A Diversionary Tactic

Tuesday's Tools- Edge Punches

2010-02-09T04:06:18-08:00

Another very useful tool in the drawer...edge punches! Every month I do a product class on the 3rd Tuesday of the month. This month is Edge punches and we will do 4-5 cards/projects using the edge punches. Here's one of the cards that we will be doing in class. We have used the Scallop Edge punch on the roof. This was a card that was shared by another very talented member of our group, Judy Knapp from Oak Creek. Adorable, it's like a breath of spring! Come and make this card on Tuesday, Feb 16th. (RSVP by clicking the link below the photo. PM session has 5 seats available. AM session is full but I am in the works of clearing out another day for an additional am session.)

Valentine Project-Fugue Friday

2010-02-06T07:01:47-08:00

It's Fugue Friday and time for your variations on a theme. Just one more week to stamp up those Valentine Projects! I've got the cutest one for you here today. Last Saturday, we had our group ShoeBox Swap, that means any demonstrator in my group can participate in a stamping day. It's our version of a Potluck Stamp Camp. It's a ton of fun. One of the things I was most worried about when I was thinking about becoming a demonstrator was having enough ideas to share with my customers. Trust me when I say, the ideas will be overwhelming and now you become more worried about what NOT to share! And believe me when I say that I really don't come up with all the ideas on my own! I think I will be able to use most of the swap projects in the next couple of months at classes, camps and workshops. It's really not difficult to be a demonstrator!

So, here's project number one from Saturday. I have a very talented downline, Vickie Monosa from Racine. She's a fabulous stamper in so many ways but one of her specialties is 3D trinkety things. We can count on her for the cutest little party favor ideas. This is the project that Vickie brought for us to stamp. It's a pull out gum wrapper. You rewrap mini Dentyne Ice gum. We've purchased them at the Dollar Store. Right near the checkout in two packs for, obviously, a buck!

Can you imagine making these for your students birthday's, your grandkids, for whatever. It's a cute, quick project

Stamps: Fox and Friends pg 31 Mini Catalog, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Inks: Pumpkin Pie
CS: Pumpkin Pie, Apricot Appeal, Sweet PEa
Misc: Square Punches, 1/2" Circle Punch, Round Tab PUnch, Polka Dot Embossing Folder

Here's Variation #2: In lieu of a card, this would be adorable on the top of a kids birthday gift.

Stamps: Birthday Bliss - one of my FREE Sale-a-bration Choices!
Inks: Pixie Pink, Bermuda Bay
CS: Welcome Neighbor (another freebie!) Pixie Pink, Lovely Lilac
Misc: Wide Oval Punch, Round Tab Punch, 1/2" Circle Punch

Here's Variation #3: This is one of the three projects my Hostess Club did this week for club. Are you looking for a little stamping action. Hostess Club might be the right fit for you too! We'll save a spot for you!

TIDBITS & Triffles – just a few notes

I punched the Whoo La La with the Word Window punch and used it to make a Mini Me Word Window Punch. To see how this is done, make sure you sign up for my Stampin’ Up Newsletter. This technique will be this month’s featured tutorial. To sign up, register in the upper left corner of the blog in the Mailing List sign up box!
Stamps: Owl Together Now (#111534), Inks: Basic Black, Real Red, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel Markers. CS: Chocolate Chip, Vanilla, Sending Love DSP (love it!), Misc: Round Tab Punch, Word Window Punch, Square Scallop Punch, Square Punch.
I found that regular adhesive wasn’t strong enough to attach the Round Tab. Use the handy dandy Glue Dots for a super stick!

To order your Stampin’ Up! supplies – 24-7, Click here!

Bread-Maker Recipe

2010-02-03T04:29:54-08:00

It's Whatever Wednesday and I'm really running late this morning. I stayed up WAY past my bedtime looking at seed catalogs for spring plantings and just couldn't get my biscuits out of bed! My friend Roxanne and I have made our lists and are checking them twice and since I'm so late, so I'm just going to share my kids' favorite recipe for bread. It's easy to throw in the Bread Maker and they seem to gobble up the entire loaf between afterschool feeding frenzy and supper. I can spend the morning stamping in my office. Throw the ingredients in before lunch and I usually just send it through the dough cycle, put it in a greased pan and rise and bake it from there. It looks like I've spent the entire day lovingly preparing food for the table. Toss a little flour on my black rooster apron and bam, Rob's thinkin' I'm the queen! If I throw a venison roast in, I could probably ask for the moon and get it too. The way to a man's heart is through a venison roast and a loaf of bread.

