January 2021 Paper Pumpkin: Sending Hearts

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Paper Pumpkin is an all-inclusive monthly subscription paper-crafting from Stampin’ Up and I look forward to receiving it every month. The January 2021 kit is called Sending hearts. The kit included all the supplies needed to make the cards pictured above and the photopolymer stamp set pictured below. It also included a Poppy Parade mini ink pad. The coordinating colors are Poppy Parade, Basic Black, and Petal Pink.

Today I’m sharing a few alternative designs that I made using the kit and supplemental supplies.

On this card, I repeatedly stamped the XOXO stamp on a white card base. I also added a piece of Petal Pink vellum and metallic edge Petal Pink ribbon from my stash of retired paper products.

For this card, I stamped the top portion of a white card base with the Love stamp. The bottom red panel is cut from one of the card bases included in the kit. The scalloped black border is punched from a border punch I have, but you can just as easily piece together two of the scalloped black strips from the kit. I offset a square of white vellum behind the front panel to give it more emphasis.

This next card utilizes the cute little snail stamp. I used a technique to reverse the stamped image so the snails could be facing one another. The reverse technique is very simple. Stamp the image on a silicon crafting mat and place a piece of cardstock over it, lightly pressing down without wiggling the paper. If you don’t have a silicon crafting mat, a silicon baking mat can be used instead.

Happy stamping and Happy Valentines Day!

Monthly Paper Pumpkin Tip: A Little Product Supplement Goes a Long Way

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I received a shipping notice yesterday that this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit is on its way to my house, so I have Paper Pumpkin on the brain. Because Paper Pumpkin is an all-inclusive monthly subscription paper-crafting kit perfect for beginning stampers, I’ve decided to start a series of posts giving tips and tricks on how to expand the possibilities of what you can create with your monthly kit.

This months tip: A Little Product Supplement Goes a Long Way

You don’t have to have a a storehouse of paper-crafting supplies to make alternative projects from your Paper Pumpkin. You can supplement with a few basic supplies and unlock a plethora of possibilities.

  • Purchase extra cardstock & envelopes
    When I say to purchase extra cardstock, I don’t mean that you have to have every color of the Stampin’ Up rainbow. Invest in a stash of Basic White and/or Very Vanilla cardstock. You can also buy thick versions of white and vanilla which are sturdier and make better card bases. A pack of Neutrals cardstock will further expand your creative opportunities. The Neutrals color family includes Basic Gray, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Gray Granite, Merry Merlot, Mossy Meadow, Night of Navy, Sahara Sand, Smoky Slate, and Soft Suede, and you’ll receive two sheets of every color in the package.
Basic White 8 1/2" X 11" Thick Cardstock
$8.25
Basic White 8 1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$9.75
Basic White Medium Envelopes
$7.50
Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$9.75
Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Thick Cardstock
$8.25
Very Vanilla Medium Envelopes
$7.50
Neutrals 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$9.00
  • Invest in a black ink pad
    For a beginning stamper, I recommend Memento Tuxedo Black. Memento is a great all-around basic ink. Also, it won’t smear when you color with alcohol-based markers such as Stampin’ Blends or Copics.
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad
$6.00
  • Acquire basic cutting tools
    Not only is a paper trimmer a must-have for a paper-crafter, it’s a great tool to have around the house anyway. My daughter frequently pulls it out for school projects and to trim photos. Paper snips give you the ability to precisely cut out small stamped images.
Paper Trimmer
$25.00
Paper Snips
$10.00

By investing in these basic supplies, you can “cannibalize” the materials in your Paper Pumpkin and create extra cards. Subscribe to my blog and check back at the end of the month to see what I create with the January 2021 kit, Sending Hearts. Happy stamping!

Subscribe today!

