Tamara's Paper Trail: October 2019

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Stampin Creative Blog Hop - Brightly Gleaming - Festive Treat!

Happy Blog Hop Day! Welcome to the Stampin' Creative Blog Hop for October, 2019! I'm Tamara Bertram, coming to you from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I'm THRILLED to be hopping with so many AMAZING demonstrators from around the globe as we bring you projects with a "Festive Treat" theme. I was a little confused on what the theme meant ... my UK friends tell me "festive" is generally used to refer to Christmas ... so Christmas is what I went with. I hope you find some inspiration from my project and from those along the hop. Please leave comments as you go along - we all love to read what others think of our creations. Thanks for popping in - happy hopping!

Funny story - so I've been sitting on the CARD I wanted to share for this post for quite some time. Yesterday morning I couldn't sleep so I got up at 4:30 am and did this post. At 4:00 PM I realized the theme is Festive TREAT ... and I made a Festive CARD! ... so with just 20 minutes before a meeting I had scheduled I ran down and whipped up a coordinating TREAT to match the card ... so let's start with the CARD, shall we? hee hee ...

This is SO my style! Quite clean and simple with minimal stamping. I got my inspiration from Rick D Adkins over at rckinsmonstudio.com. This is his card I came across on Pinterest a few months back and I LOVED the layout ...

So! Want some details on how to make it? Coming right up!

- Standard Whisper White card base of 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"
- Cherry Cobbler Designer Paper ... which I realized AFTER the fact is from LAST year's holiday catalogue ... but have no fear! There is a virtually identical design in THIS year's catalogue, in the Wrapped in Plaid 6" x 6" DSP. I cut that layer at 2" x 5 1/2"
- Wood Grain layer is from the "Come to Gather" DSP on the holiday catalogue, cut t0 3" x 4 1/4"
- The top Whisper White Layer is cut 3 1/2" x 2 1/4"
- I used the "Brightly Gleaming" stamp et to stamp the holly and sentiment. The holly is stamped in Mossy Meadow ink (and coloured with my Cherry Cobbler Dark and Old Olive light and dark blends) and the sentiment is in Cherry Cobbler.
The top layer is popped up on dimensionals.

SO quick and easy - this is my favourite Christmas card so far this year.

Now, as I mentioned, I needed a TREAT to go WITH this card to stay with the blog hop theme ... so here it is!

Cute, yes? The NEW curvy keepsake box is SO cute! I confess, I only just got mine two days ago. I have the old one and thought they were the same, except for the tags. WRONG! These ones are about half the size and SO much easier to make! Rather than having to cut out TWO pieces and glue them together it is cut in ONE piece ... and you can use a 6" x 6" piece of paper to boot!

I cut mine out of Cherry Cobbler paper, made a tag in Whisper White with my stitched circle, stamped the Holly and sentiment in Mossy Meadow and then coloured the holly with my blends. To do it again I would make sure the Blends were totally dry before stamping the sentiment, as the sentiment did bleed ... but time was money! lol.

I added our Striped Cherry Cobbler ribbon (12" piece) to attach the tag and BAM! One super fast treat. Love it!

So there you have it! A Festive Card and a Festive Treat! I hope you like them and maybe even draw some inspiration from them.

Thanks for popping in - have yourself a stampy day!

Blog Hop List:

Sunday, October 27, 2019

This and That in Calgary

Happy Sunday!

I'm coming to you from sunny Calgary, Alberta this morning! This weekend was the "Finding New Customers" Seminar that the Canadian Demonstrator Council put on. This was the 5th location we have presented at and there are two more to go. Sadly it's that last one that I will be speaking at. Other Council members will be presenting in both Richmond and Winnipeg over the next few weekends.

What an honour it has been to serve on this Council! I have learned a lot during my year and honestly, it has really helped my business as I decided I had better walk the walk and not just talk the talk! I have pushed myself into new, uncomfortable directions and it has paid off in many ways.

I have LOVED speaking. Shocking, I know, but I LOVE to talk ... and to have people who will listen! lol. Oh sure the dog and kids do but usually only when there is a cookie involved and/or they are trapped in the car with me and can't escape! hee hee.

