Where's Robin??

I know you've been wondering, but I'm still here.
Have you ever had so much on your plate that you don't know whether you're coming or going? Well, that's been me for the last 3 weeks or so. Between the busy-ness of the end of Sale-A-Bration, Emma's skating and school schedule, my surgery recovery and just life in general I feel like I've forgotten to breathe some days.
I've honestly sat down several times to write a blog post and share some projects with you and fallen asleep in the chair - no joke! But things have begun to slow down and I'm not working much this week because it's Spring Break here. Hey, Spring Break isn't just for the kiddos! HA!

We went up to NYC for three days earlier this week - we had so much fun last year, we decided to go again. It may become an annual trip for us. I plan to write another post later today and share some photos with you, just have to finish downloading them. For now though, I'll just share this fun Easter project with you.

It's actually a project I'd created last Easter, but when my Dad was diagnosed with his cancer I cancelled the class and don't think I ever shared this project online with you.

This cute basket is made with the Petal Cone Die, Baja Breeze Cardstock and some now retired Designer Series Paper. You could easily substitute the paper though.
You need 3 petal cones cut with the die to make the basket and all three banner pieces to make the handle.
They are all cut down and scored to make the basket bottom and everything is attached with Tombow Multi-Adhesive. (The cutting and scoring are the same as in this post for my Cupcake Basket, you just need to adhere 3 cone pieces instead of two and you don't cut off any of the top scalloped flaps.)
My basket here uses Antique Brads on the handle and Baja Breeze Seam Binding for the side bows. To create the basket filler, I used a piece of 12 x 12 First Edition Designer Paper and cut it at each 1/4" all the way across the paper, leaving an uncut portion across the top. The Fiskars paper cutter is ideal for this. Next, I took 4" portions of the paper sheet and fed the uncut end into my Crimper. When it came out, I cut off the uncut end with my Paper Snips and crumpled up the rest, creating the "shred".

Here's a view of the eggs:

I'd seen something similar online and wanted to do my own so I purchased the brown paper mache eggs and covered them with small torn pieces of coordinating Designer Series Paper. I used a liquid glue/glaze to adhere them, then coated the entire surface with the glaze and let it dry before I embellished them.

Here's another look:

I'm glad to finally be sharing this project with you and I hope you have some time to make one of your own. It's not awfully time consuming and would be a lot of fun to make some of the eggs with your kiddos if they are home like mine on Spring Break.

Have a great day friends and I'll be back later with some fun NYC photos and memories to share.
Happy stampin'!
~~Robin

Sweet Treat Flowers

So I promised this morning that I'd be back with more info on this fun bouquet!
I created it for one of my party hostesses this month with the Mixed Bunch Stamp Set and the Blossom Punch. They were so easy - and delicious - you'll love them as much as she did!

Because my tin bucket was pink polka dot, I chose my colors for stamping the flowers from the Brights Collection. Rich Razzleberry and Melon Mambo, but I picked the Marina Mist from the Subtles to round them out. I love how easy it is to cross colors from different collections with Stampin' Up!

I stamped the flowers on Whisper White cardstock and punched them out, using Tombow Multi-Adhesive to glue them to popsicle sticks. For the "leaves", I punched more flowers with the Blossom Punch out of Wild Wasabi cardstock and simply glued them on the back of the popsicle stick. For the fun centers, I used Easter wrapped Rolo candies and simply adhered them with a couple of Stampin' Dimensionals.

A little green paper Easter grass in the bucket was the perfect setting for my flowers to grow - dontcha think?

So, if you are lucky enough to be part of my Stampin' Fools, you'll be making a "garden" of your own this Thursday night. And I have another one for my final Sale-A-Bration Hostess on Saturday evening.

Yep, don't forget, Sale-A-Bration is ending on Saturday. It's your LAST chance to get the fantastic exclusive product FREE for any $50 purchase! Plus, it's the LAST chance to purchase our Demonstrator Starter Kit for just $125.00. It's an amazing special on the kit and comes with a wonderfully generous bonus of a pack of Designer Paper of YOUR choice each month for the rest of the year!
Have you thought about giving Stampin' Up! a try? Well, there's no better time and you can enjoy all the benefits of being a demonstrator until July 30 without having to turn in ANY orders at all. You could even go to Convention if you like - plus get an amazing one time only 30% off your Pre-Order of items from the new Catalog that appears on June 1st.
Yeah, it's a pretty good deal, but not if you wait too long. You can visit my website at www.robinstamps4u.stampinup.net to find out more details or to simply sign up. It's that easy!
Don't let this be you:
I've already welcomed several new members to my team during Sale-A-Bration who are just "trying it out". You can too, so contact me, ok?

Have a great evening!
~~Robin

Just a Peek!

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?"

I don't know about you, but I'd love my garden to grow like this!
Here's just a quick sneak peek of a project I made at the beginning of March for one of my party hostesses. She loved it and I know you will too!
I'll be back later this afternoon to show you the rest and share details!

XOXO!
~~Robin

Not Missing, Just Busy!

Hey Stampin' friends,

Just a quick post to let you know that I've not gone missing, I've just been super, super busy with family stuff this week. I have stamped goodies to show you, but I have to get them photographed so I can post them. I'm hoping to get some of it done this weekend, but we have a full family plate both days, so most likely it will be Monday before I get to share again.
Thanks for understanding and thanks for hanging in there with me!

