An Invite for Stampers in Wisconsin Area

I am again the co-chairperson of a fun stamping weekend getaway in Madison WI and am inviting all stampers in the Wisconsin area to join us! Please let any stamping friends or relatives know of this opportunity too. 

2013 Madison Mingle Announcement 

The holidays are over and it’s cold and snowy in Wisconsin. It’s time to plan a fun getaway for you and your stamping friends!

How does a 3 day weekend away from home and work and daily chores spent stamping, laughing, shopping and sharing ideas with new and old friends sound to you? Perfect, right? Come join us at the 8^th Annual Madison Mingle from March 22-24^th, 2013, and be a part of a celebration of creativity and stamping friendship!

If you have never been to a Madison Mingle, we are a gathering of stampers who each bring a shoebox project for the others to complete. We also have demonstrations, a huge rummage sale of great bargains, fantastic door prizes, contests, trades if desired, lots of laughter and sharing of great ideas. You will go home with as many projects as there are participants and many fond memories.

The 2013 Madison Mingle will be held March 22, 23 and 24, 2013 at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1801 Deming Way, Madison, WI 53562.  This location is in Greenway Station within walking distance of Archivers and Michaels, as well as many other stores and restaurants. We will open our doors at 10:00 AM Friday March 22^rd and the gathering will end Sunday March 24^th at noon. The cost is $55.

We have room for only 50 stampers so it is recommended you register as early as possible. There is a registration form available from either Christine or Karen (email addresses at the bottom) or go to Files in the Madison Mingle Yahoo Group and get one there.  Once the registration fee and form is received, you will be emailed more details and assigned a project number. The deadline to register for the 2013 Madison Mingle is March 8, 2013.

Hotel  Info:   We have reserved a block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn. Their phone number  to reserve a room is 608-831-2220 or go to our private page on their website at: http://hiltongardeninn.hilton.com/en/gi/groups/personalized/M/MSNWHGI-MAD-20130322/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG   to reserve a room. The Madison Mingle rate for a King room is $94 and for a room with 2 Queen beds is $114 (plus tax per night.) We suggest reserving your room right away once you decide to come as the number of available rooms at this rate is limited and the rooms will be released on 2/22/13. (If you are told our rooms have all been booked, please let us know and we will try to reserve more at the reduced rate.)

Make & Take Info:  Every attendee is required to bring a project with the supplies for everyone else to make the project (usually a card.) Please put all the stamps, inks and accessories necessary to make the project as well as the cardstock pieces cut and placed in an envelope or plastic bag, in a plastic container or box of some kind. You must also include a completed sample of the card or project and one set of complete directions as to how to make the card or project. Be sure to label everything in your box with your name in case it gets separated from your box. You will also be asked to email the instructions and a picture of the completed sample to Christine Bedford at: christinebedford@charter.net   as soon as you have it ready. The deadline to get your instructions and picture to Christine is March 10, 2013.

This year to save money and much work, we have decided to give every attendee a CD of all the instructions including a color picture of each project. You can take this CD home and print all the instructions and a picture of each project if you wish to do so. This CD is being provided in your $55 registration fee.  IF you cannot print your own at home from the CD, and want to have the printed instructions and picture of the projects provided to you, that service is available for an additional $10. You will be given all the printed instructions and pictures ready for you to place in a binder (that you will provide), if you choose to pay the extra $10 for this service. 

Please feel free to post this information to your Facebook page or blog or online stamping group and forward to all the stampers you know. We would love to see you all in Madison in March for a fun weekend of stamping and laughter!

It is highly recommended you join our Madison Mingle Yahoo Group to keep on top of any important news and updates even if you are just thinking of coming. Please email Karen at khasheck@gmail.com for an invitation to the group, if not already a member.  VERY IMPORTANT:   Messages sent by any member of this Madison Mingle Yahoo Group MUST be about the Mingle only and relevant to  everyone in the group. If directed to just one person, please send an email or response to that person only, so as to not crowd everyone’s email boxes with unnecessary emails.

