Flowerbug's Inkspot

Weekly Deals

Another great week of Deals for you!  Go here to order.

And check out the Stampin' Up! Stock up & Save Sale tomorrow; you will not believe it! 

Halloween Star Box Video Tutorial

We made these at our Team meeting in September: 

It's a star shaped box made with the envelope punch board.  It's actually quite easy to make but I made a quick video showing you how. 

 

 

Measurements: 

Main layer is 7" X 10 1/2"
Score at 1 1/2, 4 1/2 & 5 1/2"
Turn and score at 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10"

Smaller version

Main layer is 5 1/2" X 10 1/2"

Score at 1 1/2", 3 1/2" & 4 1/2"

then turn and score at 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10"

 

Supplies:
#135194 Fall Fest stamp (pumpkin faces)
#137636 clear Merry Everything bundle
#137635 wood Merry Everything bundle
#111349 Tangerine Tango card stock

#100730 Whisper White card stock

#132708 Memento Black ink

#135838 White & Tangerine two-toned trim

#122334 Simply Scored

#133774 Envelope Punch Board
#104294 Sticky Strip
#110755 Tombo Multipurpose liquid glue

 

Last Day of Founder's Circle

On the last day we spent most of it stamping and visiting while anticipating our fun, final event.  My friend Susie Wood and I planned ahead and brought some 'work' with us.  It was such fun stamping together!  I'll share some of those things with you very soon.

The final event is always a well hidden surprise.  The Events Team love to surprise us!  All we knew is that we didn't have to dress up and it involved crafting......

Before I share those photos I have a few more beautiful tags etc to show you.

A cute tag made with the Santa Stache stamp set, the Mustache Framelits and Gold & Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer card stock.

What a fun way to decorate a jar of candy!  This is the Seasonally Scattered stamp set with the Scalloped Tag Topper punch.

I love this one!  It features the Festival of Trees bundle, the Nordic buttons and the Trim the Tree Designer Series Paper Stack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 4 pm were taken by buses to our final event location.  When we arrived we were told we would be decorating Christmas trees for the Festival of Trees organization to raise money for the Children's Hospital in Utah. They auction off decorated Christmas trees and the money will benefit the Hospital.  We were thrilled and very happy to take part in this! 

We were kept in our 'teams' and given ornaments to create or the task of decorating the tree during the next few hours.  Our team had two jobs; one was to create a punched and sewn circle garland.  The other was to make these ornaments below:

They were clear balls with confetti and hanging silver snowflakes inside.  Beautiful! 

And above is our sewn garland on the flocked tree.  The funny thing is I had planned to make one of these for my Holiday Open House today!  I'll share that one with you very soon.  

It's a little blurry but here is our tree almost finished.  Jodi is busy hanging and tying ornaments on it.

My 'Snow Balls' team!  From left to right - Michelle Ellis, Diana Gibbs, Jennifer Cotton, myself, Angie Juda, Linda Heller & Alana Wharf.  All beautiful women I was happy to get to know better during this and our first nights dinner. 

There will be lots more photos coming of all the many ornaments and other trees soon.

Above is our table where we had a wonderful 'Holiday' turkey dinner together.  Before we ate we played a fun gift exchange game where we traded gag gifts.  I ended up with bacon flavored candy canes!  Perfect for either of my boys who love bacon. 

Dessert was a work of art!  So pretty. 

Here's a photo of the many gifts we received while we were there.  They are so generous to us!  And it's just plain fun to receive and open them too! 

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my memories of this incredible trip. I do have more projects to share but they'll be posted during the next few months for the upcoming Holiday season!  Stay tuned!

Founder's Circle Day Three

On the third day of Founder's Circle we piled on three buses and headed to Kanab where they manufacture our Stampin' Up! stamps and other products.  Woot!!

The wonderful employees were waiting outside to greet us.  We've heard they love it when we come as it's one of the only times people get to tour the facility and show them how much we appreciate their hard work. 

They were making these stamps the day we were there.  One of my favorites - Kinda Eclectic.

These boxes were full of stamp sets ready to go out!

Excess chopped rubber that they recycle for playgrounds, horse riding rings etc.  So smart!

Our beautiful card stock!  They do cut and package some of it there now.

Making our ink pads! 

Labels for Cherry Cobbler ink pads. 

The most fascinating process was how they are making our new Photopolymer stamps.  This is the Christmas Wishes set.  It's a light curing process and they actually reuse the excess 'goo'.  Look!

The excess is squeezed out after the stamp set is mostly hardened.  Then it is recycled to be used a few more times.

