More ATC Swaps

I am loving all the Halloween ATCs I have seen in the gallery. And I love anything vintage! But, a little too much of a good thing... I had to pump out three ATC swaps in a row, and Hubby is starting to lose patience with me. Uh-oh!

This is a Halloween ATC (obviously!) for a Various Theme swap. I was in the 'Holidays' group. This one uses the salted background technique. Btw, I love ATC's because you can try advanced techniques in small little spaces.

I saw this Asian ATC swap at the last minute. I decided to play with my new stamp set Dream Gardens, and I really liked how it came out, so I sent in my submission. Techniques: bleaching and polished stone.

I signed up for this Very Vintage ATC swap long before Convention. I had a serious creative block trying to make this, and it basically took up most of my weekend. But, it is done, and I am quite pleased with it. It uses a corset pattern off the internet, a copy of a vintage poster from 1890, lace from my mom's stash, and vintage button (I think) from my grandmother's stash.

All the stamping supplies will be posted in my SCS gallery. Thanks for looking!

August Club Projects

I thought I would post the projects we did at club this month. Don't forget, drop-ins are welcome, so just let me know if you would like to join us next time!

We tried our hand at a spring card. The butterflies pop up on a paper spring inside, as shown below. The tutorial is here.

Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly, One of a Kind; Paper: Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Bermuda Bay; Ink: Bashful Blue, Bermuda Bay, Certainly Celery; Accessories: 1-3/4" circle punch, Boho blossoms punch, Sponge, Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon, Texture Plates Kit #4, Big Shot.

And we made a super cute Jelly Belly lollipop using the new Sweet Centers set from the Holiday mini catalog (available Sept 1). This is one of the projects we learned at Convention. This set, along with the Sweet Treat cups, are an easy and fun way to make some treat favors. The stamp set perfectly fits our 1-3/4" circle punch. The set includes birthday hot-air balloon, flower, Valentine's, Christmas ornament, and Halloween images. I hope to make a whole bunch more of these samples to display at the Fall Festival on Sept. 26.

Stamps: Sweet Centers; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Cast-a-Spell DSP (for back); Ink: Almost Amethyst; Accessories: Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Sweet treat cup, 1-3/4" circle punch, Juicy Pear Jelly Bellies, Lollipop stick, Lollipop bag with ribbon.

And this one is a great "Ways to Use It" challenge. I brought home some birch bark from our cabin about a year ago. No trees were hurt in the process; the bark came from a downed tree from a storm. Anyway, I peeled some layers off the bark and attached it to Whisper White cardstock using Mod Podge and some heavy books. Mod Podge dries slow, but works well in this case because it does not dry sticky. It makes a perfect background, with texture and interest, just calling to be touched. And doesn't it go great with this stamp set I borrowed from my mom??

Stamps: Backwoods, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper: Soft Suede, Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke; Ink: Soft Suede, Always Artichoke; Accessories: Sponge, Word window punch, Soft Suede grosgrain ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Cards and Build-a-Bear Paper Dolls

Several August birthday cards I have made...

This one is for my sister, Erica. It used a salted background image I made for a SCS VSN challenge. I added the crows... it kinda reminded me of my sister's witchcraft facination she had in her earlier years. Stamps: Branch Out, Graveyard Gala; Paper: Basic Black, Glossy White, Cast-a-Spell DSP; Ink: Basic Black, Creamy Caramel, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Black Stazon; Accessories: Aquapainter, Salt, Ribbon.

This is a CASE of a tea bag holder I saw at the SCS dinner at convention (by Liberty on SCS). This one really caught my eye when I saw it on the boards, so I had to recreate it. A secret surprise inside: I lined the inside with Very Vanilla CS and heat embossed the teapot image in the lower righthand corner. Stamps: Dream Gardens; Paper: Basic Black, Basic Gray, Nouveau Chic DSP; Ink: Versamark; Accessories: Ribbon, Black EP.

This one was an experiment, so I am super happy with how it turned out. This is for my friend Tina, who is kinda crazy about sunflowers. I actually stamped on white fabric I had lying in my closet. It looks great IRL. Hard to see, but I also sewed it to make sure that fabric wasn't going anywhere. Stamps: Serene Sunflower, En Francais; Paper: More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Patterned Paper by PSX; Ink: Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, Crushed Curry, More Mustard, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip marker; Accessories: Ribbon, Sponge, Spritzer Tool, Fabric, Sewing Machine and Thread.

