Stamper's appreciation night

As promised here are the projects from my Appreciation stamp night. Mostly for my downline but also for a few other great stamping friends to come by and stamp with me. As well. The box design was inspired by a card I received from my upline Kimberly. I am sad she will be leaving us soon and moving on to DC. She has inspired me to do so much over these past 3 years and I love her for it.

So what you are looking at first is the cover/lid to the gift box. I used some of my favorite current products as well as colors since I will be saying good bye to Bermuda Bay shortly I thought I would use it on this project, as well as using Soft Suede and Crumb Cake (Kraft)

I used stamps from the new Summer Mini catalog. Elements of Style. It's a really pretty set. I also used the Fleur de Lis stencil from the Elegant Trio stencil found in our Definitively Decorative 2010 catalog. I love how stencils have been able to enhance my stamping experience even more. There are a few things I will point out, since I photographed this under less than perfect lighting conditions. For one thing the Fluer de Lis were first stenciled and then before removing the stencil I shot it coated it with shimmer mist. I used a paper towel to wipe off the excess from the stencil before lifting it off the project. Then I repeated it on the other s

ide. This gave it a less shimmer effect and allowed me to only shimmer the parts I wanted to. The second thing is that this first sample was spritzed with some gold glow smooch spritz and you can't see it very well. For the final project we decided to try Log cabin smoo

ch spritz as well as the gold glow. I think for future I would probably recommend just using the spritzing tool with soft suede instead. It's a little less messy. The last thing we decided to change on the finished box was that we used the new square lattice textured impressions folder on the Bermuda Bay scalloped strip at the bottom of the box. It matched what I had done to the card that came later in the design process.

The following three samples are of the cards we did to complete this boxed collection. I designed much of the color theme and c

ards around the box itself so that they'

d form a more cohesive unit.

So this first card is actually the hardest of the group because it uses a lot of tools and

embellishments.

I did the same technique again on this card w

here I used the Fluer de Lis stencil first in soft suede and spritzed over it with shimmer mist before blotting and lifting up the stencil.

I also used stamps from Elements of Style and a little stamp from the Charming stamp set. I used the sp

ritzing tool on this in soft suede. If you notice along the bottom of this one the Bermuda Bay scalloped st

rip was run through the square lattice textured impressions folder for just a little extra oomph that was needed.

This next card was inspired by another great demonstrator Jenny. I recently receive

d a card from her that inspired me to use a technique I haven't used in quite a few months. The Elements of Style stamp set is a great set to really show it off with too.

I stamped the flowers from Elements of Style in Versamark and then used Taken with Teal on the flowers and Certainly Celery for the leaves and stems. Next I sponged with Soft Suede. I didn't want to sponge only the edges I thought it would look better if I sponged all the way to the edge of the flowers to give it that really worn vintage look. For the hummingbird I used Bermuda Bay and used the Rock and Roll technique on the outer edges in Soft Suede. After cutting it out I went back in with a sponge and Soft Suede and added a little more to the edges to really make it look worn. The flowers

in the background behind the greeting were stamped in Bermuda Bay. I love how so many of our colors are so close that they all would work so well together.

This last card was another borrowed idea. Hey no one ever said I had to come up with ideas on my own.

I mad a card similar to this, with a lot less stamping involved, at Passport to Success. It was Kimberly's last big event she put on for us demonstrators.

So for this card I used a stencil from the new Mostly Vintage stencil set. Notice a trend here? Vintage is Tres Chic. I also used Elements of Style and dusted off my Heard from the Heart stamp set. I haven't used it in quite some time. I finished it off with some of our black satin ribbon. Yummy. If you notice it's a "no layer card".

Well thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy your evening and "Happy Stamping."

My new catalog and stamping goodies arrive tomorrow and I hope to have some new samples for you in my next blog post.