the Occasions catalog was carrying over when if fact it was not.  I'm so sorry!  But, you could swap in elements from the one that did so you get the idea I suppose ;-)  The letters are from the accessory kit as well as the banners which I cut from cards and the journal card.  I hope I'm not fired!!!!  But I wanted to show that you can still do traditional scrapbooking with Project Life!



Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  None!
Paper: Basic black, tempting turquoise, daffodil delight, watermelon wonder
Ink:  Daffodil delight
Accessories:  Memories in the making project life kit and accessory kit (NOT carrying over from Occasions catalog to the annual catalog, sorry again), sunburst thinlit

And finally my favorite watermelon project.  The colors turned out a little bright in this photo but it is watermelon wonder.  And this paper is gorgeous!  I normally shy away from night of navy but it's so pretty here!  This is the other page of specialty paper and has copper accents.  I mixed my metallics with the doily which was scary (hehe) but totally worked!


Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps: Greatest greetings
Paper:  Night of navy, watermelon wonder, affectionally yours specialty DSP
Ink: Watermelon wonder
Accessories:  Metallic foil doilies, watermelon wonder 5/8" min striped ribbon

And there you have it!  All five groups of my display samples or stamples;-)  I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed creating them and sharing them with you!  And don't forget to check out the Pinterest board for the display stampers!

And please come back and visit often!  I'm going to be trying some new things to try soon and you won't want to miss it!

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  I'm back with another group of display samples.  Today we're going to focus on delightful dijon.  I've heard from many people that they kind of despise this color!  I have to say that I rather like it but I also loved summer starfruit, which people also tended to love or HATE ;-)

My first few projects are rather simple.  I went simple because while I wanted to create WOW projects each and every time, I also wanted to do some really simple and easy projects that could be quickly and easily duplicated ;-)

So, onto my first card which uses the sitting here stamp set (the one with the porch swing), some super simple coloring with markers and that's pretty much it!


Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Sitting here
Paper:  Very vanilla, tip top taupe, delightful dijon
Ink: Staz on, various markers for coloring
Accessories: None!

Next up is another simple card but I really like it!  I used the sunburst and dots from kinda eclectic. I stamped the sunburst on the dijon base and then again on the white circle.  It took a minute to line them up but you can do it if you just spin it a bit.  I also really like the combination of dijon and black.  It's bold without being overwhelming.  It was a little plain so I added some rhinestones and they really stepped it up!


Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Kinda eclectic, sunburst sayings
Paper: Whisper white, basic black, delightful dijon, 2015-2017 in color DSP stack
Ink:  Basic black, delightful dijon
Accessories:  Basic rhinesones, 5/8" mini striped ribbon

Next up is a scrapbook page.  Can I just say how excited I was for the first time doing stamping for SU that I FINALLY had my on kiddo to use pictures of!!!! :-D  We went to the park back in November and I knew they would be the perfect photos to use with dijon!   I also really like the cute little saying on the acorn as my "title" as I really am nuts about this guy ;-)  It's also a great way to make a title...I think a lot of people get stuck on SB pages and thinking about traditional titles....Any sentiment stamp can be your title!  My background patterns are with the perpetual birthday calendar stamp as well as the date.



Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Acorny thank you, perpetual birthday calendar
Paper:  Very vanilla, crumb cake, soft suede, delightful dijon
Ink:  Delightful dijon, soft suede
Accessories:  Metallic foil doilies, linen thread, acorn punch, 5/8" mini striped ribbon, handheld stapler

Finally, this is one of my favorite projects of all.  The new in color ribbon is very nice!  I just folded it up on itself and used my handheld stapler to hold it.   Dijon and daffodil are maybe an unlikely pair but they work nicely together!



Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Sunburst sayings
Paper:  Daffodil delight, delightful dijon, 2015-2017 in color DSP stack
Ink:  Versamark, delightful dijon
Accessories:  White embossing powder, basic rhinestones, sunburst thinlit, 5/8" mini striped ribbon

That's it for today!  Make sure to check back for the final group!

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  Happy Tuesday!  I think it might just be a good week.  I got an email yesterday that I'd won a $500 gift card from Birchbox after entering a sweepstake a while back on FaceBook!  OHMYGOSH!  Seriously?  $500?????  I never expected to win and when I got the email I figured it would be like $25 or something, lol!  Anyway, I'm taking it a good sign for the week.  And I could use some good luck.  I'm having some medical stuff done tomorrow so if you wouldn't mind sending me some good vibes and prayers they would be appreciated.

Anyway onto the new challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments.  This week is a funky color challenge!


