Regional Review

Yesterday's Stampin' Up! Regional Seminar in Philadelphia was great. Swapping, stamping, and sharing with friends--a pretty perfect day! It was the fourth regional I have attended since becoming an SU! demo and the first I've been at that Shelli Gardner has attended. I have lots of ideas floating around in my head that I want to get on paper in the coming days (including a plan for my holiday card--yay!) and, as always, a long list of stuff that I need to order for myself. . .

After the regional, my friend Michele and I met her sister and nephew at the Franklin Institute to see the King Tut exhibit. It was amazing! The items in the exhibit are absolutely incredible. They were created so long ago without the aid of modern tools, yet are so intricate and perfect looking. We were marveling at the hieroglyphic carvings on many of the pieces that look almost too perfect to have been done by hand. Definitely worth the price of admission! The exhibit closes at the end of the month, so if you're close enough to visit the exhibit, I would certainly recommend it. Some of the items are so fragile that it is likely that the artifacts won't be traveling like this again.

The day ended much later than we had expected it to. After sampling a real Philly cheesesteak, we headed to the train station for our return trip to Baltimore. On the trip to Philly, everything went smoothly. We transferred subway lines without a wait and got to the train station exactly on time. We found the hotel easily and didn't get lost on our way either to or from Maggiano's for dinner. We were due for something to slip up, I guess. We got to the train station just as the big board with arrivals and departures posted that our train would be departing 1 hour and 15 minutes late. So, we spent a chunk of the evening sitting in a coffee shop admiring our swaps while waiting for the train. We finally made it home at around midnight.

Okay, now back to stamps! Here are two of the cards I brought as swaps. This one may look kind of familiar. I've done several "versions" of it recently as I tried to get the hang of using the Priceless stamp set. This is the one I finally settled on as a swap. I really like the red as a contrast to the kraft cardstock. It also highlights two of this year's In Colors.

The card was pretty simple to reproduce in a large quantity. I've learned the hard way that this is something I need to remember when planning for swaps. No images to watercolor or cut out this time!

This card uses the Stem Silhouettes set from the current Holiday Mini Catalog. I originally got this set because I didn't have anything in my collection that looked like this set. It's quickly becoming one of my favorites. This was the first cardfront I ran out of while swapping. People seemed to really like the color combination.

It's hard to see in the photo, but the panel with the image is first stamped with Linen in Soft Sky, then the image was stamped in Old Olive Craft ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

Materials Used (all from Stampin' Up!)

Card 1: Priceless stamp set; Real Red, Blue Bayou and Soft Sky Classic inks; Close to Cocoa and White Craft inks; Real Red, Blue Bayou, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, and Kraft cardstock; Real Red grosgrain

Card 2: Stem Silhouettes stamp set; Always Artichoke and Soft Sky Classic inks; Old Olive Craft ink; Always Artichoke, River Rock, Soft Sky, and Very Vanilla cardstock; Fall Flowers designer paper; Crystal Clear embossing powder; mat pack and paper piercing tool; photo corner punch; silver brad