Birthday Celebration!

We gathered for dinner Wednesday evening to celebrate Colin’s 18th Birthday! It’s been a tradition for years now to allow the celebrant to choose which restaurant they’d like to have their family dinner at and of course, Colin’s choice would be 135 PRIME on Hewitt Drive. A fabulous place to enjoy a birthday celebration with family and friends and some of the most excellent food in the area.

with-Mom-&-Dad

It’s been a bit of a hectic week and it was really nice to stop and enjoy the company of two of our children and their close friends.

with-Brandon,-Janelle-&-Jax (Colin, Jaxson, Brandon & Janelle)

(Jaxson was probably wondering where the birthday cake was, but we skipped that this year)

with-Katie(Colin & Katie)

HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY…..

Card

I totally CASEd this card (from out there somewhere) for the occasion. Somehow it seemed to be perfect, and any time I get to use our great punches is even better.

This card uses the 1/2″, 1″, and 1 1/4″ Circle punches and the retired 3/4″ square punch. Card stock used is the Basic Black, Whisper White, Real Red, Ballet Blue and Yo Yo Yellow. The Balloon baskets are drawn with our Basic Black Stampin’ Write Marker and the greeting is from the All Holidays Stamp Set in the 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalog on page 43.

There’s an interesting story about the black buttons. As part of Colin’s educational experience and in preparation for adulthood we decided that he would benefit from participating in the Symphony Brass program. To sort of help smooth the rough edges a bit, not that there are many but a bit of polish never hurts! And of course he needed a sport coat, so he and I did the customary trip to Jos. A Banks for a selection. Long story short, the buttons on the card are the extra buttons from inside of his coat. TA DAH!!! Nothing like re-cycling eh? They just hang there and hardly (never) get used or called into service, so why let that go to waste?

I can’t even begin to share what it feels like to have your ‘baby of the family’ pass this milestone and if you’ve passed that you know exactly what I’ve been feeling this week, and if not, well then it’s really a beautiful thing to look forward to.

Thanks so much for stopping by to catch up and take a peek at my work and family. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and enjoy every moment of it!

Katherine

Gift Bottles

Here’s a great idea for recycling those Starbucks Cappuccino bottles….

Altered-Starbucks-bottles

These first appeared on stage with SU founder Shelli Garner at convention in August, and I just loved the idea.

Our son Colin likes to have a Starbucks bottle a couple of times a week, (I figure it’s better than carbonated sodas and a change from the sport drinks) so I started collecting them and decorated three of them for my workshop last night for my door prizes.

–I used Whoppers to bring out the Chocolate Chip elements in the Autumn Meadows Designer Series Paper. You can find it on page 13 of the 2009 Holiday Mini Catalog.
–I used the ‘Rockin’ Dauber’ technique with the pine cone image of the Autumn Days Stamp Set (pg 92, 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalog) inking the image first with Pumpkin Pie and then rocking a sponge dauber with Close to Cocoa Classic Ink on the edges for contrast.
–I then used a sponge dauber and our great new Shimmer Paint in Champagne Mist for an added touch.
–I used Sticky Strip to adhere the bottle band to the jar for extra stick…the last thing you want is for your band to come off when you hand it to someone, so a little extra stick goes a long way!
–The lid is covered with a 1 3/4″ Chocolate Chip card stock circle that I used Crystal Effects to adhere to lid. I figured this was easier than painting over the Starbucks label and simple and quick as well. Who wants to wait for paint to dry?

These cute bottles can be made for many occasions, holidays (think jelly beans at Easter or candy hearts for Valentines Day) and lots of different events so find a friend or someone who drinks them and ask them to start saving bottles that you’re RE-CYCLING!!

They were a huge success and shows once again what you can do with scraps.

I hope you’re having a wonderful week, Waco is really enjoying cooler temperatures with gray skies overhead and moisture that is sorely needed.

Thanks again for taking the time to stop by and see what I’ve been up to. Our trip to Durango, CO, that hubby and I went on this past weekend, was simply wonderful and relaxing. I think we’ll go back again soon.

Katherine

My Digital Studio Cards 4 & 5

September is slipping away fast, and October is peeking around the bend, we’re in Football, Football, Football around here. All that Testosterone you know, is somethin’ else! A gal’s got to have some outlet right? That’s why you’ll find me in my stamp room, running my fingers over card stock, and paper and stamps and all that glittery stuff! That is, when I’m NOT watching Football. I love to watch our youngest son (a.k.a. Colin now 18!! He had a birthday Sunday the 20th, along with my brother Mike, we won’t disclose his age… HA! HA!, along with my lovely mom, may she rest in peace; and her sweet mother, may SHE rest in peace…that’s right our family has had FOUR birthday’s to celebrate on the same day, how awesome is that?) Any way…I thought I’d let you see the last two cards together…

Here’s the first one:

Chocolate-Petal-Flower-Card

It’s a sweet Chocolate Chip round petal flower with a Real Red button for the center.

and the second one:

Happy-Birthday-Kalidescope

Images are from the Happy Birthday Simply Scrappin’ Kit pg 166 ‘09-’10 Idea Book & Catalog. Teamed with Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon and I added a Filigree Designer Brad over a blue flower that was in the template.

Well, as you’ve seen I had a very successful afternoon last Tuesday after I installed My Digital Studio. And for those of you who may be intimidated by the art of stamping and paper crafting, this is a wonderful tool that can be customized with hundreds of options and images to choose from that give you the look and feel of a hand made card for those special events and holidays coupled with tons of images to use in creating your scrapbook memories. Please call or write if you want more information on this latest great product from Stampin’ UP!

