So Long Stampin' Up!

Good morning all!
As you may have noticed (for those who have been loyal to my lack of blogging abilities- and for that I thank you), I haven't posted solely Stampin' Up! items and materials, nor do I have the catalogue information any longer in the side bar of my blog.
This is because as of a few weeks ago I made the decision to no longer continue being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.
The reason is 2 fold and both simple:
The company has been wonderful to me for these past 7 years, and the products are still among some of my favorite paper crafting products out there, but I felt that it was simply time to let go.
I have, as you may or may not know, have a 2nd home based business. It's called The Paper Gift Boutique and you can find me both on Etsy and Facebook. The Paper Gift Boutique is my personal cardmaking company that I began before I was ever a SU! demo.
I have been making and selling cards for about a decade now (off and on). The past couple of years I have broken through the 'spot' where it would get really hard and previously, I'd given up. The result was a breakthrough and slow yet steady growing success. I have my cards in one local business already, and have become a staple in the Christmas tradeshow circut.
I was carrying on with this all the while trying to still give Stampin' Up! the same focus as before- which was difficult to do as there are only so many hours in a day. I had grown SU! for myself from a couple of people I knew to a base of loyal and supportive customers who quickly became friends. They were amazing and helped me become a success as a demonstrator. I had a few downlines that started and then stopped for their own reasons and I kept doing Stamper's Groups for the better part of those 7 years. But even though where I live is a pretty large small town (pop 60, 000) - it's still a small town. There are other demonstrators with loyal customers and I found it harder and harder to get fresh faces that would commit to my clubs.
It had just become obvious to me that I couldn't focus on both with the same intensity so I had to bow out of one to focus solely on the other- and it was just as obvious as to which one it was going to have to be.
So with all that being said, once my demonstratorship lapses, I will no longer be selling SU! But I will still be posting my work (hopefully more often) and highlighting some of the other amazing companies that I have used and enjoy to inspire you all.

Thanks for all your love and support!
~Brandie~

Don't Open, Dead Inside

Hey all!
Summer is dragging along at a slow, hot pace and all of a sudden you see that July is half over.
I don't know about you guys, but I am not a fan of the heat. Maybe it's cuz I don't live anywhere near a beach. Maybe it's cuz I'm a bit fluffier so I retain a lot of heat. Maybe it's because our winters are so brutal up here that it's a real culture shock to go super cold to super hot in only a few months.
It doesn't help that I prefer spring and fall and we get about a week of each of those seasons -and never all at once lol.
What have I been doing in all this heat? Keeping busy INSIDE my friends. Inside where the shade and AC and ice water and Coke live :D Making stuff at my desk and watching old episodes of Supernatural cuz that's just how I roll.
When I'm at a loss for inspiration and unsure really what to research on Pinterest I can always count on my loyal customers and friends to push me outside of my creative box.
One of this friends has a love and passion for all things Hallowe'en and spooky. I created a card for her last year that was a nice almost panoramic card that had a graveyard theme and colored in greyscale.
I really wish I kept a photo. I'll have to re-do that some time.
So this year she wanted another spooky type of card and I really wanted to try a zombie themed idea. I have the Beary Birthday Stamp set by My Favorite Things and I figured it would be really cool to try to zombie-fy them.
I had no idea how to do this.

 Obviously we can't color them soft beary colors, so I used green and yellow with a bit of a grey shading. I also used a Copic sketch pen and drew wounds, little stitches and 'bite' marks. I didn't want to take away the cuteness of the teddies and I am very unskilled at creating something grotesque, so I kept it simple and used deep reds on the wounds.
My Gorgeous Grunge stamp set from Stampin' Up! was perfect for creating a bloody, splattery background. Keeping with the apocalyptic color scheme I sponged crumb cake along the edges and colored the details (like the balloons and cake) with greys and browns.
The fun part was figuring out what to do with all my colored pieces. I knew I wanted to cut the bears into panels instead of die cutting the images out. I knew the entire pieces wouldn't fit properly on a card so I layered them on cardstock and thought it would be really neat to make the card a gatefold card. Once I came to that conclusion, the light came on that I HAD to pay homage to The Walking Dead. So I downloaded a free Walking Dead font and made the infamous "Don't Open, Dead Inside" sign. I used twine and 'hung' the sign with what I hoped look like a plank of wood. You know. A plank you would hastily hammer across to keep the zombies inside so you can escape? BWAHAHAHA.
Anyways, carrying on to the inside of the card, I wanted to keep the present peeking bear whole, so I knew he'd be peeking from the inside of the card. I colored the gift with greys and muted earth tones with my copics and created tears with the sketch pen. I found the birthday saying on Pinterest and thought it was the perfect fit for this not-so-cute-cute-birthday card.
The customer loved it :) It's something I never would have thought about doing if I wasn't pushed out of my comfort zone.
With Halloween coming in a few short months (I know I know) hopefully this inspired some of you for new types of Spooktacular cards of your own this year.
Thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

Dragon Power

Hello again!
I hope summer is treating you all well. The older I get I realize that the days are long but the years are oh-so-short. We're already half way (almost) done July. And I have already got my plans going for the 2018 Christmas Tradeshow season. So I've been cooling down at my desk with stamps of snowflakes, skating, elves and more. Though it's hard to be inspired when it's so hot and all you can think about is cool drinks and BBQing. So I may sneak some bright fun colorful cards into my Christmas prep.
I got these cuties last Christmas as a gift from my hubby. I would say he knows me so well- but lets face it, I give him a list and he gets a few things from said list ;) These guys are Hot Stuff from a company called Clearly Besotted. I ADORE their images. They are clearly adorable and perfect for birthday or baby.

 I paired the dragons with the Brick Wall embossing folder from Stampin' Up! and then inked it in Smokey Slate to make it look like brick from a castle. The castle in the back is from Happily Ever After from the Greeting Farm. The banners are also from Stampin' Up!
To create dimension on the card, I used a label framelit and cut a window in the brick and then adhered it with dimensionals over the background image.

I used Ranger's ink dabbers to create the scene in the background. That's been a new technique of mine and I guarantee you'll be seeing more of this in the future. It's really simple :)

I love the story book feel of the card in doing the sponged background, then adhering the pieces on with stampin' dimensionals.

Then, as always, I brought the outside of the card in to tie the entire theme together, using an old Stampin' Up! birthday sentiment set to finish the card off.

Stay tuned for more story book cards in the future! Thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~