Blogger Challenge: Week 24

This week's blogger challenge was to have a watercolored focal point or use a watercolor technique on your card. In addition to meeting this week's challenge, this is the holiday card I'm sending out to family and friends. I've known that this was what I was going to do for a holiday card since I attended the SU! Regional seminar in Philadelphia in September. Jaron demonstrated a card using the Santa image from Naughty & Nice (from the Holiday mini) and the Dashing Designer Series paper.

Here's the card I came up with based on Jaron's idea. I modified the design so it would be appropriate to send to family and friends who celebrate either Christmas or Hanukkah. I decided to use the Simple Snowman stamp set for the main image. Even though this set was new to SU! in the Fall/Winter Collection catalog, it will be retiring at the end of this catalog. I was kind of surprised to see how many of the sets featuring snowman images are retiring this time (Frosty, It's Snow Time, Flaky Friends, Cold Play). I guess there will be lots of new ones in next winter's catalog.

I stamped the snowman and the "peace" garland in black ink on Shimmery White cardstock. I used an aquapainter and reinkers to watercolor the image in colors that matched the Wintergreen designer papers. It doesn't show in the photo, but I added some white Fun Flock to the snowman's hat for some texture. I thought about adding a tiny pom pom at the top of the hat, too, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to mail the cards as easily if I did that.

I used a bunch of different designs from the Wintergreen paper pack, so the cards aren't all the same look. I also used Soft Sky double stitched grosgrain on some of the cards for variety.

I like to do something a different than the traditional card format for my holiday card. Last year I did a buckle card and the year before I did a waterfall card and before that, a shaker card. I really like the fun fold this card uses. Here's a picture of how the card opens. This design was also pretty easy to make a bunch of, especially when compared to making multiple waterfall or shaker cards!

I'm not sure that the cards are complete, though. I'm thinking of stamping some kind of sentiment on the front of the card in the bottom right corner. What do you think?

Materials Used:
Simple Snowman stamp set, Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery, and Basic Black Classic inks, Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, and Blue Bayou reinkers, Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, and Shimmery White cardstock, Wintergreen Designer Series paper, Soft Sky double stitched grosgrain, aquapainter, 2 way glue pen (Stampin' Up!); white fun flock (Stampendous)

Weekend Workshop

I had my first Stampin' Up! party in a long time late this afternoon. I spent most of the afternoon getting ready and making sure I prepped and packed everything I needed. The hostess was one of my friends from my graduate school program. I had a great time meeting her family and friends and stamping with them. They were all brand-new stampers and so excited about trying everything out.

In addition an 8 1/2" x 11" version of the scrapbook page I shared here yesterday, here are the two cards I did with them. They are both pretty simple cards and feature the designer paper that SU! is offering as a special this month (buy three packs, get the fourth free!). I thought they would be a perfect introduction to the fun of stamping. The first one uses Priceless along with Cutie Pie designer paper. I used a layout very similar to this for one of my convention swaps, so for this card, I just changed out the images and paper colors. I am so glad I got this set. Now that I've started to use it, I am finding that it's so versatile and easy to use.

The second card has a winter/holiday theme, at the request of the hostess. Everyone was wowed by the beautiful patterns and color scheme of the Wintergreen designer paper and by the sparkle from just the tiniest touch of Dazzling Diamonds. I love the colors in this Wintergreen paper and the retro feel of the Snowburst images and they work so well paired together. The Soft Sky color was a big hit, too.

Materials Used (Priceless card):
Priceless stamp set, Rose Red and Bashful Blue Classic inks, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Rose Red, and Whisper White cardstock, Cutie Pie designer paper, scalloped circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, dimensionals, mat pack and paper piercing tool, white gel pen

Materials Used (Sparkle card):

Snow Burst and Warm Words stamp sets, Soft Sky and Always Artichoke Classic inks, Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, and Whisper White cardstock, Wintergreen designer paper, large oval punch, Soft Sky stitched grosgrain, silver brad, Dazzling Diamonds, dimensional

Dry Embossed Frame Directions

I had several requests for more specific directions for how to use the Priceless Classy Brass Template to create an embossed frame around an image, like I did in this set of 3x3 cards I made for last week's Blogger Challenge. This technique was demonstrated by Shannon West at the recent Stampin' Up! regional seminar in Philadelphia.

So, I tried to take some pictures for a tutorial kind of thing. Please excuse the quality of the photos--it's hard to do the stuff and take the pictures at the same time and I don't have anyone else around to help out other than Cosmo, and unfortunately, he's not too much help.


