Have you seen today’s tutorial on Splitcoaststampers?  If you haven’t you can see the photo tutorial on File Folder Notebooks here.   I can’t wait to see all of your creations.  We’ll be making these in my class on Saturday.

Well Colin’s swab came back positive for Strep Throat so he’s going to be home for a few days. I’m keeping the boys separated while the antibiotics hopefully do what we need them to do. Today is also weigh in day and this week I ended up gaining 0.8 lbs so I’m still down a total of 11 lbs.  I’m not completely surprised because I haven’t had much of a chance to work out and I lost a lot quickly.  I’m still plugging along and I’m not going to let the little gain get me down.  Next week will be better.

It has probably been two years since I wrote the Double Pocket Bag tutorial for Splitcoaststampers. It is based off of a project I saw demonstrated at the Louisville Regional that I had attended.  Since then all of the tutorials on SCS are being updated to add video tutorials to them.  Beate e-mailed and asked if I’d be able to make a video to go along with the original tutorial and I finally had a chance to sit down and get it done yesterday. You can find the original tutorial here, and the video has been uploaded there as well.

To update my bag I used Tall Tales designer series paper, my favorite Medallion stamp and the sentiment from Upsy Daisy.  To dress it up a bit I punched one edge of the Rose Red paper with the Eyelet Border punch, added a half pearl from the Pretties Kit and some of the wide striped Chocolate Chip ribbon that I absolutely love. 

I hope you enjoy the updated video tutorial.  It has been a long time since I made one of these.  Hopefully there will be more in the near future.

Today I am going to do something a little different. I decided it might be fun to do a Product Focus every once in a while. I know there are things in the catalog that I sometimes look past and really they shouldn’t be overlooked. Today I am going to focus on a Mini Note Kit from the Under $10 page in the catalog. This is the very last page in the Spring-Summer 2009 catalog. Items on this page are fabulous for beginning stampers who don’t know where to start or for a stamper on a budget.

I tried to stick to using minimal supplies along with the kit to create four Thank You Note cards. I designed two simple designs that you could easily recreate. There are times when we all need a quick Thank You so these are perfect for those occasions.

This second design uses a few more punches than the first one, but I bet many stampers already have these on hand.

I’ll explain more in my video. If you are viewing this via Google Reader you may have to click over to see the video.  Enjoy!  Tomorrow I’ll have a full size card that uses this stamp set so check on back to see that.

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments on my tutorial yesterday. I haven’t done a video tutorial in a long time, but I pulled out my Flip and decided to do one yesterday. I know that a lot of us are visual learners. Here is the project that I showed in the video. The front is made with images from Trendy Trees and And Many Mower. The colors are pulled right from the Good Morning Sunshine designer series paper. The base is Pacific Point and I just love this vibrant blue.

I decorated my pages with images from Cheep Talk and Trendy Trees and some more Good Morning Sunshine designer series paper.

I didn’t decorate my pocket in the video but you can see it finished here.

Before you watch the video please know that I had major issues with Windows Movie Maker yesterday. It kept freezing on me and when I finally got my video published some of the titles are missing letters near the end. They show in the preview, but the published version is different. I have no idea why, but if I figure it out I will upload a new version. Until then this will have to do. Enjoy the video and let me know what you think. I promise to move onto another project tomorrow.

Looking through the Stampin’ Up! Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book and Catalog I fell in love with the scallop flower on page 46 of the catalog.  I put it on my To Do list and forgot about it.  Then Jeni Allen make one and moved it back to the top of my list. 

I have to apologize for the lack of music I have that works in Windows Media Player.  I promise to buy something new soon.  So you will have to listen to John Mayer once again.  Apparently, my iTunes does not work with the program and only songs from Rhapsody do. 

I am happy to report the rain is gone and we should hopefully dry out soon.  The water is up over 6 feet at the drainage ditch and our neighbors backyards are now lakes.  It’s still about 25 – 30 feet away from our property, but our sump pump is constantly running so we are crossing our finger that the motor doesn’t burn out. 

I hope you have a fantastic week!

Jenn

stamps- Best Yet

paper – Hawaiian Papaya, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss

ink- Chocolate Chip

accessories – scallop circle punch, scallop edge punch, flower brad, dimensionals, tombow multi, chocolate chip twill ribbon, mat pack

Now before you think I’ve completely lost it, WICKED stands for Wonderfully Inspired Challenges Keep Educating Demos.  If you are a Demonstrator they challenges are in the Demonstrator Forum of SCS.  Each month there is a new Featured Demonstrator and 3 challenges.  Last month was the first month and Jan Tink was the very first Host.  I was completely surprised when they asked me to host this month.  I came up with a Color Challenge, Sketch Challenge and Technique Challenge.  I’ll be sharing the cards I made with you over the next day or so. 

This card meets two of my challenges.  It is my sketch challenge and my technique challenge.  I saw a few spring cards a month or so before convention started and had wanted to try them out.  Then I heard it was a Convention technique and started to play around with them.  So what a better way than to make a video of how I made mine.

Here is the inside of my card.

Here is how I accomplished it.