Bead Maker White Bread

Share by a good friend, Linda Debelak (the real queen in the kitchen!)

3 T butter or butter-Crisco
1 1/2 t. salt
3 T Sweetener (I use either white or brown sugar or honey or molasses - doesn't matter)
1 egg (small one usually) - (ha I've got lots of those - FYI egg delivery in Waukesha, Wales, Delafield, Mukwonago etc. on Fridays - call if you want to get on the route)
1 1/3 c. milk (I microwave it for 1-2 minutes to warm it)
4 c. flour (White, wh. wheat or a mix)
a couple tablespoons of flax seed or cracked wheat if desired
3 t. yeast

After it goes through the dough cycle, shape into loaves. Then let rise and back at 350 for 24 minutes or so.

Sponge Daubers

2010-02-02T04:17:30-08:00

It's Tuesday and thus, time for you Tuesdays' Tools segment. I have chosen to share one of Ella's favorite items in the stamping drawer. Sponge Daubers! I think she likes them because she can put a full pack on her fingers like olives.

You can use them with your pastels, ink pads, but I usually pair them up with glossy paper like I have done with this sample. I stayed in the Old Olive, Taken with Teal and Dusty Durango vein and have created another "teenage" boy card. Have I mentioned that I'm SO jazzed that I have this Extreme Snowboarder stamp? It was one of my FREE Sale-a-bration choices last month. I first ran my glossy paper through the Big Shot with a Texture Plate, then stamped the Snowboarder with Basic Gray and let him dry. Once the image was dry, I donned my daubers. I inked them in the appropriate color and just squiggled down the paper. Fun card in honor of the Winter Olympics Snowboard Team and a certain 10 year old boy that thinks that stuff is SOOOOO cool.

TIDBITS & Triffles – just a few notes

- This card is a sample of one of the cards from my Techniques, Tools and Folds class on Monday, Feb 22nd. We will be making five different cards for only $12.00. My 2/22 MORNING class is completely full so I will open another am session on Tuesday, Feb 23rd. I have lots of room in the 2/22 Evening class. Register by emailing or using paypal below.
- Stamps: Extreme Snowboarder #(115117), On Your Birthday (#111664) Inks: Taken with Teal, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Dusty Durango (in-color!). CS: Same as inks and with Glossy, Misc: Sponge Daubers, Crop-a-dile, Antique Brass Jumbo Eyelets (108431)
- I used direct to paper with the Chocolate Chip pad to get more of a rustic edgy feel with the sponged ink. Using a dauber would have given a softer more feminine look.
- Earn a FREE Sale-A-Bration gift for every $50 of Stampin' Up! products you purchase now thru March 31, 2010.

To order your Stampin’ Up! supplies – 24-7, Click here!

Blog Candy Winners

2010-02-01T19:37:46-08:00

Random Number Generator SAYS...2 & 3. So the winners of the January Blog Candy is Laura and Jan. Congrats! Of course, the chances of winning were pretty good! 5 Comments and 2 prizes. Sheesh. Thems are purty good odds.

So what's the prize for Feb?

To enter the Blog Candy Giveaway, simply post a comment on the Diversionary Tactics blog. Enter as many times as you would like!

Feel free to expound eloquently on the beauty of the objects shared on this cyberworld medium and thus increase your potential of winning. Not that I can influence Random Number Generator but obviously the more comments you post the greater the odds. Good luck!

Scrapbooking Kit

2010-01-29T04:27:54-08:00

Yes, I realize it's Friday and time for a Fugue Friday! I'm going to try to get to that today yet. I have something I just HAVE to share first. Shhh, can you keep a secret?

Ok, I'm going scrapbooking tonight at a crop in Hartland! I'm so excited I can barely sit still (that may be the coffee, but....) One of my friends, daughter's, school is having a crop as a school fundraiser at the Hartbrook Church. How cool is that. It's actually an entire weekend crop but I can just crop tonight as I'm up to bat at hospital. I think they expect you to show up for work if you are scheduled.

