This Saturday is World Card Making Day, and I am having a free Open House event at my studio for all my friends and customers!

Simply bring some nutritious non-perishable food items for the Daily Bread Food Bank and make some great cards with me! With Canadian Thanksgiving coming up in just over a week, this is one way you can help make a difference fighting against hunger in Toronto.

Please RSVP if you'd like to drop by on Saturday (anytime between 10am and 4pm ) -- I'll have door prizes, scrapbook and card kits, prizes and day-of specials that you don't want to miss!

What is World Card Making Day?

World Card Making Day is a holiday for card makers around the world to celebrate the creativity of handmade cards and the personal connection that they create between friends and family. Celebrated the first Saturday in October, this day endeavors to bring together card makers around the world at a time that is traditionally the busiest time of year for card- and gift-making.


Happy stamping,
Caroline

Here's a cutesie "It's a Girl" card for tomorrow's baby cards class, using a Pink Pirouette/Regal Rose and Certainly Celery colour scheme.

It was inspired from a swap card I received from fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator Susie Reno using the Nursery Necessities stamp set. I love using this set for my baby cards... there are so many sweet images and sentiments to use!

By the way, if you are wondering how I made the little white brad, I simply dipped the head of a silver brad into the White Stazon ink pad. I let it dry a few minutes, and then gave it a second coating. Voila! Easy as pie :)

Happy stamping!
Caroline

Make your home and Halloween projects spooktacular this year with the Spooky Spider Décor Elements™! Decorate your candy jar to thrill the treaters, or adhere it above your door to scare off the tricksters. Whatever you do, you’ll be a Halloween hit!

The exclusive Spooky Spider comes in three sizes and two colours and is designed to coordinate with our Ghostly Greetings Designer Series paper and our Chills & Thrills Rub-Ons from the Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book & Catalogue.





Spooky Spider is just in time to help you get ready for Halloween and is priced low so it won’t break your candy budget.

If you see the one I added to the washroom door at my studio, I also added two half-back pearls from the Pretties kit and added black dots to make eyes. Freaky stuff, eh?!

Click here to see the Spooky Spider flyer and contact me to order yours!


Happy stamping!
Caroline











Please note, this is a limited time offer, and will no longer be available after October 31, 2008.

posted by Caroline LeBel, Stampin' Up!® Demonstrator @ 10:32 a.m. 0 comments

Olla folks!

Here are the first 2 cards that I'll show you which we'll be making at Tuesday's upcoming Baby cards class.

I hope you enjoy them and have a great weekend!!

Happy stamping,
Caroline

Yes, I'm on a blogging roll! It's good to be getting back up to speed with my crazy To-Do list and with a functional computer :)

Here are 3 more cards that we're making at tomorrow's 10 Holiday card camp. If you notice any commonalities between the cards.. that's the Baja Breeze I'm so madly in love with these days. I'm really loving all the new In Color's, and Kiwi Kiss and Riding Hood Red are other recent favourites... but this Baja has seriously grown on me and I find myself using it A LOT.

Enjoy the cards (click to enlarge) -- they're all my own inspiration for a change :)

Happy stamping,

Caroline

Happy Friday, everyone! It's a PA day here in Toronto so I'll be spending the day at home with the monsters, but wanted to share with you the first 5 cards for Saturday's 10 Holiday cards stamp camp. This is the 3rd year in a row that I'm holding 4 different holiday card camps, one each in the months preceeding Christmas. This way, everyone gets the chance to make up to 40 different holiday cards to give to their favourite people!

One of the really fun parts about attending Stampin' Up!'s Founder's Circle each year is participating in the card swap. The theme for the last 3 years has been holiday cards, so I hugely appreciate getting so many beautiful card ideas to share and be inspired by. Imagine about 115 demonstrators (all in their PJ's!) swapping cards -- what a blast!








Card #1 - Snow Swirled (15% off stamp set) -- card inspired by Laurie Krauss; changed the colour scheme to Regal Rose and Bravo Burgundy.
















Card #2 - Big On Christmas -- inspired by Sandi Rule's To You and Yours card

















Card #3 - Deer Friends hostess set -- inspired by Kim Allen

















Card #4 - A Flower for All Seasons -- inspired by Julie Salva
















Card #5 - uses the new Sizzix Join in the Cheers Decorative Strip die -- inspired by a card from Beverly Jacobson










If you are interested in attending Saturday's class, please let me know - I still have 2 spaces left at the 4pm time and would love to see you! If you want to order any of the products used here to make these cards, just contact me for a complete listing of supplies. You can then order online anytime at www.caroline.stampinup.net to get everything shipped direct to you -- just click on the SHOP NOW button to get started! You'll receive a special all-occasions 5 card bundle from me with your first online order this month -- offer valid ANYWHERE in Canada.