Here's a list of the supplies you need: a brass template with decorative edges (the older SU! templates don't have this kind of edging), an embossing stylus and/or Empressor, stamped image panel--light colored, vellum, white, or shimmery white cardstock will work best for this--, and a light table (not pictured here).

I find that I'm most comfortable using the Empressor for embossing big, open areas, then switching to the embossing stylus for smaller, more detailed work.


Set the brass template on the light table and turn it on. Place your stamped image stamped side down over the brass template. Placing the image stamped side down will make the "frame" edges appear raised. If you place the image stamped side up, your stamped image will appear to be raised from the frame--still looks nice and still works, just different from what I've done here.

Using the brass template as a guide, line up the corner of your stamped image panel with the corner of the brass template. The cardstock should extend a little beyond the decorative edge of the brass template. This ensures that you'll have a border and that your scallops (or zig-zags, or whatever) don't go off of the edge of the paper.

Using either an embossing stylus or the Empressor, trace around the edges of the brass template. Be sure to press firmly to get a good impression. To make the tool move across the paper more smoothly, you can rub the cardstock with some waxed paper before you start.






When you reach the edge of the panel, turn the cardstock a quarter turn to continue the frame and to complete the scallops at the corners. Continue tracing the template edge with the embossing stylus and turning the cardstock until you have completed all four sides of the panel.

Once your frame is completed, if you notice that the frame is not exactly centered, you can trim the outside edges of the cardstock panel (outside of the raised part) with your paper cutter if it's necessary to center the frame on the cardstock.

Once your frame is complete, move your cardstock panel and emboss any other portions of your design using the template. For my card, I just embossed the butterfly image.








Here's a close-up of my finished image panel so you can see the raised frame. If you try this technique, leave a comment here with a link to your work so I can check it out.


Materials Used:

From Stampin' Up!: Priceless and Warm Words stamp sets; Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, and Soft Sky Classic inks; Elegant Eggplant, Almost Amethyst, Old Olive, and Shimmery White cardstock; Certainly Celery Prints Series Designer Series Paper; dimensionals; Dazzling Diamonds

Other: green dotted grosgrain (Michaels)

Blogger Challenge: Week 13, or Dry Embossing A-ha!

For this week's Blogger Challenge, the challenge was to create something that uses a form of embossing. After last weekend's Stampin' Up! Regional Seminar in Philadelphia, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. There was a demonstration using SU!'s Classy Brass Templates for dry embossing, so I had lots and lots of ideas from the presentation. Before the presentation, I had kind of wondered how I should be using the decorative edges on the templates. Now I know what to do!

This project ended up being a set of 4 3x3 cards with a matching card tote box. The cards are all the exact same layout, just with different color schemes. The image panels are made from Shimmery White cardstock. For all of them, after stamping the butterfly and swirl images, I used my light table and the Priceless Classy Brass Template to dry emboss the butterfly and the scalloped frame around the edge of the panel.

The frame/border around the Shimmery White panels was dry embossed with the scalloped edge from the brass template. At the regional seminar, Shannon West showed how to do this. Maybe I'm just kind of clueless, but that was a "lightbulb" moment for me. I had thought about tracing the edges and cutting out along the traced lines, but that seemed kind of time consuming and I never tried it. Seeing Shannon's demo on how to dry emboss using the template's decorative edges made things clear for me.

I used the corner rounder to make a scalloped edge at the bottom of the card, matching the image panel design.

Please be sure to check out the other Blogger Challenge players embossed creations. You can find links to their blogs in the sidebar to the right.

Materials used (all from Stampin' Up!):
Priceless stamp set; Rose Red, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Almost Amethyst, and Soft Sky Classic inks; Rose Red, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, and Almost Amethyst cardstock and Prints Series designer papers; Shimmery White cardstock; Priceless Classy Brass Template; Dazzling Diamonds; corner rounder; mat pack and paper piercing tool; white grosgrain; silver brads; dimensionals; Sticky Strip

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

Not My Style

For this week's Featured Stamper challenge on SCS, I decided to make my card with a SU! style Boho West twist. At convention, one of the free sets demos received was the Western-themed Wanted set. Also, I won a package of the new Outlaw designer paper and pewter jumbo eyelets at the convention pajama party. So, I figured I should give these things a try, even though they are way outside of my stamping comfort zone (except the jumbo eyelets--those I can work with!)

