Nichol Spohr LLC

A Blog Named Hero | "Dear Santa" Christmas Event: DECOR

  *This is 1 of 2 projects I have for you today! If you're looking for the Mama Elephant Fair Feathers blog post, click HERE.* 

Hello again!

I'm back guest designing over at A Blog Named Hero! This week is all about Decor. If you follow me here or listened to the Paperclipping Roundtable discussion HERE (recorded just last week!) you probably already know that I am all over seasonal home decor!

For this week's project, I created one of my very favorite types of home decor projects using my paper crafting supplies: a framed or what will be framed as soon as I find the right 12x12 frame corkboard collage. This corkboard sheet came in a package of 4 from my local discount store. It's also easy to trim if you want to make it smaller. I trimmed one of the sheets into a circle for THIS Valentine's collage in a glass cloche.

This collage features lots of stamped and embossed snowflakes in my favorite color combo of the year: white and gold.

I can't get enough of this color combo and have been using it on everything lately!

The collage was inspired by this Hero Arts Dotted Snowflake Stamp and coordinating die. I embossed the snowflake with gold embossing powder and added a clear glass button and some white twine to the center. then I pinned the snowflake to my corkboard usin a Jenni Bowlin trinket pin from my stash.

I created the rosette by die cutting 4 strips of Authentic Vintage Book Paper using THIS MFT Rosette Die and attaching them together for the accordian fold rosette. I stamped a snowflake using a Hero Arts Snowflake Shapes stamp and embossed it with gold powder. I punched it out with a 1 3/4" circle punch, sewed on a glass button and hot glued it to the center of my rosette. A couple of fancy trinket pins hold this snowflake onto the corkboard.

I shared a card last week HERE using the Simon Says Stamp Maryanne Snowflake Stencil and Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste and decided I loved the look so much my snowflake corkboard needed one too! I put on a pretty think coat of the embossign paste for a lot of texture. Once dry, I took a 3 1/2" circle die and die cut it out. The embossing paste is surprisingly flexible and easy to work with when dry!

I stamped and embossed a greeting from the Hero Arts Joy To All Stamp Set and pinned it over the textured snowflake circle to hold it in place.

I added additional stamped snowflake designs and a couple of stamped and die cut tags as well to balance out the larger snowflake shapes. The stamped tags are from the Hero Arts Special Delivery Stamp Set and coordinating die. The number stamps are some of my favorite in both size and font and from the Avery Elle Count On It Stamp Set.

I used the Simon Says Stamp Maryanne Snowflake Craft Die, Eliza Snowflake Craft Die and Kate Snowflake Craft Die cut from the Authentic Vintage Book Paper scattered throughout the collage to add balance.

I pinned on additional glass buttons around the corkboard to finish the collage.

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• Sizzix 3 1/2" Clear Circle Die
• glass buttons from my stash
• trinket pins from my stash
• silk ribbon

• ABNH Week 1: Cards (Stamped Chalkboard Style Christmas Card)
• ABNH Week 2: Gifts (Project Life Gift Box with stamped cards, embellishments and accents)

Thanks for visiting!

Mama Elephant | Fair Feathers

*This is 1 of 2 blog posts I have today! If you're looking for the ABNH Dear Santa Decor project, please click HERE!*

Last week during the Mama Elephant Stampede I shared THIS stamped card set featuring the Fair Feathers Stamp Set. Today, I have another new card to share that showcases Fair Feathers and the coordinating dies!

I thought it might be nice to take a bit of a break from all the christmas-ish themed goodness and focus on an entirely different holiday, Valentine's Day, with this card (or it could just be an any day type of card to give to someone you love!).

I used some fun patterned papers to create my background and stamped my greeting using a combination of black ink and the Mama Elephant  Lollipop Ink. I achieved this by carefully only inking up one word at a time.

Next, I stamped the inkwell in black ink and added some stamped splotches all over the card.

