A Wicked Thank You

Everyone in Hawaii has "Wicked" fever right now. I was lucky enough to be invited by Aunty Jan to go for my birthday.  All I knew about the story was that it was about the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North's friendship.  It turned out to be awesome!  If you have the opportunity to go and see this play, don't pass it up!  You won't be disappointed!

My daughter especially loved it!  Awhile back, I made her watch The Wizard of Oz.  She didn't want to, but I made her. I told her that she can't go through life without seeing this movie and that she would be missing out on a lot of famous references if she did not understand the basic story.  She was determined not to enjoy it, but I saw her peeking out from behind her book to watch.

So after we saw Wicked, she is crazy about the story!  I guess it helps that her dance studio has decided to do the Wizard of Oz this year for their big performance.

Since Aunty Jan treated us to the play, I decided to make her a special thank you card.  Kept it simple since it wanted the images to stand out.  Totally had fun with this one!

Oki doki... hope you all have the chance to see this performance!

Oh- and don't forget to check back soon for some sneaky peeks of our next release!

Happy Halloween!

Woah... where have I been yah?  I know, I've been MIA for awhile now, but I've been crazy busy!!  Took a break from cleaning up for Halloween to make this treat bag tutorial for you...

Back in July, I did some make 'n takes around Oahu and Hilo.  One of the make 'n takes we did was an easy peasy treat bag that I learned how to make from my CBFF Debi.  She showed me LOOOOOOONG time ago how to alter a paper bag to be a cute treat bag.  Thanks Debi!  Since I wanted to keep the make 'n takes relatively simple, I thought this would be a good project.

I had these paper bags leftover from the make 'n takes and my attempt at making the paper bag mini album (see my personal blog for that project).  To get the shape I wanted, I simply cut the top of the bag down to 5" high.  This made my bag square looking, but you can choose to cut it down to any length.

After cutting the bag, I cut two pieces of cardstock for each side (Doodlebug).  I cut them about a 1/4" longer than each side- in this case it was 5 1/4" x 5 1/4".  Then I adhered the cardstock to the bag. I think its important to use cardstock since its thicker than regular paper and will make your bag more sturdy.

Now pay attention... this part is important!  I made a few mistakes while coming up with my sample during the make 'n takes, so I thought I'd better let you in on this secret...  See how I pulled the sides of the bag out?  Do this before you punch any holes for the straps, otherwise you will have holes on the side of your bag!!! ha ha ha!  Yes, my first samples did have holes on the side.  So learn from my mistakes and don't do the same.

After pulling out the sides, I marked the bag where I wanted to punch my holes for the straps.  Decided on 1" in on both sides and about 1/2" down from the top.  The Tim Holtz clear ruler is awesome for this since you can see through the ruler.  After you mark where you want your straps, punch holes on the marks.

After punching the holes, I added the ribbon straps.  Be sure to make the ribbon longer than you need so you have enough room to tie knots on the inside of the bag.  After that, you're done!

Then comes the fun part... decorating!  Since its Halloween, I thought I'd alter the BFF image and turn them into witches!  First, I cut out a haunted house from an old Sizzix die.  Added the sentiment (Island Scrapbooking) over the black part so it would show.  Colored up the BFF's with my copics and then added the hats.  I punched the pointed part of the hat using my Stampin Up banner punch.  I ended up trimming off some of it since I didn't want it as wide.  I actually punched it on white and colored in that part of the hat so I could add some shading.  Then I used the Stampin Up oval punch for the base of the hat.  Again, I felt it was too big, so I punched it again using the same punch to make a narrower oval.  Then I just adhered the pointed part to the base and then onto the girl's heads.  Now I wish I didn't spend so much time on their hair!

Well, hope you enjoyed this mini tutorial.  And hope you have a fun and safe Halloween!

Be sure to check back later to find out more on our next release!

Life Is Sweeter When Shared With Friends

Happy Aloha Friday!  Yay, made it to the end of the week!  I must say,  this has been a looooong week for me.  Just glad the weekend is here!

Before I share my project with you, I wanted to thank Cindy for helping us with this release!  Thanks Cindy! Please check out her blog to see what else she created for Release #9.  And many thanks to Debi for hosting another blog candy and for her awesome samples!  Thanks Debi!  Speaking of candy, you still have time to enter to win all of the candies being offered on this blog and Debi's blog. Good Luck!

