NC Demo Swaps

Enjoy the swap cards from NC Demos Quarterly:

3x3 Quarterly Swaps

Marianne and I traveled to Raleigh this weekend for the NC Demos Quarterly Get-together.  It is so much fun to see old friends there and meet new ones.  I can't wait till our next one in September in Wilmington!  We did several swaps and although I told myself in advance I would only do one swap, I ended up doing all three - 3D swap, 3x3 card swap and full card swap.

Here are the 3x3 cards I received in the swap:  (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of my own swap!)

I think these make cute little gift enclosure cards.

Happy Birthday to my little sister, Marianne.  Today (Monday) is her birthday!  She is catching up with me!!

Marianne getting started with her stampin'!

This was the "voting" table.  We voted on the best "WOW" card and the card that was the most demonstratable.  Can you guess which ones won?

If you guessed the purple flower card for a WOW!, you are correct.  Isn't it gorgeous?!  It was made by Denise James.

My card was voted as the most demonstratable (is that a word?).  It was also my swap card.  Here it is close up:

I love the colors in this card.  I used the Flower Patch stamp set along with the Feels Good sentiment.  I masked the center of the card while I stamped the flowers and when I finished with that stamping, I removed the mask and stamped the sentiment.

Turn your Photos into Cards!

My upline, Carol, lives in Tacoma, Washington - close to where we used to live.  The scenery there is breath taking and I really miss it.  For her convention swaps, she incorporated her photos with her stamps.  I thought that was a unique idea.  It just goes to show, all your cards don't have to be stamped!  Here are the four that she gave to me.

Who knows .... you might see my cat, Sammie on a card one day!!

These are her daughter's cats.

This one really touched me.  This is Mount Rainier - a view I never tired of seeing.  We lived in Gig Harbor which was a peninsula and had to cross over the bridge to get to Tacoma and if the weather was cooperating, we had marvelous views of the mountain like in this picture.

I don't know where she took this picture but I love how she cut it into three pieces.  Don't you love the rusted truck amid all the beautiful flowers?

Framed Art Convention Swap and My Gift

At the Late Night Stamper's event, we did 3D shoebox swaps.  This is the swap I made for my shoebox.  I really enjoy making these framed art samplers.  I bought these little frames at Ikea for a couple of dollars and used all the new In Colors for the punch art.

The first night of Late Night, we exchanged gifts.  My gift came in this darling owl bag along with an owl card and owl candy bar wrap.  Isn't it darling??

And this is the beautiful piece that was inside the Owl Bag.  It is just lovely.  It is on a stained wooden piece that I am thinking may be an old background stamp piece of wood.  I love the pansies in two colors.  This was made by Kay Capps.

Convention Exhaustion!

 

I got back from Stampin' Up's Inspire, Create, and Share convention Saturday night .... or rather early Sunday morning.  Our plane got in around 11 but by the time we got home, it was after midnight. And almost 2 am before I was asleep.  I have unpacked my craft suitcase today (mind you - unpacked but not put away yet!)  I still need to unpack my clothes suitcase and do laundry,   Unfortunately, we had to leave convention a couple of hours early and missed one of the All Attendees give-aways.  Every day Stampin' Up gave us a freebie!  Plus there were several lucky people who got Prize Patrols .... but not Marianne or myself!  Oh well ... better luck next year!  

CONVENTION!!  Oh my word!  It was a crazy-busy-exhausting-fun-exhilarating week!  And one of the highlights of Convention was doing SWAPS .... lots of swaps! 

I won't be photographing all of them separately, but I will pick out a few to share with you over the next few days.  Here are a few funny ones that I got.

Here is the cover of the new STAMPIN' UP HOLIDAY CATALOG .... WHOO HOO!!  I actually have one of these in my hot little hands that they gave us at Convention.  I'm not allowed to share pictures of the content, but we can sure talk about it!  We were able to purchase a few items from the catalog on cash and carry basis.
First off - if you don't have a Big Shot yet, there is a super special coming for the month of August and you need to save your allowance and get one - because the holiday catalog has so many new Framelits in it, you are going to be cranking away! 

Next – we all need boxes for the holidays right? – can you say GIFT BOX PUNCH BOARD – WHOO HOO….. I bought one and will be using it this week!!

From cute, to elegant, to little towns, single stamps to use your Blendies on, stars (when you get that Big Shot Special, make sure you get the Stars bundle)…snowmen, Santas, and ENDLESS WISHES is in the catalog – so no “while supplies last” this time, although it might go on backorder because everyone wants it,  It was offered last year in December as a photopolymer set and is a great one!

