To my Wonderful husband...

Just a quick post this morning as I'm on my out the door a little later to teach a Copic Coloring class at GinaK's Retail store... But, I wanted to share this card that I made last weekend for my husband. Of course, he asked why I didn't color the rose because he is always teasing me about my obsession with Copics and coloring. LOL!

I was going for a simple elegant look on this card with my new DCWV gorgeous black and ivory paper pack. I did use my Copic Warm grey marker to trace around the rose from SU's Urban Prairie stamp set after stamping in Memento Black ink on GinaK's Pure Luxury cardstock. The leaf sprig is from another new SU stamp set - I forget the name right now.

Here's the inside of the card...

Have a great weekend!

Jessica

My Craft Room....

Well, I promised that I would share the cards we'll be making at the Stop and Stamp event tomorrow but while I was taking photos of them tonight - my brand new Ott light decided to stop working... I'm not very happy about that as you can imagine!!! So, tomorrow's cards will have to be a surprise to everyone.

To tease you a little bit, we'll be using stamps from the new Floral Frenzy kit along with the Thumping Technique Gina shared last week. We'll also use Copic markers with Rupa's Perfectly Polished stamp set and learn how to use Nestabilities to make an embossed shape on our card...

Instead of cards tonight, I thought I'd share some photos that I took recently of my happy place - aka, my craft room!

We have a finished basement that is one of our favorite spots in the house. The kids have a large playroom/game room with their toys and video games and next to that room is my craft room. I love it - but just wish I had some natural lighting!

The first photo is of my desk area. My desk is actually an old kitchen table that has served me very well all these years. I love to have all the things I use the most right at my fingertips and within arm's reach. I'm a lazy stamper - if I can't see it or easily access it, I probably won't use it.

Here's my most valued treasure in the room...

ahhhh... pure love! lol! I store all my Copics in this Longaberger or Pampered Chef lazy susan that my mother-in-law got me for Christmas many years ago. To keep the markers from slipping, I laid some small bubble wrap under the handle and cut some thin chipboard to line both sides of the handle. It works perfectly.

I don't worry about color sorting because another thing I love is quick and easy clean up. I just sort the colors in groupings. Super easy to put away when I'm finished coloring.

I keep all my Basic Grey papers and embellishments on the shelf above my desk. I have each collection in its own box so I can keep it all organized. I use a Window hinged tin to hold the buttons and brads for each collection. I also keep the scraps in the containers - how perfect is that?

This is my wall of yummy paper and embellishments. It's to the right of my desk - so it's super convenient. The drawers hold a variety of things. The row right next to my chair is filled with scraps of solid cardstock. I have a drawer for each SU color family as well as for whites and neutrals. I always turn to these drawers first and usually make myself make do with the scraps before I turn to the full sheets of cardstock on the shelves.

Whenever I do need to cut into my paper, I always cut the paper in half at 5 1/2" so I can file one piece into the basket on the far right bottom shelf. That's where I keep all my cardfront papers just waiting to be scored and made into cards.

My ScorPal and small paper trimmer are on the first row of shelves and all my SU ribbon rolls are in the containers on the other shelves. Here's a few photos of some of the drawers open...

.... SU hardware, stored in Window tins...

...bits of ribbon rolled around a thin piece of chipboard sorted by color...

Here's my cutting station. This is an old desk of Brad's that I get to use now - lucky me! The drawers hold my Marvy Paper Punches among other things. My Big Shot and Tonic cutter are here as well. Since I haven't been using my SU colored inks too much lately, I also store them here.

My Nestabilities are stored in the CD cases on the lower shelf. For the larger Nestabilities, I use DVD tins. The Cuttlebug folders are in a little plastic box next to them. I use them both of these items all the time, so having them here is very convenient for me.

Yes, I have a sewing machine - but it's still not threaded! I'm too scared to do it... because I'm sure I'll break it! Pathetic, I know...

Have you been wondering where my stamps are? They are all stored on this beautiful bookshelf in baskets or in GinaK's binders. I took all my GinaK stamps out of their tins and put them in her binder boxes because I like them all to be stored the same way. You can fit two tin stamp sets on one side of a binder sheet - so it didn't take that many boxes to make the transition.

I have unmounted all of my wood mounted stamps from Stampin Up and other companies and have them stored on the Little Monkey Storage Sheets and have put them in the brown baskets with green trim. I found all the baskets in my room at JoAnne's and bought them when they were on sale - I love that they all match! I even have a couple of empty ones on the top shelf.

Eventually I'm going to switch out my photo boxes so they can match too. Right now most of my photos are in the SU boxes, but I like to use those boxes for my finished cards. When I find the right boxes for the right price, I'll switch them out.

