Happy Summer!

It's official, summer has arrived! When I was a kid I loved the Nat King Cole song "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer". I thought it was everything summer should be. I miss staying out past dark, catching lightning bugs in mayo jars and using slate (because no one had chalk) to make hopscotch boards on newly poured asphalt. Mostly I miss having a pool in the backyard. Those were the days!

Back to the present. I'm going to start with paper and end with paper, again. I love paper!

I love, love, LOVE these two new papers from Alexandra Renke. I've combined them in the photo with several of the child themed dies we have from AR. I especially love the giraffe as I was a follower of April the giraffe when the world was waiting for her to have her calf.( I apologize for this being upside down. I have repeatedly tried to rotate this photo and while I can in my photos on my computer, once I import into Blogger it does not accept the rotated version, argh!)

Next up are new dies from Heartfelt Creations. Also new is the paper pack towards the back of the photo. These are great for your wedding and engagement photos for layouts and cards.

Do you ever need a small sentiment and have to look all through your stamp sets for a basic phrase or title? How about one of these from Memory Box's Open Studio collection. Nice, classic phrases in classic fonts for multiple uses.

OK, I'm in love with several of these new Altenew stencils and stencil sets. From RIGHT to LEFT - the first two dahlia stencils can be used individually or layered over one another. If you are a follower of Jennifer McGuire you have seen her video on how to use several of these sets. I've added a link farther down. I will warn you though, they are almost all gone!

Here are two card samples from Laura Bassen, a member of the Altenew Design Team. The cube is my favorite. Here are links to  Jennifer McGuire's and Laura Bassen's blog sites showing how they created cards using the cube stencil and several other stencils in the collection. Simple gradient coloring adds a wonderful pop of color to the grid stencil.

Lastly, I stumbled on these papers from Authentique, another of my favorite companies. Their papers are a really good weight and have a bit of texture to them. I thought this line would be great for a recipe book of vintage recipes from your family or even photos in a scrapbook of cooking with grandma or your own kids. Hopefully a little inspiration for your day.

That is it for me today. Please remember that we have tickets for the Stamp, Scrap, Art Tour coming to the Hamburg Fairgrounds in August. Pick them up at the store in advance and save yourself from waiting in line. We are also working on the new classes for July and August. We will have them up on the website by July 1, if not a day or so earlier. Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week.

BSS IDEA - FRONT FLAP CARD

Welcome to the Buffalo Stamps and Stuff Idea.

Hope everyone had a nice Father's Day.  

This week I saw this fun and easy card design.  Always

looking to make a standard card just a little different aren't we!

I have named it a Front Flap Card because no one else gave it a name!!

Here is my version

The Front of the card

The front of the card with the flap lifted

The inside of the card.

Stamp - Stitched Flowers clear stamp set-Penny Black (30-418)

Includes the two sentiments I used on this card

I used on of the flower stamps and colored with copics

and fussy cute it out. I traced the edges with a clear

sparkly gel pen.

Paper - Aqua card stock cut at 11  x 4 1/4

Score at 5 1/2 fold tent style to create a 51/2 x 4 1/4 inch card

Cut a second piece of the cardstock at 2" by 11 

for the flap, score at 5 1/2 inches

Designer Papers are core'dinations teal plaid and teal stripe

Die - Spellbinders Stately Circles (S4-388)

White pearls

Cute a mat for the front and inside  from designer paper 4 x 5 1/4 inches

Cute a mat for the front of the flap piece from designer paper at

1 3/4 x 5 1/4

Adhere the mats in place.

Center the scored flap piece with the mat adhereed

over the card.  Adhere the back of the flap to the back of the

card only.  The Front will be free to lift up.

Decorate your card however you chose.  Stamp

a sentiment under the decorated flap and

on the inside of the card, or leave the inside of the

card for writing a message.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Have a great week.

Sue Drees

Hot Town Today!

Welcome to summer! It's been a warm couple of days here, days that us western New Yorkers always enjoy after our cold Buffalo winters. Me, not so much. I don't enjoy the heat (my summer mantra), but I have a solution! Turn on the AC and make some cards! I've got a couple of new items to feature and I also want to give a last shout to to call and reserve a spot for Jennifer Snyder, who is coming back this weekend with two NEW card classes on Saturday. We still have spots left in each class - check out your latest e-mail for sample photos and come join us - and air conditioning!

Up this week are new stamps and dies from Honey Bee, Our Daily Bread, new papers from Graphic 45 and more.

First up, Honey Bee! There are several layered dies in this collection that give great dimensional results.

Next up is Our Daily Bread. I'm getting a little deja vu about these stamps and dies. I may have posted these photos already. I did a quickie update last Saturday or Sunday, so forgive me if you have already seen these. Great wedding themed stamps and dies along with delicate background, border and step card dies.

Re-Stocks! Mama Elephant is back in with the balloon stamps and dies and the crowd of cats!

Debby loves Wild Rose Studio. Here are two new animal stamps from them.

New and Old from Graphic 45! G45's new release is based on English detectives - Sherlock Holmes anyone! Plus they have re-released one of their most popular collections, French Country. We have 12X12 paper packs of each collection.

New and old (as in re-stock) of My Favorite Things.

Brutus Monroe (what a name!) has several new sets out. Lovely rose florals and take a look at that dog and cat set below! I apologize if it's hard to see the stamps. This company's packaging is decidedly darker than most of our other offerings, makes seeing photos a little harder.

Last up, Cottage Cutz has come out with quite the collection of words for your cards! These are in the display on the counter just to the left of the registers.

Final housekeeping for the week. We've gotten in our advance sale tickets for the Stamp, Scrap, Art Tour for the end of August. We will be selling tickets right up to the show for a six dollars ($6), a buck off the price at the door. We will be there with bells on and inky fingers. Check out the show's web page for the classes that traditionally run the night before the show starts. Classes are not yet listed on the site but will be posted soon. I believe Sharon will be having a class that Friday night and sign-ups will be through the organizer's web site once posted.