New Year, New Catalog: Ice Cream Corner

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So far, one of the few good things about the onset of 2021 is the launch of Stampin’ Up’s January-June Mini Catalog, which features charming new stamp sets and products. I’ll be introducing some of these sets to you over the next few weeks. I’m starting with the Ice Cream Corner Product Suite. I know, it’s strange that it’s still January and I’m pulling out the ice cream set, but I live in the Pacific Northwest and we get a lot of rain and gray skies, especially during the winter, and the colors in this suite are bright and cheerful and everyone needs some bright and cheerful in life right now. Yes, at the moment I’m more inclined to want a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top than a a popsicle or ice cream cone (especially since my husband keeps opening the window to his office because he wants fresh air), but it gives me something to look forward to.

One of the great things about the January-June Mini Catalog is that while some of the product suites are in the usual $100-150 rage, there are a few in the $50-$100 rage. This is one of them. Without further ado, I present to you Ice Cream Corner! The suite consists of the items pictured below. (Of course, you can always buy the items a la carte.)

Product List
Sweet Ice Cream Photopolymer Stamp Set
$17.00
Ice Cream Cone Builder Punch
$18.00
Blackberry Bliss Striped Ribbon
$7.00
Ice Cream Corner Sprinkles
$6.00
Ice Cream Corner Designer Series Paper
$11.50

The color palette for the Designer Series Paper is Terracotta Tile, Old Olive, Bermuda Bay, Blackberry Bliss, and Cinnamon Cider.

When I was a kid and my family would go to Baskin Robins for ice cream, I always fantasized about ordering a cone with at least three scoops of ice cream on top. Of course, my parents would never let me, which now that I’m a parent myself I completely understand why. This stamp set helped me fulfill my fantasy of having multiple scoops of ice cream without all the calories and sugar. Here are my cards:

Thanks for reading and I’ll be featuring other stamps sets and products from the new catalog over the course of the next few weeks.

In other news, the subscription period for the February Paper Pumpkin will be open from January 11-February 10. Click the picture below for more information and to subscribe. Then, check my blog toward the end of the month to see what creative ways you can make alternate projects from the kit.

December 2020 Paper Pumpkin: Beary Comforting

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Happy New Year! For my first blog post of 2021 I’m featuring the December 2020 Paper Pumpkin kit called Beary Comforting, an all-inclusive paper-crafting subscription box from Stampin’ Up. This kit contains all the supplies you need to create twelve cards with coordinating envelopes. It also includes a Rich Razzleberry Stampin’ Spot and a photopolymer stamp set with the images pictured below.

The fun thing about this kit is that the animals were designed to be holding items. In addition to the single koala bears, the kit includes cutouts of a zany raccoon. You have your choice of several items for the animals to hold–a cupcake, a gift, a heart, and a bouquet of flowers. Although the cards look great in their own right, I wanted to add a little extra embellishment and I found that the Gold Glitter Enamel Dots and the 1/4″ Gold Shimmer Ribbon were perfectly suited to the job. My favorite modification to the kit was cutting the bow off the top of the gift cutout, flipped it over, added a tiny square of Kleenex and made it into a box of tissues for get well soon cards.

I always like to feature at least one card that doesn’t include any elements from the kit other than the stamp set. I call it my “stamps only” card. I copied an idea from another Stampin’ Up demonstrator, April Jensen, to create the the patterned panel on the left. The panel on the left is from the Oh So Hombre designer series paper featured in the upcoming Sale-a-Bration catalog, which will go live on January 4th. The picture doesn’t show it well, but the Rich Razzleberry paper behind the koala bear is embossed with the Greenery Embossing Folder so there’s some raised foliage behind the bear.

