Woodgrain Technique for JUGS

Hey gals - it's a JUGS Saturday technique day and today we want you to try the Woodgrain technique - just in time to make those masculine cards for Dad's Day!!! Please read all the details on the Just Us Girls blog - I'm very short on time and since I'm the hostess I already wrote all the details over there :-)

Here's my card....

Used one of my all time favorite sets - Happy Camper from GinaK - simple but a nice card for one of the men in my life! Hope you play along... this is a SUPER technique!

Have a great weekend,
Stampin Pam

BBQ for Dad

Good morning ladies. It's a JUGS Saturday morning and this week it's template week - now do'nt groan - there are some AMAZING gift templates for the men in your life. And, they love creative packaging just as much as our girls do! So whip up something special for that man in your life and then play along with Just Us Girls.

I am late - we are wrapping up the school year and life could not be busier.  I thought I'd get my JUGS project done last night but, alas, a good friend stopped over and I just didn't get it done. Since I'll be out and about this weekend I thought instead of not having a project I'd at least share a masculine gift set that I created a while back. This would be MOST appropriate for Father's Day, a man's birthday, a boss's day gift etc.

This gift set starts with the Fancy a Cuppa template from My Time Made Easy.  The paper is also MTME and is called Fall Foilage and the images come from the MTME stamp set called Monograms Defined.

The rest of the Design team (in my sidebar ->) has come up with some STELLAR projects so PLEASE pop over and visit their blogs. Be sure to visit our Featured Designer, Clare Buswell, as well. She'll knock your socks off.

Hope you all have a fantastic holiday weekend. I HOPE to get my act together to be on time next time.
Hugs n Smiles,

It's BBQ time - Made Easy

Have you been loving this month's release with My Time Made Easy? I am always amazed that our very talented Lauren keeps coming up with new, fresh ideas month after month after month! WOWeee! SO - here's my BBQ gift set for today.... this will be just a little house warming goodie for a friend.

For this gift set I went back to the Fancy a Cuppa template (nice and roomy) and made a couple of minor modifications to make up this yummy set... When I cut the front piece I just cut straight across instead of cutting down the two cutouts. This is a photo of the unaltered template.

I used the delightful and versatile new Monograms Defined stamp set to create the front label for this set.  - How cute is that?

And I changed up the back piece by adding this reinforced triple circle topper to the front and the back. I didn't want anyone to try to pick this up by the "handle" at the top.  The same stamps again were perfect for creating a "medallion" for my gift box.

I constructed this from Gina K's base weight CS since I wanted it extra strong. I did add the inner divider since I was going to package up two bottles of BBQ sauce. I also added another layer of heavy duty CS to the inside BEFORE I put in the divider in to make this box stronger.

Then I tucked in some tissue paper

And some BBQ goodies - two bottles of BBQ sauce from Oklahoma (this is really yummy sauce!), a basting brush, a package of skewers and a package of Grill Mates seasoning to finish off the gift set.

I whipped up a quick coordinating card - used the same paper,  Fall Foilage and a simple layout.  I used sentiments from TWO sets to make my custom sentiment. "We wish you a" came from Secret Santa and "Home Sweet Home" came from Sugar and Spice!!!

I made a fun, fussy floral accent starting with a cork flower as my base then added some fun green fiber and topped it off with a crocheted flower (from my friend Hanne!!).

I hope this shows just how versatile Lauren's templates and stamps can be. I'm pretty sure this little set will be a winner!

♥♥♥♥♥

My Time Made Easy Design Team Showcasing today:

Lauren Meader (owner)

Monique Hansen

Supplies from My Time Made Easy LLC:

Pretty Packaging Templates:   Fancy a Cuppa

Pretty Impressions © Stamps: Monograms Defined, Secret Santa, Sugar and Spice

Pretty Printable © Digital Paper: Fall Foilage 

Hugs n Smiles,

Monogram Gift Set - MTME February Release

Hey blogland folks,
It's Feb 1 and time for Lauren's newest release for My Time Made Easy! Lauren has a new template and 3 new stamp sets this month, along with cut files and some gorgeous digital papers. Here's what I've cooked up for today.