This week's featured stamper is 88 keys/Deb. You can see her gallery here and the card I used as the basis for my card here. I kept the layout of the card the same, but changed the colors. The original card was much more feminine with a flower accent as a focal point and lace and pearl accents. Here I used two different patterns from the Outlaw paper package. One of the papers was striped, as was the paper in the original card. I heat embossed the medallion image, then punched it out with my very temperamental scalloped circle punch. I think my replacement punch is on its way. Hopefully it will work . . . I used a circle punch to punch out the center of another heat embossed medallion and put a jumbo eyelet through the center of it. The Cropodile makes these big eyelets so easy to set.

I picked a sentiment from the Happy Everything set to finish the card. Had my Fundamental Phrases set that I just ordered been here, I would have used that instead. I think that set's larger font would have looked better here.

I like how this card came out, but I'm still not a Boho West fan. Even with all of the demonstrations at convention and with the Wanted set samples done for convention by the talented display stampers, I'm still not sold . . .

Materials Used:From Stampin' Up!: Wanted and Happy Everything stamp sets; Chocolate Chip Classic ink; Close to Cocoa Craft ink; Versamark; Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, and Always Artichoke cardstock; Outlaw designer paper; scalloped circle punch; large oval punch; 1 3/8" circle punch; Crystal Clear and Very Vanilla embossing powders; slit punch; white gel pen; mat pack and paper piercing tool; pewter jumbo eyelet; dimensionals; taupe grosgrain (retired)Other: star brad (Making Memories)

Still Recovering

No stamping tonight . . . I spent the day at a shoebox swap in Baltimore and made lots of great cards. I'm using a slightly different version (a few more steps and pieces involved) of the card I shared at the shoebox swap today for an upcoming new catalog swap with my swap group, so I want to wait to share it until after I've sent it in for the swap. Tonight I'll be cleaning my stamping area, which I left kind of messy when I went to Denver last weekend. Unfortunately, it did not magically clean itself while I was gone--kind of like how the air conditioning didn't magically repair itself either. Since the basement (where my stamping room is located) is the coolest and most tolerable level of my house right now--and that's not saying much--I figured I should just get the clean-up taken care of and save the stamping for tomorrow.

Here's another card I swapped in at convention in Denver. This was the second card I created for the session 2 SCS dinner swap. I participated in two groups, so I made two different cards to swap. This one was made using Doodle This. It used the crayon resist technique. It is so bright and vibrant in person. I used sponge daubers to fill in the colors on the images. They made it really easy to get the color where I wanted it and in the right intensity. I was able to get 8 stamped pieces from each piece of glossy cardstock, so it made these cards quick and easy to produce in a large quantity(45 or so).

Materials Used:

Doodle This and Wonderful Words stamp sets; Pixie Pin, Almost Amethyst, Green Galore, Tempting Turquoise, and Basic Black Classic inks; Tempting Turquoise and Pixie Pink cardstock; Glossy White cardstock; white grosgrain; mat pack and paper piercing tool

Home Again

I got home from Denver this evening. What a whirlwind trip! I had a fantastic time at the SU! convention and I'm already looking forward to next year's event in Salt Lake City. My roommates, who I hooked up with through SCS, were fantastic. We had a blast hanging out together all week. Our accommodations at the Curtis were great, too. We were on the 8th floor (sci-fi theme). Last night, we toured the hotel in the elevator, going from floor to floor to check out the themes and decor on all the floors. So funny! The staff was so helpful with everything--we really appreciated it. I would definitely stay there again if I return to Denver.

I haven't had time to load any convention pictures from my camera to my computer yet. I have a shoebox swap tomorrow that I need to finish preparing for, including baking a loaf of blueberry bread, and a huge pile of laundry to work on, so pictures will have to wait a little bit. I got home to find that my air conditioning is not working again. I had replaced the batteries in the thermostat before I left (following its directions when it said LOW BATT) and now it no longer shows anything on the LCD display. So, I can't control the temperature in the house and I have absolutely no idea what the temperature setting is, other than that it's quite uncomfortable in here. I may be sleeping on the sofa in the basement until I can get it repaired.

So, here's another one of my convention swaps instead of convention pics. I swapped a similar card at the Virginia Beach regional seminar in April. So many people liked it that I decided to adjust it a little (since the original version used Cool Caribbean) for convention. I stamped the Dotted background on Barely Banana cardstock to go with the giraffe's dots, or spots is more accurate, I guess. The giraffe's spots are punched out with 1/16" and 1/8" handheld punches, then backed with a piece of Creamy Caramel cardstock. I found that this was a popular swap again--it was the first card that I ran out of when I was swapping.