Ok, back to the catalog, beautiful new designer paper, some very cool embellishments, a new Flipcard Framelit (snowflake shape!), new embossing folders, beautiful new ribbon and packaging is back…beautiful paper, all kinds of new boxes and bags, and stamp sets to create adorable tags…..

And the really good news – they took the layout of the catalog back to the old one, where the beautiful samples created by the Stampin Up Artists, are right beside the stamp sets!

Super Hero and Card Swaps

If you are into Super Heroes, do I have the stamp set for you!  This would make a lot of cute cards for your kids and grandkids!  This photopolymer set was just released yesterday.  If you have not tried Stampin' Up's photopolymer stamps, they are great and stick to your blocks so good!

A lot of possibilities!

Here are a few more of the card swaps to share with you:

Top one is by Kathy Hunt, Way to Go by Lisa Pressley and Work of Art by Sharon Measmer

Top is mine, Baby is by Frances Wagner and Sea Street by JoAnne Hewins

My Swap Cards

I recently participated in a New Catalog Card Swap and received some beautiful cards!  Here is the one that I made using the popular, Work of Art.

 I was so happy to see that the 7/8" Cotton Ribbon made back into the new catalog.  It is so easy to stamp on this ribbon.  The stamp sets I used were:  Gorgeous Grunge and Work of Art.  The frame comes from the On Film framelits.

To give you a few more ideas, here are a few of the swap cards.

The top card is Marianne's and the bottom belongs to Sandy Herman.

Three more swap cards - The top card is from Nancy; Wetlands is Patty's and the purple one is Allison's.

Swap Cards

I have a few more swap cards that I got at Allison's Monday night.

Nancy's Card

 This card uses the Banners Framelits and the Word Bubble bundle - framelit and stamp.  I love the Word Bubbles!!  I love the colors Nancy used for this card - so bright and cheery.

Allison's Card

Allison used a technique that I haven't tried yet.  The lattice on the side of the card is used with the Chevron Border Punch.  I have seen some videos with this technique but just haven't gotten around to doing it yet.  You punch 2 strips with the Chevron Punch and then weave them together.  I'll do it soon and take pictures - I promise!

Kathryn's Card

I am also in love with the Happy Watercolor stamp and DSP!!  There's so much you can do.  This card uses that great "blob" from the watercolor stamp set.  The flowers are punched with the Petite Petals Punch.  There are a few sequins (from Occasions catalog) and the Watercolor washi tape!  Love it!

So most of the cards are spring like.  Are you ready for spring?  I know I am!  We had another cold front move in yesterday and the high today was about 45.  It was almost 80 degrees on Tuesday!!!

My eye has been doing good the past two days.  I need my readers (from Michaels for $3!) to see close up.  But now I have another problem.  I discovered blood in my urine Wednesday night.  So I went to my doctor today and gave a speciman.  They went ahead and put me on an antibiotic until they can get the results back from the lab which probably won't be until Monday.  Grrr!!  I don't feel bad which is a good thing.  Thing good thoughts for me.

Swap Cards

Marianne and I have been busy making plans for the NC Quarterly.  It's going to be a good one!  If you live in NC, you might want to join us - just saying!  It's April 4 & 5 and only $20.  So if you are interested, let me know.

Monday I went to Allison's demo meeting.  Allison had some really cute projects for us to do and surprised us all with a really cute frame that she had made for us using her Silhouette Cameo.  I'll share pictures later this week.  We did a small card swap.

This is the card I made:

I used a lot of the products from the Occasions catalog - On Film Framelits, Fancy Foil Designer Vellum (with hearts), Foil Sheets, and Word Bubblets Bundle.  The vellum is on top of a piece of Afternoon Picnic DSP (purple checks).  I added a few red glimmer hearts punched with the Owl Builder Punch.

Here is the card Marianne made:

Isn't it pretty?   I can't help but laught when I think of when I moved here and Marianne told me she was a quilter.  She wasn't going to get involved with my stamping hobby - had no interest!  And here we are several years later and she is a demonstrator!!!

I have to be an the hospital in the morning at 7:45 a.m. for the cataract surgery on my right eye.  Soon I will have both eyes working together and hopefull be able to ditch my glasses.

