Cottage Lane Stamper

Snow is finally gone here in Minnesota, well almost, at least no more in the forecast! So time for some spring cards. Easter is this Sunday so our first card is an Easter card, using the retiring set "In His Grace"   This is a stamp set. So many beautiful sentiments and the flowers lend wonderfully to the Stampin' Blends. Watercolor pencils would also work.  Dimensions: The card base is 8-1/2" x 5-1/2" scored at 4-1/4" The background layer is "Blackberry Bliss", 5-1/4" x 4" The corners are punched with the "Detailed Trio" triple punch.  The sentiment is stamped on a piece of "Whisper White" , 2-1/2"x 3-1/2" The sentiment is stamped in Blackberry Bliss.  The flowers are stamped in Memento Black and colored in with Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive Stampin' Blends.  I used both the light an dark pens, highlighting the stamped shaded areas with the dark color and then blending it all toget...

Last Saturday, April 13, 2019, we had our local/regional Onstage conference.  Ours was in Minneapolis.  They had them all over! The other five locations in the USA were Atlantic City, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Salt Lake City, UT; and San Antonio, TX. Internationally there were 7 other locations, Quebec City & Vancouver, Canada; Dusseldorf & Munich Germany; Paris, France; Telford, UK and Tokyo, Japan.  The "Live" one that will be in our videos took place in   Auckland, New Zealand.   The highlight of the event is always getting our greedy little hands on the new catalog! Believe me we pour over all the new products during the conference and then get to play with some of them too! I can only show you the cover.  Only the demonstrators that went to Onstage have received the catalog this early the others will get theirs in May and customers will get theirs the end of May and can start ordering June 3rd or 4th, I believe. There are a few c...

At Onstage this year we made 5 beautiful cards.  Typically we have made 4 in the past.  This year we were blessed to get a sneak peak at the May 2019 Paper Pumpkin Card, which was our 5th card. The May Paper Pumpkin kit has been designed by Shelli Gardner, founder off Stampin' Up! In  February the Paper Pumpkin kit "Be Mine" coordinated with our Animal Outings bundle in the current catalog.  It was so wildly popular that they are doing it again!  I absolutely love when stamp sets coordinate, the creative ideas are endless! Here is a little video I put together.  Most people put their cards together at the event, I decided to just stamp and punch mine and put them together at home.  I'm glad I did so I could share that part with you.  Here's a closeup of the cards we made. I have to admit I haven't always liked every card we made at Onstage in the past.  But this year, I love ALL of them! All of these cards are part of suites ...

Hi Friends, It's been a while since I have posted.  I'm sitting in my living room, listening to some relaxing music, sipping some cinnamon tea and recovering from yesterday's events; 2019 Regional Onstage Stampin' Up!© conference in Minneapolis. I say recover because I suffer from 3 autoimmune diseases and chronic fatigue so it will take me two to three days to get back to my "normal". But the Onstage Event was worth it.  We get to catch up with and meet new fellow demonstrators!  Ours was the largest Regional gathering "GLOBALLY".  That's saying something. I think the only event larger than ours was the LIVE event in Australia, where our CEO Sara Douglass was. Imagine being in a room with 1200 other (mostly) ladies, who share the same passion for card making and paper crafting as you.  Yes there was a lot of laughter and a few tears, usually by Sara when she expresses her love of her demonstrators and the difference we make in peoples liv...

I was minding my own business this week, scrolling through Facebook and saw the cutest double slider card made with the pillow boxes from the adorable January 2019 Paper Pumpkin "Be Mine" Valentine kit!  So I knew I had to try this! There was a double slider card video mentioned in the FB comments, which I watched and then watched about 3 others.  So for two days, off and on I tried to make a one for myself, unsuccessfully .  Luckily, (wisely) I used some regular card stock to make a template.  Nothing seemed to work, until I watched another video which was much simpler.  All of the videos of slider cards used regular card stock not the pillow boxes so a little adapting was involved. So, this morning I made a 4th attempt, and I finally had some success! I took a bunch of photos as I was putting it together, unfortunately my phone takes photos only when it wants to and it decided today was not the day it was going to keep any of them. :-( So I set abou...

Sadly, this morning, I learned of the death of a husband, of my former roommate and friend.  They moved out of state a while back and have lost touch.  He was such a sweet dear man.  I remember him, and have a photo somewhere, of his joy of receiving chocolate chip cookies from me, one Christmas.  The world has lost a little sunshine today. I perused Pinterest for a sympathy card and discovered a beautiful card, that I CASE'd from Holly Krautkremer.  The supplies are basically the same as I used on my previous post this week. The background layer is Crumb Cake, 4" x 5-1/4", the top Whisper White layer is 3-1/4" x 4", The vellum leaves are left overs from the August Paper Pumpkin "Blissful Blooms", the (I'm not sure what they are called, they look like Poppy heads to me) are in Night of Navy, the larger flowers are in Merry Merlot and the small flower is in Balmy Blue.  The background fronds are die cut out of Mossy Meadow with the Fros...

It's a busy month for birthdays.  I have 4 cards to make for the first week.  This card is for a dear cousin of mine who has stood by me through many trials these last few years.  She's cooked for me, carried my luggage, listened to me complain and hugged me when I needed it. Actually, she's my cousin's daughter, and we are 1 year apart.  We share a love of creating, (she makes beautiful quilts), gardening, genealogy, cooking (she's a terrific cook) and laughter, lots of laughter. I CASE'd this beautiful card from Aurora Lopez. This card is also created with the "First Frost" stamp set and the coordinating "Frosted Bouquet" Framelits.  This set came out as a suite in the 2018 Holiday catalog and the stamp set and Framelits have been carried forward, which thrilled me when I heard that!  It's not just for "Christmas" any more Charlie Brown! It has some beautiful sentiments and florals for the whole year. The card b...