I had a hard time getting in the groove of coloring for this release.  I kept putting it off and putting it off.  But now that it's here, I had to scramble and figure out what I wanted to do.  If you visit my personal blog, you'll know I've been into the Shabby Chic groove and can't seem to stop creating projects in this theme.  Most of them don't incorporate stamps, so I found it especially challenging.  I definitely wanted to make a Shabby project for you.  Since Shabby and Buddies don't seem to mix, I decided to save it for my BFF project.  Here's what I came up with....

I made a box card in a 6x6 size.  They are super easy to make and you can find a bunch of tutorials on youtube.  I changed the dimensions of mine so that it was a bit bigger than the ones featured.  Because the BFFs are a wider stamp, wanted to make sure their bodies would fit.  The background paper used is by Prima.  I absolutely love this paper!  It's a very washed out floral background but it comes in other prints that include butterflies!  I think I just like the vintage-y washed out look.

Here's a close up of the two BFF's.  While making the scene, I thought they needed a forest friend, and decided to use the bunny from the Masa stamp.

Don't know if you can tell, but I added a couple of hills cut from kraft cardstock for the girls to run and play on.  To add color and interest, I glued on some flowers by All Natural Accents.

In the background, I cut a tree from Memory Box.  Since the cuts are intricate and flimsy, I ended up gluing the tree to some acetate for stability.  I think you can see the acetate in the pix, but normally, you can't.

And yes, that's a double row bling mesh framing the frame.  I also took a close up of the floral cluster (flowers by I Am Roses and Wild Orchid Crafts).  Added in one of my stickpins- just because!  You can't see in this pix, but the sentiment in the background says "Life is Sweeter When Shared With Friends".. which is so true!  Looking forward to Saturday where I get to see my CBFF Debi!  That sentiment is from one of my favorite Hero Arts sets.

Hope you enjoyed all of our samples for this release!  Only one day left till you can get your stamps!  And don't forget to enter to win our blog candy...  Have a good weekend!

Best Friends Forever

Welcome to our first introductory post for Release #9... Wow... 9 releases already!  Still can't believe how time has flown.  It all started with two sisters who wanted to share our images with you...  Before we even came up with our name, I thought it would be great if we had a logo.  So I asked my sis to design one that we could use on our products that had two sisters in kimonos.  I then came up with the name "Sister Stamps"  since that's basically how our company came to be.  So she ran with the idea and came up with our logo... Denise is on the left (the artist) and I'm on the right (stamper). 

Believe it or not, we got a few requests to make our logo into a stamp... Or something along that lines with two girls.  So I added that to the list of suggestions to my sis and she came up with our next image- BFF's!  Really, this image can be used for many types of relationships like sisters, best friends, cousins and so forth.  I chose the name BFF's since every girl has a BFF right? To me, it will always be me and my sister. :)

On to the card... Aunty Jan saved the day again.  Just as I was starting to think about samples to post for my introductions, a package arrived in the mail with two cards for this release!  Thanks Aunty!   Here Aunty used our BFF's stamp and framed it in a sakura die cut (Lifestyle Crafts).  The smaller sakuras are cut from pink felt and she added some yellow stickles for the middles. The sentiment was by My Sentiment's Exactly and was stamped on vellum. 

This card actually reminds me of me and my cousin- Aunty Jan's daughter (aka Yoshimi).  We were very close as kids since my sister used to watch us every Saturday.  My favorite color used to be yellow and her's pink.  I guess the color combo makes me think of when we were young.  Now my favorite color is far from yellow, but yellow brings back a lot of memories for me of my youth.

Thanks again Aunty for saving the day!

Ok Candy Time!!  While on my round of make 'n takes on Oahu, I discovered that many Hawaii folk who are SS fans don't necessairly follow our blog nor did they even know it existed!!  Boy, I guess I'm not doing my job!  Ha ha ha!  So, I tried to bribe, (ahem) entice them by advertising that our blog gives away a chance to win free stamps during every release!  We'll see if any new friends enter this time around.

Here's the rules:
1)  Please leave a comment on THIS POST and tell me if you would use this stamp for your friend, sister, cousin, co-worker, etc.  Please post by Friday, 8/31/12, 11:59pm HST)
2) Follow this blog publicly if you don't already. (see our sidebar for follow button).
3)  Tell me if this is your first time entering our candy and how you heard about our blog.

Winners will be announced on 9/1/12.  Good Luck!

Ready To Meet Our New Friends?

Wow!  Can't believe it's almost time for our next release!  Just popping in to reveal our Release #9 images...

Please join us this week to meet these cuties and find out who our guest designer is!  See you soon!