Papercrafting with Friends!

Today my friend Fay hosted my friend Kadie and me at her home in Federal Way.  After a yummy lunch we spent some time papercrafting.  I was so pleased that Kadie who is a certified Copic instructor and who also has acquired Copic coloring skills way beyond her training took me up on my suggestion and gave us a hands on tutoring in coloring with our Copic markers. Here's the results:

Here's a close-up. 

 

 Fay and I had the opportunity to try a new techinique this summer at a Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook Expo in Puyallup, WA, using adhesive, extrafine glitter, stickers and copic markers.  I provided the supplies and here's our efforts:

 

We had a lot of fun visiting and crafting and eating a delish cheesecake topped with a huckleberry sauce created by Fay.  Our friend Paola who lives about 150 miles north of Federal Way was not able to join us so she surprised us with a call from her home in British Columbia, Canada.  Hopefully next summer we'll have another papercrafting get together with more of the SCS sistahs attending.

Crazy Quilt of Dueling Darling Kits

Its dueling time for the Dueling Darlings and I'm late!  In case you haven't already heard the D.D.s are a group of friends that met on Splitcoaststampers (SCS),  participated in each others card swaps, visited each others blogs and decided to take our papercrafting addiction to the next level by "dueling".  My group the Dueling Darling Divas "duel" it out with the Dueling Darling Dazzlers on the 15th of each month with each group using a different card kit with the same theme!  The purpose is to see what we come up with using this theme and the image that was picked and how the divas and dazzlers created with their respective kits.  We've been doing this now for 2 years.  Debbie, a Dazzler, came up with a unique and fun challenge this month to use the materials left over from the kits we've received over the last 8 months and create a card.  Here is my mine:

I took the challenge literally "to use something from every kit" I received. So in that spirit I used diagnonal rays of patterned paper taken from seven different card kits.  (I got the inspiration from Kristina Werner's video tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKO_Heae1ek ) Kind of creates a crazy quilt look don't you think?!!  The medallion, flower, button and twine were also taken from different kits as was the chocolate brown cardstock panel, white "dotted swiss" embossed panel and craft cardstock base.  The only thing that didn't come from one of the card kits was the adhesive to put the card together. : )

Check out the rest of my team Diva's creations here:

Kelly: http://www.sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/
Barb:  http://inkingintoretirement.blogspot.com/
Carol: http://lostinmycraftroom.blogspot.com/
Jamie: http://butterflystamper71.blogspot.com/
LJ:      http://buckygirl.blogspot.com/
Tami:  http://blueinksdesign.blogspot.com/

Next check out the Dueling Darling Dazzlers starting with their team leader
Jeanette  http://creativeplayischeaperthantherapy.blogspot.com/
April:     http://aprilsalley.blogspot.com/
Darlene: http://accordingtobijou.blogspot.com/
Debbie:  http://theinkigloo.blogspot.com/
Melina:  http://me-craftyscrapper.blogspot.com/
Michelle: http://me-craftyscrapper.blogspot.com/
Paola:     http://paola-sama.blogspot.com/
Terry:     http://itstotallyterry.blogspot.com/

I love to hear your comments!  Thanks for stopping by!!

Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays!!!

I've been busy making birthday cards for family members over the last couple weeks.  First birthday was for our niece Justine.  The card I created was inspired by a gorgeous dress my sister-in-law gave her.  Here are pix of the dress and card:

 This is a section of the dress that I used as inspiration for her birthday card

 

 This is the outside of the card.  Green cardstock was stamped with a leave image both in green and black.  The flower was made from a Stampin' Up stamp and punch with adhesive rhinestones and stickles added for the bling.  The white leaves are die cut from a Memory Box die.  Sorry I don't have the specific names with me right now.

 The inside of the card has the negative Memory Box leaf die to show the green layer underneath.

Do you think I captured the essence of the dress with this card???

By the way, our niece was thrilled with both the dress and the card!

 

 Five days later our nephew Michael celebrated his birthday and we were pleased to spend part of it with him.  Here's the outside of the card. Circles were made by stamping several Stampin' Up Circle Circus stamps with Versamark and embossing with silver embossing powder and punched out.  The waves die cuts were made with a Memory Box die

 And here's the inside of Michael's card.

 

 

 The card is for my sweet and very special cousin Linda.  She is such a blessing to my family and does so much for so many.  She'll be celebrating her birthday tomorrow, Sept 2nd.

 

Last and certainly not least is the birthday card for our son John who celebrates his birthday on Sept. 4th.  I really wanted to do something unique and special for my firstborn.

 This is a two-sided card.  One side was stamped with this Stampin' Up stamp with the balloon basket.  Attached is a die cut for the balloon with a shaker plastic with a variety of coins for the "shaker" part.  In the background are some cloud die cuts with a Memory Box die.

 The other side of the card features a pocket card.   

Here's the tag pulled out of the pocket.  Another pocket was attached to this.  On the tag pocket I stamped a Stampin' Up birthday sentiment (again I forget the name...sorry!) Inside this pocket is a check for the birthday boy! 

What do you think?  Was this a unique birthday card??

 

That's it for today!