To the right of this shelf is my non SU paper station - filled with paper in baskets on the table, under the table and even on the wall! I sort these by size - so I have an area for the 6x6 packs, 8x8, etc. Yep, I have way TOO much paper but I can't stop buying it!! No, I don't want an intervention, so don't even try to organize one for me! lol!

Finally, here's my last wall in my room and it's filled with my beloved paper punches. I bought these curtain rods at WalMart and was so happy to be able to get my EK success and SU punches out of drawers and up for easy reach!

The drawers underneath hold a variety of things. The middle one holds more paper punches. Yep, I have LOTS of these! I've been collecting paper punches for over 12 years - longer than I've been stamping! My mother-in-law gave me my first paper punches for Christmas before my son was born. And, the rest is history!

The other drawers hold extra items, alterables, and all sorts of odds and ends. On top of the shelves, I have a basket of chipboard - which I love but rarely use... I've got to get better with that! The middle drawer unit top holds boxes of my most recent cards that I haven't filed away yet.

So, there you have it - my little piece of heaven! Yes, it's all out in the open for everyone - including my husband to see. As you can see, he is very good to me! I'm a pretty lucky girl and know it! lol!

If you have photos of your craft room, I'd love to see them! Leave me a link in the comment section, so we can all see your photos!

Have a great night!

Jessica

Floral Gatefold Card

Good morning!

We have been BUSY at GinaK's store packing up Floral Frenzy kits for everyone who has ordered them this past week! You could say that we've been working in a 'frenzied pace' the past week - so Gina very aptly named the kit, I think!

Due to the huge success of StampTV and her kits along with preparing for her regular monthly release, next month's class schedule is going to be revamped with several classes taken off the schedule. I'll let you know in a post tonight the revised schedule along with the Stop and Stamp cards we'll be making tomorrow at GinaK's store.

Today's card is a gatefold one made with some images from the Elegant Flowers found in the Floral Frenzy Kit. I stamped the images in Black Memento ink on GinaK's layering weight (80lb.) cardstock and colored with Copics. Then, taking my Clear Sakura glitter pen, I traced many of the lines to add some sparkle. I kept the first photo a little darker so you could see the glitter on the image.

Here's a brighter more true view of the card...

Cardstock colors are Gina's Green cardstocks she includes in the 6x6 layering pack in the kit along with SU's River Rock and Cameo Coral.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that this is the first gatefold card I've made with my ScorPal - which is a little ridiculous because the measurements for the scoring are right on the grid! Did you know that? If you have a ScorPal, look at the two grid lines that have a raised dot on... I think it's the 2 1/8 and 6 3/8 marks. Those are the scor lines you need to use to make a perfect gatefold card - how easy is that!?

I'm off to work to process another bazillion orders for the kit with the girls! LOL! Be sure to stop back in later tonight for the revised class schedule along with tomorrow's cards for the Stop and Stamp event...

Jessica

Clear Embossed Flowers

Is it spring yet?! LOL! I'm so ready for the warmer weather and all this snow we have here in Stoughton to melt... Today's card is a bouquet of bright, cheerful flowers that I stamped from Year of Flowers and colored with Koh-i-noor Pencils. The shading was all done with GinaK's Odorless Mineral Spirits and blending stumps.

To really make the colors pop, I dabbed Versamark over the colored cut out flowers and sprinkled Ultra Thick Clear Embossing powder over them and heat embossed. The embossing powder really deepens the colors.

The card itself is pretty basic - to help the flowers really pop. I used a Petite Oval Nestability to emboss on the cardfront and Tonic's notch corner punch to decorate the edges of the cardfront. These are two of my favorite things to use on simple and elegant cards.

Gina will be sharing another Technique Video on Wednesday - this time she'll be showing us how to kiss our stamps... and, I thought I loved my stamps! heehee.... Be sure to tune in to StampTV for another great how-to-video. I can't wait to see it!

Jessica

For You my Friend...

Aren't these new Floral Frenzy Kit Stamp sets beautiful? These flowers are so much fun to stamp with. I can't seem to stop using it lately - especially with this week's technique "thumping." I also pulled out the pink papers from the kit - digital and light pink - to make this card for PaperCraftPlanet's Friendship Album.

The SU markers I used for the flowers were Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, Rose Red and Pretty in Pink. All the cardstock that I used to make the card are from Gina's kit with the exception of the Rose Red layer.

The oval sentiment was punched with Marvy's Giga Scallop Oval punch out of some opaque shrink plastic. After I heat set it and shrunk it down, I stamped the sentiment with Black Stazon. Before shrinking it, I punched holes in each scallop with Fiskars' hand held paper punch.

