Best Blog Friend

Sweet Alexandra from California Stampin' nominated me for the Best Blog friend award. When I started blogging I had no idea how bloggers from around the world could touch my life. Alexandra is definitely one of those people! She's always there with a nice comment and encouragement.

Now I need to nominate 3 friends. Hmmm. Not easy.

1) Corie - from Creations by Corie. I love to visit her blog each day to see her beautiful creations and to catch up on her life. Corie does amazing work!
2) Kristina - from Balance. Heck, she's not only a blog friend but a true blue friend IRL! This one's a no brainer.
3) Pegi from BellaWillow. Hey, Pegi is the one who started the Blogger Babes. She is an amazing artist and has the cutest pets on the planet!

On a side note: In another life I used to make and dress folk dolls not unlike our bunny friends in this picture. I think they need some clothes! They are looking pretty dated. Surely us creative women could come up with something more than a tote bag for our bunny friends. Pegi, maybe you could paper piece them somethin'! Mine needs a Kathy Vanzeeland bag for sure!

Blog Candy

I went to random.org and drew a winner for my blog candy for my blog readers. Here are the results:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3

Timestamp: 2007-10-01 00:57:41 UTC

Number 3 is Anouk Martin. Anouk please send me your address so I can send this out to you.

My e-mail address is krhopperstad@juno.com. Congratulations! Thank you to all of you who left comments. I appreciate it!

Stamp Club Appreciation Event

I had my stamp club hostess appreciation event on Friday night. This is the first time I did it for stamp club members. I usually just do this for home party hostesses. I invited everyone who was in my stamp clubs in the past year. I made them each a mini clipboard made from the laminate samples from Home Depot. These were great fun to make up. I adhered stamped and designer paper onto the wrong side of the laminate with xyron repositional adhesive. I placed ribbon across the middle with tacky strip tape and placed a colored bulldog clip on the top. I got the bulldog clips from a local craft store. It might have been Mike's. They are made by Making Memories. I was able to find clips that coordinated with our Stampin' Up! colors pretty well. I then stamped various images and punched circles out and backed them with my favorite punch- the circle scallop punch. I tied that to the circle in the bulldog clip with the stretchy silver cord from the holiday mini. I love this stuff! It doesn't fray. Then I tied various ribbon from the bulldog clip too. Lastly, I glued a strong magnet on the back with Crystal effects. This is a strong adhesive as well as creating a sheen on your stamped images.

Once all of the ladies arrived we played "Let's Make a Deal" with various prizes. I didn't have too many ladies take me up on this so we moved on to my make-n-take projects. The first one was an pop-up accordian card. I got the tutorial from splitcoast. You can find it here. I used the Big on Birthdays stamp set from Stampin' Up! and the Cutie Pie Designer Paper. I picked my colors from the Designer Paper. They are Rose Red, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, and Certainly Celery. I really like these colors together!

The second make-n-take was an accordian envelope book. (I guess I was on an accordian kick). I received one of these at a swap at convention. My version is a Christmas version. I figured you could put Christmas receipts in it. You could also keep coupons, punch cards, etc. in it.

It was a FUN night! I got to see some of my friends and customers I hadn't seen for awhile. I SO enjoy my stamp clubs! You really get to know the ladies during the course of stamp club.
I forgot to take photos of the event while it was underway. I always forget to do that. I get caught up in the fun and then forget to document it. Bummer.

Next is my home party hostess appreciation event this afternoon. I have different ladies and different projects lined up for them. I will post pictures from that event in the next day or two.

Happy stamping!!!

Prepping for Hostess Appreciation Events

I have been busy prepping for my stamp club appreciation and hostess appreciation events that are happening this weekend. I will have lots to share with you after the weekend but I didn't want to post too many projects here early so I wouldn't spoil the surprise.

This is a jar from Ikea. It is filled with 2 large bags of M&M's. Yum! The Creepy Crawly paper is wrapped around the jar. It didn't quite fit all of the way around so I punched 2 holes on each side of the paper and put eyelets in the holes. Then I tied the paper together with black gingham ribbon. This way it can slide off and become a different jar for a different occasion. The handle is tied off with various colors of Stampin' Up! ribbon. The tag is made with the stamp set Batty for you. I just love this set! The bat is stamped in black and then punched out with the 1 inch circle punch. Then I stamped the bat again in Pumpkin Pie. The black bat is popped up in the middle with a stampin' dimensional and googlie eyes added to his eyes. Of course the circle scallop punch finishes it off just right!

