CHRISTMAS CARD FROM CONVENTION

This was a Christmas card from Convention. It is actually one of my favorites. I've not particularly been a fan of glitter, but love the way it is used on this card as a border between the red and green. What you can't see from this picture is that the green back layer is just a background, not the main card. This is a top fold card the fold being on the white. If you look to the bottom of the card you would open it by lifting up the white layer that has the torn edge inked in green. Another thing I like on this card is the use of the tag "Mix & Mingle & Be Merry!" as the sentiment. Also notice how the layered design was offset to the left rather than centered. This adds an additional element of interest because most people would have centered it.

I wish I could take credit for designing this card but I can't it was designed by Tricia D of WA.

PREPARATION FOR WORLD CARD MAKING DAY

October 6 is WORLD CARD MAKING DAY. In celebration of this event my SU upline and I are holding a card making workshop. Our goal is to have those attending make 16 cards, 15 of our designs and 1 of their own, in 2 hours! This would be almost an impossible task except that the cards will all be made using card stock, papers and card stock stickers from the Winter Bright Simply Scrapin' kit from Stampin' Up. This means there is very little stamping to be done and even less embellishment though they will get to use some ribbon and brads, will use a few punches, and will do a little embossing.

Here are three of the 15 card fronts that we designed last night. They are all based on samples we saw at convention this year. But we made a few changes or additions to each of the cards. These cards are all 3x6 inches. That way each person can get 4 cards out of each piece of their 12x12 inch card stock. Besides the two colors shown here they will get a sheet of Real Red and Bashful Blue. These are Pretty in Pink and Wild Wasabi.

I have absolutely fallen in love with SU's new texturized card stock. It is wonderful and very nice looking. The only complaint I have about it is that it is harder to stamp on because of the texture to it. I am hoping with practice it gets a little easier.

To see some more samples for the class you can check out my Splitcoast Gallery and my Demonstrator Web Site.

COUNTY FAIR PLAYING!

I've been trying to learn PhotoShop Elements for some time now and knew that I could make photo layouts for scrapbook pages. This was my first attempt. Not very exciting, but I think I have finally figured out layers and how to combine photos and backgrounds.

Last week was our county fair and as usual I spent quite a few hours there judging and volunteering for 4-H. One night Jerry and I decided that we really needed to at least walk through the carnival area. Not our favorite place, but there are lots of bright lights and there always is a lot of action. Other than the rides I think the most popular thing to do on the midway is eat. Every type of unhealthy but yummy food exists there. Rather than eat it I took pictures of all the different food stands. These are only a few of them. Taken all together you would get one major case of heartburn AND empty wallet I'm sure! We just enjoyed the lights, sights and sounds. This is definitely the low cal was to enjoy these taste treats!

What would have been my favorite had I eaten something---funnel cakes of course!

THE THIRD QUILT TO SHOW!

This quilt I call "A Gallery of Friends". It is the one which will be hanging at the Quilter's Heritage Celebration in Lancaster, PA next spring. I can hardly believe that I have another one that will be out for all to see. This quilt was also a product of a group challenge. Unlike the other two however this one was a challenge of the mini group I am in. Ten of us in the group made a portrait of ourselves out of fabric for each of the others. It could be as realistic or as whimsical as you choose to make it. There were some of each as you can see. It was to be how you thought of yourself. Can you find me? This quilt actually has one of the two ways I portrayed myself.

After receiving each persons face block we could set it into a quilt however we wanted. I choose to turn my friends portraits into a gallery setting over a fireplace mantle, complete with a wall papered background. This turned into a rather large wall quilt its 38" x 63" .

Have you found me yet? I'm in the upper left corner. This was my wild and crazy portrait. The way I picture myself in my dreams. My other portrait was much more matronly. The way I see myself in my nightmares!

This quilt will be on display at the Pennsylvania Quilt Expo in a few weeks. I made it for a guild challenge in 2006. The challenge was to take five pieces of Jane Sassaman's fabric and turn it into something. They were very challenging fabrics to work with. Looking at the quilt they are the fabric the basket is made out of, the background fabric, the birds were cut out of the fourth fabric and the flowers and greenery out of the fifth. The flowers and greenery are actually 3-D and padded. There is beading as well in the centers of the flowers. The piece was all done on the sewing machine except for the beading. That I did by hand.

I am very excited about this quilt being at a national show and look forward to going to Harrisburg, PA to visit it. I hope others enjoy viewing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

There will be others from this same challenge hanging with it in a special display that focuses on group challenges. This is the second quilt I've had in a national show. Last year there was one hung in Nashville at the AQS show. AND......I've just learned that another quilt of mine will be hanging in a show next spring! Wow, three years in a row and all tree quilts were made in 2006. That must have been a very good year for me. This year on the other hand....NOTHING has come out of the sewing room that has been particularly creative.

