Pam’s New Catty Workshop

Pam hosted a workshop for stuff from the new catty yesterday, but due to various family emergencies, etc., only 4 ladies could attend, including Pam.  Turned out well, anyway, and everyone liked what I demonstrated and our two make and takes.   Click on any pic to enlarge it for details.

I’ve shown this pic before, but I just love it, so will share it again.  I did all the prep work of punching, sponging, and curling the magnolia petals and demonstrated how to put the magnolia together.  Therese won the rose box in my door prize drawing.  I gave Pam the magnolia I started.

When Pam and I went to Mt. Dora last week (see the Sandhill Cranes below), I had to take a pic of this gorgeous umbrella that was in a shop window.

Using the brolly for inspiration, I made this sample card using the butterfly punch and Butterfly Prints stamp set.

With that same butterfly punch, I made these pansy petals . . .

. . . from which I made this pansy card!  Might demo how to make these at Holly’s workshop next month.

Then we put together this easel card using the pineapple motif from Friends Never Fade with the newly returned Baja Breeze and Pacific Point cardstocks.  The learning curve for the Scalloped Trim border and corner punches was pretty steep, but everyone ended up with the perfect frames.

Because the easel card was kind of intense, the second make and take was this super easy one-layer card using a mat punched with the Scalloped trim border punch and a sponge.  The flowers are from Elements of Style and sentiment from Sincere Salutations.  This one uses Melon Mambo, but Pam’s guests got to play with the new In Colors.

That’s it for now. Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)

Gorgeous Sandhill Cranes!

Pam and I went on a road trip yesterday to Mt. Dora and Winter Park, getting good and lost, but the highlight of the day, besides finding the new Penzey’s spice store, was running, almost literally, into these two Sandhill Cranes. We were on a busy road after leaving my upline’s house in Mt. Dora and saw one crane on one side of the road and another on the other. Stopping traffic, they were, thankfully, and not getting their idiot selves hit by cars. I stopped and so did other cars. Once they were both on my side of the road, I pulled over to take these pics. As they were poking along, they went into a nice yard, so I pulled into the driveway to take these pics. A man working down by his garage was oblivious to us or the birds. Click on the pics to see details.

One of these days, I will make it up to Payne’s Prairie in the winter to see them gathered by the thousands. But until then, I will catch glimpses, hopefully with a camera in hand, of them wandering here and there. I have never seen just one Sandhill Crane, always a mated pair, sometimes several pairs.

For more info, you can go here.

That’s it for now. Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)

July Creative Images Meeting

We had a great turnout last night, only missing a few, with one sickie and a couple from out of town.  Almost everyone brought thank you swaps and everyone brought an “Asian Flair” exchange card.  Everyone wore a name tag, too.  How will our treasury make any money that way?  Jeannie did the project, something interesting she learned last month at Stampfest in Orlando.  So, here’s the pics!  As always, click on the pic to enlarge it.

First up, the Asian Flair exchange cards, starting with mine, because I can.  Made this with SU’s retired Kind and Caring Thoughts and black magic.  Went wild with fussy cutting, too.  SU’s ornament punch made the vase.

Next up, Tange’s gold, red and black fans, also fussy cut and popped up.  IRL, the brushed gold was stunning.

Therese made this gorgeous dragon with the alcohol ink marbleizing technique.  He was glossy, so photograph doesn’t do him justice.  I have to try this!  Had all the stuff forever.

Pam made this lovely fan card, which could also be a fan window?  She crimped the fan pieces.  Whatever, it’s pretty.

Jeannie’s Asian Flair card is a crane, a Japanese good luck symbol.

 

Eleanor made this pieced washi paper beauty.  Love the tiny crane in the corner.  IRL, it is a brushed silver background.

Connie made this watercolored, fussy cut, popped up and Glimmer Misted “perfect pear.”  She put sequins in the middle of her flowers, too!

Holly made this lovely Geisha girl.  IRL, the greenish card base is brushed gold.  She is also Glimmer misted.  Can you tell Holly and Connie were playing together with Glimmer Mist?

