 In December, I will be teaching a class at our local community college through their Continuing Education program. It's pretty close to Christmas and a little late for starting to make all of your Christmas cards, so instead, we will be making a dozen gift tags and then turning a couple of them into full-sized cards. So today, I have been working on making some samples to advertise the class. And you get a sneak peak! I used the Brightly Gleaming Designer Series Paper from the 2019 Holiday Catalog and three stamp sets. Two of the sets are retired. One is from last year, Beautiful Blizzard, and the other is from over 10 years ago, Season of Joy. This is the one with the Christmas tree. I love it! It is such a fun, whimsical Christmas set. The third set is from the 2019 Holiday Catalog, So Many Stars. Click here to see a complete supply list for all of the currently available supplies. It was so much fun making these tags! I hope my students in December have as much fun learning some basic stamping and papercrafting techniques on these mini canvases.
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I cut the books on the left of the card from another sheet of the paper that looks like library shelves full of spooky, creepy books. I scored a line between the books and then folded them and rolled the books slightly. Although it's hard to see in the photo, I wanted the them to look like individual books with raised spines. To help them keep their shape, I cut apart mini dimensionals and placed them under the books, then I put a thin line of liquid adhesive where the edges of the books are. This raises the inside of the spine while holding the edges down to the paper and gives each book a curved spine. Since the "Wicked" die cut overlapped the books, I had to put dimensionals on it as well. This required quite a bit of finesse as the type is fairly thin and I had to cut the already small mini dimensionals into smaller pieces. I also popped the little spider on a dimensional and added a line in black to make it look like the spider was hanging off the words.
 A few years ago, I made a goal to try to use up my stash of papers so I would have room to add new stuff to my collection. But it's REEEAAALLLYYYY hard to not buy new stuff when there are so many shiny new stamps, papers, and inks available. Needless to say, I didn't get very far before I eventually broke down and started buying new inks, papers, stamp sets, and dies. As many of you know, I was an Independent Stampin' Up! demonstrator from 1998-2008. During those 10 years, I amassed a lot of supplies. I had complete sets of ink pads and markers and a healthy stash of cardstock and designer series paper.
That wooden container is designed to hold 48-52 ink pads. Stampin' Up! has gone through a couple of color refreshes since I was last a demonstrator. As I have been adding the new colors to the box, I have been kicking out the old ones and am quickly running out of room in the area surrounding the box.
Since I became a demonstrator again in March, #ProjectUseUpMyStash has taken the back burner and my retired stash is starting to get dusty. So, in an effort to conquer this mound of paper, I am going to regularly share projects I make with retired paper. No, you can no longer buy the paper. Although if you really fall in love with a piece, I might be willing to share. But maybe you have your own stash of papers fallen to the wayside while your head was turned by all the new pretties in the Holiday Catalog. Let's start using our stashes and sharing our creations with the world. Nobody's going to know, or care, that your paper is 5, 10, or 20 years old. They will be too excited by the beautiful handmade cards, pages, and projects you've shared with them.
This paper is gorgeous! Lots of stripes and patterns that don't distract from your focal images, plus this poinsettia paper. I quickly made 7 cards (a baker's half dozen?). These cards could easily be made using current Designer Series Papers like Wrapped in Plaid or Let It Snow, or any of the numerous Christmas themed prints you have in your own stash! So, dive into your stash and get crafting! Leave a comment below sharing what you come up with or use #ProjectUseUpMyStash on Instagram.
 This week, I participated in the TGIF Challenge again. It was a color challenge to use the colors Merry Merlot, Basic Black, and Very Vanilla on a card. I chose to combine these colors with the To a Wild Rose stamp set and the Wild Rose dies. The results were stunning! I love these colors together because they are so dramatic. I stamped the solid image and the shading image of the rose in Merry Merlot on Very Vanilla cardstock and added a black center using a Tuxedo Black Momento ink. I die cut the leaves from Basic Black, Very Vanilla, and Vellum cardstock using the Wild Rose dies. I wanted a little sparkle in the card, so I added a little silver thread under the rose as well. The leaves and thread were mounted on a square of Merry Merlot cardstock cut using the Stitched Shapes dies. It's hard to see, but I popped up the rose on some dimensionals. To give the card even more texture, I embossed the Basic Black cardstock with the Subtle embossing folder. To finish the card, I added a greeting cut from Very Vanilla cardstock using the Well Written dies.
Supplies:
 Yesterday, I hosted my first ever virtual stamp party. It was so much fun! During the "party," I demonstrated some projects using stamps from the new Holiday Catalog (as well as one from the Annual Catalog). If you missed the party, you can watch the videos on replay by joining the Facebook group at http://bit.ly/OnYGoParty.
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