I know, I know. You are asking why would you ever leave your beautiful little stamping cottage to crop someplace else? Especially when you have everything at your fingertips! It's a trade off. I've got three children that pop in and try to help, work on the computer, say hi, dig into the snacks, ask for supper, run with scissors, color on photos, rearrange the chairs to make forts. Do you get the idea? See if I leave, they can't find me! I've tried locking the doors but the incessant knocking inhibits creativity and then when they give you the puppy-dog look while peering into windows, just completely undoes me. I just don't have the willpower for that. So I'm leaving for a couple of blessed scrapbooking hours!

I wanted to share my last layout from the Sending Love Scrapbooking and Card Kit. (This month's Designer Series Paper - DSP Kit). I used a layout from Jen Peels - Scrapbooker's Shortcut Ebook. (LOVE THIS BOOK BY THE WAY!) The layout is part of my Sending Love DSP Kit for January and you have a couple of days yet to order this kit. It includes 4 card samples and a 2 page layout. The kit contains the following items: 6 sheets of Sending Love DSP, 2 sheets 12x12 Real Red CS, 2 Sheets Chocolate Chip CS, 2 Sheets Regal Rose CS, 2 Sheets Very Vanilla CS, 8 Chocolate Epoxy Brad, 1 yd of Linen thread, Pink Taffeta, Vanilla Taffeta, and several tags and Scallop punched pieces. It's a great value!

Order your kits today!

Caution!

2010-01-28T04:27:05-08:00

Wanna beat the winter blues?
Wanna have a fluttery feeling in your tummy when you crack open the latest Occasions mini?
Wanna feel a warm rush and feel weakness in the knees when you see your favorite man, the UPS man, pull up in your driveway?

Share the fun of rubberstamping with all your friends and neighbors by hosting a rubberstamping workshop with me and you can experience all three! I promise everyone will have scads of fun! Let's set a date for your Sale-a-bration workshop! Did I mention that you'll have loads of fun? :)

Sarah: 262-521-3194

Extreme Snowboarder Sample

2010-01-27T05:22:52-08:00

My downline is a fabulous group of demos and are fairly active when it comes to group meetings and the likes. We have a quarterly event that all my downline and really anyone is invited to. It's our quarterly group Shoebox Swap. Each attendee designs a card and then brings all the parts for that card, we then stamp each card and you go home with a whole bunch of new samples. I feed them lunch and then in the afternoon, we have a Diva Day and those demos that have achieved certain criteria are invited to stay for more stamping. It's scads of fun.

So here's my sample for Saturday's event. Two packs of Taken with Teal cardstock has languished in my paper racks for a couple of years. This Taken with Teal is the current HOT COLOR in the stamping cottage. I used it with the Holiday Lounge DSP and now with the Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper (DSP). Love it, rich and yummy. I never have enough Man Cards and even less, Smelly, Goofy Pre-teen/ Teenager Boy cards! So I set to work as this is the ULTIMATE set for the aforementioned group. (Denver said, "SWEET!" when I pulled out the set from the order the other day. I had planned on using Taken with Teal and Old Olive and my newest member of my downline group was here working up her sample for Saturday, (Go Brandy) and I threw down both Chocolate Chip and Dusty Durango and said....which one? "Uuum, both?" I used a Sketch Challenge 264 here for my layout.

TIDBITS & Triffles – just a few notes

CS: Chocolate Chip, Dusty Durango, Taken with Teal, Old Olive and Sweet Pea DSP(#117161) Stamps: On Your Birthday (111664) & Extreme Snowboarder (115117) Misc: Modern Label Punch Jumbo Brads (112534), Texture Plate, Cutter Kit

Extreme Snowboarder is one of the FREE Sale-a-bration options listed on the back of the Sale-a-bration flyer. FREE with a $50.00 order anytime Jan-March!
To create the snow drifts, I just tore several pieces of cardstock and distressed the edges with my fingernail and layered them up.
I used the Rock and Roll technique to jazz up my boarder. Simply ink in Dusty Durango and then roll the edges in Chocolate chip. Yes, I cut him out and popped him off with a glue dot.

To order your Stampin’ Up! supplies – 24-7, Click here!