I stamped the outline of the feathers on Neenah solar white cardstock and then added color with the ME Bubblegum and Lollipop Inks. I added some ME Apple Ink to the tip of the darker pink feather with one of the partial feather stamps in the set.

 

A few finishing touches (including eyeletes that I hadn't used in forever!) and I have a fun PINK card to send to someone! 

InLinkz.com

• Mama Elephant Fair Feathers Stamp Set
• Mama Elephant Lollipop Ink
• Mama Elephant Apple Ink
• Mama Elephant Bubblegum Ink
• Eyelets

• Four Seasons Project Life Stamped 3x4 Cards
• Fair Feathers Set of 10 Stamped Greeting Cards (perfect for holiday gift giving!)

Please check out all the ME Design Team's projects featuring Fair Feathers HERE.

Come back tomorrow for another ME project share!

KBS | Jingle All the Way (a layout)

I've got a new layout for you today featuring KBS die cuts cut with my Silhouette Cameo. I still love my Silhouette as much as I ever have. This guy works hard for me and is one of my most used tools in my craft room!

I have an entire album dedicated to the holiday photo cards we receive from friends and family each year (if you're interested you can check out all the pages HERE) and I have another one for the photo cards that we send out each year. I am slowly getting this one caught up to the other one, even though I still have a ways to go! Kerri's cut files help me create pages that I love! Her new Jingle All the Way title is my favorite! I knew when I saw this design that I would have to use it immediately. 

I cut it big to make it stand out on my page and added her Believe Banner underneath the patterned paper strips. I adorned the banner with stickers and gems and popped the whole thing up with foam adhesive. Real twine makes a nice touch and is secured between two small foam dots on the back of each banner piece.

I add the month and date by using the byline and year designs from the TwentyEleven Kit cut from specialty metallic and glitter papers.

The bells (This & That Christmas) and holly (Christmas Countdown) are nice holiday touches that round out the design and now I have another finished layout to put in our album!

JINGLE ALL THE WAY twentyELEVEN This & That: Christmas BELIEVE BANNER Christmas Countdown

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• Jillibean Soup Winter Tortellini & Spinach Soup Cardstock Stickers
• Making Memories Silver Metallic Specialty Paper
• American Crafts POW Glitter Cardstock
• Jenni Bowlin Black Star Gems

• 2000 Christmas Card Layout (Inkcredible Seasons & Decor Class...coming soon)
• 2001 Christmas Card Layout (True Scrap 5 Class...coming soon)
• 2002 Christmas Card Layout
• 2008 Christmas Card Layout
• 2009 Christmas Card Layout
• 2011 Christmas Card Layout <--------that's today's post!
• 2012/2013 Christmas Card Layout 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Mama Elephant | Four Seasons

Hello again! 

*This is 1 of 2 blog posts today. If you're looking for the Lawn Fawn + Thermoweb Blog Post, please click HERE.*

Today I am sharing an idea on creating seasonal PL journlaing 3x4 cards using the brand new Mama Elephant Four Seasons Stamp Set.

I used Becky Higgins 3x4 plain white PL cards and then stamped each card entirely with the Four Seasons Stamp Set, each card representing 1 of the 4 seasons!

I followed the same design for each card, leaving some room near the top of each card for journaling and I can circle the date, etc. when I use the card! 

I love having pre-stamped cards ready to be used in PL or on any scrapbook page!

 

And aren't the Mama Elephant Ink colors yummy?!!!! I love them. They stamp like a dream!

InLinkz.com 

• Mama Elephant Four Seasons Stamp Set
• Mama Elephant Smoke Ink
• Mama Elephant Apple Ink
• Mama Elephant Mojito Ink
• Mama Elephant Orangeade Ink
• Mama Elephant Ocean Ink
• Mama Elephant Sunshine Ink
• Mama Elephant Lollipop Ink
• Mama Elephant Winter Ink

 

• Fair Feathers Set of 10 Stamped Greeting Cards (perfect for holiday gift giving!)

Be sure to check out all the Mama Elephant Design Team's projects featuring Four Seasons on the ME Blog HERE.

