I almost forgot! Stampin Addicts is giving away one of those cute little bears on their blog!
To celebrate the release of the Stampin’ Up! Build-A-Bear Workshop collection, Stampin Addicts dot com is giving away an exclusive Build-A-Bear teddy bear that was only available at the 2009 Stampin’ Up! convention. To enter all you have to do is write about it and join the Stampin Addicts forum.
Be sure to go check it out!
One of the things that we could purchase at Memento Mall at convention was a cute little “Build-A-Bear” wearing a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator apron and “holding” a little rubber stamp that says, “Life without stamps…. Unbearable” It has a paw print in the middle and the words circle around it. Sorry the stamp isn’t in the photo. Well, one of the challenges coming home was to name my bear, who is a boy. After much consideration, I chose the name Ca-bear-net. Cute play on words to name the bear of a red wine lover, huh? Here he is with our new favorite stamp, Medallion:
Yes, he has his own little convention name tag too.
Here are the cards we stamped this week using Medallion. They were inspired by the card I swapped at Convention and a card by my friend MaryR:
I really like how these turned out. They are relatively quick and simple but really look great! Both are stamped and mounted on my new favorite neutral cardstock, Shimmery White. One uses Bermuda Bay and the other Dusty Durango. The Teal and Orange Rhinestone brads from the Circle Ice and Circle Fire sets compliment them well. The center is punched with the 1-3/4” Circle punch and the black layer was cut at 1-7/8 using the Circle Scissor. The hardest part was the piercing around the border. The sentiment comes from the Fresh Cuts set and is stamped in Basic Black . I may make some of these for Christmas cards this year!
Thanks for looking!
Oops. I had this blog post sitting in drafts….. Better late than never, right?
The Card Candy swap was quite a challenge. The last time I did one of these, we were not limited to one particular stamp set. For this swap, we were. I chose Oval All which lends itself well to card candy since all 4 images are designed to be used with the Large Oval and Scallop Oval punches. The problem arose when trying to come up with different ways to use the images without them just being stamped on cardstock, punched and layered. So here is what the final result was:
Many thanks to my friend, Cherie, who gave me the suggestion of doing Faux Metal with this set.
Colors used were Kraft, Chocolate Chip and Real Red. Inks used were Real Red, Chocolate Chip and Craft white along with Versamark on the Faux metal. The buttons are done by coating the clear button with craft ink (Chocolate or Red) and then embossing them with Iridescent Ice. The top two “candies” were stamped onto watercolor paper and then colored using my aqua painter. The top is the It's Beautiful wheel and is accented with Red brads from the Bold Brights set.
By the time this posts, the dust will have settled over Salt Lake City. Convention will be over. I’m sure I will have lots of FABULOUS photos to share later on this week, but today I am going to show you a little gift I made for James. James is Angie’s husband and the man who makes Stampin Addicts run. What started out as a site where our group could chat and share photos has turned into a pretty big deal in just a few months! So I decided that with all the gifts and swapping frenzy going on around him at Convention, James needed something of his own.
This is an altered Illi coffee can. My sister in law drinks the coffee and saves the cans for me. They are AWESOME to alter because they are perfectly straight and they are mostly just silver. The DSP used was from Cottage Wall and the new Level 1 Hostess Prints Pack (Basic Gray). The stickers are Mrs. Grossman and the white brads are from who-knows-where. The lid is accented with Night of Navy and Old Olive 1/4” Grosgrain ribbon and inside the tin is a bag of Skittles (think candy dish at work size bag, not a “single” size). It’s simple, but I hope he likes it!
Well, today is the final day of Convention. We have a keynote speaker in the morning and then after lunch we will have a closing General Session. Last year they drove a UPS TRUCK out during the closing Session
and gave us ALL the Ronald McDonald House Charities stamp set. In case you don’t know, Stampin’ Up! is a BIG supporter of RMHC and we have a stamp set each year that $2 from every set sold goes to RMHC. This year’s set is called “Very Thankful” and can be found inside the back cover of the current Idea Book and Catalog
The last swap I have to show you is the one I did for my friend Janice’s Single Layer Card swap. Sounds easy, but doing a card with out “bulk” is REALLY HARD! Especially when you turn it into a project like I managed to…..
This baby has more steps than I anticipated when I signed up, that’s for sure! The card itself is Shimmery White. Yes, it is my favorite neutral card stock. Yes, I’m a total addict. The Real Red is sponged on using a reverse mask, with the rectangle area masked over. Then I used the reverse mask from the rectangle to stamp the sentiment from Heard From The Heart in Night of Navy and sponge the green, which I *THINK* is Garden Green. The holes were punched in the front of the card, and the centers were marked on the inside for snowflake placement, then they were backed with packing tape and glittered with Dazzling Diamonds (Glitter Window Technique). The snowflakes are stamped inside the card using Night of Navy and my trust Stamp A Majig. Silver brads at the ends of the sentiment added a “low-profile) embellishment.
