Next Card Kit

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. I had a busy one but still it was good.

On my last post, I showed you all the next card kit I am listing on Etsy. But I decided to try something a little different out of my normal kit process this time around. I always get idea overload and come up with several concepts that I want to attempt. But because of time, most of them get pushed back. So what I decided to do this time was to create a few cards at a time, and then make the kits for each card at once. That way I can still use my creative energy to make the cards that I want to in this moment, get them out of my system, and finally move onto creating the kits. I am hoping I can then start the cycle over again. So I plan to make 5 cards in this particular series - so far that is how many I have planned out in my head; we'll see how that goes though - before I start making the kits. Designing is always my favorite part anyway. And seems to take up most of my time. So cross your fingers for me and here's hoping! :)

So I continued with the same sketch to come up with this next card. I do have to say though that I made the dimensions 4 1/4x3 this time, just to try to get more use out of one sheet of cardstock. I am still LOVING this Echo Park paper line - and as I mentioned above I am trying for a series here - so I stuck with that patterned paper. For the stamp image, I went with Stampin' Up! of course, as well as for the embellishments, punches and cardstock.

And here is the card:

Amour Eiffel Tower card:

Cardstock - Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla Stampin' Up!

Patterned Paper - For the Record Echo Park

Stamps - Stampin' Up!

Ink - Early Espresso, Crumb Cake Stampin' Up!

Button and Bling - brown button and half pearlie Stampin' Up!

Ribbon - 1/8" Old Olive Stampin' Up!

Punches and Die - Small Heart, Scallop border, Designer Label, butterfly {embosslit die} Stampin' Up!

Adhesive - glue stick 3M; Continuous Line Glue Dots; liquid adhesive Crystal Effects Stampin' Up!

I thought it would be fun to make the focus of the card not fit on it entirely. So that is why I kept with the smaller card and made the main section taller than the card itself. And I do have to say, I like the results. It was fun to experiment with going outside of what I normally do. Another thing I don't usually do is mat the main stamped image, but again, I wanted to try to get out of my comfort zone a bit. Although I don't love that part of it, I like the color the mat provides, as well as helping with the overall flow of the card. So my gut told me to leave it. :)

Hope you all are good and staying crafty! I am off!

Demonstrator Swap tags

Hi Crafty Friends! Hope you all are good! Thought I would share my swaps that I made for tomorrows demonstrator's meeting. I am loving one of the tag sets that I made to sell on Etsy so I thought I would change it to be all Stampin' Up! supplies to use for the exchange.

Here they are:

It's not easy to tell in the pictures, or really in person, but on the little tag I made with the word window punch, I stamped the "friend" sentiment in Early Espresso instead of Black!!! Not really sure why. But I had made them all before I even realized it! It does look a little off, but at a glance you don't even notice. Still annoyed with myself that I did it though :-).

Here are the supplies I used:

Cardstock - Very Vanilla smooth, Real Red textured
Patterned Paper - Love Letter Designer Series
Inks - Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Stamps - Tiny Tags
Punches - Large Scallop Circle, Designer Label, Bird, 1 3/8" Circle, Word Window, 1/16" hole
Button - Designer Naturals Basic Black and Crumb Cake

Normally everyone makes cards for the exchanges but I really just want to make tags lately :). So that is what I went for instead. I like this tag though. I think that it's a fun versatile template that can be used for any occasion. And for some reason it reminds me of candy! Not sure why though :).

I almost forgot! Have you seen Harry Potter yet? It was absolutley amazing! I saw it on Friday night with Thong, Marci and her husband and some friends from work! I loved it and so can't wait for the last installment to come out! I thought it was done extremely well!!!! I have been re-reading the book and didn't get as far as where the book ended but I was very happy with where they chose to end the movie! I really can't wait though for the final movie to come out in July. I looked it up and it shows it comes out 7/15/11. Looks like I should add the countdown widget to my sidebar! :)
In other crafty news, this weekend I did make 3 more numbers for my advent calendar!!! I will show those sometime this week! I think I should be halfway through by Thanksgiving. Not at all where I wanted to be, but that still gives me hope to get them done by December 1!!! So cross your fingers and here's hoping...

Hope you all have great Thanksgiving plans! My hubby daughter and I spend it with Thong's family. We do Thanksgiving with his and Christmas with mine. It works out nice that way, I think. So excited for Thanksgiving food and crafty day with Thong's cousins! We figured it would be fun to do some crafties this year instead of the normal board games, so now I am even more excited!

Hope you all have a great week!