Saturday, August 23, 2008

Open house!

I think I'm still buzzing from the great time we had at the open house last night. It was really fun stamping with the three wonderful ladies who came. I thought I would share the projects we made, using lots of fun new SU stuff.

For the first card I loosely CASEd the card on p. 40 of the new catalog. This card uses the faux silk technique. I chose this because I think it's an easy technique that makes a simple card look elegant. The stamps are from the new 2-step set Flower Fancy, which is gorgeous and right up my alley. The flower is stamped first on plain white tissue paper with baja breeze and kiwi kiss (using blender pen and reinkers) and just a little not quite navy marker for the center of the flower, then the overlay is stamped (with the Stamp-a-ma-Jig) using kiwi kiss and not quite navy. I can't believe I dropped the stamp and got those two blue smudges - argh!! I didn't have time to redo it. After I glued it onto a very vanilla panel, I added a little piercing in the corners and a kiwi kiss layer underneath. The paper is from the Urban Garden collection with a sentiment from Thank You Kindly stamped in not quite navy. I just love this font! Lastly I added some of the kiwi kiss satin ribbon - this is double-sided with vanilla and is so pretty.

I used a totally different style for the second card, again loosely CASEd from the catalog (the "bloom" card on p. 86). I had to have the Crazy for Cupcakes set because I make a lot of birthday cards, and this one worked great for some paper piecing. The cupcake was stamped in chocolate chip four times: on riding hood red designer paper, pirouette pink cardstock, riding hood red cardstock, and whisper white cardstock. I used two-way glue to add glitter to the sprinkles and candle flame, then cut out the red and pink pieces and glued onto the white. Tip of the day: Doing the glitter before you assemble the whole cupcake keeps glitter from sticking to places where your glue may have strayed (I learned this the hard way). For accents I used the striped pirouette pink ribbon and a riding hood red button, which is tucked into a semicircle made with the slit punch. The sentiment from Hugs & Wishes was stamped in chocolate chip. To add interest to the edge of the pink card base, I used the scallop edge punch. Tip of the day #2: Score your card in the center before you punch the edge so you don't have to worry about where to fold, because the punch will take away some of the width of the front.

I wanted to make one project that wasn't a card - this wasn't my original idea but some last-minute changes had to be made. I wanted to use the Big Shot in some way to show what an awesome tool it is, so we made Christmas gift tags with the Top Note die. I used the die to cut out the curvy shape from vanilla cardstock and the red houndstooth print from the Holiday Treasures paper, which isn't pictured but is on the back of the tag. The poinsettia from Christ Is Born was generation stamped in riding hood red, then I sponged the edges. For the stamp and punch, which uses the Curly Punch bundle, I had to copy Dannie Graves's very cool technique for layering with this punch. She was so clever to come up with this! Finally I added a bow with the new riding hood red taffeta ribbon. We would have made matching gift bags if there had been ample time and supplies - I may still do this because I think it would be so cute in the houndstooth print.

I'm really excited to say that all three ladies who came last night are going to be part of my club in January! I'm just thrilled to be sharing this passion of mine with such great people. Thanks, y'all! :)

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