Awesome Stampin' Up! Specials coming up!!

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I am thrilled to death with these specials. Good thing my birthday is coming up where I can have hubby buy me some stuff. Hehehe

Keep in mind these are LIMITED QUANTITIES!
Email me if you'd like to order something! stampingexpressions@gmail.com

Altered Spice bottle

I saw these cute season grinders the other day at Sam's. The Tuscan Chicken was about $5, and the salad one was about $2. They are great spices too. I thought they would look great altered They were pretty easy to do. You just cut the paper at the top and bottom slanted since the bottle tapers. I just kinda eyeballed it, and then cut two of them. If you are able to get the label off in one piece, you can just use that as a template though.

Here is a closer picture.
I used the stamp set True Friend, and Short Order alphabet. I stamped the letters in Chocolate Chip. The image from True Friend was stamped in Close to Cocoa. Then I sponged the edges in Creamy Caramel, then just the edges in Close to Cocoa.

Thursday Sketch #9

So what is better than NEW rubbah?? FREE RUBBAH!! This is a set called Time Well Spent. Stampin' Up! sent this set to all demonstrators free! SU is such a wonderful company. Last year around this time, they sent Polka Dots & Paisley. This set will be a level 3 hostess set in the upcoming catalog.

Well here is my Thursday Sketch. I hope you like it. I made a card similar to this a long time ago. I'm pretty sure I saw the sketch somewhere else, but I can't remember where. So how do you like the stamp set? For more samples using this set, you can see on SCS what everyone else has been doing with it HERE.

Recipe
-Stamps-Time Well Spent
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate, Bashful blue, So Saffron, Purely Pomegranate, Chocolate Chip
-Paper-So Saffron prints DSP. Purely Pomegranate, So Saffron, Purely Pomegranate, Chocolate Chip cardstock.
Accessories-Silver brad, Pomegranate double stitched ribbon, Hodgepodge hardware.

Give Thanks apples

Man, I am loving these apples. In a previous post I told you that someone on SCS sent me some images to play with. I've been practicing like crazy trying to get better at coloring them (although I still need a lot more). Can you believe I ran out. I mean she sent me a ton of them! I loved the apples so much, and the rest of the set was growing on me too, so I finally just gave in a ordered it. I'm so glad I did. For some reason I couldn't get a good picture of the apples. I was looking at the gallery on SCS a while back and came across a wonderful card by Kittie747. She said she painted the apples in Marigold Morning and then went over that in Cranberry Crisp. I did the same thing using Summer Sun, then Real Red. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I drew a line on the apple using the white singo gel pen. By the way, if you haven't seen Kittie's work yet, make sure you check it out. She is a very talented stamper!Recipe
-Stamps-Give Thanks, It's your Birthday, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
-Ink-Chocolate Chip, Apricot Appeal
-Paper-Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Real Red, Watercolor paper, Dashing DSP.
-Accessories- Real Red grosgrain ribbon, scallop punch, circle punch, Brads, White Signo gel pen. Markers: Summer Sun, Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Going Grey, Old Olive

Christmas Paint can

I finally got around to altering a paint can! So much fun! It's so easy using SU's wrapping paper. Keep in mind that the Holiday Mini catalog only goes till the end of this month, so get your holdiday stamps before it's too late. Just to make it a little easier, I'll give you free shipping on your holiday mini purchases. Just send me an email at stampingexpressions@gmail.com if your interested.I'm not sure what I'm going to put in it yet. Any ideas?

Recipe
-Stamps-Many Merry Messages, The Snowflake Spot, Many Merry Messages, So Many Sayings
-Paper-Blizzard Wrapping paper, Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
-Ink-Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue
-Accessories-Bashful Blue grosgrain ribbon, Circle cutter, circle punch, Scallop circle punch

Thursday Sketch # 8 Wishing you Cheer

Here is my 8th Thursday sketch. I ended up liking this sketch more than I thought I would.
I stamped the images on watercolor paper so that when I colored them with markers the lines wouldn't show. After coloring them, I went over them with a aqua painter and dabbed off some of the ink with a paper towel in places to lighten it a bit, but I think all I did was make the trees look blotchy, lol.
I shaded the side of the snowman and the snow with the Bashful Blue watercolor crayon, but I'm not sure if that shows up in the picture. -Stamps-Wishing you Cheer, Many Merry Messages
-Paper-Dashing DSP (I am loving this paper), Watercolor paper and River Rock, Real Red, and Old Olive Cardstock
-Ink-River Rock, Black stazon, Real Red
-Accessories-Pewter hodgepodge hardware, Aqua painter, Bashful Blue watercolor crayon, Markers:Real Red, Old Olive, Summer Sun.

True Friend Sketch Challenge 149

This is for Sketch Challenge number 149 on SCS. I had to overlap the images on the right though, to make them fit. I am really loving these colors together. I think it was a color challenge on SCS a few weeks ago that I never got around to doing. I'm really having fun with this stamp set too. I just got it a few days ago. This is another set that I hated when I saw it but SCS won me over on it.For the two images on the side I did the rock and roll technique. For the main Image I colored it with a pretty in pink marker, then colored all the dots with a Rose Red marker. The Sentiment was stamped in Purely Pomegranate, and colored in with Pretty in Pink.
-Stamps-True Friend, Tres Chic
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate
-Paper-Whisper White, Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, and Rose Red prints DSP
-Accessories-Markers:Rose Red, Pretty in Pink, Old Olive. Pretty in Pink ribbon, Rhinestone brad.

