Tuesday, October 7, 2014

It's Time......

Yep - it's time for me to get back to blogging.  Why?  Basically, I miss it.  I enjoyed blogging when I first started, and felt I had a lot to share.  So what happened?  Life, I guess.  Too many things came up that I put in front of my blogging time, and I haven't posted in a L O N G time.  So, where to start????

How about this........I recently spent a long weekend with a wonderful group of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators at a place our Stampin' Up! group (all under Kim Peck's Impeckable Stampers in some way), have gone to for several years now.  We were on a retreat at a little place called "Camp One Way",  a Christian Camp in Illinois - kinda out in the sticks.  What did we do?  We had a GREAT time stamping, crafting, talking, eating and......not much else except maybe relaxing.  The event was coordinated by one of our group, Cathy Roy, and she did a marvelous job.

We each had a table of our own to work on, and lay out all our supplies & tools.  This is what Cathy had made for each of us, and placed on our tables.  It's a cookie shaped and decorated like a painter's palette!  The tag is made with a stamp set that is ONE OF MY FAVORITE sets - Work of Art.  It's so cute I haven't been able to bring myself to eat it yet!  

Here's a better look at the cookie with the tag out of the way.  Isn't it too cute??

We had several activities over the weekend; two of which were "Swaps".  If you haven't been in a Swap, you've missed out on a great time.  To participate in a Swap, you make a specific number of the same item, and basically "swap" one of your items, with other people who have also made like items (an example could be a card).  Often there is a theme, and always "rules" to follow.  We knew ahead of time how many people were participating in the Swaps (20), so we knew how many items to make.  Our first Swap was "Gift Card Holders".  The rules to follow:  use only current Stampin' Up! products.  Pretty easy, right?  Well, it would have been except that I didn't order some of the supplies I wanted to use in a timely manner.  So.......they arrived via UPS (love that brown truck) the day before we left for the retreat!!!  YIKES!!  Since I had to work 12 hours the day before we left,  I was too pooped that night to work on anything, and had to drag my stuff with me to the retreat to get my Swaps finished in time!!  But - I did get them done, and they turned out cute.  

My Gift Card Holder is a travel coffee cup!  When you pull up the lid, you can attach your gift card to the brown "coffee" with a little bit of sticky strip.  If you don't drink coffee, just pretend it's hot chocolate. 

I thought the stamp was appropriate since we obviously have moved into fall here in the Midwest!

And here is the entire group of my gift card holders - I actually made a couple extras.  All finished, packaged and ready to swap!!


I found the instructions for this cute gift card holder on Lori Hellig's blog.  The supplies I used are all current Stampin' Up! products (except the wooden craft sticks, and the lips):
  • Project Life Holiday Cheer Photopolymer stamp set - 135188
  • Whisper White card stock - 100730
  • Early Espresso card stock - 119686
  • Cherry Cobbler card stock - 119685
  • "Trim the Tree" Designer Series Paper Stack (Holiday Catalog) - 135824
  • Mossy Meadow 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon - 133670
  • Label Bracket punch - 132153   
  • 1 1/4" Circle punch - 119861
  • 1 3/8" Circle punch - 119860
  • Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad - 126966 
  • Corner Rounder - 135346
  • Sticky Strip - 104294
  • Mini Craft Sticks - from my local craft store
  • Lips - cupcake picks found in the clearance aisle of same craft store (whole pack was $0.47!)
You can order all of the Stampin' Up! items here on my website.  

Well, thanks for joining me, and watch for more blog entries - really soon, where I'll share more of our fun Stampin' Up! retreat.

1 comment:

  1. Love your swap!!! I'm so sad I couldn't go to Camp One Way this year! Sounds like you guys had a blast!

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