~~Robin

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

At Rainbow's End

Happy Friday stampers!

I know it's kind of late to be sharing St. Patrick's Day ideas with you, but since I'd designed them last month for my Stampin' Fools, I thought I should at least pass them on!

Besides, you might have these supplies laying around just begging to be used!
First, here's the card:

I used Wild Wasabi for my 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" square card base. It's layered with a piece of 4 1/8" x 4 1/8" piece of Basic Black cardstock and the top layer is Glossy cardstock cut at 4" square.

I used the Pocket Silhouettes stamp set with Wild Wasabi and Lucky Limeade ink to stamp the grassy border along the base. I love that the classic ink AND markers dry on contact with Glossy cardstock. It's so easy to use!

The rainbow was so simple - I used these five Stampin' Write markers: Rich Razzleberry, Pacific Point, Wild Wasabi, Daffodil Delight and Real Red. I used the side of the brush tip and just stroked a "swoosh" of color in an arc pattern from where the pot of gold would be to the card's top edge. Once that was done, I used my 2 Way Glue Pen and Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to add the bling!

Next, I constructed my pot of gold:

For the pot, I used the 1 3/4" Circle Punch and trimmed off the top to be flat. I punched two pieces with the Word Window punch. One was glued across the top of the "pot" and the other was cut in half and adhered to the back of the "pot" to make the feet. I used my White Signo Gel Pen to draw a couple of accents on the pot, but of course, it needed one last thing - GOLD!
So I took my Circle punch from the Itty Bitty Punch Pack and punched out a bunch of gold pieces from a scrap of Brushed Gold cardstock. They were layered on another piece of Brushed Gold cardstock that was punched out with the Scallop Circle Punch.
The whole pot was popped up on Stampin' Dimensionals on the card front.
Here's the inside panel:

Just simply stamped with the Happy St. Patrick's Day A La Carte stamp from the Occasions Mini. Cute and easy!

Next, here's an easy treat you can make up for the little leprechauns in your life:

I used the Small Cello Bags and filled them with Lucky Charms Breakfast Cereal and a Gold covered Chocolate coin. The topper was made with some Rainbow striped DSP from the Just Add Cake package. I cut out a top note shape and simply folded it over the top of the bag and closed it with SNAIL adhesive.
The medallion was made in My Digital Studio and I printed out multiples on a sheet of Whisper White cardstock. Each was punched out with the 1 3/8" Circle Punch and layered on a piece of Wild Wasabi that was punched out with the 1 3/4" Circle Punch. A little Dazzling Diamonds glitter was added and I attached it to the treat bag with some Stampin' Dimensionals.

So, there you have it, nothing too hard, pretty generic supplies and you can whip up these fun treats in no time. But here's a warning - it's hard to not eat the Lucky Charms cereal once you've opened the box. Just sayin'.

Have a fun St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!
If you live in my area, stop by the Bristow Chick-Fil-A on Rt. 28 by the Super Target. From 11am - 2 pm, I'm participating in a fundraiser for the St. Baldricks's Association. It's an organization that raises money to find a cure for children's cancers.
There will be lots of opportunities to donate at the event tomorrow - a portion of your food purchase goes back to St. Baldricks, there are items available for a Silent Auction and I'll have a card table set up where you can donate any amount over $1.00 and make a card to send to a kid with cancer at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. When you donate and make a card, you'll get a coupon for a FREE Mini Card Class from me as a Thank YOU for participating!
Hope to see you there!
~~Robin

Here's One for the Guys

Hello everyone!
I know it's been real quiet around here this week. I had stamp camp on Monday and with everything else on my agenda that day, I ran out of time to post. Then, I had a little outpatient surgery scheduled for Tuesday, so I've spent the past 3 days trying to rest and recuperate. The good news is that the surgery went as planned, I am well, and I'm feeling better this afternoon than I have since Tuesday. I don't sit still for long very well, so to say that I'm getting restless is an understatement! But I know I still have to take it easy and I promise I'm doing my best!

I've got a bunch of new projects to share with you, but I need to get them photographed. For now, I found this card in my archives that I made last December for my card classes. It's a case of my own card that I made for my wedding anniversary. It's in this post HERE.

For this card, I used Crumb Cake cardstock and stamped the Sunflower background with Cajun Craze ink. A piece of Well Worn Designer Paper was added across the front with SNAIL adhesive.
Next, I took a scrap piece of the First Edition Specialty Designer Paper and crumpled it up creating the wrinkles. I rubbed it with a bit of Crumb Cake ink on a Stamping Sponge. It's adhered to the card front with some Stampin' Dimensionals.

The heart accent was punched out of Cherry Cobbler cardstock with the Full Heart punch and adhered with a dimensional. Next, I took a length of the Denim Jean Ribbon and tied it in a knot around the card front. The birthday greeting from Teeny Tiny Wishes was stamped on Crumb Cake scrap then punched out with the Modern Label Punch. I used my 1/2" circle punch and the retired 1/8" handheld punch to create the reinforcement out of Cajun Craze cardstock.
This element was tied around the Denim Jean knot with some Linen Thread. As a last rustic touch, I spritzed the whole card front with some Log Cabin Smooch Spray.

We all need great masculine card designs and for some reason, we don't come naturally to them. Watch my events calendar in the next few months, I'm planning an all masculine card class to help you fill that side of your card box.
In the meantime, I hope you get to stamp something fun today!

Blessings,
~~Robin