And finally, I finished up the 'paper doll' bears we got a chance to try out at Convention. Are these guys cute? I really want to get my hands on some of these Build-a-Bear dies and go to town with creating!

Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Mini Swaps

I got some really great swaps back from the CQ (Convention quality) swap with GWTWJunkie Lyssa. I can't wait to show you on Tuesday! Meanwhile, while at Convention, another swap with the same group of ladies was born for the Holiday mini (with 'Peama' Donna as host). So, with my ridiculous addiction, I couldn't resist. My new stamps were arriving on Tuesday, I was home very early Thursday morning, and the swap needed to go out by Friday. Well, it is Monday, and they are finally done. I had to pause to do a grueling 40-mile mountain bike race in the extreme heat yesterday, but that's another story!

This stamp set is called Wandering Words. I love the Santa in the sky image - has always been my favorite from a child. My favorite book, which I could recite by heart, was 'Twas the Night before Christmas. I couldn't resist!

Some fabulous ladies were signed up for another group in the same swap, so I had to throw my name in that hat too! The Wandering Words stamp is used on the pull-out. I paired it with a Fall Branch Out tree to get the feel that leaves were blowing off the tree.

Here is a view of the pull-out.

All the details are on my SCS gallery. Thanks for looking!

Convention Make & Takes

I finally finished them today. First stamping I have done in 1.5 weeks. 20 hours of traveling yesterday, very tired, but I wanted to finish these as part of the unpacking process.

This uses the set Hello Again.

Same set Hello Again and Retro Mix wheel. Cute 3D box.

A cello bag topper with three 3x3" cards and envelopes. The set is Things I Love. I really like this set... hmmm... I am not into shoes, and I don't like shopping (except in the SU catalog!), so it must be the chocolate! It is a cute set! There is also a scrapbook page make & take, but I haven't finished it... need to get some photos printed.

Christmas tags with Sweet Season and Merry Moments Designer Series Paper.

Treat box with Sweet Season set, 3/4" Real Red polka-dot grosgrain ribbon, and precut, prescored treat boxes (pg. 159 of catalog). They are nice, heavy treat boxes, sort of like glossy cardboard.

My favorite stamp from the Make & Takes, Tree Trimmings. Really like that 3/4" polka grosgrain!

Another with the Sweet Season set, Merry Moments DSP, and Tree Trimmings ornament inside the card. The belly band slides off the card to open it up.

This is all I accomplished today. We had something like 2 hours to finish these at convention, but it took me all day! Thanks for stopping by!

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If you like what you see, please leave a comment, so I know you stopped by!

Pictures of Park City, Utah on my facebook page.

Convention Day Four

This is the last day of Convention. I am so sad it is ending!! It has been so much fun, and we have been sooooo busy! This morning we had a keynote speaker, Belinda Ellsworth. She gave a very entertaining talk, which is hard for more than 2 hours. We received great business tips and advice.

We were sitting front and center, so we got a close up picture of Shelli.

I took more pictures of the boards and samples at lunch, and then participated in the "Dreamy" 3D swap - got lots of more advanced 3D items back. Can't wait to show and tell! Post lunch was a couple more stamping demonstrations on the main stage, and then the finalists for the SU commerical contest. These were very entertaining. Now, I know you will not be surprised to hear that the winner was Linda Heller, from Where the Rubber Meets the Road blog. You will remember her husband in the "man card" video. She posted the video (actually Matt did) here.

Finally, they had a game show called Demo Duel, like the Family Feud, with demos answering questions about products and the catalog. It was fun!

SU announced a hostess special starting in September for workshops over $250, and they announced dates and locations for Leadership Conference and Convention next year.

So, let's bring on some pics of samples...

Here is a scrapbook page submitted by Understand Blue Lydia for the display boards.

A sample card using a new stamp set I preordered out of the Holiday mini.

And lots of samples of the Simple Adorned Charm and chain from the Holiday mini, to give you lots of examples of how the stamped and embellished images can be swapped out easily.