 

Lona made this lovely bamboo tag with Kanji.  Love the bamboo curtain behind the tag.

That’s it for exchange cards.  Next, is Therese’s swap card, a nifty, Asian-inspired, mountain lake.

Tange’s swap cards were in a French mood, with merci as the background.

Pam’s swaps were black magic done with SU’s Awash With Flowers stamp set.  It’s much prettier IRL.

Here’s my black magic swap card, done with SU’s retired Kind and Caring Thoughts.

We didn’t explain the rules to Connie about swaps, so she made hers all different.  I teased her so much, she won’t do that again!   All of these are also Glimmer Misted.

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Holly made these lovely swap cards with a rose stamp, fussy cut and, you guessed it, Glimmer Mist!  I think the base card is brushed gold IRL.

Lona’s swaps could be used as a night light!  That chartreuse is radioactive!  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

Next up, are samples from Jeannie’s project.  Although, this first one is just a show and tell of a card she made with the bear white embossed on vellum.  Jeannie has been collecting these Animal Spirits stamps for a while. Each image has multiple animals included in the design, with each one having a lady bug in there somewhere, a Native American symbol/totem for good luck, happiness and prosperity.

These next pics are what we came up with, in varying stages of completion, using Jeannie’s technique of coloring, smooch spraying and antiquing (if we wanted).  I think the first dragonfly is Connie’s.

This one is Holly’s.  I can see this done with a vellum dragonfly so you can see the moon through the wings.

I’ll be using this blue bear on a card for my BIL, who’s personal totem is the Bear.

Lona is going to fussy cut and mount this dragonfly.  The smooch spritz is gold, not neon yellow!

Pam made this dragonfly to finish another day.

Therese started this bumble bee.

My little box for keeping our exchange spoons was getting boring, so I made another one.  Going to demo this magnolia at Pam’s workshop next Saturday.  Easy, but time consuming, with SU’s ornament punch.  It’s the prep work that is time consuming, punching, sponging and curling.  Actual assembly is a breeze.

That’s it for now. Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)

Jeannie’s Last Chance Workshop

My dear friend Jeannie hosted a workshop to give friends a last chance to buy some retiring sets before they go away the end of this month.  I used flowers and sentiment out of retiring True Friends and Crushed Curry cardstock to make the first make and take, with a technique I thought was new to everyone – Black Magic, so called because it is a magic way to color on black cardstock after stamping an image with Whisper White craft ink.  Here’s what we made.  As always, click on the pic to enlarge it.

Wendybell did a great video tutorial on this technique here.  She used the Kind and Caring Thoughts hostess set and I CASE’d her card for a sample using True Friends.

I also made some samples using Kind and Caring Thoughts.  I really like this technique.  It works well with any mostly-solid image using watercolor pencils.  On these, I used the white Signo gel pen, but for the True Friends flowers, the white dots were from the white craft ink.  I used the scalloped trim border punch on all of these.

  

Here’s two samples using the gingko out of the Kind and Caring Thoughts set.

The second one was spritzed with the new Smooch Spritz spray.  We used it on the black magic make and take, to mixed results.  The jury is still out on that one!

I learned Black Magic long ago when one had to use SU’s retired Pure Color Pencils or Prismacolors.  I made these then with the now long retired Fabulous Flowers and Pure Color Pencils.

Black Magic has made a comeback because it’s much easier now using watercolor pencils.

Our second make and take uses the Motorcycle out of the Summer Mini catty and retiring Dusty Durango cardstock and marker.  The diamond plate layer used an argyle embossing folder and aluminum foil.  I first tried this technique on Russel’s birthday card last August (you can find it in my archives).  My Aussie friend Tracy found an easier way to do the foil embossing and did a picture tutorial here.  That’s the way we did it yesterday.  The sentiment is from the retiring One of a Kind set.  Makes a great guy card!

Totally CASE’d these thank you’s from Dawn here.  I love the new Elements of Style set and so glad it will be in main catty after its debut in Summer mini.  Once I had a bunch of thank you notes made, I needed something to put them in.  I knew there was a great tutorial on how to make these little totes here on Splitcoaststampers.com, so I made a couple.  Gave the Bermuda Bay set to Jeannie as a hostess gift.