Jenn

stamps – Tasty Sweet

paper – Kraft, Basic Black,  Whisper White, Ghostly Greetings dsp, Kiwi Kiss

ink – Pumpkin Pie, Kiwi Kiss, Summer Sun, Basic Black

Accessories – whisper white taffeta ribbon, natural hemp twine, 1/16″ hole punch, dimensional, scallop edge punch, tombow multi, scallop circle punch, 1 3/8″ circle punch, mat pack, stamp-a-ma-jig

Yesterday I sat down to stamp and I made a video on Watercoloring with an AquaPainter.  Often in classes people ask my how I figure out what to color and how to shade.  There is no right way of watercoloring.  It honestly just takes practice and it took me a long time to figure it out.  The easiest way is to start with a bunch of water a little bit of ink smooshed into the lid of the ink pad.  For the first layer I just use a light color wash and then as you will see in the video I then build the color up.  It took me about 16 minutes to make the card from start to finish, but the video is in double time, so it will go much faster. 

I started by stamping a pattern on the base of my card with Frames with a Flourish.  I can’t put that set down.  I really do love it.  I then went on to watercoloring my main image, then masked off where I wanted a soft frame of color and finally added the paper piercing.  The remainder was assembling the card and adding embellishments. 

I am still learning the best set up for taking videos.  The tripod I have doesn’t set to the right level, so I tried using my video camera attached to my Ott light, but it tends to bounce on my table, especially if the kids run into it.  My only countertops are upstairs so that means taking all of my supplies upstairs to tape.  If my video bounces just a bit I apologize. 

Video editing takes up quite a bit of time from start to finish.  I’d like to add a weekly video (starting on a regular basis in September), but I don’t want to take too much extra time away from family time.  So I’d like your opinion. 

1. Would you prefer to see a weekly video?  If this is the majority of the vote, I wouldn’t have a new post 7 days a week.   I’d post Monday – Friday and use the weekends to tape my video, edit it and then upload to You Tube.

2. Would you prefer daily posts 7 days a week?  If that is the case I’d probably have 2 videos here a month. 

I hope you enjoyed the new video.

Jenn

Wow, what a day yesterday was.  By noon I was ready for bed.  It was in the low 80’s and the thunderstorms had cleared out.  Colin and Evan wanted to ride bikes first thing in the morning, so I set up cones to show how far they could go down the sidewalk before they had to turn around.  We then set up the swimming pool, complete with it’s blow up slide and jumped around on the trampoline.  After lunch I was able to sit down and stamp and I think they were both ready for bed.  I just wish they’d nap every once in a while. 

I looked up the sketch challenge and it was a fun one.  I started with a Taken with Teal cardstock base and then layered it with both Old Olive cardstock and Bali Breeze paper of the same color.  I used my ticket corner punch on both pieces and all 4 sides.  I then added my squares.  The largest is 2 1/4″.  The smallest squares start at 1″ and go up 1/16″ from there for all of the layers.  I used Bud Basics and stamped in Regal Rose, Rose Red, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Apricot Appeal and Pumpkin Pie.  I had this idea in my head for the paper piercing and it didn’t really come together the way I wanted it to.  I spent so much time on this card though that I didn’t want to just scrap it.  It’s now growing on me. 

When I went to add a strip of ribbon I didn’t have the right size or color to fit, so I dyed my own.  I used Stampin’ Up!’s White Taffeta Ribbon and a Stampin’ Write Marker.  I even make a little video to show you just how I did it.  I used my Flip Video camera and I finally learned how to add a Title and Credits.  I tell you I have a long way to go to learn all of the stuff I can do, but slow and steady wins the race. 

ETA:  I didn’t realize how loud the boys were playing GeoTrax in the basement.  Sorry for all of the banging in the background.

In the past week I have been having fun with a super easy, yet elegant looking bow.  You can see it on my Wishlist Notebook.

It also appeared on my Elegant Anniversary card.

The number one comment on this card in my SCS gallery was “How did you make that bow?”.  I thought that everyone had done this before, but apparently not.  I put together a little video tutorial this afternoon on how I go about making them. 

I hope that this explains a few things and that you can start to include bows like these on your projects in the future.  Let me know what you think.

Jenn

Otherwise give me a Video Tutorial today!  The thunderstorms today allowed me to get a video tutorial done of the 3 X 3 Card box that I showed you yesterday. 

To get started, you will need:

One 7″ square piece of River Rock cardstock for the bottom of the box

One 5″ square of Ginger Blossom designer series paper for the top of the box

One 1 1/4″ X 11″ piece of Rose Red cardstock for the belly band

Sticky Strip

Bone Folder

Scoring tool

Old Olive, Regal Rose and Whisper White scrap cardstock for decorations

Rhinestone brad

Pop Up Glue Dot

Dimensionals

Stamps – Fresh Cuts, One of a Kind

Punches – Boho Flowers Punch, 5 Petal flower Punch

Ink – River Rock, Rose Red, Old Olive

Important Measurements -

The River Rock 7″ square cardstock base is scored on all 4 sides at 1 3/4″

The Ginger Blossom 5″ square piece of designer series paper is scored on all 4 sides at 11/16″