These first 3 pictures are samples that Shelli made.



And dinner with my 2 roomies (on the left) and my new friends through SCS. Well, that's a wrap. Time for some mountain biking tomorrow and a little R&R. Thanks for stopping by!

Convention Day Three

Well, I went to bed after the congo line last night at the Tonic Sol Fa concert. And this morning, before General Session, the demos were up in front of the large ballroom doing the Electric Slide. Such fun people! It's 8:00 in the morning, for crying out loud!!

A couple of exciting announcements from General Session today (for demos, at least). We were challenged as a "convention team" to recruit 1500 new demos by August 31 and receive My Digital Studio for 50% or recruit 3000 new demos and receive it for FREE!! Can you imagine the cheers this resulted in? Wow, that would be a great business tool! I would love to get my hands on one of these babies so you guys can play with it too. Since the starter kit is customizable, a great value already at 40% off the kit contents purchase price, and only $85 right now, what do you have to lose? So who wants to sign up?!?

The second announcement is to receive 10% off one of the new products in the Holiday mini, the Simply Adorned Charm and chain. This is a really cool locket that holds customizable stamped or jeweled images, and they can be swapped out as your mood fits. This discount is only for Convention attendees, which is one of the perks they use to entice us to come for this wonderful training. I am really having a great time here, so this is just a bonus for me! It is so cool to be part of this exclusive group of people who get to see all the sneak peeks, order new stamps first, swap, share business advice, and just to be part of all this excitement. Please join me - we'll have a great time!

Ok, so they are selling an exclusive Stampin' Up! Build-a-Bear at Memento Mall. I resisted on Day 2 when they unveiled it, but Hubby said, "Well, you can buy that for Janneke." Really? Should I? Is Hubby really suggesting I spend more money? Well, after touching and feeling the softness of my roomie's bear, I caved. Isn't she cute? Can't wait to give it to Janneke!

Here is a shot of the stamp sets and wheel we got in our Convention bag to use for our Make 'n Takes.

I didn't finish my Make 'n Takes yet, so I will have to wait to share.

And check out this shot...

This is the Gathering Place, where we have lunch. The area in the foreground is where they show us new product and we can try the Big Shot Build-a-Bear dies. But check out the far back right corner - that crowd of women - that's the swapping phenomenon. They show up out of nowhere, all at once, buzz around like a swarm of bees or should I even say piranhas, and then disappear just as fast as they showed up. It's amazing!

How about a few cool projects I saw today?

Swap card from Kimberly Van Diepen, a huge superstar demo and presenter at SU, that my roomie received.

And elegant scrapbook page using the Tree Trimmings stamp set.

Another elegant scrapbook page on the display boards using the Baroque Motifs stamp set.

And, since cutting alternate materials with the Big Shot is my new thing, here is a card shared with us by demo Ruth Bingle. It uses the Leaves #2 die to cut the new wood sheets, and then the edges were sponged. Doesn't that look cool?

That's it for all the day's craziness. Thanks for stopping by!

Convention Day Two

Well, not so many exciting pictures to share, because I was in class most of the day. But I will try to entertain...

We started off the day bright and early in General Session. Make sure you get your bagel and coffee before entering, because they keep you too busy to go find food later!

Here is what is looks like in General Session (this is before we started). When the Home Office staff demonstrate something, you can see it in good detail up on the big screens.

Today Brent Steele discussed the upcoming "My Digital Studio", taking us through the software. It is really cool because it uses SU's color palette, stamps, and punches! You can import, crop, and size pictures for scrapbooking, digitally embellish with all of SU's great stamps and products, and send it off to the printer to be delivered to your door (in a scrapbook, if you desire). This is all very attractive to me since my printer, well, sucks, and I hate running over to CVS to print photos. I find sizing photos to be the most time-consuming part of scrapbooking. But the hands-on feel of scrapbooking isn't there, so there are pros and cons.

Then Jill Kocherhans showed us some Build-a-Bear projects that were just stinking cute! My photos of the big screen weren't so good, but I got some afterwards of the display boards.

Here are a couple projects with the new stamp set from the upcoming Holiday mini.

Some gift sacks made with the Build-a-Bear Big Shot dies.