More soon!

 

Lawn Fawn & Therm O Web | Happy New Year Card

*This is 1 of 2 blog posts today. If you're looking for the Mama Elephant post, please click HERE.*

Happy Monday!

I'm so excited to be bringing you a fun new project today that showcases both Lawn Fawn and Therm O Web!

When I saw the can of Gold Glitter Dust I knew that this would make the prettiest glittered accents for any holiday paper crafting! To make it even better, because it is a spray... there's no giant glitter mess to apply it. You spray it on, wait 2-3 minutes and it's dry. Yes, my friends, I believe I may have found myself a new favorite glittering product! 

And if you're interested, it comes in Silver Glitter Dust and Irridescent Glitter Dust for more glittery goodness options!

I made a little video showing how I put my card together. 

I glittered a whole piece of cardstock with the Gold Glitter Dust to layer behind the die cut star background. I adhered the die cut piece using the Therm O Web Sticky Tab Runner. I love how it makes the tiny, tiny stars pop! Then I glittered the Lawn Fawn Star diecuts and popped them up with the Therm O Web 3D Foam Squares and adorned them with gems and buttons. The button was a piece of cake to adhere with the Them O Web Zots Singles.

I stamped the greeting on a strip of vellum and embossed it with gold embossing powder to go with the whole white & gold theme. 

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Please be sure to check out the Lawn Fawn Blog all week long for more great projects featuring Lawn Fawn + Therm O Web!

Thanks for stopping by!

Crafty Fabric FLASH SALE!!!

I'm SO excited about a great fabric Flash Sale going on through midnight November 16 at Craftsy: 

 

There is some really great fabric available at great discounts.

Here are some of my favorites (fabrics that I actually own and love):

• Moda Simply Style (by Vanessa Christenson) Fat Quarter Bundle 
• Riley Blake Fat Quarter Bundle (Small Chevrons)
• Riley Black Fat Quarter Bundle (Medium Chevrons)
• Moda Scrumptious Fat Quarter Bundle (Bonnie & Camille)
• Riley Blake Fat Quarter Bundle (Medium Dots)
• Moda Scrumptious Jelly Roll (Bonnie & Camille)

There are also lots of charm packs, layer cakes, jelly rolls and lots and lots of other fabrics! Check out everything on sale HERE.

Have a super weekend!

Mama Elephant November Stampede (featuring Fair Feathers)

 

Welcome to the Mama Elephant February Design Team blog hop! Our November release is now live and available for purchase in the store: www.mamaelephant.com.

All four new stamp sets are incredible this month. Incredible!

I thought it would be fun to take the Fair Feathers stamp set and show how you can create a super fast set of cards to give as a gift to a teacher, sister, friend, etc. This set of cards will be going in a gift basket I'm putting together for my youngest son's second grade teacher. I created all 10 cards in about 30 minutes! Not bad, eh?!!!! ;)

To make the set of cards I first set up some text in my word processing program and printed "from the desk of...." on ten 4.25 x 11" sheets of cardstock. I purposely chose a font that worked well with the font in the greeting stamp so that the whole thing would flow nicely.

Next I took black ink and stamped "just a little note" above the printed text on each card. I love how it looks like it all goes together!

I stamped the ink well in black and then I took five of the Mama Elephant inks and stamped a feather in each inkwell and added stamped splotches to finish the cards. I stamped 2 of each color for a total of 10 cards.

 

The cards are so pretty, don't ya think?!! I think that I might just be making a few more sets of these to give as gifts! 

 

 

InLinkz.com

• Mama Elephant Mojito Ink
• Mama Elephant Ocean Ink
• Mama Elephant Orangeade Ink
• Mama Elephant Apple Ink
• Mama Elephant Eggplant Ink
• Mama Elephant Fair Feathers Stamp Set

To celebrate the new release, Mama Elephant is giving away one of each of the new stamps released! Winners will be chosen at random from the collective blogs in the Stampede. Winners will be announced on the blog on the last Stamp Highlights Day.

