CASE closed

My card is very closely based on a card by Amy Ward. I rotated the card, switched out the ribbon and changed the sentiment (to one from Fundamental Phrases). The flowers and swirls come from one of this year's Sale-a-bration sets that customers can choose for FREE when they purchase $50 in merchandise. I love the whimsical feel of this set. The felt flowers are from Stampin' Up!'s Flower Fusion set and are die cut for you and come in a very cute tin with 130 pieces.

We made this card as another of the projects for Stamp Club. With a smaller group, we can use embellishments that I might not otherwise because they're cost prohibitive with a large group.

Coincidentally, Amy is also one of my banner design customers!

Christmas (post) catch-up!

If you'd noticed I wasn't posting, you may have been wondering where I was. I've been swamped at my day job and trying to get ready for Christmas. In the meantime I had a stamp camp and a stamp club meeting that I made projects for.

The gift card holders are Stampin' Up!'s preprinted holders that I embellished with a scallop punch done twice in different colors and then added grosgrain ribbon in either Old Olive or Real Red. These came out cute once I figured out what to do with them. I don't know if others were confused by them too once they had them in hand, but when I went searching for inspiration, there just weren't many examples out there!

The color is way off in these photos, but I'll show you the layouts just the same. The first is a catalog case as requested by my stamp club hostess for the month. All I changed was the use of rhinestone brads down the belly and the background stamping is a little different.

This second card is also a stamp club card. I'm so sad this set will be retiring so quickly! It hardly seems like it got a chance! The stitching was done with the cutting kit tool used for perforating - I just ran it over the Old Olive pad and then wobbled my way around the edges of the main image a couple times to replicate stitching. The star was colored in, covered in Crystal Effects and then doused in glitter.

Thanks for hanging in there with me! I cleaned off my stamp table and hope to show off more samples (more often) as the new year gets under way. :)

Stamp club card and candle

These were the projects for November's stamp camp. I can tell I'm REALLY far behind because I've had our DECEMBER stamp camp since the last time I posted! I'll just have to do my best to post those soon.

The candle we altered started out as a plain vanilla pillar candle. We progressively layered paper, wrapping it around the candle and securing it with red sticky tape. The branch and flowers were stamped and the flowers and leaves were watercolored using ink from ink pads. It was then colored and attached with Crystal Effects. The ribbon is held in place by the brads that were pushed through it after poking a starter hole with the paper piercer. When everything was where we wanted it, and how we wanted it, the flowers and leaves were dabbed with Crystal Effects.

This card is the second project for the club. It relies on texture and dimension for its impact. I think this is a great way of showcasing how a few details can give a lot more visual excitement.

The three smaller leaves are on one layer of dimensionals, while the larger leaf has a double-layer of dimensionals to make it sit just a little bit higher and stand out more. The eyelets were placed using the Crop-a-dile, and the sentiment was positioned with the aid of the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Thanks for looking!

A sweet treat for Halloween

September's stamp club host wanted to focus on Halloween. We're making 2 projects at each club, and these cute little bag toppers are going to be one of them! I don't know what candy she's supplying to fill them up, but I think I'm going to have to check out which candies either coordinate as they are, or have coordinating wrappers to go with the topper. :)

Because these were my samples, the Frankenstein piece and the Boo piece were both watercolored to show different versions of Booglie Eye sets, but the Boo sample was done on Whisper White cardstock, while Frank up there was watercolored on watercolor paper.

I created the Boo topper first, and I should have started with the watercolor paper because I KNOW that it is so much better to watercolor with. However, for some reason I did not do that, and then I was going to create a new image piece on watercolor paper and switch it out with the original, but I think I'll leave it so the stampers can see why they would want the watercolor paper instead. That's what they'll be supplied with, but I feel like it might help them see why there's a difference.

ETA: This project never got to make its debut to the stampers because the September hostess had her baby! Does this mean I can eat the candy now? ;)