Thanks for stopping by!

Katherine

My Digital Studio Card #3

Hello again,

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend I’m enjoying a few days in DURANGO, CO with hubby (a little R&R never hurt anyone!), this isn’t a business trip so we’re really having a good time just relaxin’ and enjoying the cooler temps of the mountains.

Here’s the next card that I created last week with My Digital Studio, I guess I’m beginning to sound like a sort of ‘broken record’ but you just have to realize how much fun I was having and especially how easy it was to do is quite unbelievable…

Kiwi-Kiss-Thanks

(Psst…Now for those of you that have been around Stampin’ UP! a while you might just recognize the Kiwi Kiss Polka-A-Dot Designer Paper that is on this card…yes, that’s right…SU has been developing this product for a while and that’s a sure tell-tale give-away don’t you know? Let’s see Kiwi Kiss was introduced with the Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book & Catalog)

In My Digital Studio I printed out the Designer Template Card. Some of you have asked about my printer, I have an HP PSC 2510 Photosmart all-in-one. I’m about due for a new one since I’ve had this one going on thee years.

In my Stamp room…I cut it out and re-sized it for a 1/8″ border all around, but oops the top of the card seemed to disappear with the white on white so I scraped the edges with Real Red Classic Ink and added the Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon with a Circle Fire Rhinestone Brad in yellow; then mounted the digital face onto a standard size Whisper White Card Stock base using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

You know, this reminds me of a cooking show I ran across back during the summer, something along the lines of “Almost Homemade” or along those lines, where you kind of altered store bought food items, or ready to eat items and kicked them up a notch. That’s sort of like what using My Digital Studio is for card making. You can use the card just the way it is if you want and it’s really just fine. I like to have the touch and feel aspect of embellishments that are added on for that extra little something. To each his own or her own, anyway however you choose to use it, I’m sure you’ll just love it!

My Digital Studio Card #2

Hi there, it’s me again!

Here’s the second card that I created Tuesday while I was getting familiar with My Digital Studio

This is just the cutest little birdie (a.k.a. Good Friend Stamp Set #113740 with the Cheep Talk Stamp Set #113204 both in the ‘09-’10 Idea Book & Catalog pgs 112-113), and it’s images are in My Digital Studio so it coordinates with the stamp sets that you might have on hand!

Chocolate-Birdies-Card

In My Digital Studio program…I loaded the designer template for a tent fold card this time. Liked what I saw and didn’t change a thing. Printed it out like before and headed to my Stamp room.

In my Stamp room…I cut out the card front, resized it to leave a 1/8″ border around the card face, cut off the bottom third (which was actually white and had the text on it) and mounted it to a Chocolate Chip standard size tent card. Tied a piece of Only Orange grosgrain ribbon in a square knot, used the new Modern Label Punch (pg186-186 Item # 116630 ‘09-’10 Idea Book & Catalog) on the greeting and mounted it in the lower right hand corner using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

My Digital Studio is a fabulous tool for all of your creative projects, I’m just getting started, but I think you’ll find it very user friendly. I can’t wait to show you the next card I created so stay tuned it’ll be here in a couple of days…

Thanks for stopping by and remember Stampin’ UP! is launching this great new product at a really great price for only $79.95 on October 1st. Follow the link to the Holiday Mini Catalog in the side bar and go to pages 38 & 39 for more details.

Thanks again for coming by today, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Katherine

Stampin’ UP!’s My Digital Studio

It arrived last Thursday, and I’ve been looking at it on my desk since then…

I’ve waited since convention to get it in my hands so why am I hesitant???

Honestly, (for all those of you who know me will agree), I’m not all THAT computer savy. I am more so than my sweet hubby, but like many of those ‘my age’ (being that of the techno-dinosaurus era) we plink and plod as best we can and sometimes it works, and a lot of the times it just doesn’t! So I was afraid I couldn’t do it until I had ‘lots of time’ to work it out. I have to tell you, it worked like a charm! It was everything I had expected and anticipated and was just so wonderfully easy. Of course, I’ve seen it demo’d several times, and participated in a webinar a couple of weeks ago, so I had actually seen it in action, which did help LOTS! But within about an hour and fifteen minutes, I had created six scrapbook pages and five cards. Whoa!!! I didn’t print the scrapbook pages, I started a Football album for our #1 star Falcon (a.k.a. Colin), but here is one of the cards…

Sunny-Flower-Card

In the program….I loaded the template, changed the background color, changed the flower shape, added a button embellishment, deleted a line of text, re-sized the other two lines, changed the color of the box at the bottom of the flower, changed the color of the text and printed it out.

In my Stamp room…I cut it out from the page, adjusted the size so that I would have a 1/8″ all-around white border on my card base, mounted it on a standard Whisper White Card, punched a Five Petal Flower from Summer Sun Card stock, and mounted that with Stampin’ dimensionals. Added the Bashful Blue flower button from our Designer Buttons tied with white embroidery thread using a Mini Glue Dot and VOILA!!!

I have to tell you I am pretty darned AMAZED. I’ll let you see one of the other cards on Thursday!

My Digital Studio is available for customer order OCTOBER 1st . . .so get ready for some FUN! It’s a wonderful addition for your creative resources at only $ 79.95* (For more info on this great new product follow the link in the sidebar for the 2009 Holiday Mini Catalog and check out pages 38 & 39. Be sure to check the system requirements)

Thanks for stopping by and hope you’ll comeback Thursday for more peeks at My Digital Studio projects.

Katherine

* Price does not include Tax + S&H