You can make this Easy to Stamp All-Occasion Dahlia Card in just minutes and add whatever appropriate greeting you want! This Definitely Dahlia Stamp Set is just one large background stamp, and sadly, it is on the Last Chance List of retiring products.

If you love this big beautiful flower, it is time to order it! I also made these two cards with other products that are retiring the end of May……the 2016-2018 In Colors.  Particularly if you want these colors in cardstock, ink pads, or ink refills plus any accessories with these colors, you will want to put these on your order!  The colors I chose to use are Peekaboo Peach and Flirty Flamingo.

Now the funny thing is, with the Stampin’ Up! Color Revamp, one color that is “retiring” with the In Colors is actually coming back as one of the Brights Core Colors!  That color is Flirty Flamingo.  Read about the Color Revamp HERE in my recent blog post.

I have always particularly like these background stamps on the wood blocks. However, now with the Stamparatus, if you plan on purchasing this tool, I might recommend the Clear-mount version of Definitely Dahlia so that you can stamp with the Stamparatus. That way if you do not get a good impression the first time, you can reink the stamp, leaving it in place on the Stamparatus, and stamp again to fill in the image. But either stamp is good!  I still love the wood blocks too!

Sometimes we get wrapped up into the latest stamping idea, which is great, but sometimes we need to remember we can stamp quick and easy, simple cards like this Easy to Stamp All-Occasion Dahlia Card.

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I was actually struggling to make a card with the striped side of this designer paper and one of the cakes I’d cut out by hand, when I flipped the paper over and made this Sweet Soiree Fancy Cake Birthday Card. As soon as I turned the paper over, the cake designs layered over the pretty Powder Pink card base, looked beautiful and perfect. There was no point in trying to force a card that wasn’t working when all I had to do was flip the paper over and make a simple card out of it! The Sweet Soiree Paper is so pretty!

To embellish the card, I adhered a strip of the Powder Pink 3/8″ Shimmer Ribbon across the bottom of the card.  It’s a real shame to cover up ANY part of a paper pattern as pretty as this one! Then I tied the bow separately to adhere on top of the ribbon.  Luckily I held off until I had the greeting ready.

I finally found a pretty small “Happy Birthday” stamp in the Beautiful Bouquet Photopolymer Stamp Set. I could punch it out with the 1 3/8″ Circle Punch after I stamped the birthday greeting using Powder Pink Ink and Whisper White cardstock and layered it on a small silver foil doily in the Metallic Foil Doilies package.

I played around with where to put this greeting on the card, when finally I figured out the best place was on the ribbon with the bow on the bottom of the greeting since there was some empty space there anyway!

This Sweet Soiree Fancy Cake Birthday Card is a very easy card to make since the paper is so pretty by itself.  How can it be retiring??!

Be sure to check out the retiring Stampin’ Up! products in the Online Store.

My mojo kicked into high gear thinking about the probable retiring 2016-18 In Colors, and these Easy Cards Designed With 2016-2018 In Colors are the result!  I wanted to make a card with each of the 2016-18 In Colors, which we all assume will be on the upcoming Stampin’ Up! retiring list, scheduled to be released this afternoon.

If you have any of these In Color ink pads and don’t have the ink refills, I would be ready to pounce on your order as soon as you see the retirement list today, if not sooner!  No one can predict, but in the past, the ink refills have sold out pretty quickly, and you don’t want to pay some higher price on an auction site later on!  Chances are, the ribbons and papers that have any of these In Colors in them will also retire.  To make these easy cards I chose designer papers that had these colors in them.  You can look at the back of your designer paper package for the list of coordinating colors (I always write them in marker, larger, on the back, so I can read them at a glance!  If you are under 40, you might not need to do this step!!) See how I do it in this post HERE. (It’s a very old post but the advice is the same!)

• The card with the balloons is on Sweet Sugarplum Card Stock with Birthday Memories Designer Series Paper. The additional layers are Rich Razzleberry and a piece of Blushing Bride, all coordinating colors with the designer paper.  The greeting is from Birthday Delivery.
• The card with the candles is on Peekabook Peach Card Stock using a pattern from the Picture Perfect Party Paper, embellished with some Peekaboo Peach 5/8″ Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon.  The birthday greeting is just stamped across the top of the card with an image from the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set.
• The card with the gemstones is made with a card base of Emerald Envy. The coordinating designer paper is Naturally Eclectic.  The card is embellished with the Lemon Lime Twist Woven Ribbon and a die cut gold foil gem with the Eclectic Layers Thinlits Dies and a greeting from the Oh So Eclectic Stamp Set.
• The butterfly card base is Dapper Denim and uses a piece of Color Theory Designer Paper as a layer (which is layered on Whisper White just to help it stand out a bit). I grabbed a Copper Foil butterfly, one of my extra die cuts from the other day using the Butterflies Thinlits Dies and layered the butterfly on a pretty Delicate White Doily.  The greeting is from the Beautiful Day Stamp Set.
• The last card with the Sweet Soiree Designer Paper layer, is on a card base of Flirty Flamingo.  The ribbon is Berry Burst 3/8″ Metallic-Edge Ribbon and the greeting is from the Flourishing Phrases Stamp Set.