Wetlands

 Hope you had a good weekend!  I did.  We finally had a weekend with NO rain!!  Sonny and I went to Hickory on Saturday.  He was looking for ammo at a good price and I was just looking!  He dropped me at the mall where I bought a new pair of shoes (that I don't need but they were on sale and really cute!) and then over to AC Moore where I bought some canvases to try my hand at some mixed media Halloween pictures.  On Sunday, I met Angela and Mom for brunch after church and brought Mom back home with me.  We went out on the boat for the afternoon.  We found a nice shady area on one of the small islands on the lake and beached the pontoon.  That way Mom could get in the water easily.  It was really enjoyable.  After lounging around, we boated over to a restaurant on the lake and had dinner before heading home.  When we got home, Mom took a bath in my tub.  She loves my garden tub with the jets beating on her!

It's funny how you can look at a stamp set in the catalog and think to yourself, what would I do with that set?  That's the way I felt about the set, Wetlands (pg 69).  Well, after convention, I have a new found respect for the set! 

I received several swaps using this set that I just loved.  And after further evaluation, I have decided that this would make a good masculine card.  Like many others, I struggle with making masculine cards.  So .... this set may just be finding a home in my craft room in the near future!

Here are a few of the swaps that I received with this stamp set:

Lollipop Swaps

This is one of my favorite cards at the shoebox swap at Allison's a few weeks ago. I ended up CASEing it and making several to take to convention for swaps.  Just punch 1" circles from Polka Dot DSP and arrange in a circle.  Glue together and add a circle in the center with a pearl.  I colored the white pearls in various colors.  I bought the lollipop sticks at a big box craft store and tied a piece of ribbon around it.  Easy Peasy!!

I am all packed.  Got all my swaps done.  My suitcase is UNDER 50 lbs!!  And I am waiting for Marianne!  We have a 6:30 flight from Greensboro (about 1 1/2 hours from here) to Atlanta.  Then we have a 2 hour layover in Atlanta before boarding a plane to Salt Lake City.  We arrive in SLC at midnight .... 2:00 AM our time (EST).  Marianne will have been up almost 24 hours by that time.  I'm sure by the time we retrieve our luggage, find our shuttle and get to the hotel and checked in, she will be a zombie!  She's not used to late hours so I am going to have to work on her this week.  Luckily Wednesday is a "do nothing" day for us.  We are going to take in the sights of Salt Lake before meeting our NC demos for dinner.  I will do my best on blogging this week but my laptop was not cooperating with me last night so we'll see!

Ice Cream??

I'm making progress with my swaps for convention!  Finished up a few more this morning before heading over to the Soup Kitchen to do a little volunteer work.  Marianne and I met up later for dinner.  I don't think we've seen each other in about a month!  It was funny.  I stopped off at Belk's to browse while waiting for her to get off work and get her hair cut.  She called me right after I got to Belk's and asked me where I was.  When I told her, she said, "no way - where are you?"  Turns out she was in Belk's too - right across the aisle from me.  The sales girl got a big kick out of it - she could hear both sides of our conversation!  After she got her hair cut, we went to Chili's for dinner - one of favorite places.  

This is one of the cards I have made for a convention swap.  I saw a card similar to this somewhere on the internet and made my own version of it.  Doesn't it look like a yummy ice cream cone?  It was so easy to make - I used my scallop circle punch for the three "flavors" and cut the come free-hand and embossed it.   Then I used the ticket punch to punch out a few tags.

Backyard Basics Swaps

As you probably know, Stampin' Up is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year.  Each month they are featuring a "best of" stamp set.  We' ve had flowers, hearts, and now Shelli's favorites.  Who better to pick a “Best of” stamp set than the person who helped start Stampin’ Up! out of her garage 25 years ago? Shelli Gardner, our CEO and co- founder picked her favorite stamp images from the past 25 years and helped combine them into a single set just for you. 

Best of Shelli Clear-mount Stamp Set #133488 $14.95

Even better, this set includes a never-before-seen flourish image, and the flower image coordinates perfectly with the 3/4” Circle Punch.

Shelli has some samples on her blog of projects she created with this Best Of Set.  Check them out HERE and HERE.

I got a few more swaps done today.  I think I have about 60 now not counting the 40 for the "January" organized swap and the 15 cards for the NC Demo dinner and swap.  So I'll be coming home with a bunch of new ideas! 

This one is my favorite though!  I think this is called the stained glass technique.  Whatever ... I love it!  I think we will be doing this at club this month too.  I stamped the butterfly from Backyard Basics in white on vellum paper and embossed it.  After cutting the butterflies out with the matching framelits, I used my markers to color the back of the embossed butterflies.  I did a few of these cards using one of the flowers from Secret Garden too but I like the butterflies the best.