So yesterday I told you I'd show you an original from my 7 year old daughter.  She often will copy my cards that I made and this past weekend she asked if SHE could come up with a card and I copy it for one of my classes.  I gave my famous mom answer "maybe."  LOL  So that was sufficient and off she went completely on her own. 

Her thought process:

"What Holiday is coming up next?"
Me: Valentine's Day
Pause for about 30 seconds
"Do you have a small heart punch?"
Me: Yup.  It's in with the trio heart punch.
She then went to my drawer and picked her colors.  She couldn't find the yellow she wanted so asked me to show her the yellows I had.

15 minutes later she came upstairs to show me her creation…

NOT BAD, RIGHT?!?!  Love this girl and her quick creativity.  I wish I could come up with a card in 15 minutes.

So, look for a version of this card from me soon….

So for my club members tonight I had a Sweet Treat waiting for them as a special gift.  So simple, so cute, and so sweet!

These used the Table Setting Die for the Big Shot with the Designer Paper.  The chocolate is adhered on the DSP with a bit of adhesive and then attached at the top with a brad holding a Sweet Valentine banner.  The sentiment came from the Something to Celebrate Hostess set that is currently in the Occasions Mini Catalog.  Then, of course, I needed to add a heart to this sweet treat and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Real Red Glimmer Paper in the Occasions mini so a glimmer heart is popped up on a dimensional to finish off the treat.  I also was happy that the 60% Dark Chocolate Ghirardelli squares were wrapped in red packaging too!!  Perfect.

Hope you girls liked having a treat at your seat and will enjoy the chocolate (maybe dipped in peanut butter?!) later!!

Julie gave me her permission to share her Valentine's with us!

This is not the best picture–it was taken with my iphone by a very bleary-eyed me at 11:30pm last night!  But I made all of Jenna’s Valentines yesterday—woohoo!  LOL!

Inspiration for these came from the ones you made –thank you!  Cardstock is textured Poppy Parade, textured Concord Crush, and Shimmer White.  Owl and sentiment are stamped in Chocolate Chip, owl’s heart is colored in with the Poppy marker, sponged Poppy on the edges of the hearts.  Also sponged Poppy on most of the fingernails of my left hand J  Would have liked to have added some bling or ribbon, but I purposely tried to keep things simple because I had ten-million things I had to do this past weekend.  Jenna was very happy with them, so I guess that’s all that matters.  Thanks again for the inspiration!

~ Julie J

I'm so glad we got to make our Valentine's again this year.  I think last year we did store bought.  Ick!  LOL  But it was another day to stay inside (and the girls in some random clothes they found in their closets!  LOL) while Daddy went to the Bruins game.

We kept the cards simple this year; not like a couple years ago when we used the sweetheart treat cups which although were super cute, did take a while to create for  two classes worth!

Lauren did all the stamping of the hearts, wrote all of hers out, put the glimmer hearts on with dimensionals, and taped her pops on!  In 12 years, I'm signing her up to be a demo! 

Elizabeth wrote hers out (she's not much of a stamper) and taped her pops on the back. 

I used the heart from "Filled with Love" and of course had to add some glitter with the Real Red Glimmer paper!  (I do love that my girls are totally girly with me!)  Lauren also had an idea to make boxes for her teacher's and put chocolate in those boxes.  I talked her into the 2,4,6,8 boxes (tutorial can be found here) and she stamped those up, created her tags 100% on her own, and even picked out the ribbon she wanted for them! 

I chose the above pop to take a picture of because I'm pretty sure Lauren has a Kindergarten crush on Kyle.    He's the only one who she got a little fancy when writing his name and announced "this one is for Kyle!"  LOL

We just taped the pops onto the back with some Scotch tape.  Nothin' fancy but it looks cute and the girls are happy and they're done a week early!  Woohoo!

How are you going to celebrate Valentine's Day?

Oh!  And I wanted to let you know I'm working on a Facebook business page!  I learned this week that talking about stamping at all on my personal Facebook page is against both Facebook rules and Stampin' Up! rules.  So, a business page needed to be created.  Go check it out and "like" it to keep up on the latest stamping in my Suite.

CLICK THE BOX BELOW!!!

Katherine Allen Stamps A Lot

Well, it has been a very busy last couple of months I tell you!  The major events – my 6 year old had an appointment with a specialist at Tufts in Boston, followed by a sedated MRI (she turned 6 in between those two appointments too!); my 3 year old had another ear infection, then another set of tubes put in; my almost 2 year old had his adenoids out; and we hosted 3 Christmases in a row!  The not so major events, all of us were hit with the various bugs that are making their way around this winter, some worse than others, my birthday, my husband's birthday, and of course my 6 year old's birthday! (Okay, I doubt she would think that would fall in the "not so major event" category! LOL  And by the way, she's fine.  She has a mild chiari malformation, enough to cause her her frequent headaches but not enough for surgery.)

