Stampin' Up!

Last night I was able to go to a Stampin' Up party, hosted by a Navy wife in Oak Harbor. (All of my time spent surfing the web for contacts in the Whidbey Island area paid off!) Stampin' Up is a craft company that focuses on stamping (duh) and paper crafts. After playing with their toys for several hours (and hanging out with some fabulous, funny, creative ladies), I luv Stampin' Up, and will be devoting all of my extra pennies to amassing a collection of their products. (NavyGuy is tickled pink about this turn of events.)

I have to show off the projects we created. My hostess/demonstrator Michelle gets credit for all of these ideas. (Editor's Note: The photo quality on these pictures is not great. My camera is acting up and my photography assistant was unable to lend me his camera as he was busy studying facts about missiles. Hopefully in the future, I'll be using a fancier camera so the images show up better on the computer and allow you to see the details better.)

This card has a simple color scheme, but lots of cute details. We used a die cut machine called The Big Shot (insert heavenly music here), to cut out the shapes of the purses. Then each purse got dazzled up with a little embellishment. The sentiment at the bottom of the card says "You're absolutely fabulous."
Check out those leaves! I wish there was a way you could touch the leaves through the computer screen, because the photo doesn't come close to doing justice. You can see they look sort of shiny and cracked - we used a "cracked glass" technique which involved several levels of special embossing powder, then letting the embossed cut-outs chill in the freezer for a half an hour. After that, you actually just bend the shapes and make them crack. They turned out very cool, and I like the different color scheme for a fall card.

These two birthday cards use the same cupcake stamp set (how much do you love the cupcake tower stamp!), and a watercolor painting technique to color in the stamps. You use a tool called a blender pen, which is a pen that soaks up some ink from an ink pad. You "paint" with the pen until you need more ink. So after you've finished one color, you just rub the pen on some scrap paper until it colors clear, and then you can start with a different color. (It made sense when I was doing it.) Anyway, if you zoom in on the cards, you can see then that the coloring shows up with more shades and nuances.

The last card we made used a stamp set that I'd been lusting after for a few weeks online and hadn't been able to justify purchasing... yet. The tree is one stamp, and then you fill in the outside with different colors of the leaf stamp. The bird is cut out and attached to the paper with a dimensional so it pops off the card a bit, and the sentiment at the bottom says, "The season of friendship lasts forever." I think colors and the stamp design are beautiful.

We did make one other super duper project, but I'm going to make you all wait. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to incorporate it into my decorating plan for Thanksgiving, and if so, I want it to be a surprise for my guests. (Don't worry - I'm sure I'll cave and post it soon. Lord knows I lack all patience :)