Have you been able to make a card using Gina's Technique of the week yet? Be sure to upload it to StampTV by Wednesday, so you can be entered to win a free stamp set of your choice! There are daily challenges on StampTV - all with chances to win free stamps... what could be better?!

Jessica

Comfort and Peace Stamp a Stack Cards

The four cards I'm sharing today are the ones we'll be making this Tuesday, February 23rd at GinaK's Retail store for our Comfort and Peace Stamp a Stack class. Everyone will make 2 of each card design - and the Comfort and Peace Stamp set is included in the fee along with all the materials and envelopes needed to make the 8 cards.

When I designed these cards, I wanted each one to be elegantly simple in design so that they could be used for a variety of occasions - sympathy, get well, anniversary, wedding - or even birthday. With the exception of the card above, the other 3 cards are left without sentiments.

We'll be playing with glossy and vellum papers along with learning a few basic brayering and embossing powder techniques. I love how elegant these materials are for these types of cards.

For more information or to reserve a spot in the class, call the store at 608 579-1026.

Thanks!
Jessica

To my friend...

This month's design team theme on PaperCraftPlanet has been friendship - which is such a great theme because I am always in need of cards to send to my friends. I sat down this afternoon and made a couple of cards with some new things I got over the past week. I'm sharing one card today and will share the others throughout the next week.

The floral stamp on this card is from Stampin Up's Fifth Avenue Floral. I love all the images in this set and was happy to add it to my stamp stash. I paired it with a new DCWV paper pack I found yesterday at JoAnne's called La Creme - it's just luscious! The papers are all black, grey, and ivory and many of them are flocked... I love them all!

I stamped the flower on SU's Shimmery White cardstock in Black Stazon ink and dotted the centers of the flowers with Sakura's Black Glaze pen. The shimmer is so pretty - you can see the sparkle of the paper and the shine of the glaze pen better in the first photo.

Here's the inside of the card...

In my photo the lower strip of patterned paper looks crooked, but it's not in person... weird! Here's a closer view of the decorative strip of paper so you can see the shimmer and shine a little better...

If you would like to see all the other photos in the Friendship Album, here's the link!

Have a great night!
Jessica

Floral Frenzy Kit 1

Good morning!

I posted my class schedule for GinaK Design's store earlier this morning but had to pop back to share some cards that I've made with Gina's brand new Floral Frenzy Kit! These stamps are amazing and have been so much fun to play with!

First up, is a card that I made using Gina's Technique of the week... Thumping. For my color choice, I went with SU's Really Rust, Blush Blossom, Groovy Guava, and Old Olive. I love the softness of all these colors together and had fun sponging and layering colors together.

The inside of the card is all fancy too...

Next up, is the card I shared last night but the photos were terrible so I took some new ones this morning in the natural light. Here's a closeup of the punched out flowers....

Here's that same color combination that I showed on my first card... guava, rust, and blush this time paired with cocoa...

I love it when products work well together and when Gina told me she was specifically designing these images to match Marvy's Blue, Yellow and Green flower punches, I had to add these punches to my stash! They make quick and easy focal points on your cards, don't they? She'll be adding the green flower punch to her online store soon, if she hasn't already.

So, have you joined StampTV yet? If you have, I'd love to be added to your friend list! StampTV is hosted by the some webserver as PaperCraftPlanet, so if you're a member there just use the same password and user name you have on PCP and join in the fun!

Jessica

It's Finally HERE!!!

Have you heard the big news??? If not, stop reading and 'run' over to Gina's Blog to read all the details. I can't even tell you how thrilled we all are to have StampTV live. It's been so HARD keeping this amazing news under wraps for the past year let alone the past couple of weeks...
When I started working for Gina last December she already had this concept in mind and was researching and developing how it was all going to come together. It sounded so exciting to me when she described it - but it's even more AMAZING that I ever could have imagined.

And, if StampTV weren't exciting enough, we have more amazing things debuting tonight... GinaK Kits complete with stamps, papers, ribbons, and embellishments! YAHOO!! The first kit is called Floral Frenzy and is very aptly named because when we started working on the details of the kits, we all started getting even more excited!



Gina has a ton of information about the kit and what she'll be adding to her store both on her blog and in her video introducing the first kit - so I'm not going to go into it too much here except to say that we have some new thick cardstock, ladies!!


Can you say Ivory, Chocolate Kiss, and Black Onyx!? Yahoo! It's smoother and thicker than Stampin Up's cardstocks and that's saying something! She is also adding a thinner weight in Ivory as well... ahh, it's almost more than a person can take.... *wink*


Because this is the first GinaK Designs kit, she is including TWO stamp sets in the kit and they are both so beautiful! The styles are both so fresh and fun - you're not going to be able to find a stamping technique that you can't do with this kit!