Note: I thought I had a bright idea to punch through light cardboard with my circle scallop punch. Well, I ruined my punch! Ugh! I reach for this punch all of the time. I can't be without it. I hopped onto the SU website and promptly ordered myself 2 scallop punches. One and a spare. I don't want to be without one again! Luckily, my friend Kathy borrowed me hers. I have been using hers and impatiently waiting for my new ones to arrive. Just another perk of being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. You can hop on to the website and order anytime of day!

Hostess Appreciation Prize

I am having a hostess appreciation event for my party hostesses on Sunday and for my stamp club members on Friday night. This will be one of the prizes for the events. It's an altered clipboard and matching notebook. I will be having a variety of prizes including altered items. and free Stampin' Up! product. It's going to be a very fun event! If you are one of my party hostesses from the past year or if you are currently a stamp club member or were one in the past year you should have received an invitation for these events. You wont want to miss it!!!

My Stampin' Up! customers blog candy giveaway

This is the blog candy giveaway for my Stampin' Up! customers. It includes a partial package of colored vellum that matches some of the Earth Elements, a bandaid tin for you to alter, retired copper cording, retired brilliant blue and real red wide organdy ribbon, 3 yards each of grosgrain ribbon that matches the Cameo Coral and Pink Passion colors , and retired hostess stamp set, Springtime Stems.

For my Stampin' Up! customers to qualify please tell me how often you visit my blog, what you enjoy about it and what you would like to see more of on my blog. I will randomly pick a winner on Monday, October 1. You must comment by 5 pm on Sunday, Sept.30 to qualify. Please leave me your name and e-mail address on your comments.

Blog candy for Blog readers

As promised I am posting blog candy for my readers to celebrate my reaching the milestone of over 5000 hits. I will post a separate giveaway for my Stampin' Up! customers. To qualify for this giveaway, please leave me a comment on how you found my blog and anything you would like to see me do on my blog. (No, I will NOT be diving through the air in a superwoman costume in an itube video) Something stamping related on my blog. ;) I will pick a winner using random.org on Monday. Anyone who leaves a comment on this thread by 5 pm Sunday, Sept. 30 will qualify. Please leave your name and e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

Here is a look at my blog candy giveaway. It includes diecut circles and squares in Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Very Vanilla, and some Stampin' Up! colors, a yellow round tin from Mike's to alter, a bandaid tin to alter, a Scrap Essentials metal round tin with circle accordian book to alter, Scrap Essentials Book Plates, Scrapworks square ringlets, The Card Collection beaded wire butterflies, Teardrop embellishments, Dress it Up leaves, and 3 yards each of grosgrain ribbon that matches Stampin' Up! Pink Passion and Cameo coral ink and cardstock.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Blog candy anyone?

It looks like I hit a milestone with over 5000 hits on my blog! Thank you everyone who has visited my blog. It seems it is tradition in blogworld to offer up some kind of blog candy(stamping goodies). I will be having some blog candy for my customers and for my blog readers. So two separate drawings. Stay tuned for what the blog candy will be.

World Card Making Day

For the first time this year, Stampin' Up! is a Silver sponsor of World Card making day. World card making day is on October 6. It is a time to celebrate making hand-made cards and the way they touch our friends and families' lives. It just means so much more when you make it yourself.

In honor of this day, I am hosting a Fancy Folds card class. In this class you will be making 4 cards including a Joy fold card, Cami's trifold, a z-fold, and a triangle trifold card. I will also have a card for you to stamp and send to the troops. I have a customer collecting cards for soldiers in the mid-east. These cards will be sent to her to send on to the soldiers.

Cost for the class is $10. The cards will be using 2 of the stamp sets from the Simply Sent kits. These kits are wonderful! They come with a stamp set, ink, embellishments and the cardstock is all precut and scored with envelopes. There are instructions and enough materials to make 2 different cards either 10 each or 5 each depending on the size of the card. They are the perfect thing for beginners. Experienced stampers will appreciate them for their convenience. Everyone will love them for the price! And from October 4-October 8 they will be 20 percent off!!! You gotta love that! There are 6 kits to choose from. You can find them on pages 12-14 in the Stampin' up! catalogue. If you don't have a Stampin' Up! catalogue you can view them in the online catalogue here.