Soon, Convention will be OVER, but those of us who went will be riding the high from the excitement for WEEKS to come! And the countdown will soon begin for Convention 2010, I’m sure!
Stay tuned later this week and month for photos from Convention and pictures of some of the swaps I’ll be bringing home!
This evening we have the Stampin Addicts Meet & Greet event where I am signed up for 4 more organized swaps: “ATCs” (Artist Trading Cards); “Card Candy”; “One Layer Cards” and “Mini Album”.
Today I will share the easiest swap for me, my ATCs and one that was the harder for me, the Mini Book.
I love ATCs. I will join an ATC swap every chance I get. They are baseball card sized and I store them in a binder in baseball card pages, which are 9 to a page. Conveniently, you can get 10 ATC bases out of a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 cardstock (cut 3 strips on the 8.5” side, two that are 2.5” wide and that will leave a 3.5” strip – then just cut the strips into individual cards – you will get three from each of the 2.5” strips and four from the 3.5”. Easy peasy!) so most ATC swaps are in groups of 10 where you will get 9 new cards back. I joined 2 groups for this swap and made these two cards:
Similar layouts both with lots of sparkle! The first uses one of our current Level 2 hostess sets, Asian Artistry. The image is stamped in Black Craft ink on the Real Red and then embossed with a mixture of Black Embossing Powder with a little bit of Black Cosmo Glitter mixed in. The Sentiment is stamped in Real Red on Brushed Gold and punched out with the new Modern Label punch and mounted using Dimensionals. I added Gold brads to the upper corners and mounted the whole thing on a Brushed Gold base. The second card uses one of our “Under $10” stamps, Dasher, and the sentiment comes from the dove stamp in Gifts Of Christmas. Using my Hobby Knife, I carefully cut the sentiment away from the image and mounted it separately on a spare block I had. Dasher is stamped onto Handsome Hunter in Silver Encore ink and then embossed using Iridescent Ice. The ribbon holes were punched with the Horizontal Slot punch and the Real Red 1/4” Grosgrain was threaded thru and knotted. Then the whole thing is mounted on Brushed Silver. I was quite pleased with both of these.
I was going to share my Card Candy today, as that was the most challenging swap for me in this group, but I have lost (accidentally deleted is more like it) the photos I took of that swap, so that one will have to wait until I get back, and that’s IF I remember to take a photo of it there before I give them away!
So for Sharon’s Mini Book swap, I signed up for a “Clear Envelope Album”. We had to decorate 4 inside pages and the cover. I decided to do a mini recipe book. Thanks to my friend, Dixie, who loaned me her “From The Kitchen” set, I was able to make this:
The colors used were Kraft, Real Red, Very Vanilla and Chocolate Chip. I used Jumbo Antique Brass Eyelets on the binding and Brushed Silver for the dome on the “Voila” Chef’s tray. I thought it came out pretty cute!
There are several tutorials on the internet for making a Clear Envelope Album. I added an extra step to mine to allow me to use 4 eyelets on the binding – 2 from the front and 2 from the back so there would not be a rough metal eyelet back showing on the back cover. I should have taken photos, but I didn’t. If I find the measurements I used, I will post them when I post the books that I receive in this swap.
The recipe card stamp from this set is only 3x5. I really wanted more lines so it would fill up the 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 envelope better, so I pulled out my trusty Stamp A Majig and masked the image to make “taller” cards. I think it was worth the extra work. The cards are stamped in Chocolate Chip onto Kraft and then layered onto Real Red and again onto Very Vanilla and trimmed with Red Gingham ribbon. The “indexes” were stamped on Very Vanilla, colored and punched out. I had wanted to mount them with Dimensionals, but then the cards didn’t fit as well into the envelopes and it added too much bulk to the book. Oh well. I can’t wait to see what goodies I get back from this swap! It was a small group, only 5 people, so I will have 4 books to show you when I get back!
Today I will share the one, lonely, General Swap I made, plus the cute gift bags I made for my roommates.
This is my General Swap.
It is a one layer card front, cut to 4 x 5.25 so that it can be easily mounted onto a folded A2 size card with a nice 1/8” border all the way around it. The Medallion image is stamped in Rich Razzleberry onto Shimmery White cardstock. The ribbon is Pretty In Pink Taffeta and the sentiment is from the “Fresh Cuts” set and stamped in Rich Razzleberry onto Melon Mambo. The oval behind it is Rich Razzleberry. A pair of Gold Brads add just a little bling. I think this card front looks really nice mounted on Melon Mambo, don’t you?
