Everything Easter Treats

Like any self respecting parent of a kid who's looking forward to their Easter basket, you're probably wondering right about now if you've gotten enough goodies to fill said basket.
Fortunately for me, Emma at 14 still looks forward to her Easter basket and I get to have fun putting it together and finding little things that make her smile.

You may also be expecting guests for the Easter meal and maybe you're one that likes to put a little treat at each placesetting.
Well, here's a couple of ideas for you that will make you the Mom and Hostess extraordinaire AND won't cost a lot of $$ or take much time.
Got your attention now, don't I?

Here, take a look:

And before you ask, yes, those are Reese's Chocolate Eggs all wrapped up there and Easter wrapped Rolo's in the little basket. Yes, it was a struggle to not eat them all, but I only had a few of the Rolo's so I count it a victory!
Believe it or not, the little basket and the belly band wraps and medallions were created with My Digital Studio. There is a download called "Everything Easter Ensemble" and it's $14.95 when you download it from my Stampin' Up! website. Let me show you how I used it here and I'll give you some details of all it contains at the bottom, ok?
These cute little baskets were so easy to put together. I simply printed them out on a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock in my ink jet printer. I used Whisper White.
Then, I used my Paper Snips to cut them out and adhered them together with Tombow Multi Adhesive. The handle was attached with Mini Brads and then all I had to do was fill them up! These would be super cute little place cards at your Easter table or even little gifts for your Sunday School class - kids or adult!

Here's a closer look at the wrapped eggs:

I simply printed out the sheets of belly bands and medallions - again on an 8 1/2" x 11 piece of cardstock - and cut them out. I used my Scallop Circle punch for the medallions.
To embellish the belly bands, I cut a strip of White Waffle Paper 2 1/2" wide and then used SNAIL adhesive to attach it to the back of the belly band before wrapping it around the egg. SO easy and very quick!! And look how pretty!

Wouldn't these be such sweet treats to embellish your Easter baskets or just to give to your friends?
Here, take a closer look at what's in the download ensemble kit:
Download includes:
* 5" x 3-1/2" double-sided postcard designer template
* 7-page 11" x 8-1/2" décor designer template
* 9-page 8-1/2" x 11" décor designer template
* 18-piece stamp brush set
* 9 Designer Series Paper patterns
* 30 embellishments
* 1 punch

Features:
* Digital-exclusive
* Décor templates include basket boxes for favors; belly bands perfect for wrapping eggs, silverware, or napkin rings; table tents; oversized 3-D egg centerpiece (simply score in half vertically and attach multiple together)
* Includes Easter invitation photo postcard
* Elements included individually for use on other coordinating projects
*Imagery coordinates with traditional Everybunny Stamp Set

Coordinating colors:
Basic Black, Blushing Bride, Certainly Celery, Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Lavender Lace, Pool Party, Pumpkin Pie, Very Vanilla, Whisper White

Look at the cute little place cards and that fun Easter Egg center piece! And all you have to do is just print them from your computer! It really doesn't get any easier.
When you visit my website to download this ensemble, the Item # is 129363 and the price is just $14.95 for the whole kit!
And the best part is that you can use it over and over and over again. I like that a lot!
If you don't have My Digital Studio, you can download a 30 Day FREE Trial of it from my website that allows you to use it and learn it totally FREE for yes - 30 Days! Once you have it loaded, you can then purchase any downloads like Everything Easter and use them to your hearts content. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, I'm off now to finish up getting ready for our Easter celebration, let me know what you make with this download, or your other handmade Easter projects - I love your creativity!
~~Robin

Place your order for Stampin' Up! supplies at my Online Store - Robin's Online Stampin' Store
Simply click the SHOP NOW button at the top right to get started!

A Lucky Day

Happy Monday stampers!
Did you have a fun weekend? I'm sure a lot of you celebrated the Irish in you on Saturday. To the best of my knowledge, there's not a bit of Irish in me at all, but I still wore green this year.

On Saturday afternoon, our local Chick-Fil-A sponsored a Conquer Kids Cancer Event for the St. Baldrick's Foundation. If you're not familiar with St. Baldrick's, it's an organization devoted to funding research that will find cures for Children's Cancers.
Groups all over the United States gather to raise funds through many different activities, possibly the most well known being the Head Shaving events. Volunteers take pledges and then have their heads shaved in a very visible show of support for those kids who lose their hair due to their Cancer treatments.
One of Emma's friends at school, Emily, is a four year Brain Cancer Survivor and is the spokesperson for the Chick-Fil-A event. It's through Emily and her family that we first found out about the St. Baldrick's Foundation. At last year's event, every member of Emily's family had their heads shaved, a truly beautiful tribute.
Each event has other activities and ways to donate to support St. Baldrick's and that's how I got involved.

