Swaps for team training

I've mentioned the team training day I attended on Saturday in a few previous posts. The first part of the day while everyone is arriving and finding a seat and getting a cuppa, is doing swaps. Everyone has to bring a card front or a project using current products. It can be a bit mad, trying to remember who has swapped with who, and I always manage to leave with a few extra that I didn't give away.

I used the set Watercolor Winter, which I had won in a raffle at the Christmas Stamp-a-stack. I used a Crumb Cake card blank, and stamped on the bottom right corner with Cherry Cobbler ink using the Curly Cute stamp set. A strip of Cherry Cobbler card stock was punched using the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border. The holly outline was stamped in Always Artichoke onto Very Vanilla around the edges, and then using the markers, Cherry Cobbler and Gumball Green, the image was coloured in and stamped on top of the outline. I did try to use the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the images, but this took too long, so I had to just use a steady hand to line it up. I like how it doesn't matter if its not exactly in line, and I like the scribbled effect the leaves give.

Everyone at the training day seemed to like them, and I've started to make a few more to add to my cards for sale box.

Clearly For You card

Hello,

As you can tell, I'm getting back into the swing of things with this blogging, and enjoying writing and sharing again.  Maybe I'll have to schedule in craft free weeks now and again so I can have a rest from it! I absolutely love it though (can you tell) but sometimes my brain gets a bit overloaded with ideas and plans etc etc that it gets a bit much.  Any of you other crafters out there ever feel like that?

Today I'm sharing a card with you that uses the Clearly For You stamp set.  I loved this set when it first came out, and my friend/customer (now downline) Kylie bought it, and I've had my eye on using it for a while.  We joked the other day about how we needed to live closer to each other to share each others craft stash, and when we're retired widows, we're going to share a granny flat with a Stampin' Up! craft room in the middle. Sounds great! Hahah!

This card is for a friend of mine, and I wanted to make something a little vintagey, and classy.  I used Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake for this card. I used the 1-1/4" (3.2cm) Square Punch to cut out the tiles, some of which were stamped first, and others stamped after.  That's one of the great things about using punches and stamps, you can line the punch up over the image to make sure it's lined up correctly, or cutting the exact area that is wanted.  I love all the stamps in the set, the birds, the butterflies and the ladybirds, it's hard to say which is my favourite.  I used the Sponge Daubers around the edge of the tiles with the Always Artichoke ink, to soften the edges.  Using one of the techniques I learnt at the recent Beautiful Bows class, I made a bow with the Very Vanilla satin ribbon, held together with a Antique Brad to the bottom of the card, adding an extra bit of glamour. 

I love this card, and I'll be recreating it again soon, and the beauty of it is that it can be done with many different stamp sets.  Watch this space!