Stampin' Up! Party

Yay! It's that time of the summer - the new Stampin' Up catalog is out! We had a good group over at Courtney's house tonight. Me and Tammy went to NeoMonde for dinner beforehand, so we were already in a good mood when we got there!

Look at these all cute projects we made tonight:

We used the new "In Colors" papers and inks. The butterfly box was fun - more about that below. The card on the top right was an extra project that Courtney showed us how to make using one of her fave huge flower stamps. The notecard on the bottom right is a cutout card that we put patterned paper behind, then added the yellow flower and the brad in the middle. The pattern on the card on the bottom left was hand-stamped by Cynthia for us beforehand. The funny thing is, a few days later, I saw these very similarly-patterned notecards at Staples:

I showed this photo to Cynthia and she said "Good to know I'm up with the trends in the stores!"

Here is a close-up of the butterfly box above:

Check out the butterfly's body. We used thread to string the teeny-tiny beads for the body, then tied the thread at the top and cut it so it made the butterfly's antennae! How clever is that? The bracelet inside was donated by Courtney. She was clearing out her "fun jewelry", so we all got to take something home in our butterfly boxes. I gave the box and contents to my daughter and she was thrilled!

CKC Charlotte 2009

Hello All! I just got back from one of my Most Favorite Things in the World - CKC! (Creating Keepsakes Convention) Creating Keepsakes is a scrapbooking magazine that sponsors scrapbooking/papercrafting conventions throughout the country during the year. Many, many other related companies are also sponsors. There is a HUGE vendor area where they sell just EVEYTHING for your scrapbooking and papercrafting needs, plus there are cool classes to take and of course nightly crops. I always go to the Saturday crop and work on all of the projects from my classes that I didn't quite finish. That way I get to go home with FINISHED projects to show off!

Enough chit-chat! Let's see some projects...

I took 3 card-making classes this time. Let's start with the "Joy of Cardmaking" class, which is a card recipe class:

 

The top two are Recipe #1, and the bottom two are Recipe #2. Interesting how each interpretation is a little different. She gave us a mini-book of Card Recipes in the class.

Next was the "5 Step Cards" class, where each card only took 5 steps to make:

 

I love these cards because they were quick and easy but they don't look cheesy! The two vertical ones were everyone's favorites in the class.

And finally, the "Card Swap" class! For the first part of class, we made these:

 

For the last part of class, we did our card swap! Everyone brought 20 cards we had made beforehand and went around and swapped with each other. It was fun to see all of the different styles and sizes of cards everyone made. Some simple, some fancy. Here are the ones I made:

 

Here's a close-up:

I decided beforehand that I was going to use up a bunch of "leftovers" for this project - leftover papers, flowers, rub-ons, etc. This paper from Colorbok worked well because I could mix and match it to create different looks. They sort of follow the pattern I used for my holiday thank-you's back in January (here). I didn't have enough small yellow flowers for the middles, so I dyed some white flowers using my Stampin' Up refills ink. I was really pleased with how they came out - I was sorry to have to give them away! But I'll definitely make more cards following this idea to clear out more of my "leftovers".

Crop Report

It has been a while since our little group has had a crop! We've been looking for a new place to hold them, and finally we've found it! It's at the clubhouse of the subdivision one of the ladies lives in. Well, Kelley lives there now but they are moving out, but it's okay because Michelle and her family are moving in, so it all works out in the end! It's a nice big space with lots of lights and room to spread out. It is next to the pool, so there was a little bit of "pool noise" at first, but then the rain came and all the swimmers went home, so it was peaceful for us. Here's Kathie, happy that our crops have a home, working on a layout of her sweet baby granddaughter:

 

Oh, I just got a new phone and it took that photo! My husband talked me into getting it because my old phone (which was OLD - 6 or 7 years old!) didn't have a camera so I was always bugging him to take a picture of this or that with his phone. My new phone is cute and purple! Here's a picture of it:

 

Since I hadn't cropped in a while, I had a bunch of unfinished projects to work on. I filled up my "Fortune Cookie" pages, but still have more fortunes, so now I need to start a new layout. (I save all of my fortunes - some of them are a real hoot!)

I got the kids' 2008 Halloween photos in the Halloween album, so now that is caught up until this year's photos. And I worked on my layouts from the Creating Keepsakes scrapbook conventions I went to in 2007 and 2008.

I'm so PSYCHED about this year's convention in just a few weeks! I'm taking 5 layout classes and 5 card classes, plus I'm doing the Saturday Night Crop, which is where I can finish up all of those projects from my classes so I can go home with everything done! I'll have lots to report when I get back from that.

Stephie's Birthday

My daughter Stephanie just turned 6, and she wanted a "pink & purple" party (with a little lime green for accent). This was an invitation I made with some papers by Nana's Kids that just happened to have all the right colors, plus cool glittery accents!

I had had the purple Doodlebug flowers forever, so I was glad to finally find the perfect use for them!

Happy Belated Father's Day

We are taking Mike's dad out to dinner tonight for belated Father's Day because he was out of town on Father's Day weekend. He chose Mexican food - YUM!

I of course used my "Roam" papers from K & Co. They are my go-to papers when I need to make a "man" card because of all of the browns and blues and greens. Here I mixed a bunch of the patterns in strips to give the front a fun look. Inside is a gift card pocket - the little brown strip sticking out to the side is the "pull strip" to pull the gift card out of the pocket (see more here).