Pregnancy Congratulations with A Little Birdie

My niece and nephew announced this week that they are pregnant and due on September 15th! We are so excited, we can hardly contain ourselves. Kylie is eagerly anticipating, because she wants to babysit already. :)

More card details later...

New Catalog Swap

I joined a swap for new Spring-Summer Collection. We all made 10 card fronts, plus 1 full card. The coordinator will swap our cards out for other ones and then we'll get 10 different ones back. This way, we can show off designs from many different stamp sets in the new catalog. The full card gets sent to the troops. How cool is that?

I *totally* cased (copy and steal/or share everything) from scrapnextras design on SCS. I loved the color combination and the watercolored images. I ended up making the 11 for the swap, plus 10 more. 6 of them will go to my current buyer's club members and I'm saving the others to send out.

The Shimmery White paper was a good choice for this. I watercolored the birds with Real Red and Ballet Blue with Aqua Painters. It took a few tries to get it right, but I like the overall effect. I also used a make-up sponge for the grass along the bottom edge.

All materials are Stampin' Up!

Stamps: A Little Birdie Told Me
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Real Red, Bordering Blue, So Saffron
Ink Pads/Markers: Real Red, Ballet Blue, Black StazOn, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: Fresh Favorites eyelets
Tools: Scallop punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, 1" circle punch, Crop-a-Dile, makeup sponges

Yippee Skippee! Spring-Summer Collection is Here

Some of you have this glorious catalog in your hot little hands....if not, contact me and you can get one too. :)

I'm always searching out for new and exciting stamp sets. But I find lately that my stamping, or lack thereof, includes Designer Paper. I took advantage of the Buy 3, Get 1 free last month. Now, I have all 4 packages...unopened except for the three or so sheets I used for my pink and wasabi Christmas card. It's so pretty, I don't want to use it. I'm hoarding the paper.

But, I did find a few stamps I had to have from the Preview Brochure.

• Happy Heart Day (page 65, item 111089, $20.95) How cute are the kids' valentine's going to be with this little gem? AND, it coordinates with the tag punch. Glorious!
  
• A Little Birdie Told Me (page 65, item 10992, $25.95) Love those birds. Don't know why, but they're darn cute and this set will be so versatile.
  
• Mark the Date (page 125, item 111097, $$24.95) How cute will this be to personalize cards with the actual birthday or anniversary marked? It will be easy to make little count-down calendars for kids...maybe their birthday, the end of the school year or an upcoming vacation.
• Time Well Spent (page 24, item 111054, Hostess Level 3 set) We got this HUGE set for free as a Christmas present from Shelli Gardner, the mastermind behind Stampin' Up! I love the *doodely* stamps. Yes, I know that *doodely* is not a word. But hey, Julie Ebersole makes up words all the time.
  

AND, finally....

I went downstairs to stamp and play with my new Cricut. I got one for Christmas, but I've been puking for the past week and I'm finally feeling better. I'll post the card tomorrow!

BIG ANNOUNECEMENTS!

Today was the highly anticipated announcement of the Stampin' Up! retired list! Click on the list above for a bigger version, or email me at michlz319@yahoo.com and I'll send one to you. These stamp sets are available until January 1st. The new catalog starts on January 2nd!

A few surprises for me on the list....Headline Alphabet...Letterpress Alphabet...Monogram Letters...Monkey Business...Double Line Doodles....Looks Like Spring...

Now, I have to decide what I *have* to have before then....AND today is the first day demonstrators can pre-order from the Preview catalog. Decisions, decisions...I have to have the A Little Birdie Told Me set and maybe the Happy Heart Day too! As a demonstrator, I get 20% off of these sets normally, but we are also getting an extra 15% off of just the sets out of the Preview. Stampin' Up! gives us this great deal so that we order these sets to show YOU when the new catalog is released. :)
Here is the A Little Birdie Told Me set:

AND....big announcement #2...more specials for YOU!
Click on the flyer for more details. :)