So, I'm happy to hopefully be back on track.  I've canceled a few dentist appointments for us just so we can perhaps grab a little bit of normalcy back in our lives.  (I know, it's all relative!)

I had an AMAZING time at Stampin' Up!'s Leadership conference last week.  It was truly wonderful to get back to an SU! event (I'd missed the last Convention and Leadership).  The best part is connecting with both old and new friends.  I absolutely love our SU! family and am never disappointed in an SU! event.  This Leadership though was SO over the top!  I'll share with you as the week goes on all the happenings and free goodies we received!

For now, I'm going to share the projects my Technique Club group (plus 3 guests!) created last night.  I can't take credit for all of the creations.  The LOVE card I found on our demonstrator Stampin' Connection group and the Clearly for You card was inspired by this card I found in "blog land."  The middle one was mine though!  I just love the Baby Blossoms stamp set in the current mini!! 

Supplies Used:

Stamp Sets: Filled With Love, Baby Blossoms, Clearly for You
Emebllishments: Pretty in Pink wide striped grosgrain, Pear Pizzazz seam binding, Real Red grosgrain, self adhesive pearls and rhinestones
Inks: Pear Pizzazz, Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Rose Red, Crumb Cake, Blushing Bride, Early Espresso, Pretty in Pink, Real Red

Designer Paper: Love Patterns (from the current special bundle!), Springtime Vintage, Glimmer Red (love it!)
Big Shot and Square Lattice embossing folder

Here is another card some members of my team and I created at our shoebox swap in January.  Sorry it’s taken me so long to post them all!

Cyn created this one and I just love the combination of the two Valentine’s stamps (sentiment from Well Scripted, heart from Love You Much) and inks.  And it also showcases the designer paper in the Occasions mini right now (Sending Love); this one has lots of great sparkle!

Here’s another fabulous card we made at our team meeting the other night!  This one was created by Anne Marie.  It’s it lovely?  I wouldn’t have thought to put the brad in the center of the heart but it truly is the perfect touch!

Products Used:

Stamp Set:  A Happy Heart
Designer Series Paper: Tea Party
Ribbon: So Saffron and Pretty in Pink grosgrain
Pretty in Pink brad

Here are the cards from this week’s club meeting.  I love getting together with you ladies!  You are all so much fun.  Because of the holidays and all it felt like it had been forever since we got together and it took me a few minutes to get back in routine.  It was great fun!!  And I wish you all could’ve seen the swap cards.  (Each month members have the opportunity to participate in a card swap with each other.)  There was a snow globe card, TWO stair step cards, embossing, glitter, bling, and more!!! 

Supplies used include:
Stamp Sets: With all my Heart, I {Heart} Hearts, Well Scripted
Punches: circle punches, Heart to Heart punch, scallop edge
Accessories/Embellishments: Circle scissors plus, Scallops Die #2, Chunky Essentials Glitter, white gel pen, corduroy buttons, Soft Suede polka dot ribbon, vintage brads, clear rhinestone brad

Last night was our Wedding/Anniversary and Valentine’s stamp a stack.  These are the four cards we made featuring the new Sending Love Specialty Designer Series paper, With All My Heart stamp set, I {Heart} Hearts stamp set, and Well Scripted stamp set along with the new new Real Red satin ribbon.  All the aforementioned items can be found in the new Occasions mini catalog!  (See the right of my blog to download the catalog or e-mail me to receive your complimentary catalog.)

Want to make these or other Stamp a Stack projects you see on my blog?  It’s not too late!  Simply gather 4 of your friends and we can repeate a stamp a stack at your home or mine.  E-mail me for more details!

The next stamp a stack is February 2nd during which we’ll be creating 6 St Patrick’s Day cards and 6 Sympathy cards.  Also be on the lookout for a Sale-A-Bration stamp camp coming up soon!

Wow – it was both great and difficult to put ink to rubber to paper today!  It has been waaaaay too long since I have stamped.  It was awesome to sit and stamp again but very difficult to get a groove going as well.  Let’s hope I’ve worked out some kinks and the next ones come more quickly and easily.

I started with the Mojo sketch from this week (I did stray a little from the sketch but that’s okay) and knew I wanted to play with two new stamps: I {Heart} Hearts and Well Scripted.

Even with a slight loss of clear chunky glitter to my stamp room floor (thanks to my 2 year old) I like the way it turned out and hope you do too (especially my stamp club members who will be making this Wednesday night!). 

The color is a little off (got a new camera for my birthday last month and still have A LOT to learn on it!) but the colors used are Real Red, Chocolate Chip, and Very Vanilla.