As promised, today I'm going to share the swaps I made to take to Telford for the Stampin' Up! regional training day on Saturday; lots of excited crafty ladies (and a few gents!) spent the day crafting, swapping and getting up to speed with all the latest news from Stampin' Up!. As is customary at these events, we all created 'swaps' to share and showcase each other's work. I often find swaps a tricky concept - the desire to create something special, but at the same time simple enough that to create a large volume of them won't take hours or break the bank.
In my wisdom, I decided I would break the seal on a stamp set I bought at the start of the year, but haven't yet used: Summer Silhouettes. I loved the look of this stamp set and have seen many beautiful examples of cards 'random stamped' with the flowers in this set. This was however, my first challenge; as my dear husband so often says to me, "(you) don't do random" - and it would seem this follows me into my stamping. I lost count of the amount of card I cut, stamped and binned before getting to a design I was finally happy with! So I ended up with this as my 'first final design' (I know, bear with me!):
I loved the stamping and fussy cut edge, along with the sentiment and pierced border to ground it. However I didn't like the position of the butterfly, but couldn't move it without removing the ribbon, so here is my final (yes, really!) design:
It took hours to finish them and I still could have made twice as many - there were so many people with great swaps! I will photograph some of my favourites and share those with you later in the week. If you would like to be one of the first to know what's going on in the world of Stampin' Up!, get free products (yes, all still to come!), great training and business advice and a permanent product discount to feed your own crafting habit, then this is a great time to join my team - until May 30th, you can get £155 of products for £99; add in a business supplies pack and you get a whopping £200 of kit for £99 - bargain! Check out the Special Offers box on the right hand side of my page or Contact me to talk about how you can sign up and start benefiting straight away; if you sign up in May, you will be one of the first to preview and order from the new annual catalogue due out on July 1st and you will have the opportunity to attend Stampin' Up's! European Convention in November, which is being held in Manchester in the UK this year.
Pop back tomorrow for another project; I have so much to share this week, including some great cards that we are making at this week's card class. Until then, happy stampin!
Stampin' Up Supplies:
Stamps: Summer Silhouettes, Wacky Wishes
Cardstock: Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Pool Party
Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Wild Wasabi
Tools: Beautiful Wings Embosslits, Essentials Paper Piercing Pack, Piercing Tool
Finishing Touches: Daffodil Delight Seam Binding Ribbon