I love the new Monograms Defined stamp set and decided to make a set of notes for my boss. He is SO good about jotting notes to people in our work system but I know that sometimes he'd like to jot a really short note! :-) so I made him a set of mini cards....  (3x3) - they are not big enough to mail but they are PERFECT to tuck onto a keyboard on someone's desk :-)

I used the black and white papers from the new Serenity collection. These printed up beautifully.  I then stamped "from the desk of" onto the top edge (love the dots in the center of the O's") from the Monograms Defined set - then stamped his first initial into the center of the card. I wanted a "framed look" without extra matting so I cut some frames using my cricut. That gave some dimension AND a framed effect. Here's what my mat looked like when I took out the frames after cutting...

The Monograms Defined set includes a "handmade by" stamp which I used on the back to personalize my cards.

And I added the "Just a Note" to the back of the envelope flaps...

And finally I packaged it all up in the WONDERFUL new mini Card Candy template! This held my 6 note cards perfectly!!!

Here is the box opened up...

I tied up my notes with a slip of ribbon since they wanted to pop open on me for my photograph.  :-)

Now - when I put the box together I realized I forgot to adhere my ribbon before I glued on the inside cover layer. OH OH - new plan - Since this was a masculine set I decided to make the closure more masculine as well and used two large silver brads instead. He just needs to wraps the snippet of silver twine around the two brads to keep the box closed.

FINALLY - I made him a birthday card to go with the set. I used the frame stamp from Framed Elegance set - popped in a sentiment from So Sentimental and the Happy Birthday sentiment from the same set under the frame. 

On the inside I added a strip of the B-W striped paper and one more sentiment from the same set...

I think he'll love it. I tried to make it classy - like him - and striking!

Thanks for scrolling though all my photos - time to go check out the rest of the team!!!

♥♥♥♥♥

My Time Made Easy Design Team:

Lauren Meader (owner)

Kristin Bueter

Catherine Doucette

Katie Shawger Cotton

Lisa Kind

Tangii Crain

Debbie Marcinkiewicz

Monique Hansen

Naomi our Guest Designer this month

Supplies from My Time Made Easy LLC:

Pretty Packaging Templates:   Card Candy mini template

Pretty Impressions © Stamps: Monograms Defined, Framed Elegance, So Sentimental

Pretty Printable © Digital Paper: Serenity

Hugs n Smiles,

Who says men don't like to shop?

Do you like my title? It's time for the group post from the Design Team for My Time Made Easy! This time the assignment was "A Year in Review".  I needed a way to package up an iTunes gift card for a special man and as I thumbed through all my template choices I decided to test the "Men really DO love to shop" theory with the Shop 'Til You Drop template.

I made it as simple and as masculine as I could by omitting a lot of frills and ribbons. Sorry this is such a short post - I'm about ready to embark on a journey to move my son to Dallas from Chicagoland so I don't have any more hours in the day.  Here are the other views of this FAVORITE template. I've used it several times and it's always a BIG HIT with the recipient! The stamp set Money Well Spent gives you SO many options - those were perfect for the actual Altoid tin I used to hold the gift card. (That's why it has a red edge).

I didn't even have time to make a card but I think he'll forgive me :-) Hope you will stop by the rest of the team and see some amazing inspiration. Again, I apologize for a very short post but I've got to spend the time on my son right now so I don't end up having to ship stuff to him that he "forgot".



Have a great week.
Hugs n Smiles

Fancy a Cuppa Coffee??

Oh wow - I can't believe all the crazy awesome projects that are coming from the My Time Made Easy release. I am humbled and blessed to be among such creative talent. WOW!

Today I'm showcasing a fabby fab new template called Fancy a Cuppa along with another new template called To Go!  I've made another masculine idea - and one I think will make a great gift for the coffee loving males in your life!

I started out by making the Fancy a Cuppa template - I hand stamped my own DP with Grab A Cup and Grab a Cup Sentiments stamp sets from this month's awesome release.

After I made the carrier I worked on the two cups to hold the goodies. I worked with the To Go! template and, instead of making my own cup, I started with To Go coffee cups from Target!! (in the coffee section - really reasonable) complete with lids! I created my wrappers with Lauren's To GO! template and covered my Target cups. I ran the band through my crimper for a somewhat authentic look :-)

I added a tag to the front of each one using stamps from Fancy a Cuppa and Fancy a Cuppa Add On. I have my boss in mind with these - Boss's Day is soon and he's a coffee drinker soooooooo what do you think... cute package??

I filled up one cup with the goodies I bought. This actually holds A LOT! I have two biscottis, 8 of the Starbucks' instant coffee packets, 1 Starbucks Gift card and a small tin of altoid mints. I didn't realize it would hold so much so I'm going to go back and get a couple more biscottis etc for the 2nd cup.