Materials Used:
Wild About You and Dotted stamp sets; Bodacious jumbo wheel and handle; Barely Banana and Not Quite Navy Classic inks; Barely Banana Craft ink; Barely Banana, Night of Navy, Mellow Moss, Creamy Caramel, and Whisper White cardstock; mat pack and paper piercing tool; dimensionals; 1/16" and 1/8" handheld punches; Mellow Moss grosgrain; Crystal Clear embossing powder

Friend-Ship

We're getting ready for another day at convention followed by an evening shoebox swap at our hotel. Even though I'm looking forward to seeing what SU! has planned for us, it is so hard to get up in the morning! I think I've slept less than 5 hours a night for the last 5 days. It's definitely starting to catch up with me and with my roommates, too.

Last night we attended the SCS dinner at Mattie's House of Mirrors. It was fun to meet a whole bunch of other SCS'ers--100 of us all in one place! Among the people I got to meet were some of my blog readers (and blog candy winners). I have some pictures of the dinner to share when I get home this weekend.

There was a lot of swapping going on, too. I brought two cards to swap. Here's one of them. I don't know what I was thinking when I planned this one. Watercoloring all of those boats was a huge and time-consuming task. I'm happy with the final product, though.

Materials Used (all from Stampin' Up!): Boatloads of Love, Background Sampler, and Polka Dot stamp sets; Basic Brown, Close to Cocoa, and Brocade Blue Classic inks; Brocade Blue, Close to Cocoa, Real Red, and Very Vanilla cardstock; So Saffron Prints Series designer paper; watercolor pencils; aquapainter; mat pack and paper piercing tool; Real Red grosgrain; dimensionals; Crystal Effects; sponge

Look Who We Met!

We're getting ready to head out for breakfast before the start of the general session this morning. We had a great time last night at the pajama party. Our hotel is pretty close to the convention center (and has a great happy hour with awesome food and martini specials!), so we didn't have to walk too far in our pajamas. The projects were fun, especially the little card container purse we made from the Accents and Elements tin we got in our convention bag. The Crop-o-dile punched right through the tin like it was a piece of paper. I even won a prize last night. My wrist band color was selected and I won a package of designer paper and the new jumbo eyelets.

The highlight of the evening was meeting lots of great SU! staff members, including Shelli! Shelli was gracious enough to pose for pictures and chat individually with tons of demos. We stopped over to see her during the stamping time. We had our picture taken with her, too--check it out! We also got to meet Thurl Bailey. Boy, is he tall!

Tonight we'll be attending the Splitcoast Dinner. It will be fun to get a chance to put faces to the names of people we've only met online.

We're Here!

Hi from Denver! I'm sitting in the convention center at the Internet Cafe, half listening to a presentation on the new demonstrator web site. We arrived here early this morning to swap, visit Memento Mall (and get some of the coveted ribbon swatch samplers!), and pick up our bags. It was hard to drag myself out of bed so early this morning. Between the time change, the little bit of sleep I've gotten during the past week, and the huge, delicious fondue dinner we had last night, I am already wiped out! I've been working on swaps for months, but it doesn't seem like it's anywhere near enough to be able to swap for all of the great items I've been seeing.

This afternoon, we're going to a Stamp Camp at our hotel. We're staying at The Curtis. The hotel is a fun place with a different theme on each floor. We're on the sci-fi themed floor. Here's the card I made to swap at the Stamp Camp. It uses craft ink on kraft cardstock. I also made some using blue cardstock instead of the pink.

Materials Used: Pick a Petal and Warm Words stamp sets; Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink and White Craft inks; Kraft, Pretty in Pink, and Chocolate Chip cardstock; 1 3/8" and 1 1/4" circle punches; corner rounder punch; mat pack and paper piercing tool; glue dot; pink gingham

Off to Denver!

Tomorrow morning I'm off to the second session of the annual Stampin' Up! convention in Denver. I've never been to either Denver or the SU! convention before, so I'm really excited about the trip. I've been working like crazy on swaps and fun stuff for lots of events while I'm there. I hope that I'll have some access to a computer while I'm there so I can share some of what I've been working on--and some of what's happening--with you.