The ONLY downside to the weekend was I was sick. as. a. dog! ... oh, and the drive down here! GEEZ! It SHOULD take less than 3 hours to drive from Edmonton to Calgary. I left Friday at 12:30 pm, hoping to get to the hotel with enough time to relax and maybe catch a nap .. or at very least take a hot shower and down some cold meds. Alas, it wasn't to be. It took me FIVE hours. Ugh. The winds were SO bad on the highway that it flipped a semi! After getting through that the highway was closed from unknown reasons and it took an hour to go 5 km. Not kidding! I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't had two bottles of water in my system! *lol*. It was NOT a good time but I just kept thinking "someone is having a MUCH worse day than I am" ... specifically the semi driver. I got here safe and sound and *may* have had a few gin and tonics to settle my nerves :)

Actually, the whole of last week was crazy, not just this weekend. Busy busy every day so I didn't get to any new projects. In fact, for the second time in 14 years I actually had to postpone a class! What I DO have, are some pictures of cards I saw at the Calgary Stampin' Up! office. I'm sorry, I didn't take pictures of who MADE these cards but I really liked them so snapped some pics for inspiration when I DO eventually get back down to my cave! Check these out!

Aren't they great?? I took a few of the crafting area too:

I didn't take any pictures at the seminar itself ... but I did get one of me and Jill Taylor. She's Dale's bosses boss ... the VP of Global Sales and Communications. She is SO lovely! I was honoured to have been granted the opportunity to spend so much time with her. She's an amazing woman!

I'll leave it there for now. I think I'll go get gas and head over to the restaurant to meet my friends and then hit the road. I miss my peeps ... and my Doodle Bug. LOTS of work lately. Time for some family bonding!

Whatever YOU get up to today I hope you have stampy Sunday. Thanks for popping in!

Tam

Monday, October 21, 2019

One Layout Two Cards - Kylie's Maui Achievers Blog Hop

Welcome to the Maui Trip Achievers Blog Hop! I'm Tamara Bertram, coming to you from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I'm SO excited to be hopping with so many AMAZING demonstrators from around the globe as we bring you our projects this month! Hopefully you will find some inspiration as you hop along. Please leave comments for us as you go - it's ALWAYS nice to hear what others think of our work. Happy hopping!

My card today is one that is a CASE of a CASE. I CASEd THIS card layout from fellow demonstrator Fiona Rosario.

I love it SO much! ... so much, in fact, I decided to CASE the CASE! I wanted to see what other papers and punches could I use for MORE quick and easy cards!! It only took me 15 minutes to come up with this:

SUCH an easy card! The dimensions are the same for both layouts:

Christmas Gleaming Stamp Set

Base: Whisper White - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

Brightly Gleaming DSP layer - 4 3/4" x 3 1/2"

Whisper White top layer - 4 1/2" x 3 1/4"

Slide your top white layer into your Gleaming Ornaments punch as far as it will go and align the right side of the paper with the right edge of the punch ... and punch

Flip your layer around and do that again.

Punch and ornament out of Pretty Peacock Paper and pop it between the two with dimensionals.

Stamp the sentiment in Old Olive ink and cut it out with your snips ... pop the right hand side up with a mini dimnesional and use snail on the left end of the sentiment and attach it to your card.

Use a piece of linen thread to make a bow and attach it with a glue dot.

Pop the DSP layer up on dimensionals when attaching it to the base. Done!

I hope you like my project! Now check out the projects from these other talented demonstrators - thanks for hopping with us! Have a stampy day!

Tam

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Perfectly Plaid ... and a Super Special Guest!

Happy Sunday!

Canadian Thanksgiving up here so I'm all ready for the feast-of-all-feasts with my stretch pants and Tums! Right after I walk Doodle Dog I'm whipping up a Pecan Pie and a Lemon Pie, then heading to Mom's to eat until I fell ill. Fun, right? lol

It has been a FANTASTIC but exhausting weekend so far! I had my Feels Like Frost class Friday night which was lots of fun. Eight lovely women came over and I loved that there were some new faces in the crowd! I LOVE getting to know people and, as often happens, finding out that we have friends in common all across the country! (That "Seven degrees of separation" thing is a THING!). ANYWAY! ... I got that class wrapped up and cleaned up around 10:30 pm but then had to get busy flipping the projects to get ready for my "Stampin' Social" with my Tamara's Trailblazers team. I LOVE our monthly get togethers. They aren't stuffy "team meetings" but just a group of 15-20 friends getting together to have some laughs, share some hugs, eat some REALLY naughty food ... and stamp. This month we had a SUPER Special Guest join us ... Dale Hampshire, the Demonstrator Development Manager for Canada (aka my boss) come from Calgary to see what we do and how we do it. What a thrill!

