Shoe Box Swap Card

Evening all

I hope you're having a nice weekend.  It looked nice and sunny today as I was driving to and from the Shoe Box Swap crafting day I attended with a group of demonstrators from Julie's Jems.  It was a bit of a struggle to be honest, I've got terrible dizziness (some would say that's no different to normal!) following a trip to Bruges last week on the ferry.  I've never been on a long ferry journey before, and wasn't sure what to expect, luckily I felt fine whilst I was on board, it was after I got back onto land that the swaying continued.  I've got some tablets from the doctors now, so I hope it won't go on much longer!I think out of the 11 projects I made today, I completed only one or two fully, and I made a couple of daft mistakes on the other projects, but I think I did well considering.

Just in case you're wondering what a Shoe Box Swap Day is, and you haven't seen my previous blog posts about the day we had last year, it's where each attendee brings along a project prepped for everyone else to make.  Each project should take about 30 minutes to complete, and it's such a great way of learning new techniques or trying out different products that we might not have bought ourselves yet.  Today, there were some gorgeous projects, and everyone went to so much effort before today making sure that they were prepared.

Here's the card that I designed and brought along for the ladies to make today.  It's the same design as I used in my card class on Tuesday, just with a different stamp set and different papers.  The theme was to use products from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and since I've not gone too mad with buying products from it yet, I was limited to this stamp set.  For once, I've not bought everything I possibly can (or can't!) afford.  I made a tri fold shutter card, with Crumb Cake card stock as the card blank.  The papers are from the In Colours 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack, in Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals and Midnight Muse.  These papers stacks are great value, for just £19.50 you get 40 sheets of 12"x12" papers, and they come in all the colour families and In Colours.  I'm still getting through the Subtles pack that I got when I first signed as a demonstrator two years ago.

I used the Collage Curios stamp set for this card.  It's one of the sets I really liked from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and co-ordinates with the Bottle Tops.  The images were stamped in Summer Starfruit, Baja Breeze and Primrose Petals, and were punched out using the Petite Curly Label Punch which is one of the Sale-A-Bration items this year.  These were then daubed around the edges with Crumb Cake Ink.

This is a close up of the Baja Breeze panel, which has been embossed using the Big Shot and the Honeycomb embossing folder, another product from the Spring/Summer Catalogue.

This is a view of the card from the top.  You can see how each fold alternates to make a zig zag effect.  I've not taken a picture of it flat, but it folds together so it would fit inside a normal A6 envelope, for easy posting.

I hope you like this card, and if you were one of the lucky ladies that attended the class today and happen to be reading this, please leave me a message to let me know what you thought of it.  If you'd like the tutorial, please also leave me a message or drop me an email at mycardsandcrafts@hotmail.co.uk 

As I spot the other ladies projects appearing on their blogs, I'll be sharing the projects that I made today.  If you like them, why don't you drop onto their blogs too to take a look at their other creations.

1. Papers / Card Stock - Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze, In Colour 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack
2. Stamp Sets - Collage Curios
3. Tools - Petite Curly Label Punch, Sponge Daubers, Paper Trimmer
4. Embellishments - Dimensionals
5. Inks/Markers - Baja Breeze, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit

Shoe Box Swap - Kindness Matters

This is a post with a product from
the new Annual Catalogue. Excited? I am! This was one of the cards that we made at the Shoe Box swap class that I have mentioned before. This card was designed by Jane Bisby.

The colour combo for this card is Rich Razzleberry, Regal Rose, Crumb Cake with Very Vanilla. The stamp set is from the new Annual Catalogue and is called Kindness Matters. The butterflies were stamped three times and coloured with the marker pens. The middle butterfly on the bottom row has another one stamped and cut out and placed on top to add a bit of dimension. The Crumb Cake card stock was embossed using the Big Shot and the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder. The Regal Rose card stock was punched with the Scallop Trim border punch, and a piece of Scallop Dots Ribbon in Old Olive was tied around the centre of the layers in the middle.

The inside of the card was decorated too, I really like this idea and it adds an extra level of detail and makes it a little more special.

Shoe Box Swap - Twitterpated Crackers

This is my last blog post about the Shoe Box swap event. I really enjoyed the day, and am looking forward to the next one.

This post is to share with you the project that was designed by my downline and friend Kylie. She's always coming up with great ideas, I don't know where she finds them! If you fancy taking a look at her blog, click here. These are crackers made with the Twitterpated papers, with the label from the Tea Shoppe stamp set.

The crackers were made by cutting slits in a rectangular piece of paper, which was the rolled into a cylinder and stuck with the sticky strip. Bakers Twine was tied tightly around the ends, and a chocolate sweet, a message and the snap was placed inside. Seam binding ribbon in Cherry Cobbler and Baja Breeze was tied around the ends to hide the Bakers Twine.

I love making or receiving swaps with sweets inside, but these are safe, as don't want to ruin them. They can be my real emergency chocolate stash when I really need it!!

