Awesome April Card Mailing Challenge

At the start of April I posted on my private group stampin’ page a request for those who wanted to participate in a card mailing challenge for the month of April. I set up an exclusive page for us (12 members in total) and each day our goal was to post a mailbox selfie of us sending out a card. Let me tell you, these ladies rose to the challenge typically sending more than one card a day for the ENTIRE month. One of the members sent 150 cards prior to Easter to her church family! The best part of this challenge was it gave many of us a purpose during this challenging time. It forced us to leave our homes every day to post a picture at our mailbox or post office and I looked forward to seeing everyone with their pets or their kids assisting in sending out these cards. Think of how many happy smiles were on the other end of those cards. I have been known to say that a card is a “happiness with a fold in the middle”!

I wanted to share one of the cards that I made in bulk to send out over the course of this month. Many of these cards also had pictures inside of me and the recipient as well as I am someone who regularly prints photos and I wanted to share some happy memories with them!

This card features products from the new Ornate Garden suite and Designer Series paper from the Peaceful Poppies Suite.

The sentiment is from the Sale-a-bration stamp set Rise and Shine

Scrappy Strip Technique

Well it is true that Bruno Bertucci’s Scrappy Strip technique is taking the world by storm! It is a really easy technique and a great one to share virtually in a team meeting or class. I recently shared the technique with my team and then went on to make a whole bunch of these cards for Mother’s Day. This technique is a great way to use up scraps and showcase our wonderful DSP.

After creating a card with this technique I decided to apply the technique to a scrapbook page, and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!

My Scrappy Strip card features the Best Dressed DSP which is in the current Occasions Catalogue. The flower is from the Healing Hugs stamp set and is stamped in Highland Heather. The Textile Ribbon in Mint Macaron is perfect for this card. You can find the Happy Mother’s Day sentiment in the Itty Bitty Greetings stamp set. Both stamp sets are in the Idea Book & Catalogue.

On my scrapbook page, I cut the base white strip to 3 1/5 x 8 and then cut three 4x4 squares that I applied the Scrappy Strip technique to. I used the new Ornate Gardens Specialty DSP. I think this is a fantastic page that showcases many elements from this suite well. The Under my Umbrella bundle felt like a create option to pair with this spring photo taken earlier in March.

Paper Bag Scrapbook Album

Hello my friends! I am so excited to share this project with you as it is another throwback to an album I used to make about 8 years ago! Way back when It was easier to find large or oversized paper bags and then our society went to full on plastic bags and I couldn’t find these paper bags anymore. Well, its a new time and we are all about paper bags again! I got this at my grocery store and asked for a few extras to craft with! I decided to create a Paper Bag Travel Album to hold mementos and postcards from our recent SU Incentive Trip to Greece (my favourite out of all the places I have been blessed to travel to with Stampin’ Up!). I am a collector, so when I do go on trips I always buy postcards, and keep tickets and receipts and stuff so all of this was perfect to add into this album!

I used the Tropical Oasis and Ornate Gardens DSP as they have complimentary tones and colors as the basis for my album. And then I blended in embellishments from both suites. Some of the stamps are old favorites and some are new additions to the SU lineup.

This album came together pretty easily, as you can tell its not that complicated! I think they would also make great school memory albums (which was what I was making them into 8 years ago!), or gifts of friendship or family memories! The storage pockets are a great way to add in memorabilia without needing a lot of 'pages’.

This is one of my favourite pictures of us in Santorini

You will have to use Tear and Tape or Tombow to glue the bottom of the bag flat as seen on the left side page. I then created a pocket to store memorabilia such as train tickets, a few pictures, a bag with a postcard in it etc. I added in a book mark I had picked up along the front of the pocket too! The right side features some fun pictures of us.

Because this is an oversized paper bag it has an option for a pull out page (or more!) as you can see here with the Pretty Peacock pull out page poking out. Say that six times, hahaha!

I decided to add another pocket at the bottom of this pull out page for more storage. I included one of my favourite pictures I took on this trip of the iconic blue roofs of Santorini, I still have to pinch myself that I was actually there! The storage pocket allows me to add more postcards collected on this trip.

Ornate Garden Mini Album

When cleaning and reorganizing my craft room lately, I came across a mini album I had made a few years back and was inspired to recreate it with some new supplies. I used the Copper Dotted Treat Bags as the base. I love using a bag or envelope as a mini album base because it comes with built in storage for pull outs so to speak. I decided to use the Ornate Gardens Specialty DSP and colour palette to embellish my album. Of course you can use any DSP and coordinating colors.

To make this album you will need 5 Copper Dotted Treat Bags. This will allow you to have 8 pictures in your album as the cover bag does not hold any photos.

The spine to wrap around your album is a 4 3/4 x 4 piece of card stock scored @ 2 on the short side. I then ran each edge through the Ornate Layers die to give it a bit of detail. You can use a punch or any die to add a decorative edge. I stacked all of the bags together and used Tombow adhesive to glue the spine to the front and back bags. I then secured each inside bag with Tombow. The ribbon died around the spine is purely decorative, it does not hold anything together. It is the new Ornate Garden ribbon from the Ornate Garden Suite. It comes in a two pack with Old Olive and Terracotta Tile.

The outside photo mats are 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 so you can add a 4 x 4 photo to them. I always try and keep my measurements simple for my stampers. I then embellished each page with pieces of DSP and some floral images and sentiments that spoke to the pictures. The Gilded Gems are awesome and I couldn’t resist adding a few into the album. Overall, the album is very flat, I did not want a lot of bulk.

The pullout pages are 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 and I trimmed the photos to fit. I added tabs using the Circle Tab punch in Whisper White so they blended into the album. And I kept all of the embellishments flat (no dimensional, a real challenge for me!) so they could slide in and out of the album easily.

I chose a sentiment for the front that was neutral for whatever photos I wanted to add to the inside. It is from the Capture the Good stamp set in the Idea Book & Catalogue. I layered it with some circle punches and the Label Me Lovely Punch (from the Occasions Catty).

This album features photos from our Nelson Family camping trip each summer to Greenwater Lake, Saskatchewan

This image shows the pullout pages that are tucked inside the Copper Dotted treat bags

I used a mini stapler to secure the tab punches to the base so there was no risk of them tearing free