The 2013 Madison Mingle is being organized by a group of volunteers who are greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please contact the Chairpersons of this group, Karen Hasheck at khasheck@gmail.com or Christine Bedford at christinebedford@charter.net.

Valentines 4 Kids at SAS4Kids

Happy New Year! It’s time for another fun challenge at Send a Smile 4 Kids and this time our theme is Valentines 4 Kids.  It may be early for you to think about Valentines, but not if you want to consider sending in your Valentine for one of our kids in a children’s hospital on that day. You don’t have to send in your card to participate in our challenge, but our kids would sure love it if you did!

We have three very generous sponsors this week: Scrapping Memories is giving their winner 10 digis or cutting files of their choice! And Joan’s Gardens is giving their randomly picked winner a $25 Gift Certificate! Saturated Canary’s winner will receive two beautiful SC digis of their choice!  TEAM S.A.S will also be choosing their favorite cards for our top three and the winners will receive a blog badge and an opportunity to be a guest design team member on a future challenge.

My first card features sweet Valentine from Saturated Canary. I love the look of the girls from Saturated Canary! I printed her on white, did a little coloring and paper piecing and placed her on inside of a pink embossed card. The embossing folder is from Cuttlebug and I cut the oval with a Nestabilities die.

My second card features the "Love Ya" teddy from Scrapping Memories which I printed on pink paper and cut out. I (again:) colored and paper pieced and placed him in a circle cut out with a Nestabilities die. The balloon was printed on red paper and is mounted on a different layer with mounting tape. I layered some Valentine dp on white, then pink and then on a white card, adding the red baker's twine to complete the card.

I am entering these cards in the Anything Goes challenge at The Paper Shelter and "Something New" challenge at Simon Says Stamp. Both digital stamps were new to me as part of the design team for SAS4Kids.

Stamping smiles, Karen 

Crafty Creations and Inky Impressions Challenges

Anything Goes at Crafty Creations and Inky Impressions Challenges this week so I am sharing a CAS card I made with some new snowflake dies. Warm Winter Wishes for you from me! The beautiful snowflake dies are from Impression Obsession and I used the positive and negative images for the blue ones. I added a couple white ones too and a sentiment wish from Crackerbox Palace.

Stamping warm winter smiles, Karen

Winter Fun from Crackerbox Palace!

It's Crackerbox Palace Thursday and today I am sharing two square winter cards I made with stamps that are available from Crackerbox Palace. You can win your choice of the stamps featured on one of these cards by leaving a comment at either blog. The simple requirements for a chance at winning are below and now you have even more choices of what you can win!

But first- the winner of last Thursday’s blog candy is                                               Betty!   Here is her winning comment from the CBP blog: ”Love the cards especially the flowers on the red and green card they are such an inspiration to we who have just started to do cards in 2012.”

Betty, please email me or Crackerbox Palace your address and your choice of which stamps you want (see your options below), so we can get you the stamps you have won.

The funny fellow featured in the card above just cracks me up. This card would be perfect to send to someone like my sister who winters in Arizona. I stamped him and did some coloring and paper piecing, then cut him out with a circle Nestabilities die. I sponged the edges and placed him on a grey square card under a strip of snowflakes (Martha Stewart border punch.) The sentiment is perfect for this picture and was stamped and cut out with another nestie die. I added a few extra snowflakes to complete the card. 

My second card features a darling snowman duo all wrapped up. I left their wrap white because I was thinking it was an igloo. But now I look at it again, it is a wrap and could be any color you want to make it. Once again I did a little coloring and cut out with a Nestabilities circle die, layering onto a scalloped circle. The paper is a fun flannel or sweatshirt look two sided paper by We R Memory Keepers. I did a little stitching with my Scor-bug and a thin black marker and added the sentiment to complete the card.