New Technique For Me

This is a card that I made for my Father-in-laws birthday. I CASED the idea from SCS stamper "gadget19". I love the Natural Beauty stamp set and was very sad when SU decided to retire it. I can't demo it anymore, but I can still use it. In creating this card I tried a technique that I had read about on SCS and have wanted to try. It is a Tile technique. I really like it. What I did was create a 3x4.5inch collage background. I used stampin' spots in a direct to paper technique and then stamped the dogwood and butterfly stamp from Natural Beauty. Then I cut the piece into 1.5 inch squares. This is where the fun begins. "smushed" each square image side down onto a versamark pad making sure it was well inked, then covered it with clear embossing powder, and heated. This gave the paper squares a ceramic look to them. "Gadget19" on her card placed the squares on the dark background in a random order. For mine I kept everything the way it was originally stamped. The spaces between the squares are about 1/8".

I really like this technique. Not only does it look like a piece of ceramic tile, but I think it could be done in a way that it would look like stained glass. I hope to use it again on another card.

Fun Evening Playing With New Techniques!

My first card since returning from convention. It was a fun one to make. I used some of the techniques that I learned more about there. I should clarify that I already knew of the ones I used here I was just nervous about trying them. But I decided they made it sound and look so easy I'd just jump right in. First the whole of the stamped images are on water color paper and use the watercolor technique of spritzing the stamp with a fine mist of water after inking it up. That I have done before and really like the look, but you do need to use water color paper for it to work correctly. I've tried regular card stock and do not like the looks as much. Then new for me techniques I used are on the sunflower and it's center. For the sunflower I first inked up the stamp in summer sun and then went over the inside portion of the petals with the pumpkin pie marker using the brush end. Then spritzed and stamped. The center of the flower I first inked the stamp with creamy carmel ink and then lightly tapped it on really rust pad. I really liked the look I got doing both or these and am trusting that I have not hurt either my pads or markers since I went from lighter ink to darker. I also did use some stickles glitter in the center of the flower to give a little extra kick.

One thing I learned from this card is that I really don't like plain backgrounds on everything. When I first laid out the card I had nothing on the green layer. It just looked blah to me so I decided to add some background that would surround the watercolor paper. I took the stamp used for the center of the flower and using a slightly darker green than the card stock I stamped around the edge. I had to be careful not to go off the edge since I had already taped the green to the gold, but this was a good thing as I like the look of scallops I ended up with. All in all I am very happy with this card.

I also played around with dyeing flowers from the pretties set and coloring and embossing both the flat pearls from the same set as well as embossing the large pop up glue dots. I don't have them on cards yet though and this post is getting long so I will explain about them in another entry when I have them on cards or at least have scanned pictures of the pieces to show with explaination. Let me just tantelize you with ....it was fun!

Here I am at convention with some of my new friends. Next to me (I'm in the turquoises) is Denise from CA. We simply met her while walking to the convention center one morning. Had a nice chat along the way. It was her first convention also. Next to Denise are Roxanne and Vernell. They were my two roomies for the week. We were in a very small room, but managed just fine. We didn't really spend too much time in the room. Too much other stuff to do.

One workshop we took was on knowing all about the products we sell. The presenter focused on the Many Marvelous Marker sets. She said in preparing for the workshop she set out to find out everything about the markers sold by SU that she could. If you want the whole set they are quite expensive and she wanted to be able to convince people that these weren't items you would just purchase and let sit on the shelf. She came up with 20 different ways they could be used. They were quite amazing and ranged from simply using them to color in stamped images to using them to put high-lites in your hair! Yes you read that correctly. She used them to put red high-lites into her daughters hair. She said it worked great and washed out with no problem at all. Now that's what I call getting creative. I hope I can find a list either on SU demo site or Splitcoast as to what all the 20 uses were. I'd really like to do a class showing all those techniques.

CONVENTION IDEAS!

Here are only four of the hundreds of sample projects I saw at convention. Two are cards. The other two items are gift ideas. 3-D items and all sorts of embellishments are really HOT!

There are so many new ideas and techniques that I want to try. I have several of the lunch box tins and really like this recipe box. What a cute gift item for Holiday or Birthday giving. The little calendar and note pad set uses bar coasters. How cool is that!!!! I can't wait till I have time to spend in my stamping room. First however I'm thinking I have lots of cleaning to do!

CONVENTION IS OVER

Convention was such fun! I really enjoyed myself and as you can see everyone was wanting to get in to the Convention Center! It was the place to be in Denver that week.

I met so many wonderful people, learned lots of new and exciting stamping techniques and made many cards. The swaps were amazing and I have so many new ideas for projects I barely know where to begin.

The thing I am most excited about however is that I came back really wanting to grow my business as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Stamping is such fun and it can be used for so much more than just making greeting cards. I love to teach and look forward to setting up classes to do just that. I need to head to work now but please check back as this evening I plan to post some of the wonderful projects from convention and tell you a bitg more about it.