This is a picture of a little gift I've made for my convention hotel roommates. It's a notebook covered with Petals & Paisleys designer paper to use to take notes during the convention sessions. I embellished it with some ribbon and a chipboard letter covered in craft ink, then heat embossed with Iridescent Ice embossing powder. I hope they like them! This is actually the notebook I made for myself. I wish that the letter "l" in the On Board Simon lower case collection didn't look so much like the number "one."

Registered for Regionals

I am officially registered for the upcoming SU! Regional Seminar in Philadelphia, PA! Registration was a challenge because I had a big presentation to make this morning at work at the exact same time registration started. Fortunately I was able to recruit a secretary to do the registering for me and was able to register for the session I wanted to attend and do my presentation, all at the same time.

Since regionals were on my mind today, I used the stamp set I got at the VA Beach Regional Seminar in April for this card. Double-Line Doodles is a fun set, but I haven't used it much since I got it. The sketch is one that Lauren/mytime posted on her blog. Here, I stamped the stem and flower images, then used an aquapainter and reinkers to color in the outlined image in the same color ink as the outline. I added some Stickles to the dots on the image, then set it on a pair of scalloped square punches that were connected to form a rectangular mat.

The patterned paper is from DCWV's Pocket Full of Posies line. I love the fun colors and glittery accents in these papers. I stocked up on 12x12 sheets when Michaels had them on sale for 4 sheets for $1.

The different-looking paper piercing on the card is just the backside of the paper. I had actually stamped images on one side of the cardstock. I ended up not liking the images, so I just flipped the strip over to the "blank" side and used it as is. The reversed holes add a different look. I'll have to remember to pull this set out again soon . . .

Materials Used:

From Stampin' Up!: Double-Line Doodles, Short & Sweet, and Linen stamp sets; Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, and Regal Rose Classic inks; Soft Sky, Regal Rose, Apricot Appeal, and Whisper White cardstock; Pretty in Pink grosgrain; mat pack and paper piercing tool; dimensionals

Other: Petite Sunrise Posies patterned paper (Pocket Full of Posies, DCWV); Turquoise and Lime Green Stickles (Ranger); giga scalloped square punch (Marvy Uchida); pink brads (Joann); yellow brad (Making Memories)

Craft Show Creations, Part 5

Tomorrow is the Spring Boutique/craft fair that my friend Michele and I have been preparing for over the past month or so. We're heading out later tonight to do the set-up so we won't have to get there at the crack of dawn to haul our stuff in and organize it. This picture shows some more of the notepad and pen sets we'll be selling tomorrow. We have about 24 to sell, with about 8 or 10 different designs. Each of the ones shown here has tiny details to make it stand out. There's paper piercing on the one with the flower from Bodacious Bouquet, shiny heat embossed boots on the one with the images from Flower Filled, and sparkling "foam" on the one with the cup from Like it a Latte.

This card uses a technique (or sort-of technique) that I saw at the VA Beach Regional Seminar last weekend. The presenter showed how you can use a bunch of narrow pieces of scrap cardstock to create a fun striped "paper" for your cards. All you do is put adhesive on your cardstock, lay down thin cardstock strips over the adhesive, then trim the ends of the strips to be even with the cardfront. Here, I used strips of Rose Red, Taken with Teal, and So Saffron on a background of Sahara Sand. So easy and so striking! The flower image is from the set we were given at Regionals--Double Line Doodles. It will be in the upcoming SU! catalog. I stamped it on Confetti White cardstock, then watercolored it using ink refills and my aquapainter. I added Stickles to highlight the image. I really like the way the flower looks watercolored. I know I'll be trying this out again soon!

Materials Used (Notepads):
From Stampin' Up!: Bodacious Bouquet, Like it a Latte, and Flower Filled stamp sets; Bodacious, Cool, and Spot On jumbo wheels and handle; Taken with Teal, Rose Red, Almost Artichoke, Pretty in Pink, Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, Tempting Turquoise and Green Galore Classic inks; Barely Banana Craft ink; Taken with Teal, Rose Red, Pretty in Pink, Close to Cocoa, Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, and Whisper White cardstock; sticky strip; Bodacious Classy Brass template; mat pack and paper piercing tool; Dazzling Diamonds; Crystal Clear embossing powder; silver brad
Other: Lime Green and Fruit Punch Stickles (Ranger); pink gingham (AC Moore); turquoise grosgrain (AC Moore dollar bin); black gingham (Walmart)