We set up a Stampin' Up! table where anyone could stop by and make a donation to St. Baldrick's. Then they were able to create a card that will be hand-delivered to a patient at the St. Jude's Children's Hospital. It was so fun to have folks of all ages - truly from 3 to 80 - making a card that they knew would bring a smile to a child's face. They all learned that a card is a "hug with a fold in the middle", something stampers have known for ages.

Here's a quick poster I put together in My Digital Studio with the only photos I had from the day:

I used the "Lucky Me" printable subway art as my background and simply removed the words across the top and added my title box. It prints out in 8 1/2" x 11" so it's easy to create and print at home on a piece of cardstock. To add the photos, I just added photo boxes where I wanted them, matted them with a black border and then dragged my photos over to the box and cropped with the easy tool. It was very simple to do and I really enjoyed seeing it all come together.

The photos clockwise from the very top are: me with one of my student helpers at our table; our youngest stamper with her Mom as they create her card; me with Shannon (my downline) and our two student helpers; my daughter Emma with two of her best friends - they all volunteered - Kayla is the president of the Marsteller Middle School Ruri-teens and raised over $1000 herself, Hunter is a second year shavee and you can see his newly bald head in the next photo. Next is a photo of our stampin' table with Shannon helping two more young stampers make their cards; then we have former Miss Virginia Tara Wheeler proudly showing off her creation - her first stamped card!; and lastly a photo of me and Shannon.
Another member of my downline, April Sinclair, volunteered her time for part of the day as well, although we were so busy when she was there, we didn't get a photo!

Here's a photo of the two cards they could choose to create:


And here's a photo of their wonderful creations:

In just 3 hours, 34 cards were created by donors and the entire event so far has raised over $8000 for St. Baldrick's. Their goal is $15,000 for this year and I know that donations are still coming in as well as what was raised at the tables on Saturday.
YOU can still donate too! Simply visit this link: Chick-Fil-A Bristow St. Baldrick's Event
Donations will be accepted up until March 31st so it's not too late to help this awesome cause!

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out the fun we had at our event, maybe this gives you some ideas on how you can get involved with bringing some stamped joy to your community too! This was truly a great day and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Stamped blessings,
~~Robin

Sunday Share

Hello stamping friends,
this morning I was listening to some worship music on my iPod and one of my very favorite songs came up and I was inspired to create this page in My Digital Studio. It's a pre-designed 8" x 8" layout that I just changed up for my idea.
The song is "Face Down" by Casting Crowns.

The photo is one that I took of the Tracy Arm Fjord glacier on our trip to Alaska last year. I remember being so overwhelmed by the quiet majesty of those mountains, the glacier and the floating ice. It was so ethereal, like being in another world altogether.

My quote of the song lyrics begins with the second verse that says "I stand amazed, see the work of your hands" and it just so fit how I felt in this beautiful place that was carved out by the finger of our almighty God.

Here are the complete lyrics in a video format with this beautiful song playing for you:



The words of this song speak directly to my heart as I consider all that my Savior has done for me - and all that he has done for you. I pray that they speak to you as well.
My very favorite lines are:
"Face down
Where I know that I belong
And I pray with grace that this world sees in me
Someone humbled and broken at Your feet."

All that I have in life and all that I hope to be is wrapped up in Christ alone. I am nothing without Him and I pray with all my heart that when the world looks at me, they see Jesus and His love for all. As the song reminds us "After all, this life's for YOU(Jesus) and not for me."
I know that God has a purpose and a plan for my life, and He has one for yours as well. This time here on earth is just a pass through, we are just traveling here - our real home is Heaven - but while we are here, we are called to affect as many lives as we can for Christ and I don't take that assignment lightly.

So friend, if no one else has told you today - Jesus loves you. He loves you very much, and so do I.
Blessings,
~~Robin

My Digital Studio - Learning to Love It!

I know you all think that I've been off doing just the skating Mom thing this past three days - but hold on! I've been playing with my laptop, designing a scrapbook with My Digital Studio!

Say WHAT??
Yes, it's true - I'm slowly but surely coming into the digital age and learning to love the possibilities of Digital Designing.
Plus, it's really the only easy way to be creative while I'm on a long road trip.
Where else am I going to get many hours one-way of mostly uninterrupted time in front of the computer learning this fantastic program??
Nowhere, so I'm taking advantage of it.

I decided to start with a pre-designed 12" x 12" photo book template - Downtown Grunge, which I downloaded from my Stampin' Up! website. We'd had a fantastic time at the end of our Alaska trip last May, spending three days in Seattle, exploring the city for the first time ever. So I chose that small event as the focus of this scrapbook.
I've always felt that when I'm scrapbooking an event, it's best to keep it to a narrow focus anyway so you don't get overwhelmed with the project.