Date: Saturday, October 6
Time: 9 - Noon or 1 - 4
Price: $10

You can contact me at krhopperstad@juno.com for more information.

Tagged again!

I have been tagged by Kristina.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) - Toby Voyager
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Cookies 'n Cream Chocolate Chip
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) K-Hop
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) - Blue Cat
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) -Hopka
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”) Coral Water
7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)- How horrible - I don't know their names! They both died when my parents were young.
8. STRIPPER NAME : ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy) Happy Milky Way
9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Marie George

I am supposed to tag 5 people:
1) Spazzgirl
2) Peggy
3) Paris
4) Terri
5) Jen

Oops! I have been tagged!

Silly me I didn't realize I had been tagged by Corie. So here goes.

Four Tidbits

Four Places I have worked:
1) PDI(Personnel Decisions International)
2) JoAnn Fabrics(I have an obvious addiction to crafts)
3) Bruegger's Bagel Bakery
4) Orthomet(a now defunct medical device company)

Four Places I have lived:
1) Austin, MN
2) Menomonie, WI
3) Tampa, FL
4) Hopkins, MN

Four Places I have been on Vacation:
1) Black Hills, South Dakota
2) Daytona Beach, FL
3) Barbados
4) St Martinique

Four Favorite Foods
1) CHOCOLATE!!!
2) Pizza
3) Mexican
4) Tequila Lime Chicken at Applebees

Four Friends I'm tagging that are most likely to respond:
1) Kristina
2) Nancy
3) Rose Ann
4) Alexandra

Better Late Than Never

I made this card from a Weekend Sketch challenge Beate posted a week ago. I finally got around to posting it. I'm not totally happy with it. I think there is too much Wasabi going on in this card.

Materials used:
Stamps: In the spotlight
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Chocolate chip, Groovy Guava, So Saffron
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Wild Wasabi, Darling Doodles paper, Whisper White, So Saffron, Groovy Guava
Other: circle scallop punch, 1/2 circle punch, 3/4 circle punch, ribbon originals, stampin' dimenisionals

Hostess Gift

My sister is having a Stampin' Up! party tonight. I like to give my hostesses a special thank you gift and I like it to be something special for them. This is a magnet board from Target $ spot last year. Ask anyone who has been in my craft room and they will tell you that I buy in quantity when I see something I like. I'm finally getting around to using these boards a year later. I covered the metal frame with the Baroque Background Designer paper. I use mod podge to adhere it. I stamped the chef and "bon appetit!" from the Voila stamp set. The circle of wine, cheese, and grapes is a magnet. My sister will be able to put her recipe card on the board with a magnet making it easier to see when she is cooking. She cooks a lot so this should come in handy for her.

Holiday Stamp-a-stack

I am having a Holiday Stamp-a-Stack on Tuesday, Sept.25. You will be making 3 each of 5 card designs with envelopes. You can use these as your holiday cards, your holiday thank you cards or a gift for someone. I even have card boxes available at class to purchase for $1 a piece if you like. Cost for the class is $25. If you are in the Twin Cities area and are interested in attending you can e-mail me at krhopperstad@juno.com for more information.

Fun stampin' night!

I got together last night with a group of ladies to stamp at scrap mania at Archivers last night. Pegi showed us her card process for making her cards. She does very nice detailed work. She had the patterned paper(I think it's Daisy D's) and we worked as a group to choose the other papers to go with it.

We had fun shopping and making this card. I have to chuckle though because in the 6 hours we were there this is pretty much what we got done! LOL! Pegi and Kristina have their cards posted on their blogs too. Michelle doesn't have a blog yet but she plans to join the blogger world soon. Come on Michelle!

Materials used:
Stamps: Haunting Halloween(this one's on special this month. Check out the special here. Sentiment is from the Halloween Papertrey set, Spooky Sweets.
Ink: Jet Black Stazon
Paper: Confetti White, Old Olive, Designer Paper(I think it's Daisy D's)
Other: Scallop circle punch(Marvy?), small and large oval punches, 1 1/4 circle punch, label punch, ribbon, Watercolor Wonder Crayons

Thanks for the fun night ladies. Let's do it again soon!

Hey cupcake...

