It's Party Time!

I'm part of a group of women that get together for some stampin' therapy once a month--and I really look forward to every time that we meet!  I was demonstrating tonight and we had a good turnout considering it's summer and people are still in and out!  Here's our group:

Obviously someone had said something funny!  We do have a great time with a lot of laughs!

I demonstrated 3 cards tonight and then we all made the swap that I didn't get made at Convention!  Ha!  Had to do something with all those parts and pieces!  Our last make and take was a 3-D project.

Card #1 used the Six Sided Sampler bundle--

I totally cased this from pinterest--juliesstampintime.com!  Love the smaller butterfly punched out with the elegant butterfly punch.  The other card I made like this had a layer of strawberry slush behind the brown sugar--I like that punch of color--but my placement of the hexagons was better on this card!  Ha!

Card #2  Uses Too Kind and a sentiment from Regarding Dahlias.  I'm really loving the new strawberry slush in-color as you can tell--I just stamped off to get the lighter color.  After it's all put together add some dazzling details to really add some bling to it!

Along with the strawberry slush and fancy fan embossing folder, I used pistachio pudding and early espresso.  Love the touch of the crochet trim.  This idea was from Stamping School--love that site.  It's reasonably priced and I get wonderful ideas from it!

The 3rd card I demonstrated was a Christmas card--it's never too early to think about Christmas is it?  This card was modeled after the washi tape card that I swapped at Convention.  I used the Seasons of Style washi tape from the holiday catalog that we got at the 25th Birthday Bash at convention and the punch pack and Seasons of Style which I believe are both on the carryover list.

Cute and super easy!  I'll be back tomorrow to share the two make and takes!

See anything you like?  You can always order online here or e-mail me and I'd be glad to help you!

Last Convention Swap

Here's the last of the organized swaps that I was a part of...I only changed my stamp set twice (and the design of my final one more times in my mind).  This was a 40 + 1 swap and I discovered that that's far too many cards of the same design for me to make...I get bored easily and then I start to second guess my design....I used the set Regarding Dahlias which I love, a lot of black embossing powder, the modern mosaic embossing folder and Modern Medley dsp.  Love the black, vanilla and melon mambo combo.  This was inspired by a design by Mary Brown.

I had one more swap that I intended to make--hopefully I'll get to use all the pieces to that one soon!

Convention Swaps - Part Deux

So, I might have overextended myself with the amount of swaps that I imagined I needed to take to convention.....never again. Ha!  

My three general swaps were pretty basic--the first uses the Epic Day dsp and a sentiment from Oh, Hello with a bit of calypso coral baker's twine and a vintage faceted button.

I used this angle so perhaps you could see the chevron embossing folder that I lightly put on the right side of the card front.  I also used the splotch stamp from my first paper pumpkin package. 

The second card is made with the gingham garden washi tape and the stamp set Seasonal Sayings.

 I love how easily the punched part came together--punch the heart and then the postage stamp punch over the top--centering the heart.  Add the little flower with a pearl from the punch pack.  Love the colors night of navy, daffodil delight and melon mambo together.  It makes me happy.  

My third card was a bit more work intensive, but I like it a lot.  It uses strawberry slush, old olive and early espresso, the stamp set Too Kind, and the fancy fan embossing folder.  The hardest part was getting the label cut apart and then glued down - had to trim the white part down to make it fit nicely.

The 2 step stamping on this card was quite easy--no need for a stamp-a-ma-jig at all.  I'll be back tomorrow with my last swap--well the last swap that I got done for  convention.

Convention Swaps

Here are two of the swaps that I took to Convention 2013--I signed up for 3 organized swaps--one punch art (I was in two groups) which I shared a couple of days ago, a New Catalog Set card which I'll share tomorrow, and one Wow! Fancy fold or card that moves swap. This first card is from the Wow! swap. The little owl on the front of the card holds the card closed and turns to the left to allow the card to open. I got this idea from DarleneDesign.com about a year ago. She has a tutorial on how to create this card here on her blog. Here's the card closed:
When you open it the layout of the card turns like this:

  I'll share my New Catalog set swap and general swaps tomorrow.