So would you like to win the stamps featured on one of today’s cards or your choice of another CBP stamp? Here is how to win our weekly blog candy:

Vicky or Karen will post a card or two every Thursday on both blogs. All you need to do is to leave a comment on either blog and if you leave a comment on both blogs you will have a double chance to win. We hope you also want to 'follow' the blogs. The following Wednesday a name will be picked at random and the winner will receive:

The featured stamps that we used in one of the cards that were posted,

OR you can pick out a stamp that is worth up to $10.00 and email us your choiceOR Vicky will email you a coupon code so you can go shopping at Crackerbox Palace store for your choice of the stamp(s) you would like with a $10.00 coupon.

For a Bonus: if you use the blog candy stamps and post it on your blog, Splitcoast or somewhere else you will be able to choose another free stamp. So make sure you check out one of our blogs on Thursday! The winner will have 2 weeks to contact Karen or Vicky.

So leave us a comment for a chance to win and come back and see us again next week!

I am entering these cards in the Anything Goes challenge at Through the Craftroom Door and the Winter Wonderland challenge at CardMania.

Crackerbox Palace smiles, Karen

Repeat Impressions Designers Choice Challenge

It’s another Designer’s Choice Challenge at The House that Stamps Built, Repeat Impression’s blog. It’s Joy’s turn and she is challenging us to make any project featuring SNOW. Don’t know about where you live, but here in Wisconsin, we have plenty of snow inspiration right outside our windows. After you make a card with Snow,  you can enter it for a chance to win some awesome Repeat Impressions rubber! Please visit the blog for all the details and to see the other Rock Star's cards for this DCC challenge. 

For my card, I stamped RI’s Moose Snow globe on white and again on blue. I masked the top part and stamped snowflakes around the globe. I cut out the bottom of the snow globe in blue and attached. I did a little coloring and used glitter on the snow in the globe. The background was created with three shades of blue cardstock strips attached to a navy card and all were embossed with a snowflake embossing folder.

I am entering this card in the Anything Goes Challenge at Love’s Rubberstamps.

Stamping smiles, Karen

2012 Favorite Cards Part 2

Happy New Year everyone! I am sharing the rest of my favorite cards from 2012 and looking forward to a wonderfully creative 2013 blogging and sharing ideas with you and in my stamp camps and classes.

5/24/12 Embossing Diffuser card

4/20/12 Rose Basket

5/22/12 Rose Layered Stickers

1/27/12 Deer Stencil Embossed

9/15/12 Too Sweet with digital stamps

1/31/12 Raisin Boat CAS

12/17/12 Fred She Said flower and pattern

3/26/12 Music Card

12/24/12 Repeat Impressions & Fave new color combo

7/13/12 Raisin Boat Sponged Cat-tails

5/25/12 Crackerbox Palace LOL Birthday

11/30/12 Raisin Boat Pet Sympathy Card

There you have them- my favorite cards that I blogged in 2012. I have some new favorites to share with you in the New Year so come on back (or subscribe to get them everyday in your email.)

Stamping smiles in the New Year and beyond, Karen

My Favorite 2012 Cards (Part One)

Happy New Year to my blogging friends! As the year draws to an end, I decided to share in a blogging trend this time of year and show my favorite cards from 2012. They will be in no particular order- but I will give you the date I blogged them in case you want to find how how they were made. If you do a similar blogpost, please leave a link in my comments so I can see your favorite cards too. And if you want, leave a comment with your favorite from the cards I am sharing again.

8/3/12 Reinker Float 

11/18/12 Joy Stamp Camp Card

5/11/12 Raisin Boat Fisherman

6/30/12 Spiderman

9/22/12 White Poinsettia Card 

9/11/12 Cloud stencil sponging

9/16/12 Triple Time Leaves

11/5/12 Butterfly frame

8/18/12 Saturated Canary Music Card

6/17/12 Red Solo Cup

9/14/12 Hambo Funny Halloween with Ribbon Ghost

7/6/12 Favorite Dasher Card

That's enough for today. Will be back tomorrow with the rest of my favorites.

Stamping smiles, Karen