Beverly's Stamping Beehive

I have a confession. I have owned a wall decor item for-ever and ever.  I believe I was somewhere between 16 and 20 when I received this as a gift, a...oh, what do you call gifts from travels?   Its on the tip of my tongue - memento, no...a gift that we give when we go away and we bring everyone close to us a small gift from our vacation - we all have had that happen. Well, my confession is that I didn't really like it so much. NOT the idea - no, I treasured the thoughtfulness that my Aunt included me in her offering; but I really didn't like the 'design' of the gift so much.  I am not sure why not - its a pretty design, but I think its the frame.   Here it is. CLICK ON PHOTOS TO SEE LARGER VIEW. It looks nice on my orange coloured walls of my stamp room - but over the years since I was really young, it just didn't seem to go with anything I owned. And it was really a strong and striking piece - I tried many times to find just the right spot and failed many

Lasso up a card for this coming FATHER'S DAY! Hey guys and gals who need to conjure up the perfect card for that special 'DUDE' - rootin' tootin' fan of the old westerns - fan of John Wayne?  Or the new cowboys of the rodeo today? Well - if you just want to let DAD know he's #1 - this card ought to do that! I was thinking of how to represent the ol west when I didn't have any cowboy stamps per se, nothing western at all - zip, nada!  Then I thought that the Sheriff's Badge would be easy enough to make if you broke it down to basic parts - basically, its a circle with pointy triangles, nes pa? So that is what I did! 1) first I cut me a circle with our 1-3/4 inch CIRCLE PUNCH. 2) make them thar pointy parts!           To Make Triangles for the Sheriff's Star Badge          cut a strip of cardstock twich as wide  than the length of your points, and about 6 inches in length          score a half-way line down the center of the length  

I feel sort of bad :( Because now Stampin' Up! decision makers have put some  of the BIGZ XL DIES for The BIG SHOT on  chopping block !  I can only surmise its due to their lower sales value and to follow that line of logic then, we 'demos' didn't do enough to show the   ' p o t e n t i a l '  of these dies, so we share some of the blame. So - here I am last minute trying to make up for some of that with this project!   In my last post, I pointed out the fab talent of the designer behind the pop-up dies manufactured by Sizzix, and so I pulled out the POP-UP BIGZ XL DIE - O CHRISTMAS TREE!  and co-ordinating SIZZLIT DIE ' MERRY DETAILS ' which has several tiny decorations for the tree including a bird! And I also pulled out the BIGZ XL ' PERFECT SETTING ' - which includes the CUPCAKE HOLDER/WRAPPER! As for cardstock - I've chosen the retiring HOSTESS LEVEL - PATTERNS PAPER STACK which showcases the new IN COLORS of the retiring 2010-

I hope you have seen or heard of Stampin' Up!'s Pop-Up Dies which make wonderful projects - from cute and adorable - to just plain awesome! And the reason they are - is really due to some awesome-ness from KAREN BURNISTON - the designer behind the POP-UP DIES from Sizzix! Karen has a wicked mind in my humble opinion - and she has developed project after project that just makes you speechless - can you tell I'm a FAN!!!   Honestly, I am not the only one who thinks so - she has lots of fans! So here is a link to some of the projects she has designed for the POP-UP CHRISTMAS TREE and CAKE !  Click on her thumbnail pictures to see the project close-up. Karen Burniston and Pop-Up Dies for Stampin' Up! ************* Now - a word to the wise - SU! is discontinuing these 2 particular dies - don't know why, but they are ON SALE - really great price too, I believe as I write this - its 40 percent off!   I would be happy to help you order one or bo