For my roommates, Brandi and Sara, I put their goodies into a decorated bag (Which is BLATANTLY copied from one of the gift bags I got from my friend Tandra at Easter! – Thanks, Tandra!) rather than wrapping and altering each individual thing (mostly for packing logistics!). I did make each of them a bag tag and I also made Sara a beaded lanyard for her badge (Brandi already had one). Here are their goodies:
The good thing about roomie gifts is that they don’t HAVE to be all Stampin Up! product….. the letters are stickers I have had for YEARS and the flowers are Primas (Brandi) and some fun beaded flowers I found with the wedding stuff at Michael’s (Sara). The ribbon used on both bags is retired from the Holiday Mini a couple years ago – when we had Purely Pomegranate as an In Color. I love that ribbon! Brandi’s bag features Razzleberry Lemonade DSP, Chocolate Chip and Pumpkin Pie. I used the Eyelet Border Punch and the Kindness Jumbo Wheel on both bags. Sara’s uses the Cottage Wall DSP, Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo and Orchid Opulence.
Oh, and here is MY Lanyard with ALL of my badges on it!
I’ll be back tomorrow with swaps from our Stampin Addicts Meet & Greet party!
The other two swaps I did for our “Sister Dinner” last night were our “New Catalog Stamp Set” and our “Big Shot Card Front” swaps. This group does a swap for every new catalog and mini catalog and we decided to hold this one at Convention. The set I signed up for was “Peace Within”. I love that kitty…… The only thing I thought looked good when I was coming up with this card was to water color the main image. Have I mentioned how much I dislike coloring? I’m just not very good at it. I’m fine with filling a shape with solid color coverage, but the whole shading thing just does not come easily for me. Here is my card (I had to do 23 of these):
The Creamy Caramel base is textured using the swirly plate from the Stampin Up Backgrounds 1 Texturz set. I had originally intended to use the 1” Double Stitched Chocolate Chip ribbon, but I discovered that I only had a few feet left so I switched to the 5/8” Grosgrain. The image and the sentiment are both stamped onto Water Color Paper and the mats are Ruby Red. The image is colored using my Watercolor Wonder Crayons, including my newly acquired Neutrals set. Six gold brads in the opposite corners finish the card. I was quite pleased with the result!
For Sharon’s “Big Shot Card Front”, the focal image of the card was to be a die cut using the Big Shot, not a stamped image. One of my favorite “stand alone dies” for the Big Shot is the Snowflake#2.
For this card I cut out 2 snowflakes from Shimmery White. One was embossed using Versamark and Iridescent Ice. I then layered the two and secured them to the Brocade Blue layer with a Clear Rhinestone Brad. The Brocade Blue piece was textured using that swirly Texturz plate. The sentiment is from Gifts Of Christmas and was stamped on Shimmery White and punched out with the Modern Label punch, then secured with two Silver Brads. The whole thing is mounted on Brushed Silver card stock. It’s REALLY shiny and sparkly!
Thanks for looking!
If Blogger posts these when it’s supposed to, while you are reading this, I should be at Convention! Well, at least there, starting the party with my online friends! Tuesday night the group of Stampin Addict Sisters will get together for dinner and swapping. I am signed up for 4 swaps at our dinner. The “Secret Sister Convention Survival Tin”; the “Big Shot Card Front”; the “New Stamp Set” and the “All About Me Scrapbook Page” swap.
So here is the first swap that I completed.
I am NOT a scrapbooker. What possessed me to join a scrapbook page swap? A condition we lovingly call “FOMS” or “Fear Of Missing Something”. All but a couple of the gals in our group signed up for this swap, including several who are NOT going to Convention. I couldn’t imagine NOT having this fabulous book filled with pages about my friends! Yeah, I suffer FOMS pretty badly.
The page is 8 1/2” square. The base is Elegant Eggplant and the accent colors are Pink Pirouette (yes, we were “allowed” to use retired stuff on these!), Very Vanilla and Certainly Celery. There is NO STAMPING on them. All the text was done on the computer and printed on Very Vanilla card stock. The little wine glass is actually a photo I took, printed and cut out. The journaling box is “19 Random Facts About Me” and there is a second “page” of journaling that is behind my photo that has more factual details about me (since the theme *is* “All About Me”). The leaves on my “little flowers” are made with the 5 petal flower punch. Each one is 2 petals that were run thru the crimper. Add a little Stylized Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware and some Organza ribbon and there you have it!
The all-consuming force in my life for the past month has been getting ready for Convention. I have been planning and making swaps, making gifts and packing lists, shopping for clothes, etc.
Over the next week, I will (hopefully, if Blogger cooperates) be sharing the swaps I made. I am signed up for 8 organized swaps. 4 of them with my group of “Stampin Addicts Sisters” and 4 more at the Stampin Addicts Meet & Greet on Friday evening.
Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of my Convention Survival Tin, and I shipped my swaps to the hotel already, so I will have to get some photos of that AFTER it is given to my Secret Sister.
I had hoped to take along 50 – 75 swaps for swapping with folks at the convention, but as of now (10AM Monday morning) I’ve only made 23, so it’s not looking good.
I’m sure I won’t have time to post much, if anything, from Convention once I get there, but I should have TONS of stuff to share next week!
Stay Tuned!