I have to admit it. I am in love with cupcakes. Not really eating cupcakes but looking at how pretty they are. I especially like this stamp set by Stampin' Up! called "Big Bold Birthday". I am having so much fun with it!

Card details:
Stamps: Big Bold Birthday
Ink: Taken with Teal, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Craft White
Cardstock: Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal, So Saffron, Whisper White
Other: Crystal Effects, Ribbon from District ribbon originals, stampin' dimensionals.

Let It Snow

I don't really want it to snow yet. I just think this stamp set it is so stinkin' cute! The base is whisper white. I wheeled white craft ink on Bashful Blue cardstock with the Snow jumbo wheel from the holiday mini catalogue. I stamped the main image with jet black stazon on whisper white. I colored in the stripes on the "S" with my real red marker. the "N" in Bashful Blue and the "W" in Certainly Celery. At the top of the main image are some icicles. Shelly Gardner showed this at convention. It's really easy and fun to do! You just lay piece of waxed paper down. You squirt a line of crystal effects the length you want. Then you pull down a line like an icicle every so often. Then sprinkle dazzling diamonds glitter over the whole thing. You will need to set it aside to dry for an hour or so. Once it is dry you can pour the excess glitter back into the bottle. Once it is completely dry you can just peel lit off the waxed paper. How cool is that? Then you can just cut it the length you need. Way fun!

The stamp set for the main image is Big on Holidays. The ribbon is the red gingham ribbon. That's as much as I can think about snow for now.

Whimsy

This was a fun little project. I was inspired by a dress form I saw at Scrapfest this past weekend. I took a paper mache' dress form and painted the body with Certainly Celery craft ink re-inker. Then I poured irridescent ice embossing powder over it and embossed. For the skirt I strung the ribbon through the silver stretchy cord from the holiday mini and knotted it in the back. For the necklace I punched out one of the flowers from the 3 flower punch and strung them through the stretchy cord. I placed a glue dot on the edge of each flower to get them to form the necklace how I wanted it.

Now this will reside somewhere in my messy craft room. It will look much better once my husband helps me re-organize and builds some more storage.

Scrapbook pages for Scrapclub

These pages are for my September Scrapbook club. They will get to choose to do a back to school spread or a baby page. The back to school page uses the set Elementary Essentials. This set also happens to be on special this month in the Fall Frenzy promotion. It's perfect for school pages, teacher gifts, etc.

The beautiful boy page uses the In the Wild stamp set. The giraffe is stamped in Bashful Blue craft ink on chocolate chip cardstock. I cut these out and popped them up on stampin' dimensionals in the corners. FYI-the beautiful baby boy in this page is now a beautiful boy of 9!

I wish my picture quality was better on these. I have a tough time photographing 12 x 12 pages. Does anyone have any good tips for this?

Tim Holtz tin

This is a tin we made in the Tim Holtz class. The tiles are made from clear plastic tiles. We glued them to designer paper and then cut the paper out around the tiles. Then the tiles were glued to the tin. The fragments are pretty cool. Lots of possibilities with them. There was a really cool album Tim taught in another class that fits inside the tin. Sadly, I couldn't get in that class.

Scrapfest at Mall of America was very fun! It was fun to be the student instead of the teacher. I'm looking forward to using some of the things I learned in upcoming classes of my own.

Corie's holiday swap

This card is for Corie's holiday swap. I used the Stampin' Up! paper pack, Dashing. It's great to use a Designer paper pack like this because all of the patterns coordinate with each other.

Stamps: Perfect Presentation, Party Punch
Ink: Old Olive
Paper: Dashing designer paper, Real Red, Old Olive, Very Vanilla
Other: star punch, label punch, red grosgrain ribbon, Old Olive and Real Red stampin' write markers.

Meeting Taylor!

I had so much fun at Scrapfest at Mall of America on Friday! A group of us got together for dinner with Taylor at California Pizza kitchen Friday night. She's a sweetheart. This is a picture of us together. We presented her with our basketful of goodies. She was touched and surprised.
It was a fun night getting together with lots of stamping friends old and new. I had a group shot of us at the table but it didn't turn out very well. Oh well.

The other picture is part of the display at Creative Imaginations. Their make-n-take was incredible! It was a large frame covered with gorgeous paper and embellishments. I'll take a photo of it for you all to see. I learned so many great ideas that I want to use in some of my upcoming classes. I'm going back on Sunday for a class with Tim Holtz! I can't wait!