These easy to make cards use each of the retiring In Colors from 2016-2018. If you like them, stock up!

Check back around 1 PM MT and I will get up the Stampin’ Up! Retiring List and information as soon as I can! Assuming my computer is compliant!

My Stampin’ Up! newsletter will come out tomorrow with all the retirement information plus whatever other updates Stampin’ Up! has, so be sure you are on my Mailing List.  Sign up HERE.

Make easy cards designed with the 2016-18 In Colors getting inspiration from the ideas I posted above!

Shop Retiring Products from the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog and also the Occasions Catalog in my Stampin’ Up! Online Store TODAY after 1:00 PM Mountain Time (2:00 PM Central Time).

In the midst of stamping Easter cards yesterday, I came up with this birthday card stamped with the Petal Palette Stamp Set and colored in with the Stampin’ Blends markers. At first glance, you might not be all that impressed with the Petal Palette Stamp Set (I wasn’t!), but as usual, once I started seeing samples made with this set I was convinced I had to have it!  Besides the images, which are so pretty, there are some very nice words to use in the set.

The card base is Cherry Cobbler Cardstock with a layer of Basic Black.  The flowers are stamped on Whisper White in Memento Black ink and colored in with the Stampin’ Blends markers.  Some of the markers are backordered right now, but I suggest ordering the single markers, even if you want the whole collection, because then you will receive all of the markers that are available now and Stampin’ Up! will ship the backordered ones when they are resupplied. Even if they are backordered, I would suggest putting them in your Shopping Bag now so you will be first in line to get them when they come in stock.

I chose a greeting from Picture Perfect Birthday and die cut with the Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies.  Then that is layered on a scalloped oval die cut from Layering Ovals from Gold Foil. For some extra pizzazz I wound up some Gold Metallic Thread adhered to the back of the greeting.  This thread is only $3.00 so a great thing to have on hand or add to your order when you need a little bit more!

On the inside I put a piece of Whisper White cardstock since the Cherry Cobbler is so dark, and stamped one other flower from Petal Palette.

There you have it!  An easy birthday card made with stamping Petal Palette flowers and coloring in with Stampin’ Blends markers!

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You can make an elegant birthday card for someone special using the Sweet Soiree Specialty Designer Series Paper. I think anything you would make with this fancy foiled paper with handpainted designs would look beautiful and elegant! Even this simple background has silver foil dots, plus the outlines of the flowers and leaves are silver foil.

To make this card, I started with a card base of Calypso Coral, one of the coordinating colors of the designer paper. I liked this dotted paper layered on Silver Foil.  I looked through the papers and decided on the flowered paper with the Marina Mist background and cut out some of the flowers to adhere to the front of the card.  If you have the Paper Snips scissors, it makes cutting out a little easier and you can just do it while you are watching TV!  After I cut out the bigger group of flowers, I also cut some of the smaller ones out of the scraps.

Before I glued down the flowers, I thought a little ribbon might be nice on the card.  The Calypso Coral 1/4″ Ombre Ribbon was perfect! I just adhered one strip across the card and then tied the bow on later.

With the ribbon on, I popped the large group of flowers up on Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals mostly, with a few of the regular size dimensionals. The smaller flowers I fit in alongside the large group and adhered with some Fast Fuse. (Only the Fast Fuse refills are available from now on.)

For the greeting, I chose the “Happy Birthday” from the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set. Not only is this stamp set wonderful for all the flowers, but it has a great selection of greetings! I stamped it on a piece of Powder Pink Cardstock with Powder Pink ink, not quite knowing what I was going to do with it!  I ended up die-cutting with the Lots of Labels Framelits Dies but cut off the top of the diecut with the top edge of the card layer. For a little more pizzazz I added a Silver Foil diecut underneath.

I thought the greeting looked a bit plain so I stamped some small flowers on from the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set. It’s one of those things where perhaps I should have stopped before doing that! I nearly messed it up and I’m not sure I’m happy with it now.  I thought adding some of the teeniest pearls would help it, but I’m not sure.