Christmas Bows!

So how cool is this? I saw a bow like this in the SCS gallery, so I searched on Google for bow tutorial and found a great blog that had a step by step directions. Anyway, the tutorial can be found HERE. It's the November 3rd post. It is actually a couple different posts, but since the second two don't have titles I can't seem to get a link to them. Make sure you browse her blog too. She has lots of great ideas. These things are kinda time consuming, so I definitely won't be doing them for everyone, but I'll put them on a few presents. Like my mom who loves beautifully wrapped presents. I plan to wrap the gift in the chocolate snowflake wrapping paper that came with this one, and use some bashful blue grosgrain ribbon.
I guess a recipe isn't exactally needed this time. All I used is the blizzard wrapping paper, some snail adhesive, a brad and a glue dot.

Bucket of Apples!

Yay! I really love this image from Give Thanks. I didn't like the whole set, just the apples. Anyway, someone on SCS sent me some images to play with, so I have been coloring apples like crazy. This image just makes me feel inspired. It just makes me want to jump up and make a card! Funny thing is, I'm actually starting to like the whole set now. I've been looking in the gallery on SCS, and there is some awesome cards using this set. So I ordered it. I can't wait to get it. I think this could easily become one of my favorite sets now. Why is it always the sets I didn't even like when I first saw them ended up being my favorites? Seriously, Fabulous Flowers, Doodle This, Crazy For Christmas, Baroque Motifs, I didn't like any of them, but now those are my Favorite sets.This first card was my first attempt at coloring the apples. I like how they came out, but I want them to be better, lol. I want them to look real. Does anyone know of a good watercoloring tutorial? I've seen the one by Jule Buhler on how to use markers to watercolor. It was awesome (If you haven't seen it, click HERE), but I need something on shading, lol. I've never been good at blending colors. I seem to either blend it too much, or not enough. Feel free to share any tips you may have too.-Stamps-Give Thanks, Itty Bitty Backgrounds and Priceless
-Ink-So Saffron, Real Red, Close To Cocoa, Bashful Blue
-Paper-watercolor, Real Red, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa.
-Accessories-Hodgepodge hardware, Hemp twine, Stampin Sponges
-Markers-Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Real Red, Bravo Burgundy, Ruby Red, Garden Green, Old Olive and Going Grey.

-Stamps-Give Thanks, Itty Bitty Backgrounds and Baroque Motifs
-Ink-Wild Wasabi,
-Paper-Wild Wasabi, Chocolate chip, So saffron, Real Red, and So saffron Prints DSP.
-Accessories-Round tab punch, Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon.
-Markers-Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Real Red, Bravo Burgundy, Ruby Red, Only Orange, Garden Green, Old Olive, Gable green Going Gray and Bordering Blue.

Beate's Sketch challenge Season of Joy

This card was for Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #26. I really love Beate's sketches. I think this one is one of my favorites.
-Stamps-Season Of Joy, Perfect Endings, Snow Flurries
-Ink-Old Olive, River Rock, Real Red
-Paper-Dashing DSP; Old Olive, River Rock, Real Red and Whisper White cardstock
-Accessories-Pewter Hodgepodge hardware, Real Red grosgrain ribbon
And I'm such a cheapskate. Whenever most of a piece of DSP is going to be covered up anyway, I'll cut out as much as I can. It really does make your Designer Series paper go further though. I know the edges are really raggedy. I used my old fiskars paper trimmer for this, which I only use for scoring and stuff like this since i have the tabletop trimmer now.

In The Spotlight snowflakes

This card was incredibly easy. It only took a few minutes to make. I don't have the circle punch that fits inside the scallop punch yet (it will be here Monday). so I had to cut the circle out. Thats why it's so crooked. I stamped the snowflake in blue bayou, then in whisper white craft, then again in soft sky, but I'm not sure that shows up in the picture. -Stamps-In The Spotlight
-Ink-Whisper White Craft; Blue Bayou and Soft Sky Classic.
-Paper-Whisper White, Blue Bayou and Soft Sky
-Accessories-Blue Bayou double stitched ribbon, Ticket corner punch, Scallop punch vintage brads

Thursday Sketch # 7

Here is my Thursday sketch for this week.
I had a really hard time with this sample. It just looked like something was missing at the top. Finally I used the tab punch and stamped merry from Perfect Endings (retired) on it, now I'm happy with it. I know it's kind of an odd sketch but Crazy for Christmas (retired) seemed to work perfect. I think Festive Favorites or Big on Christmas would work, but I didn't have either of those. I really need more stamps. I do have an order coming Monday though! I can't wait! Sorry for all of the retired stuff, but it just seemed to work. I'm pretty limited on Christmas sets right now too. I only have a couple that are current.

-Stamps-Perfect Endings, Crazy For Christmas, Linen Background, Season of Joy (the swirl was stamped off).
-Ink-River Rock, Real Red, Old Olive
-Paper-Dashing DSP; River Rock, Real Red, Old Olive cardstock
-Accessories-Round tab punch, Real Red1/4" Grosgrain ribbon; Real Red & Old Olive markers.