A Week of Excuses...and Projects!

#stampinup   I used to work with a woman who was simply delightful...and always late to meetings. Instead of quietly sneaking into the back of the room and taking a seat, she'd breeze in and breathless describe in glorious detail why she was late. It was charming and frustrating all at the same time.

Well, I've got a week full of excuses...but I hope you'll find something charming in the projects I'm sharing. I was away for 3 weeks--one week in Salt Lake City for the OnStage event (awesome) and two weeks on business in Denver. When I got home and turned on my laptop, I got a message that the hard drive couldn't be found. What? It's right in there! If I had a screwdriver I could get to it. Ugh. My hubby--and local technical support--couldn't fix it and after a while, we realized that we'd have to get the experts to take care of it. I was able to get my Creation Station blog posted...but it took far longer than usual because the old laptop kept freezing and I had to keep rebooting it and at about 12:45 AM I finally got the post up. (Am I charming you yet?)

The repair was quick--we dropped off the laptop at 3:30 Sunday afternoon and it was ready by 7:30. I can't complain about that. But then we had to load the operating system and that took all night and then the backup files had to be restored from the cloud and that took forever. I was afraid to touch the computer while all this was going on. And I sat on my bum for a week catching upon on all the shows on my DVR and not creating a dang thing. (Oh the horror!)

Saturday arrived and I figured I'd have some time to play with my toys in the stamping room, but first I knew I needed to load the software that I used to edit photos for the blog....but I couldn't find the dang disc. After some frustration, I did find it--on my bedside table. Don't ask me why it was there, because I couldn't begin to tell you.

I took the disc to my computer in the stamping room, opened the lid, pressed the "on" button and...nothing. Oh. My. Gosh. Really?! It took about 15 minutes to get the thing started. I'm pretty sure it was due to "user error" but...Then the software wouldn't load and it took hours for me to troubleshoot it and get it going. 

So there's my gloriously detailed the-dog-ate-my-laptop story of why my blog has been dark for a week.

Fortunately, I was able to attend a Silver Celebration hosted by my Stampin' Up upline leader, Connie Heisey. She and her team feted all their team members who have achieved silver status for Stampin' Up. We made some beautiful projects using the "Birthday Blooms" stamp set and Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper (retiring). We also had a great time fellowshipping with each other and having a wonderful meal of soup and salad and awesome sugar cookies.  Here are the projects.

We started with a Blushing Bride card base and stamped the large rose from the "Birthday Blooms" set in Blushing Bride ink over the background. We added a strip of Birthday Bouquet DSP, a second piece of the DSP cut with one of the Lots of Labels framelits and trimmed with a Tea Lace Paper Doily (retiring).

We stamped the flower in Basic Black Archival Ink onto a piece of Shimmery White card stock and used blender pens to color it in Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron. When it was dry, we added some Clear Wink of Stella. We fussy cut the flower and adhered it to a Whisper White Circle punched with the 2-1/2" Circle Punch. For a final touch we added a Whisper White Baker's Twine bow.

The second card also starts with a Blushing Bride card base. This time we added a sheet of floral DSP from the Birthday Bouquet DSP. We adhered a piece of the same DSP to a Blushing Bride strip and adhered this to the bottom of the card. Next, we stamped the large flower from the "Birthday Blooms" stamp set in Basic Black Archival Ink onto a piece of Shimmery White Card Stock. We colored this in Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron, using Blender pens. When it was dry, we added some Clear Wink of Stella to the flower. We fussy cut the flower and adhered it to the card with Stampin' Dimensionals. We stamped the sentiment from the "Birthday Blooms" set in Basic Black Archival Ink onto a piece of Whisper White card stock punched with the 1-1/2" Circle punch. We also added some smaller flowers to this piece. The finishing touch is a bow of Whisper White Baker's Twine.

Again, we started with a Blushing Bride card base and a piece of Birthday Bouquet DSP. We stamped the large flower image in Basic Black Archival Ink onto a piece of Shimmery White Card Stock and colored it in Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron using Blender Pens. Again, when the image was dry, we added some Clear Wink of Stella. This piece was adhered directly to a Mint Macaron mat and then to the card using Stampin' Dimensionals.

The sentiment is from the "And Many More" set (retiring). I added some flowers from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack (retiring) and a Mint Macaron Enamel Dot from the It's My Party collection (retiring) to the centers of the flowers.
 

The last card starts with a Blushing Bride card base and a Birthday Bouquet DSP mat. We added another piece of the DSP to a Blushing Bride strip and adhered this to the card vertically. We stamped the sentiment and some of the flowers from the "Birthday Blooms" set in Basic Black Archival ink onto a piece of Whisper White card stock cut with one of the Lots of Labels framelits. We colored the flowers with Blushing Bride ink, using Blender Pens. The finishing touch is another Whisper White Baker's Twine Bow.

Our last project was this super cute clipboard! We adhered a large sheet of the Birthday Bouquet DSP directly onto a clipboard using Multipurpose Liquid Glue. We made an accordion file from Blushing Bride Card Stock and adhered that to the board with Tear and Tape Adhesive. We built a flower using a variety of punches. So cute!! We stamped the sentiment from the "Grateful Bunch" stamp set in Basic Black Archival ink on to a Whisper White strip and flagged the end. We added a bow of Whisper White Organza Ribbon.

tams# 7037

Product List

It's My Party Enamel Dots [140554] $4.00	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack [133787] $17.00	Lots Of Labels Framelits Dies [138281] $27.00	Tea Lace Paper Doilies [129399] $3.00
Glue Dots [103683] $5.25	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430] $4.00	Whisper White 5/8" Organza Ribbon [114319] $6.00	Paper Snips Scissors [103579] $10.00
Twine Baker's Whisper White [124262] $3.00	Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush [141897] $8.00	Blender Pens [102845] $10.00	Mint Macaron Classic Stampin' Pad [138326] $6.50
Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad [131172] $6.50	Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad [140931] $7.00	2-1/2" Circle Punch [120906] $18.00	1-1/2" Circle Punch [138299] $16.00
Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper [140557] $11.00	Shimmery White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101910] $8.00	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730] $8.50	Mint Macaron 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138337] $7.00
Blushing Bride 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131198] $7.00	Grateful Bunch Photopolymer Stamp Set [140691] $21.00	And Many More Wood-Mount Stamp Set [134273] $37.00	Birthday Blooms Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140658] $19.00