Materials Used (Card):
From Stampin Up!: Double Line Doodles stamp set; Taken with Teal and Old Olive Classic inks; Sahara Sand, Taken with Teal, Rose Red, So Saffron, and Confetti White cardstock; distressing tool; aquapainter; dimensionals
Other: Lime Green and Fruit Punch Stickles (Ranger); copper brads (Making Memories); grosgrain ribbon (AC Moore dollar bin)

VA Beach Swap Card #1

Since I'm busy finishing up preparations for Sunday's Spring Boutique/craft show event, I thought this would be a good time to post some of the swap cards I made for last weekend's SU! Regional Seminar in VA Beach. In addition to the 30 full cards I made for the SCS dinner, I made 100 cardfronts (25 each of 4 designs) to swap on Saturday. I got some fantastic designs from other great stampers. I love to see what other people come up with for their swaps. I always get ideas for new techniques and fresh ideas for "old" stamp sets.

This card uses elements of two cards I created before using this set, You Make Me Happy. I used the flower placement/panel from one design with the layout of another. I'm really happy with the way this card came out. The small flowers were stamped in Ballet Blue Craft ink, then heat embossed with Crystal Clear embossing powder. The texture on the stamped image has a great look and feel when it's embossed and I wanted to highlight that. The big flower was stamped using the rock and roll technique. The flower panel is layered on a Bashful Blue panel with distressed edges. The one problem with this design was that the card had a LOT of little pieces to cut and assemble--and keep track of. I pre-stamped all of the pieces for this card (and my other swap cards) and took them with me on my trip to my family's beach house in Delaware in late March. Since it was too cold for the beach or anything else outdoors, I used the time to assemble my swap cards.

Materials Used (all from Stampin' Up!):
You Make Me Happy stamp set; Almost Amethyst, Lovely Lilac, and Certainly Celery Classic inks; Ballet Blue Craft ink; Almost Amethyst, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, and Whisper White cardstock; 1/2" circle punch; small corner rounder; white grosgrain; silver brad; crimper; Crystal Clear embossing powder; dimensionals; distressing tool

Back from the Beach

I made it back from my (too short) trip to VA Beach for SU!'s Regional Seminar. It was a smooth ride both ways, other than the rock that hit and cracked my car's windshield somewhere near Richmond, VA. What started as a nick with an adjoining 4 inch crack was over a foot long by the time I got home this evening. The annoying part of this is that I just had my windshield replaced 2 months ago after the same thing happened on my way to work. At least I know where the repair place is now . . .

I arrived in VA Beach early enough on Friday afternoon to make a quick stop at Sandbridge Beach. Sandbridge is located a bit to the south of VA Beach, right at the VA/NC border, and is where my family vacationed for many, many years. It's a quiet, residential area with lots of houses raised on "stilts," very different from the boardwalk atmosphere found in lots of vacation/resort areas. I have a lot of fond memories of times spent there, so I couldn't miss the chance to revisit it. It was a little surprising to see the town I remembered as quiet, and almost desolate, have a stoplight and a bunch of condominiums. Here's a photo of the beach on Friday--it was too cold to put my feet in the water, but I did take a short walk on the sand.


After visiting Sandbridge, I headed to the SCS dinner at Rudee's. I had a fantastic time at the dinner. I made a bunch of new friends and enjoyed swapping with everyone. The cards were all incredible, as were the door prizes that everyone donated. What a creative and generous group of people! This is a picture of the card I shared at the dinner (and also at last weekend's shoebox swap in Baltimore). The card's layout was borrowed from Michelle Wooderson. Even though the card may appear to be tall or oddly sized, it still fits perfectly in a standard size envelope. The base (Elegant Eggplant) is a 4 1/4" square card. The flower is stamped with Brocade Blue and Elegant Eggplant ink using the rock and roll technique. It's raised on a dimensional and is outlined by paper piercing using the Bodacious Bouquet Classy Brass template. The center of the flower is highlighted with Waterfall Stickles to match the ink and cardstock. I made different cards to swap at the SU! Regional Seminar--I'll share those later this week.

Materials Used:
From Stampin' Up!: Bodacious Bouquet and Warm Words stamp sets; Bodacious jumbo wheel and handle; Brocade Blue, Elegant Eggplant, and Always Artichoke Classic inks; Brocade Blue, Elegant Eggplant, So Saffron, and Whisper White cardstock; eggplant grosgrain; Bodacious Bouquet Classy Brass template; mat pack and paper piercing template; silver brad; stampin' dimensional
Other: Waterfall Stickles (Ranger)