The Birthday Boy

My grandson Brody turned 2 yesterday.  We all gathered at his house and celebrated this little one that we love so much.  He loves Cars, Despicable Me, and Woody (Toy Story).  So, I had to make this little gem to help him celebrate--not that cards really mean much to him at this age!

Happy birthday Brody!

Convention Fun....

When you try and get almost 6000 people in a room--people who are anxious and excited to get started with convention so they arrive early--very early--you get lines!  Really, really, long lines.

But once we were in the main stage area we were able to listen to a variety of speakers like Shelli, see presenters share stamping/business ideas, and experience the fun of Prize Patrols!  Some give aways were for specific groups according to the color of wrist band that was in your free bag which was an awesome backpack this year and some were all attendee give aways.  Due to it being the 25th Birthday of Stampin' Up everyone won a prize patrol and there were 4 prize patrols for everyone!  Woo Hoo!

Here's Shelli--maybe she's telling us about some of the new products that are coming out soon!  =-)

Here's what I won on prize patrol--I was next to the last color given a prize---the last color--crushed curry had only 25 in the group and they won every stamp set in the holiday catalog.  Wow!

Convention, Convention, Convention!!

Hi all!  I'm so excited to share with you all the things that I experienced at the Stampin' Up Convention this year...

I flew into Salt Lake City on Wednesday, got settled in my room and then set off to find my first swap that I had signed up for--Punch Art.   Having never been to SLC, I wasn't sure about how far I'd have to walk--the word I'd gotten was that the blocks were longer than "normal," and I knew that my hotel was a ways away from the convention center.....but the walk wasn't bad--about 10 - 15 minutes.  If you've never been to SLC--it's nestled in the mountains--here's a view from my hotel window.

Thursday I woke up and worked on my swaps for a few hours and then headed out to explore the convention center area.  My hotel had given me a map that had all the restaurants on it so I was in search of The Cheesecake Factory.  =-)  The buses were loading and unloading demonstrators that were heading out to Riverton to tour the SU facilities--I didn't get signed up.  I walked around the convention center which really was only open in the main lobby at that time then headed over to the Cheesecake Factory.

As I was sitting in at my table, reading my convention booklet, some women invited me to join them.  This would turn out to be one of the highlights of my convention!  Robin, Jane (Robin's mom), and Carol ended up "adopting" me into their group --graciously allowing me to hang out with them, eat with them, and sit with them all during convention!!  What a blessing--and their hotel was just across the street from mine so I no longer had to worry about walking on my own after dark!  Here they are---my friends from Ohio--

That's Carol, Jane and Robin from front to back!  Thank you ladies, once again--you are the best!

I can't begin to tell you what it was like to be in this large room with almost 6,000 demonstrators...crazy, crowded, and noisy are just a few words that describe it. Here's a view from the back of the main stage--not sure if you can tell, but the stage was in the center and on either side were huge screens so all could see what was on the stage--you can also see the smaller screens for those in the back--this made it possible to sit just about anywhere in the room and still feel like you had a good seat!

Here are my two punch art card fronts that I took on Wednesday evening to my Punch Art Swap organized by Tammy Borrello.  What a fun kick off to convention---the ladies in this were so excited (as was I) to be there.  A group from Canada was in this swap and it was so funny because as I was walking back to the hotel their van drove by and one gal rolled down the window and hollered at me,  "Hi lady with the ribbon owl card!"  Ha!

Swap card #1 uses the set Animal Talk, a punch art puppy, and the heart framelits.  I really like how it turned out.  The puppy is not my own design, just a combination of a couple of dogs that I had seen as I was looking for punch art ideas.

Swap card #2 was inspired by a swap card that I took a picture of at the St. Louis Regionals--a punch art owl decorated with ribbon scraps.  My sample has retired ribbon on it, but I could only use current on my cards that I swapped--which meant I was dyeing some of my ribbon to get different colors!  =-)

Not a great picture, but I'm tired and I think I've blah, blah, blahed (is that a word?) enough so I'll be back tomorrow with more!  =-)