A sneak peek from the upcoming Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog – Beauty of the Season stamp set, available NOW in wood- or clear-mount.

Wood 135776 $21.95

Clear 135779 $16.95

Another “Christmas in July” new stamp set from Stampin’ Up!, Christmas Bliss!

Christmas Bliss Photopolymer Stamp Set #138897   $15.95

If you loved the photopolymer stamp set Sweetie Pie with the little girl faces that sold out super-quickly and you also needed little boy faces, the Dear Heart Photopolymer Stamp Set is for you!

Dear Heart Photopolymer Stamp Set       #128157     $25.95

And last, but not least!  Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals for July 8-14:

All great things on the Weekly Deals!  Surely you want all of them!

And as a Heads Up — New items will be added to the Clearance Rack on Thursday, July 10th! Be there or be – left out! You know some of those items go faster than the speed of light. You can put all of these products on one order, plus any new catalog items, like the new Blendabilities Markers as well!

So whatever is convenient and works for you, you can order online any time at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or contact me and I can put your order in for you!

This weekend I finally was able to make some Christmas cards.  This year I am making about ten cards of each design. The only difficult part will be when I start signing and addressing the cards in deciding to whom I want to send what design! I like making different designs because there are so many cute ideas out there.  Of course I can’t possibly make them all, unless maybe I made a different card for each person.  But since I didn’t start back in July, I can’t do that!

One group of cards will have this Snow Day snowman on the front. Pictured above is a tag I made with an extra snowman and oval die-cuts from the Ovals Collection Framelits.  The scalloped edge is the largest framelit. I wanted to use it so I decided it could be a tag and the message could be written on the back.

Now if you want the features and accessories for the Snow Day snowman to be closer to perfect placement, you might want to use the Stampin’ Up! Stamp-a-Ma-Jig, It comes with a plastic sheet on which you stamp and then wipe off with some water or Stampin’ Mist and a paper towel (unless you use Stazon!). If you have a stamp set with which you will want to use the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig a lot, it makes more sense to make a permanent sheet using a piece of Vellum Card Stock. Just cut a piece of vellum (or more) and use the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to stamp in each corner. If you use different colors of ink, you can stamp OVER some images and keep it to one sheet! Then just keep this vellum sheet in the case with the stamp set and you don’t have to restamp these images.

Here is the plastic sheet that comes with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig.

I bought my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig way back when I first started stamping.  Now they are black for Stampin’ Up!. You might think it is a confusing tool to use but there are good instructions and once you use it, you’ll understand. It’s very useful in certain stamping situations even for people who don’t have to have perfect placement all the time.

Try the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig! It’s a great tool to have in your stamping arsenal just in case you need it!

Don’t forget the Weekly Deals ending today and the new Valentine products you can buy now and get a head start (if you are finished with Christmas!). Just go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store.

Are you still working on making your Christmas cards?  Or just starting? Here’s one I made pretty easily. You could use this idea for a Christmas card, a Christmas scrapbook page element, or a tag. Just use the Snow Day  snowman for a winter theme. The word Merry is die cut with the Expressions Thinlits Dies. To make it easy to use this die, place a piece of wax paper in between the die and your card stock and the very thin word will be easier to get out. There are also tiny holes in the die which you can poke through with a pin or Paper-Piercing Tool to help release the die cut. To adhere the word to the card, I used the 2-Way Glue Pen.

I found with the Snow Day snowman, it is nice to use the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig and a piece of vellum card stock to stamp the accessory stamps on so that you can keep the vellum in the stamp case and reuse it. I even stamp over another image perhaps with another color ink so I can just use one sheet of vellum and have all the pieces right there.  You still can eyeball the stamping of his buttons or face or arms, but for those of you or those times that demand perfect placement, the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig really helps!

Of course you can’t really have a snowman without a little bit of glitter for sparkle, so with my 2-Way Glue Pen and a sprinkling of Dazzling Diamonds Glitter my snowman has a bit of pizzazz!

The snowman and snowflakes are all stamped in Soft Sky ink for this card. And for his scarf, a few bits of Real Red 1/8″ Taffeta Ribbon adhered with Mini Glue Dots (smooshed up a little bit on the sides to fit the narrow ribbon).

If you need some stamping supplies, just visit my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or contact me for help with your order. Don’t forget to check the Weekly Deals and the Clearance Rack for additional savings!

Little did I know that today is officially “Christmas Card Day”! December 9 honors Sir Henry Cole of England who created the first commercial Christmas card in 1843.  Apparently Sir Henry was a very busy man and since the custom was to hand write each Christmas card back then, he just didn’t have time. He hired a London artist to design a card for him to send his friends.  The center panel was a drawing of a family celebrating, each side panel has a charitable scene. The London artist, John Calcott Horsley, made 1000 lithographic copies of the card but Sir Henry Cole colored each one by hand! (too bad he didn’t have Stampin’ Up! markers and Blender Pens!)

The Christmas Collectibles ornament stamp set of course is perfect to have for making your own Christmas cards.  Even better if you have the Christmas Ornament Punch #132152 to go with it. And you can have both in the Bundle and save 15%. Or you can buy each one separately. It’s so easy to just stamp the ornament shapes and punch out and stick on a Christmas card.  If you want to take it to the next level, add some rhinestones or pearls to the ornaments or tie a little bow on top.

This card started out with the red striped paper from Seasons of Style Designer Series Paper going to be the layer with Whisper White over it. I decided to cut out the center to save some paper to use another time since I love it.  Well, once I had that “frame” I really liked it as a frame! I decided to just insert the ornaments within the frame rather than just having the stripes be a decorative border. Next I decided to pop up the frame with Stampin’ Dimensionals and have the ornaments be “3D” as well, just hanging from the top of the frame by the Cherry Cobbler Baker’s Twine.  The twine is adhered to the back of the frame using Dimensionals as well as on the back of the ornament.  But then I discovered that if the ornaments were going to freely hang, they might get flipped around and the backside would show.  So I stamped three more ornaments, punched out, and glued on the back so either side can show on the card.  Probably not a card you want to mass produce but easy enough to make for someone special.

Have you made your Christmas cards yet?