Final Swap Card

This is what I ended up with for the design for my swap card. Though I really like the original using the "kiss" technique on the U stamp it was going to be much to time consuming for this swap as I needed to clean off the U between each use and I had 50 of the card fronts to make. I still embossed the U with clear embossing powder over the Old Olive craft ink and cut them out. This took long enough. The U is raised to give added dimension. I have two 3-D swap sets to make and one set of card fronts that focus on the Heated Pearls technique. When they are done I will post them here as well. I probably won't work on them for a while though as I am waiting for some of my items from the preview catalog which I won't receive for two weeks or so and then we will be busily getting ready for vacation.

Artist Trading Cards

I have discovered a new love; ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). They are small cards. That are not made to be sold, but only traded. By definition they must be 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. They are fun and very addicting to make. These are the first three designs that I came up with to be swapped in Denver at the SU convention. Because they are small in size they do not use as much raw material also they are relatively quick to make. Also it is easy to try out a new technique because the technique itself becomes the card.

The first ATC here used the Serene Sunflower stamp set, one of the few sets that I own that SU is NOT retiring. I stamped the sunflower on Natural White card stock and then layered a piece of vellum over it on which I stamped the sentiment. I really like the muted effect this gives the sunflower. Also I created the center of the sunflower by stamping it three times with three different colored inks.

My goal on the second card was to create something very glitzy and play with Dazzling Diamonds, a glitter type product from SU. First I stamped the word "happy" using elegant eggplant ink. Then I covered the entire front of that card with versamark ink, poured dazzling diamonds powder on it and then heat set the top. This made the "happy" sentiment quite faint so I went over it with a elegant eggplant marker. The flower from Heartfelt Thanks was stamped on Natural White card stock and is raised using stampin' dimensionals. I used markers to color the flower stamp not ink pads.

Finally, my third card was purely for fun. "Ahoy, Matey" and it's corresponding jumbo wheel is another of my sets that is not retiring. (So is "Heartfelt Thanks" used above). I think this is a cute set, but is pretty child oreinted and so I tried to come up with an idea using it that was more adult oriented. So I used the treasure chest and the words "celebrate and hope" to indicate that hope is important and the hope is in what might be found in the treasure chest. The treasure map at the top of the card is from the wheel. I made 20 of these cards to swap and the challenge was to get the same part of the wheel at the top of each. With care it can be done. I simply colored it in with markers and the sand under the chest was done using a sponge and ink pad. The chest is raised.

One thing I learned making these cards is that they look much better with some dimension and/or embellishment. Simply stamping them makes them rather boring.

Here is another card I am working on. It is a mock up of a design I am thinking of using for one of my convention swaps. The "Thinking About U" set has been around for a while with SU, but they retired so many sets it's one of the few I have that I can use for swaps. I'm not sure about the blue behind the U. I may change that to more Bravo Burgundy CS. What do you think. I'm not sure about the "kiss" technique I used on the U either. It is done with Old Olive craft ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. It's very time consuming doing the "kissing"! I think I will try it just using the U stamp and still embossing to see what it looks like.

A Card Going Around the US

This looks like a very simple and sparse card, but that is the purpose of it. This is my base card for and "Around the World" challenge. (Actually the card will only go about 7 or 8 places around the US, but we're not getting picky with the name.) At each stop along the way an embellishment will be added. Finally it will be returned to me and we will see what we get. This should be fun!

Denver Here I Come!

The stress of waiting for SU convention sign up and the aggravation of fighting my way through the computerized registration process are over and I'm going to my first SU Convention. I am so excited I can barely stand it. 4 days of time spent with other people who love stamping. I can't wait. I have very few friends here that I can share this passion with. My sharing is pretty much all done over the internet, which is fun, but I do wish I had people around me to have fun with too. At convention I will! So now I get to work on swaps and plan my yard sale to raise money for the trip. I have till July 24 to dream about it and what I hope to learn and who I hope to meet. (names from SCS will have faces!) It's interesting that the theme for Convention this year is "Dream With Us" As I get some swaps done I will post them here. I just had to share my excitement.

Its Fixed!

All is happy and the page posted below is now in my SCS Gallery. Seems it was a file name glitch causing it to get kicked out. So the recommendation was to simply change the name and voila it stuck. I haven't had time to do any crafting this week yet. Hopefully some time will become available tomorrow. I need to begin work on some quilted items for the Strawberry Festival at the Sandy Spring Museum. They have a lovely gift shop there where I have some items. The Strawberry Festival is a big event and draws a lot of people and so they are asking for more items for the shop.

I Don't Understand

Here is the controversial scrapbook layout that SCS for some reason doesn't want in their gallery. The moderators approve it and then for some reason they remove it. It's happened twice now. I have no clue why. If anyone views this and has any idea what might be objectionable about it PLEASE post a comment and let me know. I don't want to offend, but can't avoid it if I am clueless as to what I am doing wrong.

This page is from the scrapbook on our families Christmas Cruise in 2005. One of our port stops was in Ohco Rios, Jamaica. And while there my mother, Sister-in-law and I toured the Wassi Art Studio. These are pictures from there and a few of their artists at work. If you ever get to Jamaica I highly recommend visiting the studio and its attached store. The pottery is beautiful.

National Scrapbooking Day!

Today is National Scrapbooking Day in the US. In honor of that day I have taken part in an Internet Day of scrapbooking through Splitcoast Stampers. My flybaby group there. I have uploaded most of the pages I have done today there, but have a few extras that I did that are not part of that challenge a nd so I will show them here. These are pages that are going into the album that I am making about our family Christmas Cruise to the Caribbean in December 2005. Yes I know that I am slow, but I am getting it completed. IT was a 5 day cruise and I am up to day four. I am really enjoying working on this album as it is bring back a lot of fun memories. I really wish we could do this together as a family again, but am afraid it was probably it was a one time event. Unless I want to go back to work full time and make a big salary to pay for it. But if I did that I probably would be so stressed and depressed that I wouldn't want to do it anyway, so I guess for themoment I will be happy scrapping and remembering.

The LIST!

Well the long awaited list of retiring stamp sets is out. It in nice that Stampin'Up gives us lists sorted by item number and by name alphabetically. Check them out Retired List.
Its a long in fact a very long list. Right now I am glad most of my stamping income is made from sales of cards and gift items and not from workshop sales. After checking the list against my list of stamp sets I only have 16 active sets left! OUCH, that hurts. Fortunately I can still use all my sets to make items to sell. I am also thinking of holding a stamping retirement sale or yard sale to sell some of the sets I don't use to make things. We'll see.