This was a little post-it note pad I gave away as a drawing.  This is another of Dawn’s video you can find here.  Can ya’ll tell I spend a lot of time with Dawn!

Last, but not least, here’s an easel card I actually managed to give away in another drawing.  Rose is a Rose is another set that is retiring, but I will never sell it because it is perfect for fussy cutting and 3-D layers.  This is a card I started so long ago, I forget where I got the idea, but it uses Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette which are both coming back (wahoooo) and I had stamped and cut out these roses long ago in those  colors.  Dawn did a video on easel cards here.   Hers is newer and uses the scalloped trim border and corner punches, something I hope to demo at Pam’s workshop in July.

That’s it for now. Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)

Lookee what Dee Did!

When my St. Louis friend Dee saw the ship card at the end of my June Creative Images’ post, she really wanted something like it for her son’s birthday card.  Robert is a sailing fan.  Each sheet of diecuts comes with enough for two cards.  Soooo, I sent the other picture to Dee to do with what she would.  She got the ships in the mail in time to make a card, and what a card!  We were chatting on line and she shared a picture with me of her first design.  She said she was having a problem with the greeting and a punch to fit it.  I reminded her about Teeny Tiny Wishes, the word window punch and the modern label punch.  That was just what she needed.  She didn’t have the Modern Label punch, but she had the die cut from the movers and shapers and that worked, too.  With her little brass embellishments, stitching and cord, it came out perfect.  Dee gave me permission to blog her card, so here it is!

This card was truly a joint project between Dee, me and our Aussie buddy, Tracy.  Dee’s camera made the colors all weird and dark.  So when I sent a pic to Tracy, she photo shopped it to be more like the real card (Night of Navy base, Soft Suede and Whisper White card stocks).  Dee took the ships that I assembled (you can see the five twisted layers if you click on the picture) and made this gorgeous card and Tracy fixed it so it would reflect what it is in real life.  We do good work!  Robert really liked his card, too.  He oughta frame it!

That’s all for now.  Jeannie’s Saturday workshop pics will be my next post.  I have some great samples and two marvelous make and takes.

Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)

What is a Shoebox Swap?

At Monday night’s stamp club meeting, there was some question about just what shoebox swap is.  Whomever signs up to come to the swap (and everybody hopefully knows how many signed up) brings everything to make a card, project, whatever.  At a shoebox swap in Mt. Dora, Pam’s swap was the fudge and creamsicle cards.  She brought a box with the cardstock already cut, the punches to do the bite in the corner and the motifs on the front, the orange and brown ink pads, the stamps for the circles and the greetings inside, the popsicle sticks and the ribbons.   Voila!  One perfect shoebox swap!

These are two tiny favors I made five years ago.  The blue one was a cover for a tiny post it note pad and the little purse held a chocolate treasure.

 

This was my swap card at that same shoebox swap, the first one I ever went to.  I had everything to make it in one of my Longaberger baskets.

At another shoebox swap in Mt. Dora, one lady had even made and decorated her own shoebox for swaps!  I took a pic of the box with her sample. 

This next one is a swap of a gift card holder with a belly band.  All the things necessary to make it were in a zip lock bag!

This is a pic of two shoeboxes with three samples. 

We made this little bookmark at one of my workshops, but he would be a good project for a shoebox, too.  Something cute out of punches! 

Hope this gives you some ideas of what goes into a shoebox swap.  Can be as simple as this bookmark or a really cool technique.  My SU upline had several shoebox swaps in Mt. Dora, but she’s been unable to have them for more than a year.  I think it would be really cool to get them going in Ocala.

That’s it for now. Comments always welcome.

(-: ¸.·´* .·´*¨¨)) -:¦:- ***
((¸¸.·´*~Kathy.·´*)****¨¨))
-:¦:- ·· ((¸¸.·´* .·´*((¸¸.·.·´ *-:¦:- ... :-)