Happy stamping!

Caroline

Let me share with you the final 3 cards for today's 5 "Thank You" cards class (see the other 2 in yesterday's post).

The first one uses one of my favourite Designer Papers, "Summer Picnic". It's paired with the Boho Blooms Background & Wonderful Words sets.









Card #2 uses a traditional Christmas set Holy Triptych in a non-holiday way. I paired the large tag image with the "thank you" from Elegant Notes, all in the new Tangerine Tango. It's actually a very easy card, with the gorgeous Haiku Designer Papers doing most of the work!













This last card has a simple front with the large 1 3/4" circle punched out from the front, and the paper piercer was used to poke delicate detailing in a free-hand circle around it.

The flowers from Simply Said are stamped in Taken with Teal along the front, using the White gel pen to add accents.

Inside is the circular "Thank You" from Lovely Labels, stamped in Pink Passion on Whisper White and then mounted on a Pink Passion scallop shape. This image is centred so that it's what you see through the front circle when the card is in it's closed position.







And last but not least, you can see that my kids are rather obviously no longer sick - yippee!

It would appear that Serena had the energy to carry Morgan all the way from school to the studio like this. Ahhh, to be young again ;)

Happy stamping, everyone! I'll start posting Saturday's Holiday 10 card class samples beginning tomorrow.

Caroline

While I had an absolute blast with so many of my girlfriends in Utah on Stampin' Up!'s Founder's Circle trip, it's so great to be home. My husband was probably the happiest of us all though, since both kids were sick with colds and dearly wanted their Mommy home.

I'm now finally back in the studio and playing catch-up -- I have SO many projects and photos to share with you all over the next few weeks... phew! We'll start off today with 2 of the 5 cards we'll be making at Thursday's Thank You Cards class. Just click on the card images to enlarge...

The first card uses the new "Pocket Silhouettes" set, one of the new ones that are on sale right now for 15% off. I saw a beautiful card done by Jackie Bolhuis and adapted it slightly so that it could fit in the longer open-end envelopes we have.


This second card was inspired by a pretty card that was on the cover of a recent "Stampin' Success" magazine -- that's the monthly periodical that we demonstrators receive. I'm always finding inspiration and learning new techniques from it... it's one of my favourite "fun" perks of being a demo!

This card also uses one of the new 15% off stamp sets, "Upsy Daisy" and features 2 different sizes of our grosgrain ribbons as well as some natural hemp threaded through a flower punch on the main sentiment tag.

If you are in the Toronto area and would like to attend this class to make these and 3 more fun Thank You Cards, please drop me a line. I have spots available for both the 1pm and 7pm classes and would love to see you.

Okay, now that this fun part was done, it's back to unpacking all the big boxes that came in last week and attacking the giant inbox of emails. Wish me luck! :)

Happy stamping,
Caroline

On day one of Founders Circle, Nancy & I spent the day at the Marriott hotel while waiting for everyone to arrive. It was great fun stalking everyone in the lobby as they came in from shuttles and buses (with an itty bitty nap in between). I spent some time in the official "Gathering Place" where they had oodles of jars of candy for us to nibble on.



















There was a super fun "getting to know you" game where we were each given a different stamp in a set, and had to find others that had the rest of the pieces to complete it. WELL! Let's just say that we had tug-of-war's happening trying to get the right people with the right pieces to then go and claim our prize. SUCCESS!

Happy Wednesday!

It's nice to report that I'm officially here in Saint George for this year's Founders Circle trip. All of yesterday was pretty much spent either in airports or in the air, which was both good and bad. The first leg of our journey was a fairly uneventful 5 hour trip from Toronto to LAX non-stop, where Nancy Gauthier and I watched "Sex & The City" and chatted happily. We lunched at the airport and awaited our next flight that would get us to our final destination. Oie-oie-oie! I won't say that we were clutching each others hands and praying for our lives, but it felt close! I'd never been through turbulence like that before, and when you look out of the window and see nothing but mountains and deserts below, well, you just plain stopped looking after a while!

Anyhoo, we were finally on solid ground (practically kissed it in gratitude) and we checked in to our hotel, grabbed some dinner at the Olive Garden and then went to play at Tar-zhay for a while. When you set 2 Canadians loose in that store, much hilarity and $hopping will follow!!

So now we're both up bright and early since we're still on our Eastern timeclocks, and we're counting down the minutes until the hotel's breakfast opens at 6:30am. The rest of the Stampin' Up! gals will be coming in today to kick off the FC festivities, and I'll report back on some of the great cards and swaps I get.

Until then, happy stamping!

Caroline