How I spend my time sheltering in place

How best to spend my time sheltering in place, that is the question. Being retired, I already spend a lot of time at home. But sheltering in place added a new feature to my days, in that I couldn’t just jump up and run out to the store to pick up an item or so. I now had to plan my outdoor trips more carefully. It also meant that I had lots of extra time to devote to other things. One thought that crossed my mind, was how could I use my time sheltering in place to do something helpful during this horrible situation we find ourselves in with this pandemic.

Then this thought occurred to me. A member of our church is currently residing in a local nursing home, who no one can visit since all of these residents are in lock-down. So the only thing I can do is send her a card to let her know that we are thinking about her. It only followed that I could send a card to each of the other residents as well, since I spend most of my days now making cards. Addington Place was happy to hear about my offer to drop off cards for the residents, and today I delivered 65 cards for all the residents as well as one for the staff. I hope that it makes them feel as good as it made me feel to do it.

These are some of the cards I particularly liked.

For the most part they were one of a kind “thinking of you” cards, that allowed me to use up current and retired designer series paper and pre-cut card bases, along with ribbon and other embellishments. Depending on how long this lock-down goes on, I may start working on another set of cards for them soon.

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Mosaic Mood

I was asked to create a board of card samples using the Memorable Mosaic stamp set and coordinating Specialty Designer Series Paper for my upline’s Creative Retreat in June. Now that I’ve finally gotten around to photographing them, here is the board and some of the samples. Some were actually cased from samples I found on Pinterest and others are my designs.

First let me say that seeing the paper in the catalog does not do it justice. The paper is beautiful with glossy, embossing on one side of all the papers. All of the samples you see on this post were made using one half of the pack of paper. I admit that I was meticulous in my cutting it up, always choosing to get the most out of the specific designs.

So, that includes a scrapbook page, 10 cards, two 2″ samples of the papers, 12 note cards and a note card box. The cutie in the scrapbook page is my first grandson who turned 14 today. Where did the time go?

Finally, these are the note card samples and box, which includes my first ever shaker card. I never made one because I wasn’t sure I even liked them, but after making one, I found them really fun to make.

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Saying Goodbye to DSPs

There were so many papers in the this year’s catalogs that I simply loved. So, while Stampin’Up! is saying “goodbye” to all of these lovelies, I may have hoarded a few for personal use, so I can continue to play with them. But as we get ready to close the current catalog to make room for the new, including many new, beautiful papers, I thought I would share a few card samples with my favorites DSPs.

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Petal Promenade

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Butterfly Gala

Does this bundle of Butterfly Gala and Gingham Gala DSP speak Spring to anyone else? Oh my gosh! Of course, to complete the bundle you need to have the Butterfly Duet punch. At our last workshop we put a bunch of these elements together to create this version of Lisa Curcio’s inspired card. Pulling in some of that beautiful ribbon from this year’s Sale-a-bration completed the look for this card.

Here are a few more cards, using this suite of products, including the beautiful Botanical Butterfly Designer Series Paper, that was also a free Sale-a-bration item.

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Beauty Abounds

Who doesn’t love these butterfly clusters? Well, maybe I wasn’t sold at first, given that I already have plenty of butterfly punches and dies. Then I saw a card from France Martin. This is the version we made at our last workshop using several stamps from the Beauty Abounds stamp set and coordinating Botanical Butterfly thinlits. Oh my, how cute seeing these butterflies pop up when you open this card.

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Floral Romance Suite

I fell in love with this suite at first site, and that was at OnStage in November of last year in Orlando. But it’s taken me a while to blog about, as I had so much fun playing with this suite. Plus, I also bought it in stages, getting the stamp set at OnStage, then the framelits when the Occasions catalog was opened to demonstrators, and finally the beautiful specialty designer series paper and embossing folder followed. The last two products I will feature in another post. As a retired florist, this was definitely a must have for me.

It became my first swap for the year seen here.

The colors used in this card are Pool Party and Calypso Coral with Very Vanilla. I will share more photos of other cards in another post.

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