It's a Wrap! A Stampin' Up! Baby Sprinkle

So, my bestie is having a baby. A girl baby, to be exact--Savannah Francis.  Awesome name!!!  Anyways, we had to have a shower! Actually, we called it a "sprinkle," because this is her second baby (she had a little boy about 2 years ago).  And because I stamp, I had to make favors!!!

So, I used the Stampin' Up! It's a Wrap Occasions Set to wrap some Hershey Nuggets chocolates, and then dug out the pattern I had for a little box to hold 3 of those chocolates, and got to cutting!

I feel I should point out--there is another (easier) way to do this--but one, it requires more chocolates (it was exam week, folks... time was of the essence--more chocolates=more stamping. Normally, not a problem); and two, it requires a Sizzix die I don't (yet) have--the Matchbox die.  You can see the It's a Wrap set put to use with the Matchbox die on page 59 of the 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalog.

We had the shower--forgive me, "Sprinkle"--at Olive Garden on Saturday, and of course, I had to make the tables all cute!  Now, I could have gone to the Dollar Tree (which I love) and picked up the decorations from there, but how much more fun is it to use Stampin' Up! products and make them!!!!

Awhile back, I ordered the Petal Cone Bigz L Die from the Occasions Mini, but don't fret--it's in the new Catalog, too!!! I thought, how cute would it be to have a few Petal Cones adorning our tables at the OG?  So I came up with these:

They're filled with some pink shreds and baby decorations that I did pick up from the Dollar Tree, and I think they just really made the tables adorable!

The accents on the cones and the Nuggets boxes are all made with Stampin' supplies too--the Blossom Party die, the 5-Petal Flower Punch, the BOHO Blossoms Punch, and the Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die (one of my favorite products!)

And because my bestie is bound to get lots of presents, I decided my gift to her would be hand crafted Thank You notes:

Apparently, these were a hit with the crowd!

These were made using Stampin' Up! Textured Card stock in Pink Pirouette from the Subtles Collection, Beau Chateau Designer Series Paper, and an unfortunately retired Embosslits Die (Thanks). And of course I made the card and decorated the bag!

So there you have it--A Stampin' Up! Baby Sprinkle!

Thanks to Ms. Amy, my other bestie, for all her help putting this together, and to my Mama for helping with the stamping and organizing!

Here's some other pics from the day:

The mama!

The besties! Me, Frannie, Amy

My Partners in Crime--Amy and my mom.

Frannie and my mom.

I Love Sizzix Dies!

So, I've been perusing, in my every spare moment, the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog. Partly because I'm planning something, but mainly because it's here, and it's GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!!

Anywho, I was looking through the new Sizzix dies the other day and I saw this one:

How cool is that?  Well, here it is all finished up:

And here's the recipe for this beautiful gift box:

KINDNESS MATTERS BLOSSOM BOX

Stamps
• Kindness Matters

Paper
• Crumb Cake Card Stock
• Lucky Limeade Card Stock
• Melon Mambo Card Stock
• Whisper White Card Stock
• Lucky Limeade Textured Card Stock

Ink
• Lucky Limeade Classic Stampin’ Pad®
• Melon Mambo Classic Stampin’ Pad
• VersaMark® Pad

Accessories
• Linen Thread
• Pearl Basic Jewels
• Extra-Large Tag Punch
• Fancy Flower Punch
• 1/16" Circle Punch
• Big Shot™
• Blossom Box Bigz™ L Die

I'm thinking I'll have to get this die for my new jewelry packaging!!!!  I love it when I can combine my passions!  LOL!!!!

Thanks for reading!

School is out...

And not a moment too soon!  I actually managed to finish all the grading about 3 hours ago, which must be some sort of record for me.  But finally!  It's done!  I have a whole month of blissful free days ahead of me!  No more slightly neurotic, occasionally forgetful, but still wonderful students!  They're all off relaxing (I hope...) YAY!!!!

Of course, for the next week, I'll be frantically making Christmas gifts (starting with the cards I need to go finish up here shortly.  I still have 100 passes through the Sizzix to go.  Joy....)  I have ornaments to make, jewelry to string, wreaths to design, and a couple of gift cards to buy (so of course, I'm going to have to make holders for those!)

I also have myriad ideas floating around in my head of things I want to try... Thankfully I've got my art journal and while I can't sketch to save my life, I'm pretty good at writing descriptions... lol! I really want to work on this bracelet idea I have using weaving and earring forms... we'll see how it works out...

Right now, I'm either off to sleepy-time land, or off to finish the die-cutting... not sure which.  Either way, stay tuned for pics of projects coming, since I'm out of school and have some time to play again!

Wowzers!!! What a long time it's been!!!

...since I was able to blog!  Oh my!  So, here's the story.  Ya see, I actually had several things I wanted to blog about 3 or 4 weeks ago, but real work interfered.  Had lots and lots of essays to grade.  And then, right about when I finally had the time to start writing some of those things down, my poor lil' Macbook's hard drive took a header. I was computer-less for a week and a half.  That was not a fun week and a half. See, I'm a teacher.  A college English professor.  And I teach online classes.  When I don't have a computer, that's really hard to do.

Anywhoo.... my baby is fixed, although I lost a lot of the pictures I was planning to use in some blog posts. But, some of those I can retake, and some I can ask a few friends to take for me.  So, I should be able to replace the ones I need to still document.  So, it could have been worse.  In fact, the only reason I didn't lose everything is because I have a very awesome Mac-guru who backed up my computer last year (yes, I know, I should do that myself regularly... trust me, I will now...) So really, I only lost the recent-ish stuff...

So, since I've been computer-less, I really kinda dropped off the face of the interwebz.  I've been lurking in Facebook on my phone, and have almost totally disappeared from the Hive (I've missed you, Hive friends!) But, I did find a small glimmer of nifty-ness in being computer-less--I had more time to be crafty!  I've been playing with my new Sizzix Big Shot. I got it through Stampin' Up!, so I can use it for parties when I become a demonstrator next year (yup! I'm 99.9% sure I'm gonna do it!!) At the moment, I have a Sizzlits die, an Embosslits die, and an Embossing folder.  I'm looking forward to getting more dies and having more fun.

I also finished a bracelet order (and made a cute little bag to deliver them in! LOL!) and started another, and have some ideas for a few other jewelry pieces.  And I started making ornaments.  Paper and Mod Podge, and embellishments.  I'll be doing a blog post on those, definitely.

So that's the latest news, and I've very much enjoyed writing this little post.  I'd had no idea how much I'd come to depend on my writing as a stress reliever, and I'm very happy to have my computer all fixed and back home.  Talk to you soon!