And, that's where the true beauty of StampTV and Gina's companion kits really is because Gina will be doing weekly tutorials and projects showcasing specific projects that you can make at home with the kit! How fun is that? Taking classes from GinaK herself in the comfort of your home at your convenience ... what could be more perfect?
I hope you'll be able to take the time check out Gina's Design Team's blog roll to see all the fun projects everyone has been working on with the Floral Frenzy kit over this past week. And, as a bonus, there are tons of samples that everyone has been posting in the Gallery over on StampTV - inspiration galore is on the site already!
I'm going to close this mega post off with my sample card for tonight. I'm sorry that the colors are a little washed out. I didn't have the chance to get the photo of my card until a few hours ago after my son's birthday party today ...

Gina's stamps from her Bold Flowers stamp set match the Marvy Blue, Yellow and Green flowers paper punches PERFECTLY as you can see from this card! I stamped the bold stamp in versamark on SU's Rust and Blush cardstock and embossed with SU's Iridescent Ice embossing powder and then punched them out with the flower punches. The centers are just circle punches from my stash because I wanted them to be out of SU's Cocoa cardstock.


The card base is a long Curvy Rectangle nestability that I cut out of SU's Blush and Guava cardstocks. I love this color combination paired with Rust. Here's a closeup of the inside of the card...



How fun is that?! I know both of these stamp sets will be used A LOT!



Have fun checking out our new StampTV site!

Jessica

GinaK's Hint #4...

Good morning!

What a fun day this is going to be! It's my son Isaiah's 12th birthday and I get to share some fun new TOP SECRET things on my blog with you today too!

We have been enjoying reading all your guesses as to what the big reveal will be tomorrow - I can't wait to hear what you all think when it's finally all out in the open! Be sure to check out Gina's post this morning because she's going to have another great hint along with a special project to share.

She asked her Design Team to join her in showing off some more hints today and specifically asked us to make cards using a fun technique called "Thumping." By using waterbased (dye) markers like Stampin Up's which I used on my card your stamped image can actually look watercolored.


Most of the materials I used to make my card are just a small part of what's coming this Friday to GinaK Designs... Any guesses now? Remember to comment on Gina's Blog to be entered to win a prize today!

Here's the other Design Team members that are sharing in the hints and techniques this morning...


Joanne, Theresa, Carolyn, Cindy, Melanie, Emily, Kurtis, Erika, and Donna


Good luck with your guesses - the BIG reveal is almost here and I can hardly wait!!!!
Jessica

Sweetest Blessing 3x3 box

Good morning!

Gina is giving away a set of Nestabilities today on her blog (valued at $24.95)! To be entered to win you have to try to guess what Gina's hinting at today... you guys are going to FLIP when it's finally revealed this Friday!! It's been so hard keeping this under wrap for months - so we are thrilled that it's all come together and is almost here for all of you to see!!

This morning I wanted to share my Sweetest Blessings box that I made several weeks ago and mentioned that I would share the templates here on my blog.

First up, here's the entire ensemble...



The box holds four 3x3 cards and envelopes perfectly - you could probably fit 2 cards and envelopes in it without a problem. The box itself is so easy and is the perfect size for some candies or even a little gift.

The bottom of the box is a 7 1/2" square scored at 2" on each side. The top of the box is a 5 5/8" square scored at 1" on each side. I found this template from Kelly Lunceford (atomicbutterfly on SCS) - thanks Kelly!

For each of the cards and the box, I used Stampin Up's Chocolate Chip and Purely Pomegranate cardstocks along with some polka dot Purely Pomegranate ribbon. The images were all stamped in Black Memento Ink on GinaK's 80lb. Pure Luxury cardstock and colored with Copics and highlighted with Stickles.

Since there are 4 images and sentiments in this adorable stamp set, I paired the images and sentiments together to make these four cards.

These little images were so much fun to color and embellish. I felt like it was a little mini cake decorating class! lol!

Using the same patterned papers that I used to decorate the box, I made the envelopes to match. Stampin Up's Oval and 5 flower punch were the perfect was to decorate them.

The envelope template is one that I came up with while tinkering around with my scorpal. The base of the envelope is 4 1/2" x 7 1/2". Now, bear with me and I'll try to share the scoring measurements without confusing you too much. (I'll upload a photo of the template a little later to make it easier to see and understand.)

On the 4 1/2" side, score at 1/2" and 4"

On the 7 1/2" side, score at 2 1/8" and 5 1/2"

Round all the edges to finish them off.

Have a great day and good luck guessing Gina's hint!

Jessica