This color combo seemed very manly to me and I realized it coordinated so well with the pictures I'd taken of my new 12 week old cousin Karsen who we met this weekend.  So I used MDS to create this cute page!


See, cute right? :-)   I may be biased though.  He is such a happy baby.  He was fussing a little when we got to my aunt's while he was getting his diaper changed and my mom said it was the first time she's ever heard him cry, haha!  And I guess he doesn't nap too much but being the baby whisperer that I am he fell asleep...I could have held him all day by the way, lol....but I hope his mom and dad weren't too mad at me if he didn't sleep well that night.  He was too cute and cuddly to wake up :-)

Now, go check out all the bright and fun projects from the design team and play along!

Happy stamping!

...application...try out?  Hi stampers!  So Stampin' Up is looking for display stampers for future events!  How fun!  Of course I have to audition or apply or try out...what to call it?  Hehe!  This has been a good warm up for the Artisan contest of as well.  We have to submit 3 cards, 2 3-D items and a scrap page....so here are my entries (warning...this is kind of long)!

This little box was inspired by the one in the catalog but I wanted to take it a little further.  So, I used the yummy pool party embossing powder to dress up the bottom of the box a little (I can't tell you how much I love that stuff).  I also jazzed up the flower a bit by poking the brad through not only the pool party flower but one of the little flower trim flowers as well.  I think it's so cute!  I also added a little ribbon leaf.  It's such a cute little box and really didn't take 5 minutes to put together even with the embossing with a little help from my SAMJ!
For my second 3-D item I have another flower item but it's spring or at least it's supposed to be even if it doesn't feel it weather wise and spring means flowers!  And flowers make me think of my momma so I made her a fabric brooch for Mother's Day.  The more amore fabric was perfect because her favorite colors are red and blue.  The silicone craft mat made this so easy to put together with a little hot glue!
Stampin' Supplies:
Accessories:  More amore designer fabric, sycamore street ribbon & button pack (SAB), large basic pearls, gumball green stitched satin ribbon, fun flowers die

I'm kind of on a roll with the pop up posies kit!  It's probably one of my favorite items in the mini catalog and maybe one of my top picks of all time!  It's just so fun and cute and can be used in so many more ways than just some tags!  So, I decided I'd try to use parts of it on most of my projects.

As soon as I saw the little "cupcake liner" flowers I immediately thought of one of my all time favorite flowers...the daffodil.  So of course I had to make my own daffodil.  It makes the perfect Easter card!
I love this next card and the bottle caps!  They are so fun to smash in the big shot and then pop something fun into the middle!  I also love the little pennant stamp from collage curios and thought it would work great with the patio party paper!  My sentiment is actually from the bitty banners stamp set.  I just carefully inked it as to not get the banner border which I didn't want.
Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Collage curios, itty bitty banners
Paper:  Whisper white, baja breeze, midnight muse, summer starfruit, patio party DSP
Ink:  Baja breeze, midnight muse, summer starfruit, primrose petals (markers)
Accessories:  Soda pop tops, 1" circle punch, 1-3/4" scalloped circle punch, argyle embossing folder, primrose petals stitched satin ribbon, apothecary accents framelits, basic rhinestones

For my final card I wanted to do something more clean and simple...and of course use something else from the pop-up posies kit, ha!  I found the oval famelits work PERFECT in the kraft colored labels!

Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Feel goods, Oh, hello
Paper:  Whisper white, calypso coral
Ink:  So saffron, calypso coral, island indigo
Accessories:  Oval framelits, pop-up posies kit, vintage faceted designer buttons, linen thread

And finally we have my scrap page.  I used the you are my sunshine single stamp since my photo was of my and my hubby at a beach on our honeymoon!  The page is a BIT bright so I used a black and white photo as to not be TOO overwhelming:-)  The Oh, whale stamp set added some nice little waves!  I also added some glimmer paper to my sun rays and really liked the way it turned out! So sunny!
Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps:  Sunshine (single stamp), Oh, whale
Paper:  Whisper white, daffodil delight, pool party, island indigo, summer smooches DSP, floral district DSP. brights DSP stack, champaign glimmer paper
Ink:  Daffodil delight, pool party, island indigo (ink and markers)
Accessories:  labels collection framelits

Whew!  Ok, I think that's it!  Thanks for sticking with me and wish me good luck:-)

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  It's Tuesday...which means I have four straight days of late nights at work and a game on Saturday.....sigh....this working thing is really getting in the way of stamping, geez!  :-)  At least it also means it's time for a new challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments!  This week is a theme challenge and what else could we do but PUMPKINS!
Which is quite perfect since the hubby and I went to a BIG pumpkin patch this past weekend.  We actually went with my brother in law and his fiancé and her kids!  It was fun to go to a patch with kids and not just the two of us:-)

Stampin' Supplies:  MDS2

So, I came up with this quick scrapbook page with a cute picture that Jon snapped on his phone.  I just downloaded the fancy frames and this was the perfect time to use them!