More Big Shot die projects...

Making cute canvas gift sacks (goodie bags, party favors?) using the Big Shot dies, fabric, and Heat 'n Bond (for ironing on).

And this project was the best. I don't know if I should even show you, because maybe we should do this project in class. Well.... ok...

Jill adhered adhesive magnetic sheets to DSP and ran them through the Big Shot. She created these cute bears that can be like 'paper dolls', with mix and match clothes. You see the little SU container on the bottom left of the picture - she adhered all the accessories in the container on the back of the cute magnetic frame. How fun! Now you want a Build-a-Bear workshop too, don't you?

So, I didn't show you yesterday the cute bag they gave us to carry around the humongus amount of stuff they give us. We also received 4 stamps sets and a wheel from the current catalog to use in our Make 'n Takes (which is tomorrow). I'll try to get a picture of them tomorrow with the projects. But here is the exciting part... after the Build-a-Bear presentation, which I am so excited about because I have so many great ideas, the prize patrol came around and I won the Designer Series Paper and 2 stamp sets!

Yay for me!! And you guys too cause you get to use them!!!

Ok, one more pic...

They had the awards ceremony tonight for all the fabulous demonstrators who sell a gazillon stamps, and towards the end of the program they have a group called Tonic Sol Fa, who everyone loves. They are acapella, and they had a congo line going around the room! They also wrote a couple songs just for Stampin' Up! It is pretty funny to hear them sing about a crop-o-dile. I should post a link here if I find them on YouTube.

Time for bed now. Thanks for stopping by!

Convention Day One and Convention Special

Hi Everyone! I am enjoying my first day at Convention in Salt Lake City. Things are very busy and tiring here, and I haven't stamped a thing!!

First off, here is the last swap - the 3D "Dreamy" swap - I was making up to the very last minute before leaving for Convention. These are cute little 'My Favorite Quote' books, using Nouveau Chic paper and Sense of Time stamp set. The clock face was done with the cracked glass technique.

My flight had a mechanical in Minneapolis, so I didn't arrive in SLC until 1:50am local time! A little difficulty with the shuttle at that hour, but I reached the hotel at 2:30am. My roomies were planning on getting up at 4am to stand in line for Memento Mall - not me! Well, turns out, no matter what time you get in line, you are bound to spend 4 hours waiting! Crazy. Here's a couple pics of that craziness!

What can you do while waiting in line for 4 hours? Well, swap of course! Since the line was taking so long, I was never going to make it to my swap drop-off in time, so I actually had to call the swap host and have her pick up the swaps from me (insert anxiety here, but it all turned out ok!). Thank God I got breakfast and coffee before getting into the line, but my stomach was already talking to me about lunch before I had got in to shop! Note to self: bring power bars for this strenuous exercise! Once I had made it through Memento Mall, I had to hurry and get lunch so I could make it back to the hotel by 3:15pm for the ride over to Riverton for the tour of the Stampin' Up! facilities.

This is the most beautiful office building I have ever seen! There is this waterfall atrium at the cafeteria level.

And this is the "Ideas Room"...

...complete with a conference room with whiteboard walls to jot down any crazy thoughts in your head.

This is the "pick line".

And the self-gratifying photo to make me feel like I am part of it all.

Look at the view these guys have!

So, back into SLC just in time for happy hour with my most favorite blogger EVER!! - Understand Blue Lydia!!! I got to meet her in person, and bonus, Linda Hansen stopped by too! For those of you who don't recognize her name, she is on many product videos and did many demonstrations at previous SU events. She is no longer with SU, so it is great to see her again!

Phew, just enough time to enjoy a drink with friends, and then off to the SplitCoastStampers dinner and swap. I came away with 50 great cards to share with you guys, a door prize, and wonderful memories. No pics though :(. I must have been getting tired!

Oh, and if you are still hanging with me (I almost forgot!), my Convention special - Place an online order through my demonstrator website and receive free shipping (10% of merchandise total), only through Saturday, August 8! I cannot reduce your order cost directly, so the free shipping will come in the form of a rebate.

So, off to bed, and General Session (where they usually make some announcement of things to come) and classes tomorrow. No stamping planned again tomorrow - this really is a vacation! Thanks for stopping by!