Saving Pennies

This is one of the projects that we made at my recent home decor
class. I had originally bought these cute Ball brand mason jars to use to store buttons, but when I was making my prototypes for the class, I looked at the jars and thought wouldn't those make something cute. And they did! Here's how we made them:

Unscrew the lid from the jar. Remove the lid and replace the band on the jar. (I will show you a project that I made with the lid on another day!)

Wrap the jar with a 1 5/8"x12" strip of patterned paper. I used Tutti Frutti paper on my jar. Use wonder tape to hold the paper to the jar -- I used a strip at each end and two in the middle. Position the paper so that the ends are on the side with the embossed Ball name if you are using the Ball brand jars.

Stamp your saying on a large double ended tag that coordinates with your strip of paper. In my sample, I used Fun Time for the FUN and Simple Bet to spell out money. At the class, other ladies spelled out Baby Money and Yard Money depending on what they were planning to save for.

Then place one end of 18" of ribbon through the tag and tie the ends with small pieces of coordinating scrapper's floss. Run the ribbon around the jar and through the other end of the tag. Tie tightly again with scrapper's floss. Trim and start filling with coins!

Partridge in a pear tree -- not quite

I love our new Hemingway papers -- I'm kind of partial to blue (ah, last name Bluestein -- I have to be) and the blues in the Hemingway paper are a beautiful shade that can look teal or blue depending on what it is paired with. Of course, the paper hoarder in me made me skimp with that patterned paper again. So on this card, I just used a 2" x 4" strip so I could get lots of cards out of the 12"x12" sheet. This was another swap card and a project that we did at my recent team Flying Lessons -- don't you just love that name -- sounds so much better than a "team meeting". I didn't have any of the coordinating cardstock for that Hemingway paper yet when I made this project so we paired it with Blue 2 matchmakers cardstock. It's a close match though not as good as the coordinating cardstock. We stamped the Partridge on ivory cardstock with Cognac ink and sponged cognac ink on the edges. I love this new Partridge Level A hostess set. It has such an art deco kind of look to it. That was matted to a piece of brown TAC cardstock and then added to the card with pop dots.

Color Inspiration

I love that TAC's new catalog lists the inks that coordinate with the new paper. It makes it so much easier to find the right color when I want my ink to match the paper I'm using. But I also realized the other day when I was making this card that there was another great use for these lists of ink. I knew that I wanted to use three different colors of ink on this card and had the scrap of green as my starting point. The green matches with the Cha Cha paper so I just pulled out my catalog and looked at the list of inks recommended for the Cha Cha paper -- knowing that they would then look good with my green paper!

The other thing that made this card a breeze is that this stamp set is sized to fit perfectly in the Super Jumbo 1 3/8" square punch that we carry in the catalog. I was doing this card for a swap so I just stamped a bunch of each image on some scraps of white and then punched them all out in a row. Wow, fast! And no worrying about straight edges when cutting!

Gift With Purchase Stamps

I love our new gift with purchase stamps. This card combines two of the stamps -- Flower Bunch and Simply Put. It is a super simple card and very easy to do. But the saying is all about simplicity and so the card reflects that too.

Remember, tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the Home Decor class. I've just upgraded my printer and that means that you all will get upgraded awesome new instruction sheets with color pictures of the projects.

Home Decor Class

The deadline to RSVP for the home decor class is quickly approaching -- I need to know by Wednesday whether you want to attend the Friday, August 10, 6:30-9:30 pm session or the Sunday, August 12, 1:30-4:30 pm session. The class fee is $15 and you will get all of the supplies to make the four projects pictured here -- a cool picture frame, a "Fun money" jar to save your change for buying more stamps and paper, a photo clip that could also be a recipe card holder, and a hanging notes board. I used the new Cha Cha paper, Tutti Frutti, and Just Like Dad to create my samples, but you can choose from any of the papers that I have available. I had a blast coming up with these projects and have some other awesome home decor ideas to share with you but that we won't have the time to make at the class. I was so inspired by making all of these items that I'm rearranging my parts of my studio and office again. You'll have to stop by to see it!

And Now We Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

No, I haven't really been on summer hiatus, but my blog has been! I have actually been very busy with kids, VBS, kids, trip to sister's wedding, and more kids. School starts again in 16 days here -- yes, I'm counting the days. My youngest goes to kindergarten this year and while I'm sure that I will cry on that first day, I can not wait to have the freedom of 7 kid free hours five days a week!

In between all of this other stuff, I have actually gotten a lot of stamping done -- and I found out that I will be a vendor at the Creating Keepsakes scrapbooking convention in Tulsa at the end of August! I'm really excited to meet some new scrappers and share The Angel Company's new paper lines with them. The more that I use the papers, the more that I love them! Here are two cards that I've made recently with two different collections.

This first one is one of the cards that we made at my Christmas in July class. The card features our Amelia paper and Christmas Joy stamp set. These two are a match made in heaven for vintage loving stampers! There were a few people who missed the class and so I'm having a make up session on August 15 from 9 am - 12 noon. If you are interested in attending, please let me know soon because I only have 3 seats left.

This card on the right was made using the new plaid in our Toodle Loo collection. There's only 1 sheet of the plaid in the collection and it was really, really hard for me to cut it up to use for this card!! But I cheated and used just 1/2" strips on the back of each side of the black layer so that I could stretch the paper that much further! I was able to get 12 of this card out of just one 4"x12" strip of the paper with this method. That means I still have a 8"x12" piece to drool over. Oh, and the stamp on this card is one of our great new hostess sets, Happy Celebration.

New Catalog is here!!

Seminar 07 is over! :( But that also means that it is time to start sharing our awesome new catalog with all of you! I can't believe the great new papers and stamps in the catalog. I've made so many lists of things that I want already. If you want to receive your own copy of the catalog to drool over in bed at night, please email me. The cost is $5, which includes the shipping.

Other big news at seminar -- I received a top recruiter award! I was tied for #8 with another angel -- we had both sponsored 8 new angels this year! It was so amazing to get the award and to be surrounded by so many of those 8 new angels (and some who have been on my team for a long time too) when it happened!

Here's a picture of my team with Mischelle Smith, TAC's founder, after the banquet.