Happy March!!

Where to start? There are several new things for the month of March from Stampin' Up!

The First big announcement is the introduction of polymer stamps.  You can watch a quick video with information about polymer stamps here.

And the special for March and April is Sent with Love Bundle

From now until April 30th you can puchase the exclusive Sent with Love Stamp Set  with Love Designer Series Paper.  This product suite offers an array of travel-themed projects.  

And finally, the newest Best Of Stamp set for March is a flower theme!

I am so glad to see my favorite hydrangea from a few years ago in this set!!

Enjoy your weekend!

Happy 25th Birthday Stampin' UP!

Happy 25th Birthday Stampin' Up!

As part of our 25-year anniversary celebration, we're bringing back some of our favorite stamp images from the last quarter century and combining them into 12 sets, which will release-one set per month-during 2013. Even better, along with some great classic images, each "Best of" set will also include a never-before-seen image!

• Each best of stamp set will include 3-5 images, including a never-before seen image, and will be priced at $14.95.
• While we are releasing just one Best of stamp set per month (with a new theme each month), all of the Best of sets will be available until March 31, 2014.
• All Best of stamp sets are available in Clear-Mount only.

While we are releasing just one Best of stamp set per month, all of the Best of sets will be available until March 31, 2014.

As a special incentive to collect the Best of stamps, we're including a collector's card and 25-year proof of purchase sticker with every Best of set. Collect six stickers, and send it in to redeem a FREE set of your choice valued up to $14.95! Free sets must be redeemed no later than April 30, 2014.

Here are the sets that have been released so far. I will add the new set each month!

March - Best of Flowers

February - Best of Love

January - Best of Birthdays

Don't forget to save your proof of purchase!!

February

Secret Garden Sample

This is a swap card that I made for my recent visit to Orlando.  I love the new Secret Garden stamp set!

This card uses the Secret Garden stamp set and matching Framelits from the new Spring catalog.   I stamped the flower on vanilla card stock with midnight muse ink and embossed the outline of the flower with clear embossing powder.

I used an aqua painter and marina mist ink to watercolor the flower.  The center of the flower is daffodil delight.  I cut the center and layered it with a dimensional to make the flower pop.  And of course there is a little bling in the center.

The card is made from So Saffron and vanilla card stock.  The designer paper is the new Tea for Two designer paper.  The leaves are stamped with gumball green.

This was my swap for the Sensational Swappers group at Leadership..  And afterwards we all went out for dinner at the Bahama Breeze in Orlando and celebrated our sister Jeannette Swain's birthday!

  We had a great time on our trip!!

Happy 25th Birthday Stampin' UP!!

 Happy 25th Birthday Stampin' UP!!  What a great company!  As always, Stampin' Up! is celebrating this milestone with another great offer for all of you, our customers!

As part of our 25-year anniversary celebration, we're bringing back some of our favorite stamp images from the last quarter century and combining them into 12 sets, which will release-one set per month-during 2013. Even better, along with some great classic images, each "Best of" set will also include a never-before-seen image!

You can see the details and images here! 

• Each best of stamp set will include 3-5 images, including a never-before seen image, and will be priced at $14.95.
• While we are releasing just one Best of stamp set per month (with a new theme each month), all of the Best of sets will be available until March 31, 2014.
• All Best of stamp sets are available in Clear-Mount only.

While we are releasing just one Best of stamp set per month, all of the Best of sets will be available until March 31, 2014.

As a special incentive to collect the Best of stamps, starting in February we're including a collector's card and 25-year proof of purchase sticker with every Best of set. Collect six stickers, and send it in to redeem a FREE set of your choice valued up to $14.95! Free sets must be redeemed no later than April 30, 2014.

I can't wait to collect my Best Of Stamp Sets!!

More pics from Leadership!!

As promised here are a few more pictures from Leadership!!  What a great time we all had!  There were 3 other members of my team that went with me to Orlando.

Jeanne Nielsen, Margaret Galvez, and Laura Perez.  We had such a good time!!

Jeanne and I were on the same flight and had a great time catching up!  We had a two hour lay over in Atlanta and finished up our swaps!!  What else would you do on a layover??

