Halloween Time!

Been busy working on my Halloween Class! We are doing some fun projects so I thought I would take a few minutes to post a picture.

We are making 1 card and 4 Halloween treat containers. I tweaked the card from one that I saw online. Absolutely love it. The treat containers consist of a mummy (coffin) box and it fits a hershey treat candy bar perfectly inside, a nugget box filled with 3 nuggets, and treat bag topper filled with chocolate. Catching the chocolate theme here. ;-)

The last treat container is one that was displayed in our Stampin' Success magazine and it is fun cone that could be used for any occassion depending on what paper you choose to make it with. Remember to use thin strips of those leftover scraps with your crimper to make confetti strips. That is all for now. More later!

Been Missing in Action this past couple of months!

OMGoodness! I did not realize that my last post was June 27th. I have been so swamped with convention swaps, getting kids back to school, major project at my day job, etc. that time passed incredibly quickly!

I am back now and promise to get back to posting more regularly again. Let's start today off with pictures of my convention swaps!

This one on the left is one that I did for a Make and Take at my used stamp sale. Very simple and very easy to do. It uses Doodle This, Apricot Appeal and Perfect Plum. I had some extra's so I made them up and took them to convention.

The one on the right is another convention swap. I was kind of into techniques for convention this year. This one uses the embossing resist technique, Snowflake Spot Stamp Set, Brilliant Blue CS, Glossy CS, Versamark, Winter White Embossing powder, Tempting Turq. CS and Ribbon, Tempting Turq. Ink, Sage Shadow Ink and Ballet Blue Ink. I was not real sure about the color combination, but I went with it and it turned out pretty well in person. The picture does not do it justice - this was a popular card at convention!

The one on the left is one that my 13 year old son came up with. We love Halloween and enjoy the spooky and fun it brings out, but not the commercialized horror that has unfortuneately taken over the holiday! Enough with my soapbox, but watch for some spooky fun things in the next month or so... This card uses the wheel Arachnophobia and the spiders from Booglie Eyes. The paper is torn to represent the spiders coming down to hang out with their buddies from the dark cavern.

I am working on some fun Halloween projects for some of my customers who love it as much as I do! The class is scheduled for September 21st to allow them plenty of time to get things done! Loved the BOW that Shelly showed us at Convention! That will just be an awesome addition to what I have planned!

This has to be one of my favorite sets. I love the Asian style and I LOVE the color combination of Red, Black and White. This is the cracked glass technique and was also very popular at convention this year. I enjoy the simplicity of this card.

This year I did brave the ATC trading cards! I know they are not always popular, but they are very consumable friendly. I was able to find a few people who were trading them this year. I did 3 different designs this year. All used a technique of some sort. So there they are with a description of each.

Trading Card number one is a Christmas wreath made using the Snow Flurries set in 3 different shades of greens (Handsome Hunter, Always Artichoke, and Garden Green). Add a little Red Gingham and call it good. Very simple concept.

I have been trying for 2 years to do an adequate Christmas Tree with this set and I have yet to succeed. Someday I will make it happen.

Polished Stone has been a technique that I have fallen in love with. I like to do the variation that does not use the metallic re-inkers. The colors used in the background are Close to Cocoa and Ruby Red. I did an entire sheet at one time and then cut it as needed. The basket is from the Give Thanks set. I used the same colors and added in Pumpkin Pie and some Green Galore. I then cut it out and mounted it with dimensionals and added a little creamy caramel gingham ribbon to finish it off.

The final ATC card that I did used the Pumpkin Patch Spectrum pad brayered over the Haunted House to give it a creepy look. I played with this one quite a bit before settling on this plain version. I tried to mask it and cut out all the windows with an exacto and believe me it was sooooo time consuming it didn't work. I was really trying to use a different color pallete. I wanted to use Night of Navy and a much brighter orange and I wanted a light to be shining in the windows. Way, way too complicated to attempt to multiples for convention. ;-)

The last convention item to share with you is the bag/scissors "jewelery" that I made. This was my 3-D item and I traded several and I made 26 of them for our groups Convention Swap.

The final thing that I wanted to share with all of you was a snapshot of some of the items that Karen and I did in our last Pretties Class. We had the class last weekend and everyone enjoyed the projects. Here are some of them shown with the kit.

Hope you enjoyed all the goodies and I will be back in a few days with more!

New Catty has Arrived!

I have received the new catty, yeah! I love it, love it, love it! There are so many cool new sets that make me want to spend mucho dinero. However, the accessories are calling my name too, so I will have to make some tough choices about what I think you all might want to see. I am still working on the convention gifts, but I have gotten more beads to finish them up so expect a picture in the next day or two. I just got done doing my cardio kickboxing (boy that is tough) and I am ready to settle in with a really good book for the night. My catty!

Been a little remiss...

...in keeping up with my blog. I have been working on my SU website and trying to get it updated. Check on the July specials and classes that are now listed. I have also been compiling my list of sets that will be going "on sale" beginning July 1st. In between all that I have been diligently working on my convention gifts for the gals in my group. I have 26 to make and I have 15 done. I will post a picture when I get them done.

Cheers for now, Leslie

Faux Flocking

Ever since I received my Technique Junkie newsletter this month, I have been dying to try the Faux Flocking technique. In preparing my customer newsletter to go out for June (I am way late getting that done), I decided that would be my technique of the month for July. So, I made my first attempt at the technique. I do like it, but I think I need a better stamp set to bring it out better. I used the Paisley background and Bodacious Bouquet for the focal piece. Anyone else tried this one yet?

Summertime

For our group swap this month, we had a theme of red, white and blue. I came up with using the Looks Like Spring set. I love the bold flower in bold colors! I used the Aida background (love that too! and the SU red gingham ribbon.

Brother's birthday

In the hubbub of the last week, I completely forgot to send my brother his birthday card. So, I took some time today to get it made and I have it all ready to send to him tomorrow. I used my cuttlebug to create the focal background and kept it pretty simple. Like most guys he is not into the frilly stuff, but I felt it needed the ribbon (knots, not bows).

Catching up a bit

Well, now that I have the soccer pictures done, see my sample that I am posting here, I am back to working on important things like updating my SU website, class schedules, scanning pictures, oh, and my blog! How could I forget that!! Just kidding. The past week was very soccer filled and I have been putting time in at the gym as well as getting ready for 2 classes.

Already Redesigned

Just get started and then I found this really "kewl" blog skin. Could not resist as it reminds me of the doodles that are so popular now. Haven't had much time to stamp in the last few days but working on getting the soccer pictures done. Can't wait until that is done and I can get back to playing with my stamps!

Woo Hoo!

Welcome to my blog! This is my very first post. Now, what do I do with it???? Just kidding! I have been frantically working on a digital scrapbook page project this week for my son's soccer team party. Talk about having to re-learn everything you thought about layouts. I actually have enjoyed it, but the software programs out there are not as easy as you might think. Much easier to layer paper and embellishments than picture layers, but this was going to be much faster than doing them by hand, especially since we were putting one 8 x10 into a standard frame and not doing a full scrapbook. I will post the final picture up here later in the week when I have it completely done.