 

 

 

 

Shoe Box Swap - Easel card

Here's another card from the Shoe Box Swap day, and it was the last one I made on the day. There were two long tables and each side of the room swapped with people on their table. There were a whole range of other projects and cards on the other table that I didn't get to make. At the end, we all had a spare, as someone couldn't make it, so we did a lucky dip to swap. I got this project, designed by Kate Martin (check out her blog here).  It's an easel style card, and the colour combo is Basic Gray, Whisper White and Pretty In Pink. Two scallop squares were cut with the Big Shot, and the Scallop Square Bigz Clear die. The Pretty In Pink layer was scored with the diagonal plate on the Simply Scored board. The flowers were stamped from the set Everything Eleanor, and had Glass Stampin' Glitter sprinkled into glue in the middle. I'd not used this glitter before, so it was nice to see what it was like. The leaves were punched out with the Bird Builder Punch, I like using a product to make something different to what it is obviously designed for, in this case, bird wings. The Small Oval punch cut out the border for the Hello sentiment from Tiny Tags, which was cut with the Word Window Punch.

The inside of the card was decorate with a square of Pretty In Pink, and a strip of Basic Gray was punched with the Scallop Trim Border Punch. A bow was tied from Pretty In Pink 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon.

 

 

 

Shoe Box Swap - Tea Shoppe Dresser

This card from the Shoe Box Swap day was designed by Chris Chamberlain. I like this card, it's made to look like a dresser, using Crumb Cake cardstock and ink with the Woodgrain background stamp. The edges of each piece was inked with the Sponge Daubers, and the handles were punched with the small circle from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack. The tea cups and the label are from Tea Shoppe, and uses Not Quite Navy and Real Red ink. The plates were created with various sizes of the Circle Punches and the Regals Paper Stack.

This card could be adapted to look like a dresser or a wardrobe for a baby card, for example.

 

 

Shoe Box Swap - Distressed Creative Elements card

This is quite a different style of a card from what I usually make, and I'm pleased that this was brought to the Shoe Box Swap class by Caroline Lovett. The technique is known as distressing, and around the edges of the layers of the card were roughed using the edge of the Paper Snips scissors. The edges of the Very Vanilla layer were also curled for extra detail. I'll be using this style more often.

The background was made using the flower stamp from Creative Elements, in Daffodil Delight and Tangerine Tango. The Tangerine Tango was stamped into the ink pad, and then once on scrap paper, to give a less strong colour. The flourish stamp from the set was stamped in Soft Suede. A spritz spray was used with the Champagne Shimmer Paint to give the golden effect. The Music Notes wheel stamp was rolled across in Basic Black ink. The flower stamp was then stamped onto Tangerine Tango card stock and cut out, as was the sentiment from a new stamp set called Itty Bitty Banners.

I've got another project in the pipeline from this card. I said above that I stamped off some of the Tangerine Tango ink to make it more subtle for the background. My sister saw the sheet I'd stamped these on, and has asked me to make something for her bedroom for her walls. I've got my thinking cap on for this, and hopefully I'll design and share the project with you soon.

My very first (completed) scrapbook page

I'm very proud of this post! It's my first ever completed scrapbook style project I have ever made. It was one of the projects that I got to make at the Shoebox Swap event I attended, designed by the very talented Lesley Sharpe. She'd done so much hard work before the class for this project, with full instructions given, and lots of the stamping already done for us, to make sure we got it made in 30 minutes. We used the Artistic Etchings and Aviary stamp sets, with the First Edition Speciality DSP, and a colour combo of Crumb Cake and Real Red. I especially liked the distressed effect of this project, as it's something I don't do very often, but will be trying to incorporate the technique into more of my cards and projects. I also liked making the paper roses, and was shown a new way of making them using a quilling tool (not Stampin' Up!). They are just circles punched with the circle punches, and then cut into a spiral, and twisted round.

I decided to make this into a gift for my Mum and Step-Dad Ray, as it was their wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. I bought a 6" square box frame from The Range, so it could be displayed in their house. They were really pleased with it. I'm hoping to try a few more projects like this, they'd make a lovely present or gift for any occasion.

Shoe Box Swap - Goolish Googlies

This is the project that my Stampin' Up! mummy Julie Kettlewell made for the shoe box swap event a week or so back. The items are from the Goolish Goolies bundle, from the newly released Autumn/Winter Catalogue. This is a great value set, one of the new bundles, consisting of the Goolish Goolies Designer Kit, the Googlies (self adhesive-backed eyes) and the Googly Ghouls stamp set. You can save 15% by buying the bundle at just £18.50 for the wood set and £15.95 for the clear. Basic black card stock was scored with the Simply Scored board, and then the front cut with the Edgelit dies. Versamark ink was used to stamp the Boooo image, which was then covered with clear embossing powder, which was then heated with the heat tool. The orange and black paper is from Howlstooth & Scaringbone DSP, which then had Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon tied around. A tag was used from the Goolies kit, which had two bats stamped and cut out placed on it, with the googly eyes. To finish it off, liquorice and mints were placed in a Cellophane bag, with ruffled ribbon tied at the top. Perfect for your halloween parties!