Blogging Friends Blog Hop – Summer Fun!

Welcome to this month’s “Blogging Friends Blog Hop!”

Who are the ‘Blogging Friends’? We are Stampin’ Up! demonstrators all across the U.S. and Canada. Most of us haven’t met in person, but love Stampin’ Up and want to share with you! Please join us on the 1st of every month to see what wonderful things we have created!  Each month we’ll have a different theme; this month it’s: Summer Fun!!

So, I was actually drawing a blank on this one for a while… until the other night. It was super nice weather outside, nice enough for a small bonfire, which we started up, ate dinner out in the backyard, hung out with family and friends.

Then, when it got really dark I looked over to the far side of the yard – and that’s when I saw the coolest thing. Ok, first of all, I grew up in Ohio. Fireflies are not new to me. But this, this was pretty cool. There were a TON of them… all blinking over in the fields, and it actually looked like there were holiday lights set up in the back yard. We joked about aliens… but seriously. it was cool. 🙂
Oh, and second…  we used to call them lightning bugs….

Anyway, that’s where I got the inspiration for this month’s project. Fireflies! Fireflies remind me of summer, and they were out in full force! So, I made a card with them. Not the actual fireflies. That would be gross. So I stamped them and used plenty of Wink of Stella to make them shimmer.
BTW – Here is what happens when you use too much Wink of Stella:

Poor, poor little lightning bug.

So, after a little bit of cleanup…. on to my card….  I though a shaker card would be appropriate, as well as not actually keeping the buggies all locked up. This is what happens when you set them free:

I used the new Jar of Love bundle, with the Jar of Love stamp set and the Everyday Jars Framelits. I stamped a bunch of fireflies, and used the dies to cut them out. They are all up on dimensionals.
There is a window sheet over the jar so they don’t fly through the jar AND so the sequins from the most recent Paper Pumpkin kit don’t fall out! I thought they would go great with all the colors from the background Designers Series Paper – The Playful Palette DSP Stack. I used the Peekaboo Peach and Emerald Envy for the card to match the DSP.
To pop up the jar and make it the shaker card, I used the new foam adhesive strips… fantastic things!  I then used the fringe scissors for the grass and some of the white baker’s twine for the tag.

Here is a close up of the grass… I did several random trimmings with some scissors so the top didn’t look flat:

Here are the cute ‘glowing’ bugs up close too:

I like the way it turned out! I hope to make many more projects with these jars.. so many possibilities!!  I hope you liked this,too,  and enjoy your summer, wherever you are! (if it’s winter where you are.. enjoy your winter!)
Mak

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Please take the time to hop on through the rest of the Blog Hop today, and I hope you enjoy their projects, too!

In case you’ve never ‘done’ a blog hop before, it’s really easy!
Click on the image below, and you’ll be taken directly to Tammy’s post, the next blog in the hop. Keep clicking on that image at the bottom of each blog post, and you’ll hop through all of the participating blogs, back to where you started!  If you’d prefer to hop about at your leisure, you can click on the individual links for each blog. Happy Hopping!

Participating Blogging Friends, in order of appearance:

Crystal Komara
Anna Masciovecchio
Libby Fens
Anne Power
Mary Blocher
Danica Ferrante
Deborah Smart
Jessica Mink
Leanne Johnson
Michelle Clark
Mary Ann Rossiter (StampinMak) – You are here!
Tammy Gill
Rick Adkins
Lisa Reber

Yee-Haw!

really. Yee-Haw. but first….  a bit of this week’s excitement..

This weekend is Stamping in the Woods, a weekend getaway organized by my upline filled with stamping, camping and friends.  Now, when I say camping, I mean “camping“. with visible air quotes. There are no tents. There is no beef jerky dinner. There are no port-o-potties. There is… a kitchen, in a building, with nice people that cook real good food for us. 🙂  There are real buildings, with real bathrooms, and even showers. With hot water. This is my kind of camping.

<pssst: let me know if you’d be interested in going to one of these future events!!>

So one of the items we need to bring is our name tag. Normally, this is not an issue. We used to have simple tags with our name. Easy.  Well, last time, we were asked to bring a home-made name tag. wow. Time got away from me, so mine ended up being my name written with a white marker on black card stock. exciting, i know. but it had glitz.. it was surrounded by glitter paper. so, ya know. I was good for a while. Everyone else on the other hand went all out and created some amazing badges. This time I figure I need to do better. So I am working on it. and working on it and still working on it. The later the evening got, the more changes I thought I needed to make.  I was having trouble making up my mind how exactly it should look, so I took a break yesterday. I will say that it has butterflies. and sparklie. not a little sparklie. not sparklie like a vampire (cuz we all know vampires don’t sparkle). Sparklie like, a lot of glitter paper. 😀  I will post a pic when that is finally done.

Back to Yee-Haw…   I lived in Texas for a short while, a long while ago.  eek..  However this is not where I picked up saying Y’all occasionally. oh well. I get teased.. but guess what!!  Now there’s a stamp set for that!!!

Check out the newest set released by Stampin’ Up!

I got to see this at our recent convention: Inspire. Create. Share.  It looked so nifty, and I’m pretty sure I need to have this.  Here are some cute samples with it:

If you too feel the need to express your inner country self, mosey on over to the store on my Stampin’ Up! website, and get the set all for yourself!

Click here to shop for Yee-Haw!

Remember, the special <not in the catalog> photopolymer sets that get created are available on a limited basis.. so get them before they are gone!