This is Margaret Galvez and me outside the convention center in Orlando.  And yes it was unusually warm in Orlando - in the 80's each day.  Not that we were outside much!

Since Stampin' Up! is celebrating their 25th Birthday, there were lots of give aways!!.

This is our friend Angela Carter - a demo from Southbridge, MA that we have all come to love!!  Angela has her own special dance when they give away prizes!  She is welcome in our group anytime!! 

Friday night's presentation was a pajama party.  After spending Friday at  the convention center, we all went back to our room and changed into PJs...  Jeanne won a gift from the prize patrol that night!!

Below are more pictures from the "Boards".  These are product designs and ideas that SU posts for the new stamp sets from the mini catalog!

Enjoy!!  The pictures don't do them justice.  This is one of my favorite part of Stampin' Up! events!

Favorite Holiday cards

I hope that everyone had a great Holiday!!  I just wanted to post a couple of my favorite Holiday cards. I can never design just one card...

This first one is my favorite card for this Holiday season.  I used Baja Breeze ink with a brayer to create the soft blue background thanks to the class that I took from Michele Zindorf.  The tree with cardinals is from the Serene Shillouette stamp set.  I tore little pieces of white cardstock and layered them on the bottom to look like snow drifts.  I then rubbed dazzling details to give it a glittery snowy look.

These cards use the Greetings of the Season stamp set from the Christmas catalog.












The second card is one that one of my downlines, Kathy Bedell designed.  This is a beautiful 3x3 card using the small star punch from the ornaments set in the Christmas mini with the silver glimmer paper.


The third card is one that I designed and one of my long time Stampin' Friends, Kathi MacFadden embellished...

I used the Elegant Lines embossing folder and then used the  ornament framelits to cut out ornament shapes.  I put designer paper behind the cut out ornaments and added some rhinestones that I colored red with a permanent marker.  Kathy added the flocked designer paper from the Candlelight series which I thought looked better than regular designer paper.  This card looks great with a scrap of silver glimmer paper behind the flocked window sheet.  The silver wire was from last year's Christmas catalog that I just happened to have laying around.

 The fourth card is made with the Christmas Lodge set.  The tree is stamped using artichoke ink and enhanced with pearls that I colored with a red permanent marker.

The designer paper is from the Festival of Prints designer paper pack that was in this year's Christmas catalog.

My last card was made with the Holiday Ornaments Famelits and Ornament Keepsakes stamp set.  I used both whisper white and very vanilla cardstock for a subtle contrast.  The ornaments are stamped using Midnight Muse ink and the cardstock is layered with midnight muse.  I used the retired white satin ribbon for the bow.  The ornaments are embellished with the pearl jewels.



I hope that you have enjoyed a sampling of the cards that I made this Christmas season!!

Swaps from the NE StampINKers weekend retreat

Happy Thursday!

Today I am posting the cards that we made over the weekend for our shoebox swaps.  For those of you that don't know what a shoebox swap is...each demo designs one card and cuts enough cardstock and brings the supplies for each person to copy that card.  Here are our cards for the weekend.

The first card is made with the new Fairy set A Little Bit of Magic that will be available next week from the Summer Mini Catalog.  I used Cottage Wall designer paper, rich razzleberry and certainly celery cardstock.  I used the watercolor technique on the fairy.  She has dazzling diamonds glitter on her wings.

This second swap was designed by Kristen Bergeron.  It is a manicure set that would make a great hostess gift!!  I added a small carnation that I made with small scallop circles.

The third card was designed by Jeanne Nielsen .  This card uses the chalk board technique and the Inspired By Nature set.  She used tiny tags to make the small friends tag that is hanging off the Celery satin ribbon.  She also used the Beautiful Wings embosslit die to cut and emboss the butterflies.

This last card was designed by Deanna.  This card may look familiar since it was the colors that I needed for last Friday's Blogger's Challenge.  So I posted the card last FRiday as well.  Deanna used our software My Digital Studio (MDS) to print the card base with the Friend stamp.

Stay tuned for more great ideas.

Happy Stampin'

Marilyn SanClemente