Stamp club project

I know, I know, where have I been?! Not stamping much, sadly. I did go to my first stamp show a couple of weeks ago up in Columbia. It was fantastic!! I hope I can get to another one sometime this year. Pretty much all of our stamp club -- the Stamp Mafia -- made the trip and we had a blast. Loved watching all the demos by Stampers Anonymous, Inky Antics and so on. I could have stayed all day. Just doing our part to help stimulate the economy, y'know. Heh.

Speaking of the mafia girls, we had our monthly stamp club meeting on Thursday night and it was my turn to host. This was one of the projects we made. I had seen the idea for a hinged card in the SU demo magazine, but these aren't SU stamps that I used. The sentiment is by PSX and the focal image is by Elzybells. I colored in the image with the aquapainter and ink pads for my card here, but markers or chalks and a blender pen would have worked just as well.

I know Easter is still over a month away, but we are definitely having spring-like weather here lately. Sunny and 72, anyone? Yeah, Charleston weather rocks this time of year!

Supplies:

Stamps: sentiment (PSX), Easter chick (Elzybells)

Ink: Staz-On Timber Brown (Tsukineko), Regal Rose, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie, Sahara Sand classic pads (all SU)

Paper: Kraft, Whisper White, Regal Rose, textured So Saffron, textured Certainly Celery (all SU)

Accessories: 1/16" circle punch (Fiskars), aquapainter, Soft Subtles brads, Regal Rose wide grosgrain ribbon, scallop edge punch (all SU)

Butterfly Box

Here is the butterfly box I mentioned winning as a door prize at stamp club a couple of weeks ago (there was a Target gift card inside --woohoo!) I still don't think the photos do it justice, but you can see the oh-so-pretty turquoise glittery butterfly and the beautiful embossed stamping on the box. (Click on the photos for larger views.) It was made by my friend Judi, who is always creating gorgeous items for us to ooh and ahh over. She can also do marvelous things with clay. And then there's the beautiful jewelry she makes... Yes, we'd all like to be Judi when (if?) we grow up! :)

I have discovered that the CTMH order I've been waiting on was actually given to my 8-year-old on Monday at school (the girl I order from is a teacher at his school) and he doesn't know where it is. He only vaguely remembers something being on his desk one day, but no one told him what it was so he didn't really give it much thought. This is very, very bad. It's a $72 order, and I fear it has since been accidentally taken by someone else or -- worse yet -- tossed out! Hopefully they can find it in his classroom on Monday, because it's definitely NOT in this house. One of the stamp sets was the adorable July Stamp of the Month Life's A Jungle set, so I can't even order that one again -- if it's gone, it's GONE.

And speaking of MIA packages -- my PaperTrey order was shipped by USPS on Tuesday. It's now Saturday, and the post office has yet to bring it to my door. Stamp deprivation is NOT a pretty thing, people!

I've got three birthday cards to make this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some of those to show next time. One will have to be a Bella card, since she's definitely a Bella kind of girl. I'm thinking maybe the new Eastern Blooms set by Stampin Up for my MIL's card. And my sister-in-law loves turtles like I do, so I'll have to see what I can do there. I finally cleaned off my stamp table the other night, so at least I have a place to work on them. Now I just need to find the time!

SCS Swap

I participated in a swap on Splitcoast last month. There was no theme. You just had to use current SU stamps. This is the cardfront I made. It uses the new Fall Flair and Happiness Always hostess sets, as well as my favorite of the new In Colors -- Baja Breeze. It was a 25 card swap and I received my box o' cards in yesterday's mail, so all the work of making 27 card fronts (one for the hostess and one for me to keep since we weren't getting one of our own cards back) is now worth it to have so many new samples and ideas. Anway, I went through so many different options with what to do next to the sentiment while I was designing the card. When I decided to use the flower punch, I considered brads, but the rhinestone brads looked too heavy and I didn't want to introduce any other colors to the card. And then the answer seemed so simple -- just use the small circle punch. Perfect. I love it when a card comes together! There was an incident with the Scotch Quick-Dry adhesive I had originally planned to use to adhere the small circles to the flowers. It was clogged, and, uh, well, let's just say I do NOT recommend squeezing the bottle as hard as you can while it is hovering directly over your otherwise completed card. Yeah. So I actually had to make 28 of them!

Last night was my monthly stamp club meeting. A group of us get together one night every month and have so much fun. Food, wine, friends, laughter and stamps. Who could ask for anything more? And last night there was even dancing, since it was the finale of So You Think You Can Dance! We made a star-shaped gift box as our project and filled them with Starbursts, of course, since the box was shaped like a star! (mine is already half-empty -- or is it half-full? -- but I can blame it all on the kids and no one will ever know! Heh.) I also won a door prize that came in the most GORGEOUS stamped box, made by my friend Judi. I'll post a few pics in a couple of days. I'm trying to get some shots that will truly show off just how pretty it is.

Supplies:

Stamp sets: SU Fall Flair, Happiness Always

Ink: SU Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette

Paper: SU Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla

Accessories: SU Boho Blossoms punch, SU 1/4" circle punch, mini glue dots (a much less messy way to adhere the small circles to the flowers), Stampin' Dimensionals