Product List
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$9.75
Rich Razzleberry 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Gray Granite 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad
$6.00
Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Pad
$7.50
Gray Granite Classic Stampin' Pad
$7.50
Gray Granite Stampin' Blends Combo Pack
$9.00
Greenery Embossing Folders
$8.00
Gold Glitter Enamel Dots
$8.00
Gold 1/4" (6.4 Mm) Shimmer Ribbon
$7.00

If you send out cards for Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, other celebrations of love the January 2021 kit, Sending Hearts is for you. The kit makes eight cards and comes with oodles of heart-shaped elements and paper pieces in red and pink. For those who share treats at Valentines Day, an add-on containing 20 tiny, printed boxes and 24 die-cut, heart-shelled snails and sentiment labels is also available to Paper Pumpkin subscribers beginning on January 1st. Subscribe to Paper Pumpkin by January 10th to get this box.

November 2020 Paper Pumpkin: Jolly Gingerbread

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The November 2020 Paper Pumpkin is all about Gingerbread houses. The kit contains all of the supplies to make fifteen of the gift card holders pictured above, including a Flirty Flaming mini ink pad the 12-piece photopolymer stamp set featured below.

I was excited to hear that this months kit would be all about the gingerbread. When our kids were young and we had more time, we made gingerbread houses almost every year, and I’m not talking about the graham cracker kind that you make in elementary school. In addition to houses, we made robots, a trailer park, and lighthouses. Our creations haven’t been super fancy or competition worthy, but here’s a gallery of my favorites:

You’d think that as excited I am about gingerbread houses, my first alternate card would be in that same milieu. But no, the minute I saw the lovely filigree stamps I knew I had to transform them into something completely different. What I came up with was a dragon. Yes, a dragon, and quite frankly I’m super proud of it.

The filigree images are embossed in gold embossing powder on Real Red cardstock. I made the teeth using the diamond stamp from the February 2019, Paper Pumpkin, Grown with Kindness. The card is mounted on a black base. I was going to use plain Just Jade cardstock for the base layer, but then remembered this pattern paper from the Forever Greenery DSP pack and it really made the rest of the card pop. The whiskers are made from the metallic thread included in the Forever Greenery Trim Combo Pack.

After the dragon card, I decided to move on to something more traditional and made this card:

This card uses many pieces from the kit. The diagonal stripe paper is the lining from one of the gift card envelopes. The base of the card is a Cinnamon Cider cardstock and the background layer is Shaded Spruced, which I embossed with the retired Stylish Scroll embossing folder.

For my final card, I integrated the gingerbread house stamp with the Coming Home stamp set and Home Together dies from the the August-December 2020 Mini Catalog.

I embossed the stamped images on Cinnamon Cider cardstock so they truly look like gingerbread decorated with white icing. You can’t see it very well in the picture, but the details on the houses are colored in with various sparkly gel pens. I really love making layers of snow with the curvy dies from the Home Together die set, which are cut from Shimmery White cardstock. The Mint Macaron sky is brushed on with the new Blending Brushes featured in the upcoming January-June 2021 Mini Catalog. The sentiment is stamped in Saddle Brown Staz-On ink. I also brushed some clear Wink of Stella across the tops of the snow layers to give them a little extra sparkle.

Additional Products
Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Real Red 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Cinnamon Cider 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Shaded Spruce 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.75
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Thick Cardstock
$8.25
Shimmery White 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$10.00
Forever Greenery Designer Series Paper
$11.50
Coming Home Photopolymer Stamp Set
$18.00
Home Together Dies
$34.00
Mint Macaron Classic Stampin' Pad
$7.50
Saddle Brown Stazon Ink Pad
$10.00
Versamark Pad
$9.50
Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder
$6.00
White Stampin' Emboss Powder
$6.00
Stylish Scroll Embossing Folder
Retired
Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush
$8.00
Forever Greenery Trim Combo Pack
$9.00

Does the idea of receiving an all-inclusive paper-crafting kit every month excite you? Subscribe to Paper Pumpkin by December 10th so you can receive the the Beary Comforting kit.

Beary Comforting offers a warm way to send a socially-distanced bear hug to friends and family, near or far. We all need of a bit of extra encouragement after a beary tough year!