What a Week!

So the kids went back to school today. None of our teenagers wanted to get up & our 4 year old Robert didn't want to go to bed last night. : ) I am so excited today...not because the kids went back to school but because 1 week from today myself & 2 of my awesome downline members are headed to Minneapolis Minnesota to go to a Stampin' Up Regional Event. Not as big as Leadership was but still a ton of fun. What is even more fun is that it will be the first Stampin' Up Event either of these ladies have ever gone to...What fun!

I decided to show you more of my swaps. Yes these are some that I used at Leadership. They are the same ones that I am using at Regional...sorry to anyone that might have swapped with me at Leadership & does at Regional. Both these cards were a huge hit the 2nd morning at Leadership. I kept saying it was because everybody needed some caffeine & chocolate to get us going.

This card uses one of my favorite color combos (I say that a lot don't I & they are not all the same...oops), early espresso, crumb cake, very vanilla & real red. The stamp set is Morning Cup. Just love it. I actually assembled it to make this card & another one for Leadership. Super duper simple.

That was the caffeine & here is the chocolate.

This card looks simple but took too much time (ok well too much when you are making 24 of them). Same color scheme as above just without the real red. I took both the crumb cake & rounded the corners with the corner rounder punch. Cut the early espresso piece with the top note die & the big shot machine. Then ran them both through the Big Shot with the vintage wallpaper embossing folder. The early espresso piece I cut the outside dotted edge of the top note off so that I could get the decorative label punch in the middle. I then stamped the so much chocolate so little time (from the Eat Chocolate stamp set) twice on 2 different pieces of very vanilla. I cut one chocolate bar out, painted the ends with silver fox smooch ink to make it look like the hershey bars of old that were wrapped in aluminum type paper. I put the cut out chocolate bar on top of the other one with a dimensional. YUM!

I hope you have a great weekend. It is pretty crazy here...I know what else is new. I will do my best to post over the weekend. Be on the lookout next week for my class schedule to come out...are you ready for this...through March. Don't forget registration for my Button Button class ends tomorrow. More of those pictures in the next couple of days.

Valentine's Day & Greeting Card Kids

Today my posts are themed for Valentine's Day using the Greeting Card Kids stamp set. I love this stamp set...but I unfortunately just assembled it at the beginning of January to make some of my swaps from Leadership. Here she is:

The interesting thing about this card didn't even end up in this picture. For some of my swaps the awesome Basic Black & Very Vanilla 1 1/4" striped ribbon was put on the card using this awesome back and forth technique. It wasn't on there just flat like this one is...Well I started to run low (I thought) on glue dots. Which help hold the ribbon down in this technique. After searching through my pre-Leadership mess for what seemed like to long I went to just putting the ribbon on flat. I don't love it as much but the little girl is so sweet she makes up for it. As do the colors. I just love basic black with any pink but especially with pink pirouette. The embossing folder just gives it a little pop & the girl & the saying are popped up on dimensionals.

The next card, I could not get the picture to come out well when I took it. I didn't have anything, other than my hand to hold the card closed. So please forgive my thumb in the picture.

This adorable card is also a gift card holder. The piece that says "love you" is folded up to make a flap to hold the gift card. It was one of the great swaps that I got from Leadership, unfortunetly I gave it away before finding out who the awesome designer was. So if this is your card email me so I can give credit where it is do.

Today's last card was designed by Crystal May of East Moline, IL (Shout out to another Demonstrator from Illinois). Where it doesn't say Valentine's Day by words on the card, it sure screams it to me. For this card greeting card kids, just believe & the great new You're A Gem stamp sets were used. The two colors are real red & whisper white. What is hard to tell from the picture is that the "4 Ever" words are actually embossed with white embossing powder. Really helps to give it a pop. The Designer Paper is the Love Impressions in the Occasions mini.To add a little more to the card you could even color the cute boy & girl.

That is it for this snowy day. It has really started coming down here in Central Illinois. Luckily all my family is home & accounted for. Hopefully we will be able to have some good quality time while this blizzard comes through. The kids didn't have school today & it is doubtful they will have it tomorrow, especially if we get the 12" to 18" of snow they are predicting. Brrr...luckily it gives me some extra time to stamp.