Believe it or not - My Digital Studio NOVICE that I am - I managed to complete 10 pages of this 24 page scrapbook in the 6 hours I worked on it in the car. If that sounds like a lot, understand that I'm truly a novice with most aspects of this program. The more I do on it though, the more I feel competent with it and the more I'm enjoying it.

So, here's a peek at my album - this is page 3:

I was able to create a Custom Background paper with one of my photos of the Space Needle. It made a great backdrop for some photos of us at the top. The photo blocks and digital tape came from the embellishments included in the Downtown Grunge Photobook Template. I used the Delight in the Day stamp brush set for the title and I took the journaling lines and brackets from other downloads - can't remember which ones now!
My plan is to write my journaling in the book when it comes - I really prefer to hand journal, but that's just me.
I really love how this page turned out and I can't WAIT to finish the book and get it printed! I'm planning to print one for Mark's mother too for Mother's Day since she enjoyed the trip with us.

So, what do you think? Do you think it's cool? I'd love your feedback.
Don't forget either that you can now download a FREE 30 Day trial of My Digital Studio from my Stampin' Up! website Products Page. You'll have full access to the basic program and many downloads, all the available downloads for purchase plus the professional printing services as well for a full 30 days. If you like it, you can choose to purchase the program by download in two different configurations. It's a great opportunity to try it out if you're not sure or a scaredy-cat like me.
Trust me, if I can do it - YOU can do it!

Happy Scrappin' and Stampin'!~~Robin

Place your order for Stampin' Up! Supplies at this link here: Robin's Online Stampin' Store
Simply click the SHOP NOW button at the top right corner to get started!

Hey Valentine! Be Mine!

Call it what you will - "The sweetest day of the year."; "In love with love day"; "Chocolate Enthusiasts day", "National Singles Awareness day"; or my personal favorite - "Oh my gosh! It's Valentine's Day and I NEED a card! day".
Yep, how many of you have been there, done that?!

Well, I'm here to help!
Check out this card -

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you - it's not stamped! This card front is a Stampin' Up! My Digital Studio exclusive printable. How cool is that?!
Stampin' Up! had done all the work for us on this one - lots of "love" words, coordinating colors, cool fonts. All on one easy card.
This printable is called the Be Mine Frameable and can be downloaded from my Online Stampin' Store at this link HERE.
Simply click the SHOP NOW button at the top right corner.
Then, go to Digital Designing in the left column.
Next, click on Designer Templates. It's on page 2 of that section.
It's $1.95 to download and comes in an 8 1/2" x 11" size. You can use this in any digital publishing software and resize it to whatever size you need.
There are also many other pre-designed Templates that you can download and print on cardstock right there at home.
While you're there - you can also download a FREE 30 Day Trial of our awesome My Digital Studio design program. Doesn't get much better than that!

For my card, I used Microsoft Publisher and chose to print four postcard size card fronts on one piece of 8 1/2" x 11" Whisper White cardstock. I simply saved the frameable download as a .jpg file and was able to drop it into the program as a photo.
I then cut them into 4 card fronts measuring 3 3/4" x 5" so I could layer them nicely on the Riding Hood Red and Basic Gray cardstock to make my card.

The only embellishing I did to this was to add some Riding Hood Red Pleated Satin Ribbon across the front; a Basic Rhinestone jewel to the dot between the 2 and 14 and adding a Silver Glimmer Large Heart Punch over the ribbon with Stampin' Dimensionals.
The Riding Hood Red cardstock layer is mounted to the card front with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Here's the inside:
I stamped the greeting from the Sweetly Said stamp set in Basic Gray ink and added the open heart image from the I Heart Hearts stamp set in Riding Hood Red ink.
So easy!
And since my husband really loved this card - it's gonna be his valentine this year! Shhh - don't tell!

Now, take a look at what I did with the actual 8 1/2" x 11" size:

I just printed it again at full size on a piece of Whisper White cardstock and set to work adding my embellishments.
The frame is a simple metal document frame that I found on clearance at a local store. I removed the glass so the embellishments would be able to pop out.

I added Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Basic Rhinestones, Silver Glimmer Paper, Riding Hood Red Pleated Satin Ribbon, an Antique Brad, a Candy Cane Lane button and some Baker's Twine. Such a fun and easy project!

So, there you go - a simple valentine card and gift that's STILL hand made! All you need is the Be Mine Frameable download to get started and you'll have Valentine's Day all wrapped up by the time your honey walks in the door tonight!

Now, I'm off to finish my special valentines for my special Valentines!
Have a great day and be sure to eat some Chocolate!
~~Robin