And what's awesome is that with MDS2 you can re-color things.  This frame started out hot pink (I think) and I was able to change it to summer starfruit with just two clicks!  All you do is click recolor and pick the color you want!  You can also recolor DSP!  Awesome!  AND also, one of the new features that was just released (make sure to update your software if you haven't) was to be able to crop punches.  My pumpkins are a punch that I filled with DSP.  I then used another pumpkin punch in soft suede and cropped off all but the stem and lined them up....well tried...I see now that I did a bad job so please excuse that and I'll have to go back and fix it before I get this page printed:-)

Now head on over and see what the rest of the team came up with and play along with us!

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  It's day eight already of our blog hop!  You probably just came from Tara's blog where you saw her fabulous creation!  If not, don't fret...we make a big loop so you can see everything!

I've got my final scrapbook page to show you today.  Now, the scrapbook pages were probably the hardest thing for me and not because I have a hard time scrapping (I just don't do it as often as I should) but because we couldn't use any pictures of ourselves to make the judging objective.  Well, without kids who/what the heck was I supposed to use? LOL!  But, my cousin had just had a baby and I had the cutest pictures of her so the timing could not have been better!  Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have my own baby to use when I enter next year!!!! :-)
This is my hybrid page where I combined MDS with traditional scrapping.  I added some wisteria wonder polka dot brads to the title and a very vanilla button with baker's twine to the journaling.  I wanted to keep it simple for obvious reasons...who would want to overwhelm that sweet face:-)  I pulled my colors from the photo, both the tone of the photo and then her cute hat...who cousin Mindy just happened to get her, hehe.  I used some overlays over the whole page to make it kind of soft/vintage although I can't remember all the exact downloads I used.  As for the photo I edited it on my phone using instagram.  I just love that app and it's GREAT for scrapping and making your photos look cool!   Ok, so now I want to go visit my cousin and hold little (or not so little anymore) Kyleigh:-)

And I have to laugh as I think about the last two projects I have for you....they are both baby themed...think I have something on my mind???  LOL!

Now head on over to Connie's blog to see what awesome creation she's got for you today! And here's the list in case you missed anything!  Come back tomorrow ok!

1:  Connie Collins 
2:  Holly VanDyne
3:  Melissa Stout
4:  Amy O'Neill
5:  Sandie Conner
6:  Amy Rogers
7:  Mercedes Weber
8:  Tara (Murphy) Bougroin
9:  Mindy Bingamon (You are here)

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  It's day two of the Artisan Finalist blog tour!  You probably just came from the super talented Tara's blog! Wasn't her project cute???  Now don't worry if you didn't come from her blog or you get lost on the tour....I'll have a list of all the stops at the bottom of the post!

Today I thought I'd show you my favorite scrap page from my entries.  This page is a 8 x 8 size and is a traditional scrap page.  I did one traditional page, one digital page and then one hybrid page so we'll start with the tried and true.  The reason it's my favorite page out of all three is because it features my momma:-)  She looked absolutely gorgeous at our wedding so I've been wanting to scrap this pic for a while now.  I chose the summer smooches paper because she loves bright colors and I knew she'd like it and her dress was purple and went with the colors perfectly!
Now, pay no attention to the date...I totally wrote the date on the journaling as 2012 instead of 2010...oops:-)  Anyway, I used a lot of different sets for the words and a lot of punches and dies for the flowers!  And I have to say my momma is all of these things!  :-)  Love you mom!

I have to laugh because my mom kept telling me I was going to win because of this page...because of her that is, ha!  She did keep telling me I was going to win and I didn't even dream of making the finals so I guess she might know what she's talking about some days!  I do feel bad for scaring her though....we were in Vegas when I got the phone call letting me know I was a finalist and I was crying when I called her to tell her the good news.  Oops:-)  Had to quickly reassure her they were HAPPY tears!  Oh and the other thing she told me (well texted me) after I sent her the photo of the finished page is that she wanted it, ha!  She was sad I had to send it off to Utah so I'll probably have to remake this one!  I should probably get to work on that!

Now keep on hopping over to Connie's blog if you haven't already and check out her cute project!  And if you started with Connie then you should have seen all of us!  But just in case you get lost here is a list of us hoppers:
1:  Connie Collins
2:  Holly VanDyne
3:  Melissa Stout
4:  Amy O'Neill
5:  Sandie Conner
6:  Amy Rogers
7:  Mercedes Weber
8:  Tara (Murphy) Bougroin
9:  Mindy Bingamon (You are here)


Thanks for visiting and come back tomorrow for more projects!


Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  Oy!  It's been a day here so this post will be short!  Long story short my car is now the milk mobile....I got in it this morning only to find that a gallon of milk got left in it while I was gone over the weekend.  And it's been over 100 degrees....and it exploded so you can imagine how wonderful my car smells!  So my evening was spent dealing with that....but....

It's time for a new challenge over at HSS and it's perfect for the HOT weather we have been having!


And here's something fun from our honeymoon!


Supplies:  My digital studio

I love MDS and totally need to use it more!  AAAANNNNDDD....MDS2 should be released on August 1st!  I got to preview it at convention and it's AWESOME!  It's so much better and easier to see and use!  You can see double spreads and it's all sleek looking with a black background!  There's a splatter tool too AND you can recolor parts of stamps with a marker tool!!!!! Oh and change the color of DSP's...and that's just a few things!  A bunch of the SU employee's had on shirts with numbers and each with a different feature of MDS2, it was so fun!  I should have tried to take a pic of each one, ha!

Anyway, go check out the rest of the team's projects and play along with us....this is very fitting for my life right now...life's a beach;-)

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  Happy Tuesday!  It's time for a new challenge over at Hand Stamped Sentiments!  Join us this week for a BANNER BASH!!!


This week is all about banners!  Personally, I LOVE banners and they are sure popular right now!  And I LOVE our pennant punch, it makes banner making so simple! I'd been working on some scrapbook pages using MDS in the past few weeks and came up with this fun page!


Stampin' Supplies:
My Digital Studio

Aside from taking some time to line up all the banners and letters it really came together quick and I love that we have two banner punches in MDS!

Now, head on over to the HSS challenge site and check out what else the DT came up with and play along in our banner bash!

Happy stamping!

Hi stampers!  Boy, do I have exciting news!!!!  Starting NOW (actually February 1st, I'm a little slow) you can download My Digital Studio for FREE!  MDS is Stampin' Up's digital scrapbooking and card making software and it's totally awesome!  Now you can make those awesome photo Christmas cards (or cute cute cute birth announcements) from the comfort of your home!  No need to get out in the cold to the store to make them or pick them up!  Have them delivered right to your door!  It's great if you've always wanted to scrapbook or make cards but just didn't think you had the time, space, or talent!

Starting this month you can download the express pack for a free month long trial!  If you like it then you can purchase it once your month is up.  If not, no big deal...you don't have to do ANYTHING except uninstall it!

MDS is great for MANY reasons!  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Space saving!  Everything is on your computer so if you're short on space it's the perfect way to craft!
• Portable!  If you've got a laptop then you can scrap and craft anywhere!  Just imagine if you could scrapbook your vacation in the airport before you even get home!  Or how about making your birth announcements before you and baby even leave the hospital!  Designer templates make crafting a no-brainer!
• No waste!  Always worried about messing up your projects and wasting supplies?  Not with MDS...don't like it, just hit the undo or delete button!  You can also use the program to see if you like a project before you do a traditional one on paper!
• Coordination!  All of the MDS contents coordinate seamlessly with our traditional crafting products.  This makes hybrid projects (MDS projects that you embellish with traditional elements after printing) a breeze!
• It's quick!  With many designer templates it makes creating gorgeous projects easy!  Just drag and drop your photos!
• The possibilities are endless!  You can make scrapbooks, cute little swatch books (GREAT gifts right there), baby shower invitations, birth announcements,  wedding invitations, birthday cards and party invitations, tags, home decor and much, much more (my blog backgrounds are even made with MDS)!!!!

And those are just a few of the great reasons why you NEED MDS!  It's so fun and it's easy for beginners and more advanced crafters as well!  And each Tuesday, SU releases new downloads so it's easy to stay on trend with what's current in your crafting!

Here are some examples of projects that can be made with MDS:

Scrapbook pages:



Cards:

And this card would make a GREAT hybrid card!  Simply add the REAL traditional buttons and brads and ribbons after printing. How cute would that be???  And this card literally took minutes!  It's one of the many pre-made templates so I all I had to do was put on my finishing touches!

If you'd like to download the FREE trial software please visit my store HERE and remember to select me as your demonstrator if you'd like to purchase it after the trial and/or purchase downloads!  You can also click on the SHOP 24/7 link up on the right!  And please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!!!  I'm here to help!

I have a LOT of projects made using MDS, I just forget to post them!  I'll try to come back soon with some more projects to share!

Happy stamping....or MDSing:-)