Happy Father's Day! to all our hard working, supportive and loved Dads out there.  This is a photo of a scrapbook page I did years ago with one of my favorite photos of my dad. He was an extra in a movie filmed in Wilmington, NC. Here he is in costume! Love you Dad!

See you all next week!

BSS IDEA - Poetic Leaf

Welcome to the Buffalo Stamps and Stuff Idea.

On a recent visit to my favorite local stamp store, I was intrigued by

this Penny Black Stamp (Poetic Leaf 40-544) and just had to have a play with it.

 This was my first attempt.  After watching a video by Jill for Penny Black,

I stamped on glossy paper with distress inks.  First with Scattered Straw, then

with Vintage Photo, but just around the edges., I stamped several times, reinking

each time and I used the Misti.  Then, I stamped vintage photo onto my

craft sheet and spritzed with water.  Then I went around the outside of the

edge of the leaf with a paint brush letting the ink pool.  Using black distress

in and water on my crafts sheet, I tapped the paint brush above the image to

splatter the leaf.  Used distress ink around the edges.

 Background was created by stamping over the entire image with 

 a Wendy Veachi stamp from Stampers Annonymouse LCS036.

 Matted with some mustard  and dark brown colored Core'dinations paper

  on a cream 5x7 base card.

I used the same method as above for my second card. Inks used

for this card a memento Pear Tart, Cottage Ivy

The die is Spellbinders, the subtle background script stamp

(old ) was stamped with Antique linen distress in, right over

the entire image. Added a bow and matted onto two green mats

on a white 5x7 card base.

Here is a link to the video by Jill for Penny Black that I watched

before making these two cards.

click here then click the link

or copy and paste address into your browser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-qi3nVnpwg

Had a fun play with this stamp, and several went into 

the trash before I did the two I am showing today.

The glossy paper makes a big difference.  As well

as leaving well enough alone and not over doing it.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

 Have a great week

Sue Drees.

Sunday Edition

I just have a few quick photos to add. New product flies off the shelves so fast I wanted to make sure I got a post in early in the week. Here's what I've got!

The new release from Taylored Expressions - very summery, very beachy - Anchors Aweigh!(or is it Away???)

Our Daily Bread has some lovely wedding inspired stamp sets and two great die sets.

Also from Our Daily Bread are lace borders, scalloped backgrounds and a die to make those great dimensional step cards. We also got in several nested shape dies. 

I saw these come in but didn't get a chance to see all the words. All of these word dies are in a wooden box on the counter to the left of the register. OOPS! Sorry! the bottom row got cut off. Now you'll just have to come in and see what other cool words we have!

See you at the end of the week with more great product!

Quickie Friday!

I think, I think...we've finally got the summer work schedule figured out. What that means to the blog, who knows?!? No, it looks like I'm keeping my regular Thursday work hours and probably picking up Friday as well so the blog will have to be squeezed in between those two days. It's a quickie post today because I need to head out to the store shortly. Here's what I've got for you. We're going to start with paper and end with paper.

I love how bridal papers are getting more modern. There is a great variety of colors, patterns and themes these days. I was looking at my wedding photos last night and as my daughter said, "They look so old!" This is a new collection in from Photoplay. I'll apologize again this week for having wonky photos. I just didn't have the time to turn several photos you'll see today, right side up.

 This are a also two papers from other Photoplay collections that have great masculine colors for guys and the reverse of one is full on camo! (Although no one says 'Rad' anymore, do they?)

Altenew has a new release and we've gotten a nice selection. 

I love this Iris stamp!

Next up is Lil' Inker. We have both stamps and new background dies. 

Also back in is the favorite Happy Birthday square and the balloons with the matching strings die.

Wonky Photo Alert! These are several honeycomb dies from Honey Bee. Two of them nest together. The first two dies will sit on top of one another to create a layered effect. Hopefully you can see it in the photo. The third (as you are looking left to right in this photo is NOT a cutting die except around the outside. The die imprints or embosses the honeycomb pattern into your paper.

I'm back to Lil/ Inker with these next two photos. This die set gives you two wonky rectangles and three wonky circles

Lastly here is a sample of two of the background dies. The one on the left cuts out the chevron pattern as you can see. The one on the right is similar to the Honey Bee die in that it cut into the paper but not through leaving this parquet style pattern.

I told you we would finish with paper and this is a stunning set of papers from Kaiser.

My last wonky photo - Seaside, beach papers from a new company. I'm sorry I don't have the name.

Lastly, I spied this cute pirate lass right above the Kaiser paper and just had to give her a shout out! Love empowered women! (Especially when they start young!) Have a great week and I'll see next time.

BSS IDEA - HAPPY DANCE

WELCOME TO THE BUFFALO STAMPS AND STUFF MONDAY IDEA.

This week I'm featuring a stamp from Stampingbella.

a new line, called Squidgy.

Card front - circle with image has an Action Wobbler

attached, so when you move the card, it looks like she

is dancing.

Inside of card.

Sentiment is included in the stamp set, as well

as the smaller version of the stamp on the card front..

Clear pillow box (from my stash) filled with

chocolates.

The tag was made from a third stamp in the set

of the Squidgy, only smaller

Stamp - Stampingbella, Happy Dance Squidgy (eb479) ( 3 Stamps)

Papers - Green, darker green and white card stock

Die - Stitched Circles

Embossing Folder - Kaisercraft - Streamers

Stripped ribbon from my stash

Sequins

Colored with Copics

There is a new line of these cute little stamps.

One is cuter than the next.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Have a great week.

Sue Drees