A gift for Taylor

Scrapfest at Mall of America in Minneapolis is this weekend. I will be there with a few thousand of my closest friends. lol. A group of us have arranged a dinner with Taylor Vanbruggen. If you haven't been to her blog, Taylored Expressions, you need to check it out! I wanted to make her a little gift and this is what I came up with. I got the idea from Leigh O'Brien at Sunflower Studios. She altered this adorable metal frame and I decided to borrow her idea and make a Halloween version.

Materials used: metal board(Target $ spot last year)
Stamps: Autumn Apparitions(Happy Halloween)
Ink: Really Rust for sponging around the pumpkin and Craft Black
Paper: Creepy Crawly Designer Paper, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Really Rust
Other: library clips from holiday mini, modpodge, irridescent ice embossing powder, magnets, crystal effects

The pumpkins have a magnet on the back so you can move them around where you want them. You can clip photos or notes on the pumpkins. This was very fun to make!

Creative School Binders

My daughter needs two binders for school. Instead of buying those expensive binders I had the idea of buying plain white ones with the plastic sleeve that you can feed things into. Then we could stamp our own cool binders! So that's what we did! For the first one we wanted to do it like scrapbook pages. She chose some photos of her and her friends she wanted to use and she picked the paper. I kind of took it from there with input from her on whether or not she liked what I had cooking. There was some trial and error along the way with getting the right fit but we persisted. For the second one she didn't really want to do another scrapbook one. I suggested we could just use some fun paper and embellishments. She picked some retired Stampin' Up! designer paper and I took it from there. The great thing about Stampin' Up!'s designer paper is that I could let that dicate my color scheme and have the inks match. I stamped a matching background paper with Whisper White 12 x 12 cardstock and the Seeing Spots stamp set. I used Only Orange, Green Galore, and Pink Passion. For the front I found a stash of paper flowers and buttons and used those down the middle. For the back I found a package of paper cuts of words and images by K and Company. It went together pretty quickly.

Next up was my son Nicholas. He needed a binder too. He really wanted to do his himself. I had a hard time letting go of the project. I let him do most all of the stamping. He picked out the colors with a little input from me. He was very proud of his finished project. Then he started looking around my craft room saying when he grows up he's going to have his own craft room in his house. He wants his own stamps and inks now. He wants to start scrapbooking too. I love that my very active athletic boy also likes to do artsy things. It means he's well rounded.

It was fun going through my mounds of embellishments coming up with stuff to add to these projects. This is one of my favorite parts of stamping. Using them for practical things other than cards and scrapbook pages. My kids now have there very own unique binders. They will have the coolest binders in the school!

I want to leave you with an image of my son from earlier in the evening. He went from jumping on a mini trampoline being superman to finishing up the evening stamping with me. Not to be outdone, his younger brother was the jumping hulk with a move uniquely his own. You gotta love it!

Feeling Fabulous

After seeing all of the wonderful cards that other ladies on SCS and blogdom came up with using this set I knew I had to have it. I started out with a sketch from SCS but quickly took a turn from the original sketch. Here is the sketch I was working with. It was for the sketch challenge this week on SCS. There is a new sketch challenge posted each Wednesday on SCS under splitcoast challenges.

Stamps: Fabulous Flowers
Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Versamarke, Bordering Blue, Night of Navy
Cardstock: Night of Navy, Mellow Moss, Bordering Blue, Whisper White
Other: hodgepodge hardware, circle scallop punch, irridescent ice embossing powder, paper piercer, ribbon from Sherbet ribbon originals, stampin' dimensionals.

Stampin' Up! September Special

Fall Frenzy Promotion

Spend $30 in regular priced merchandise and qualify to purchase one of each of the six promotional stamp sets at 30 percent off!

Item	Page #	Description	Discounted Price
105355	26	Bitty Boos Too	$12.57
109284	29	Haunting Halloween	$13.27
107383	30	Thoroughly Thankful	$16.07
109373	108	Autumn Fest	$16.77
109421	91	Elementary Essentials	$19.57
110366	17	Stem Silhouettes*	$22.37

Just click on the stamp set name to see a picture of the stamp set. You can click here to view Stem Silhouettes in the Holiday mini catalogue. Contact me at krhopperstad@juno.com or your regular demonstrator to get on this great deal!