Here is where they are inspecting each stamp; looking for abnormalities or defects. 

And last step is washing and drying. 

The Photopolymer stamps have been selling so well they cannot keep up.  This is one reason for a few of the recent back-orders lately.  They're getting in a few more systems so they can make more and keep up with demand. 

That evening we went to the Tuacahn outdoor amphitheatre outside of St. George, UT to see Wizard of Oz.  It was so good!  I love going there; it doesn't even matter what they are showing.  I won't miss it.  Open sky with the beautiful mountains as the background.  Just amazing! 

 

Founder's Circle Day Two

Here are a few more highlights from last week's Founder's Circle event.

A display of projects using an upcoming stamp set and dies!  More soon on those.....

A beautiful wall of wreaths. 

More treats with beautiful tags.


We spent the day stamping and visiting and in the evening we had our usual pajama party, share and swap.

Pajama party!

The swaps are amazing!!!!!  I hope to share quite a few of my favorites with you.

We had cookies and milk for our 'Santa' snack after we swapped. 

Our pillow gift was a beautiful book; The Christmas Train.  Shelli has a tradition of giving a meaningful book to her family members each Christmas.  She is truly a lovely, warm and amazing woman and I am lucky to know her. 

Founder's Circle Day One

Here are some photos from the first day of my amazing Founder's Circle trip last week:

This is the entrance to our hotel; always beautifully decorated with the theme of the event.  'Home for the Holidays'.

A wonderful array of delicious candies and treats for us to munch on.

The beautiful 'Holiday Lodge'; our gathering place.  One side filled with comfortable couches to relax and visit together.  The other side filled with tables for us to stamp together.

Each day we played Holiday Trivia for prizes. This was Wednesday's.  Inside was a package of the new Snowflake embellishments in the Holiday catalog. I love how they used the new Confetti Star punch on the flap of the Polka Dot gift bag. 

There were tons of gorgeous handmade tags on every jar of candy and each gift we received.  Here are just a few:

More photos coming tomorrow!

Wow Weekly Deals!

Great deals today!  Go here to see them. 

Remember that if you place an online order over $35 (before tax and shipping) and use this hostess code I'll send you a sampling of Holiday tags in your thank you card! Use hostess code - X7FXS7GY

Founder's Circle Four Feathers Card & Video

This is the card I to swap last week at Founder's Circle. I look forward to this swap so much!  We all stand in a big line holding our 113 swap cards and little by little fill up our bags with gorgeous cards.  It's amazing!

Once I made it I just knew it had to be my swap this year.  It's so me!  And two of my most favorite colors - blue & green (or Lost Lagoon & Pear Pizzazz in Stampin' Up! speak). This Four Feathers stamp set is so pretty!

I used the emboss resist techique here with Iridescent Ice embosing powder. 

Watch this video to see how I did it

 

 

Measurements:

• White sponged piece - 3 1/2" X 4 3/4"
• Lost Lagoon layer - 3 5/8" X 4 7/8" White main card - 5 1/2" X 8 1/2" Scored at 4 1/4"

Supplies:

• #135053 Four Feathers in clear mount
• #135050 Four Feathers wood mount
• #100730 Whisper White 8 1/2 X 11" card stock
• #133679 Lost Lagoon 8 1/2 X 11" card stock
• #102283 Versamark ink
• #131180 Pear Pizzazz Classic Ink
• #133644 Lost Lagoon Classic Ink
• #103083 Embossing Buddy
• #129053 Heat Gun
• #101930 Iridescent Ice embossing powder
• #101610 Sponges
• #104430 Dimensionals

Last set of Holiday Swap cards

And here is the last set of Holiday swap cards my Flowerbug's Team shared this month.  I am so proud of them and their beautiful cards.  I've got some talented gals here! 

Mary made this pretty card using Soft Sky & Whisper White and the White Christmas stamp set.  She says this Photopolymer stamp set is amazingly easy to use; as you can see to perfectly line the images up. This sparkly card will be one of my future Christmas Stamp a Stack cards. 

Rhonda made this beautiful card using the For All Things stamp set.  That 'faux leather' background texture is amazing!  It's classic and masculine.  Fabulous! 

I liked it so well we made it at my friend Jean's workshop last weekend. 

To make this 'Faux Leather' look we used a piece of Crumb Cake card stock (4" X 5 1/4") and crumpled it up well.  Then we sponged on Crumb Cake or Baked Brown Sugar ink over it all.  Because it's crumpled the ink hits the raised areas more and produces this fabulous texture that resembles leather or suede.  So neat to use for a masculine card.