Here's one all filled up.

When it's filled the top doesn't fit on it so I'll tuck the cup in the back of the carrier - there is room.

I only had enough "stuff" for one filled cup but I think you get the idea!

Finally, I owe y'all a huge apology. I started on these projects a couple of weeks ago since I knew I would be out of town two weekends in a row and have minimal time to create - well I just realized I never made the card to go with this set :-(   I'm sure you get the idea here but I apologize for not having one to share with this set.  I totally forgot and thought this project was already done.

Stop by and visit Lisa and Ashley today as they both have goodies for you to drool over also. Lauren and Catherine also have a project or two as well. :-)

Supplies from My Time Made Easy LLC:

Pretty Packaging Templates:   Fancy a Cuppa, To Go!

Pretty Impressions © Stamps: Grab a Cup; Grab a Cup Sentiments, Fancy a Cuppa, Fancy a Cuppa Add ons.

Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs n smiles,

Home Improvement Gift Set

Howdy all. I've got another My Time Made Easy project to share today - today is September 1st and it is the big release day - the WHOLE TEAM is sharing today so be sure you check them all! Before I get to rambling, speaking of the Design Team... PLEASE give a warm welcome to Tammy Herschberger and Lisa Kind who are now joining Lauren's Design Team. Welcome aboard ladies - your designs are fabulous and you will be great additions to the team.

Ok - I've got a mini version of the new Shop Around & Accessories template to share today and this one's for the guys - it's a Home Improvement Store!

I started with red and gray cardstock (from Couture) and then resized the template to 75% of full size because I happened to have just a "little something" I wanted to put in it. :-) When we drive through some of the small towns here in the midwest I notice that the downtown areas are often brick buildings and so I decided to make the town "hardware or home improvement" store for this gift set.  I used two papers from the Construction Materials  - Red brick and Wood Shingles Faux Slate to provide the texture on my building (and chimney).

I created a sign for the side of the building using words and images from the new Sign It stamp set. I also used the Home Improvements Coordinating Cuts file to make a set of three bushes (using the weld feature in SCAL software) which I then stamped with the matching stamp from Home Improvement set.

Following is the welcoming front of the store. I used the wood grain stamp from the Home Improvement stamps to give some texture to my door and a simple silver brad for the door handle.

And if you look closely you'll see the wrench (from Money Well Spent stamp set) hanging off the welcome sign.

Now for the other side of the store I made a store window advertising a SALE!! (That's my coordinating card next to the building - details later in post.)

I used the Home Improvements Coordinating Cuts file and the digital version of Shoppe Window - I colored it with my computer and also included some other images from Money Well Spent and Just For You (the wheelbarrow).

The roof of this Shop Around template lifts right off to reveal the goodies inside. Now that you can see what my "little something" is you can see why I chose to resize this template so I would have an impressive gift package!

Finally, here's the card I created to go with the gift set. It's also resized to 75% of full cause I wanted just a little card with a simple note in it. I used the same matching papers - added a little ribbon, a mini version of the door and mailbox (I used the Home Improvement Digital Set to make the door and mailbox also 75% so they would be scaled correctly.)

And finally here is the card taken out of its brick envelope.

I welded two cards together with my SCAL software so the card would open from the top so I could write a simple note inside.  I stamped the "thought this may come in handy" sentiment on the outside. Hope you liked my mini home improvement store. Please stop by the rest of the team and see what wonderous eye candy they have made for you.

♥♥♥♥♥

My Time Made Easy Design Team:

Lauren Meader (owner)
Kristin Bueter

Katie Shawger Cotton

Tracey Cuccia

Stephanie Kraft

Silke Ledlow

Lesa Rapp
Lisa Kind
Tammy Hershberger

Supplies from My Time Made Easy LLC:

Pretty Packaging Templates:   Shop Around & Accessories Template 

Pretty Impressions © Stamps:  Home Improvement, Sign It, Money Well Spent, Just For You

Pretty Printable © Digital Paper: Construction Materials -Red Brick and Wood Shingles Faux Slate

Pretty Pieces © Cut Files: Home Improvements Coordinating Cuts, Homemade Card and Envelope

Other Supplies:
Cardstock: Couture Cardstock
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Embellishments: Silver brad, ribbon

Hugs n Smiles.