Fugue Friday

2010-01-26T04:54:10-08:00

Ok, I'm a little late! I've missed TWO Fugue Fridays. Perhaps because, it was more like Fatigue Friday. I've been a class action fool around here. We've had Hostess Club with Rockin' projects, then a couple of hospital night shifts, a Girlscout Troop, Techniques, Tools and Folds classes, no school days.... You get the picture! So forgive me if I've lost a few days. In my world, we are still working on Friday.

I love January. It's a month of fresh starts, new promises and a compelling urge to organize. You get that "nesting" feeling without the stretch marks and labor pains...the clean house, feathered nest effect without the nestlings whose sole purpose is to soil the nest. Don't get me wrong, I ADORE my little birds but trust me when I say that they are not designed for tidiness. Thirty seconds of #3 in a room alone, will get you 30 minutes of cleanup. That's 10 minutes telling her "why and what needs to pick up", 5 minute of threats, 10 minutes of helping her clean up, and an additional 4.5 minutes resting from the stress and the last 30 seconds is spent finding the next hot spot.. This cycle repeats itself every 30 minutes until naptime and then replicates itself around the time the Middle School bus arrives and triplicates again when the Grade School Bus arrives. Believe me when I say, nestlings does not equal tidiness. So I love January, I can get the effect of nesting without the resulting cause. (Sorry Nikki & Lynn, no pre-natals planned for this old mama bird.)

So in this season of organization and fresh starts, I found more cardstock stashes that needed to be cleaned up. A ready made Fugue Friday. Here was a card that we did at the Relay for Life fundraiser last spring. (I told you I was digging deep.) I had used the Ronald McDonald stamp set from last year and made a quick graduation/congrats card.

Then we fugued and changed the colors a tad to Pacific Point and Red and swapped the stamp set for an adorable Hostess set, Out of the Box. (gonna need to play with that one some more!)

So I used up all the cardstock and needed some more variations. So we moved on to Valentines. Same exact layout but with the I Heart Heart stamp set (Haitian Disaster Relief Set - more info to follow!) and the Sending Love DSP.

Then we moved on to Sale-a-bration and the Vintage Labels stamp set. This was a sample from my Texture Plates and Embossing Folders class last week. Love it when a card can do double duty. Class and Fugue sample! So that's your inspiration for today, Fugue Friday.

I suppose I better find myself back in the present. Ella is snack girl today at preschool and the others are back in school too. I love the relaxation of a School Vacation Day but that first morning back is TORTURE! #1 is usually up before the alarm clock and is relatively pleasant for a teenager. #2 & #3....UGLY! I think I need more coffee before I tackle this!

Sale-a-bration Card Samples

2010-01-14T04:22:43-08:00

I'm sure it's a very pressing question in your minds! What do you do at a Stampin' Up! workshop? Admit it, you think of it every morning and just wished I would answer that question for you! I know, you are probably to embarrassed to ask, aren't you? Admitting that it's been a long time since you've come to one of my parties and you just wished you didn't have to tell me about your naivety.

We'll here's how a party works! We set a date that will work for you and your friends. I send out invites to everyone that you can think of that would like to have a fabulously fun time. And come on, just how many friends do you have that don't want to have a good time? I hope for you sake, it's just one or two! Then the scores of friends, neighbors and family that actually are fun loving will come to your party and be amazed at how easy and enjoyable rubberstamping can be! They will realize the key to your happiness is your rubberstamps! (Look Mom, I made it myself, feeling!)

I usually demonstrate 1 or 2 cards for you as the hostess to keep, cherish, and hopefully use and send out instead of hoarding in your craft drawer. (Trust me there's more where they came from!) Then I demonstrate your make and takes. You and your scads of fun-loving friends will be able to make two adorable cards absolutely free! At this point, those two friends that don't like to have fun, will be extremely jealous of your fun friends and wished they could have made such cute and useful cards too. We will have some time to shop and I will be on hand to answer any questions. And one of the BEST times to have a party, because it's our Sale-a-bration season and it's all about FREE STAMPS! You can supply the chocolate brownies if you so desire. It's easy and a guaranteed good time. Let's set up your workshop date today.

I have given you even more input into the party planning. I set up an album where you can pick your make and takes! I know, what a great idea! Here's just one of the cards that you can pick. Check out the rest here. Call me so that you can have the best pick of dates! 262-521-3194