You have up to 3 chances to qualify to win! Just leave a separate comment for each!

1. Leave a comment on this blog post
2. Like/share us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/mamaelephant
3. Follow/tweet about us on Twitter: http://twittercom/heymamaelephant

This was the last stop on the hop! Head back to the Mama Elephant blog HERE to make sure you didn't miss any of the hop stops! 

Have a good one!

Simon Says Stamp December 2013 Card Kit *Now Available & GIVEAWAY*

It's the 14th of the month and that means it's time for a brand new Simon Says Stamp Card Kit Reveal!

The December Card Kit, Warm Holiday Wishes is an awesome kit with an incredible all-new stamp set, bright reds and greens, snowflake stencil, tiny white sequins and more! I love the traditional holiday colors in the kit and of course, I am always, always drawn to the amazing stamp sets in each month's card kit and this one is no exception. :)

You can pick up the November 2013 card kit HERE for just $24.95 + shipping. Or if you’d like to receive this kit and future kits for only $19.95 + shipping per month, you can SUBSCRIBE HERE. When you subscribe you will receive kits delivered to your door automatically!

Today, I chose to use the grays/silvers/whites in the kit to create a more elegant card, even with a more "whimsical" kit!

 

I chose to use the snowflake stencil included in the kit with the Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste for a textured snowflake accent on my card. I applied it with a craft knife and didn't worry much about really smoothing it out to terribly much so it added lots of fun texture to my card. Then I added sequins from the kit to the snowflake to add that sparkle and shine I love so much!

I stamped the sentiment on vellum using the largest greeting from the stamp set in the kit using Versamark Ink and embossing it with Platinum Wow Embossing Powder.

Simon Says Stamp Card Kit of the Month DECEMBER WARM HOLIDAY WISHES Doodlebug HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 6 x 6 Paper Pad Bazzill 21 LB VELLUM 8.5" x 11" White 25 Sheets @simon Simon Says Clear Stamps BIG HOLIDAY WISHES Simon Says Stamp Stencil MARYANNE SNOWFLAKE SSST121329 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste WHITE Studio 490 WVPASTEWHT Inkadinkado Embossing Magic Powder Bag @simon Frost Dazzle WOW Embossing Powder Platinum Sparkle Metallic Glitter @simon Precision Heat Embossing Tool

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• silver crinkle ribbon from Etsy

Simon Says Stamp has generously offered me the opportunity to give a December 2013 Card Kit away to one lucky recipient!

Please leave a comment on this blog post in the "Comments" section below today's post by Thursday, November 21, 2013, 11:59 p.m. CST for a chance to win this amazing kit! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Lawn Fawn Holiday Inspiration Week | Ornament in Gift Box + Paperclipping Roundtable

 

It's Day #3 of the Very Fawny Holiday Week over on the Lawn Fawn Blog and today I have a paper crafted ornament to share with you! (Be sure to check out the Day #1 and Day #2 projects! They are awesome!)

I used 6x6 paper from Peace Joy Love to and the Circle Stackables Dies to create the 3 dimensional circles and the Winter Owl Stamp Set and coordinating dies for the middle part of the ornament. For the full how-to please scroll down for the video. :)

Here's the back of the owl with a cute stamped and embossed greeting.

And what gift is complete without the coordinating gift box? I love these boxes cut on the Silhouette from the pretty 12x12 Peace Joy Love papers! I used this design from the Silhouette Online Store: Design ID #24624. I altered the design to have only 1 window instead of 2 and no dividers inside the box. :)

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• Stampin' Up Lucky Limeade Everyday Enchantment Organdy Ribbon
• Stampin' Up Basic Black Chevron Ribbon

I'm so excited to share that I was a guest along with May Flaum on this week's Paper Clipping Roundtable and Noell, May and I discussed scrapbooking and paper crafting for the holidays. We had a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy listening to the discussion! You can check it out HERE.