As my friend and I used to say back in the day when we were painting t-shirts and wine glasses together, sometimes you have to know when to stop!  I should have stopped with just the stamped greeting on this card! But I doubt the recipient will be so critical!

If you want to make some beautiful, elegant cards and other projects, you might want to consider purchasing this Sweet Soiree Specialty Designer Series Paper.  Now there is also a stamp set and framelit dies in the Cake Soiree Bundle, if you want to get the whole works! If you want to make an elegant card for someone special, this paper will make your job easy!

Celebrate a birthday with the Party Pandas! Make this fun and easy Party Pandas Birthday Card With Balloons to send to a child, an adult, a friend, a loved one, anyone! So many possibilities with this simple stamp set! And you can get it FREE!

Stampin’ Up! has their best promotion going on right now called Sale-A-Bration! All you have to do is spend $50 on any Stampin’ Up! products (which you know you are going to do anyway!) and then choose a FREE product in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure!  Lots of choices, you are sure to find something fun that you like!  I’m guessing that this Party Pandas Stamp Set is going to be one of the most popular sets during Sale-A-Bration!  Everyone seems to love pandas!

To make this card, I stamped the panda and his balloon with Memento Black Ink. I colored in the stamped balloon with my Bermuda Bay Stampin’ Blends Markers. For a little extra interest, I punched two balloons with the Balloon Bouquet Punch. One is made with Gold Glimmer Paper and one from the Picture Perfect Party Paper.  Then I just drew in the balloon strings down to the panda’s hand.  For the background I stamped the little confetti stamp in the coordinating colors of the Picture Perfect Party Paper. I decided to make the “Happy Birthday” greeting a little pennant that the panda is holding by using a cut toothpick for the stick!

That’s all there is to this easy Party Pandas Birthday Card With Balloons. So fun to make!

Remember, for every $50 you spend at Stampin’ Up!, from now through March 31, you can earn a FREE Sale-A-Bration product!  Let me know if you have any questions!  There’s a good deal for signing up to be a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, too!

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When it comes to quick and easy cards, these Quick and Easy Picture Perfect Party Birthday Cards are about as easy as you can get!  The new Picture Perfect Party Designer Series Paper in the Occasions Catalog is just delightful! I didn’t know if I would really like the “photographic” imagery on the one side of all the sheets in the package, but I do!

Sometimes to get your creativity started when you are making a card, it’s a good idea to start with the catalog!  The Stampin’ Up! catalogs are just full of wonderful samples and you are welcome to copy! I suggest start off copying something you like and then make another card almost the same but change something up a bit.  Chances are, once you start making a card, you will come up with something on your own anyway!

The card on the left is one that I copied from the Occasions Catalog on page 4.  It’s even marked “Quick & Easy”!  Even when you are copying, you will probably find that you won’t copy exactly for whatever reason – maybe you don’t have the exact same supplies or you want to use another color or you want to use a different sentiment. Whatever it is, if you need a boost to your creative mojo, just start off copying something in the catalog! While I was trying to “copy” this card, I don’t have that Paper Ribbon used on the sample because Stampin’ Up! isn’t even selling it right now. There was a problem with the production in the factory so it will not be carried in the Online Store. That’s a shame, I thought that was something different and cute, but it was out of Stampin’ Up!’s control.

The sample card base is Peekaboo Peach layered with the Picture Perfect Party Designer Series Paper. This selection of paper comes in the 6″ x 6″ size. It’s really fun to page through and choose either one of the photographic images or the graphic pattern on the reverse side.  The greeting is stamped in Berry Burst with a greeting from the Picture Perfect Birthday Stamp Set. I substituted a piece of Berry Burst 1/2″ Finely Woven Ribbon.

The card on the right is one that I more or less copied from the first card but changed things up.  I chose the balloon paper in the Picture Picture Party pack and layered it on a piece of Berry Burst on top of the card base of Lemon Lime Twist card stock. I tied a piece of ribbon, the Lemon Lime Twist 1/4″ Ombre Ribbon around the layers before adhering to the card base.  The greeting is stamped with Lemon Lime Twist ink on a piece of cardstock the same color. For a little bling, I added some different colors and sizes of the Glitter Enamel Dots.

Copying or at least looking in the Stampin’ Up! catalogs is a great way to get some inspiration if you need it or you just enjoy looking at other samples. For some quick and easy cards, be sure to try some like these Quick and Easy Picture Perfect Party Birthday Cards.

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Sale-A-Bration!