Naturally, in true Tamara fashion, I was still designing our Make & Take projects Thursday evening ... and still putting the finishing touches on my program at 7:00 pm Friday evening ... but (as always) it all came together and was SO fun!

Let's check out the projects we made, shall we? My original plan was for us to make Christmas tags using the Perfectly Plaid bundle of projects. Alas, on Thursday, when I sat down to create, I just wasn't feeling it ... and then I started to panic a bit! What to DO?? You know me - I have to LOVE a project to be able to teach it! Off to Pinterest I went for some inspiration. I came across a set of cards that were PERFECT for my event ... so I cased it. Not just a little. Not just for inspiration. 100% copied it from Fiona Rozaria. Here is the Pin that caught my eye:

LOVE them! Within an hour I had created 12 cards using 1/4 of a pack of the Wrapped in Plaid designer paper (6" x 6") . What got me REALLY excited is that the left over scraps of DSP weren't wasted! I used them to make 12 gift tags, 12 bookmarks and a little strip of DSP to go INSIDE the card. The only waste from the 6" x 6" piece of DSP was the teeny triangle that was cut off when I flag ended the bookmark piece. MY kind of project!

Here are my projects:

This was a ridiculously quick and easy batch of projects to make. Seriously!

Here are the deets:

Cards:

Whisper white Standard Card base - 5 1/2" x 4 1/4"

Wrapped in Plaid DSP layer: 4 3/4" x 3 1/2"

Whisper White top layer: 4 1/2" x 3 1/4"

With the left over large chunk of DSP, trim to 2". Use the 2" piece to make a tag using the Tag Topper punch of your choice and the Triple banner punch to flag end them. The thin 3/4" piece is used to make a bookmark, again with the Tag Topper and Triple Banner punches.

To make the top layer, put the whisper white 4 1/2" x 3 1/4" piece of card stock in the Pine Tree punch. Push the paper all the way in and then line up the right edge of the card stock with the right edge of the punch ... and punch. Flip your white paper around and do the same thing again. You will have 2 trees punched in your paper with the SLIGHTEST bit of white cs between them. Don't worry of the two trees run into each other ie if you punched them a little too close and the are now one big punched out piece. You will be putting the third tree on TOP of the two punched out ones and no one will see that they run together.

Adhere your DSP to the base and the white layer to the DSP

Next ... the third tree. You can either stamp one of your punched out trees with a tree stamp .. or you can stamp on some whit scrap and then punch it out with the Pine Tree punch. Whichever you prefer. Use two dimensionals to pop your third tree up.

Next stamp the Ho Ho Ho on scrap white and punch it out with your Classic Label punch and tape it to your third tree.

A 5" piece of linen thread tied in a bow and attached with a glue dot finishes the front off.

Decorate the inside with the thin strip of DSP you have left and trim it to the length of your card base.

The 2: tag uses one of the leftover white trees you had punched out - this is where you can add the name of the recipient. Cut a 4" piece of Spruce/Gold ribbon and an 8" piece of linen thread (strung through a Jingle Bell) and attach to the tag.

The Bookmark uses a 6" piece of Curvy Real Red Ribbon.

I hope that all makes sense! I think it's pretty straight forward just looking at the projects. I'll do a quick demonstration this Tuesday on my "Check it out Tuesday" Facebook Live video on my facebook business page "Tamara's Paper Trail". 7 pm Mountain Time, if you want to check it out!

I also offering some classes on making these projects. If you live in the Edmonton area I'd love to have you come along. I have three crafting options for you.

come and make 12 cards, 12 tags and 12 bookmarks - $40
same as above but get the Pine Tree punch to KEEP - $60
same as above but get the Pine Tree punch AND the Perfectly Plaid stamp set to keep - $70

Friday November 29th at 7 pm is my evening session; Monday, Dec 2nd at 9:30 am is my morning session. If these dates and times don't work for you let me know - I'd be happy to hold a private class for you and your friends!