A Blog Named Hero | "Dear Santa" Christmas Event: GIFTS

Happy Monday Stamping Friends!

I'm tickled to be bringing you a project as a Guest Designer over at A Blog Named Hero for their "Dear Santa" event!

And this isn't just any ol' project today. This week ABNH is focusing on Gifts you can make using your paper crafting supplies.

Awhile back during a Lawn Fawn Inspiration Week I made THIS gift box of Holiday tags and THIS smaller gift box of Holiday Project Life cards which got me thinking what other kinds of goodie boxes I could put together to give as gifts. 

What I came up with was a larger sized goodie box filled with Project Life components all hand stamped and die cuts that would be the perfect gift for a dear paper crafting friend! And I promise it doesn't take hours and hours to put together!

Just because this is a Christmas gift doesn't mean you have to stick to Christmas "colors". I wanted the items in my box to be able to be used anytime of year. The box was die cut with my Silhouette using these designs from the Silhouette Online Store: Stationary Card Box 1 of 2: Design ID #29270  and Stationary Card Box 2 of 2: Design ID #29316. (There is a video showing how to put the box together for all of you who asked from my Lawn Fawn post! Scroll down....)  

I kept the gift box itself neutral in color using an Amy Tangerine Yes Please Kraft patterned paper for the outside of the box and an Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste Heart Throb paper for the inside dividers, tied it all up with a pretty red ribbon and added a Hero Arts Special Delivery hand stamped, die cut with the coordinating die and gold embossed tag to the package.

Now, onto the really good stuff.... what's inside the box!

When I started this project I began with these six basic products:

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Of course, I was having so much fun the project sort of snowballed from the basics and I had to incorporate a whole bunch more stuff but we'll get to that in a minute! ;)

Here's the whole kit contents laid out:

• 12 - 4x6 caledar cards
• 2- die cut 3x4 cards
• a dozen or so 3x4 stamped journaling cards
• stamped and die cut tags
• a dozen or so stamped and die cut accents

Everything is stamped using the same color palette of Hero Arts Inks for kit consistency:

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Kelly Purkey's Labels Wafer Thin Dies and coordinating stamps (I used For the Record and Right Now) made the perfect arrow accents plus I used circle designs from the same stamp sets and the Yolo Stamp Set paired with a 1 3/8" circle punch for several circle die cuts.

The word bubbles were created with the Hero Arts Hello Stamp and Yes Stamp and the coordinating Phrase Bubbles Frame Cuts.

The two arrows ("love this" and the aqua stripe) are Hero Arts Love This Arrow Stamp and Striped Arrow Stamp and coordinating Arrow Frame Cuts.

This is probably my favorite card of the bunch created with one stamp from the Hero Arts Brush Strokes Stamp Set and the phrase from Kelly Purkey's I Like You Stamp Set.

I should probably take a moment to say that the Hero Arts Brush Strokes Stamp Set is not only my current favorite HA stamp set but my favorite stamp set out of all my stamps! It's versatility is hands down amazing. If you have a paper crafter friend or spouse who needs a great stamping gift for the holidays....I highly, highly recomment THIS stamp set!

 

The stamped Kelly Purkey Calandars are what started my entire project! And what Project Life gift set would be complete with only 1-2 stamped calenders? Instead, I made an entire set of 12. :)

The HA Brush Strokes Stamp Set made the calendars. I had originally only stamped the calendars and the year using Kelly's What's Your Number Stamp Set but they were lacking a little somethin', something. KWIM? The added Brush Strokes made the calendars POP!

I created a whole set of adorable little tags using Hero Arts Everyday Life Stamp Set, So Much Fun Stamp Set and coordiating Tag Frame Cuts. I also stamped a couple of the tags with phrases from Kelly Purkey's Bon Appetit Stamp Set.

The stamped and punched circles were an afterthought but turned out to be one of my favorite things in the set!

Another look at the set all packaged up...

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Thanks for stopping by!

Be sure to check out all the amazing gift giving ideas at A Blog Named Hero all week long!