Stamp Camp Was A Huge Success!!

Now that Stamp Camp is over, it is a let down not to have to be working on Stamp Camp stuff every free minute.  It was a HUGE success!! Everyone was very pleased with everything.

So here is a picture of the three forces behind the whole endeavor -

Deby Scott is on the far left.  She's our pastor's wife and a great stamper!  Roxanne (Roxy) Stevens is in the middle.  She is a fabulous card maker.  That's me - Kathy Gerace - on the right.

I'm not supposed to call us the "instigators" or the "co-conspirators", but that's about what we are!!

As each attendee entered the church, they saw these bags sitting on a bench and the floor.  Each person received a decorated gift bag containing the card kits for each of the 15 cards they would be making and a packet of envelopes with a candy cane attached.

Here is a close up of a couple of the bags.

Each bag had a winter design wheeled across near the bottom.  Then the bag was Spritzed.
Name tags were stamped and cut out with a Deckled Rectangle Nestie.  There is a tiny candle in the lower right corner of the tag that was colored with a cream shimmer paint, red, yellow and green Copics.  Kim, another stamping lady, did all the names in her beautiful calligraphy.

As everyone entered the area where we were set up, they saw the tables all decorated with pine garlands, ornaments (one for each person), cups of M&M's and Hershey Kisses and small candy canes.

I think everyone had a fabulous time.  There were many there who had done a little bit of cardmaking and others who had done none.  Everyone helped everyone else. 
When special techniques were required, the three of us (D, R, & K) did one on one instructions.  There was a huge variety of techniques to be tried.
Here are random pictures from around the room.

And - yes we did have a gentleman attend with his wife.  They shared the load and worked together.

There were printed instruction sheets and a sample for each card. The tables were set up so people opposite each other were working on the same card.

As people needed to use the heating tool for the heat embossing, each of us went to the heat embossing station to assist them.

At the Cuttlebug stations the folks needed help deciding which embossing folder was the correct one for their card.  After the first trip to emboss with the Cuttlebug, most of them didn't need any  help.

Here is a very happy Justina showing off one of
her completed cards.










Of course we had to have a break for lunch!  Our church is blessed to have a group of ladies and gents who do baking and cooking for special functions like our Stamp Camp and for refreshments after church every Sunday.

They put on a lunch fit for a queen for us.  There were turkey salad sandwiches, macaroni salad, fruit kabobs, chips, punch and a dessert too pretty to eat - a chocolate boat filled with cream, topped with whipped cream and a candy cane.

The little desserts don't show up very well - only the tops of them.
All in all we had a very successful stamp camp and were very pleased how well everything came together.

Thank you for staying with me for such a long, long post.  I have lots more pictures, but these really show best what we were doing.  It was so much fun!  Most of the ladies asked if we would be doing this again next year.  Of course we are!!!!!

Huggeroonies,

House Mouse Calendar in Color

A group of my husband's high school classmates meet the first Wednesday of each month for lunch and to just chat and catch up.
This month was the Christmas gift exchange.  Who do you think was assigned the task of getting a small gift?  You got it -- ME !!  So I suggested one of the House Mouse calendars I had made a couple weeks ago.  I worked furiously getting it all colored Monday and Tuesday.

Here it is in all it's colorful glory!!  (Please excuse the fuzzy pictures)

 

 Thanks so for your visit today!  Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the House Mouse antics.  They sure are cute little guys.  Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Huggeroonies,

Only Two Days Until Stamp Camp!

I am getting so excited!  I have been working so hard getting everything ready for our HUGE Christmas Card Stamp Camp coming up on Saturday, December 3.  We have 32 people signed up for this event, including 2 husband/wife teams.
Since I'm the only one of the coordinators who doesn't work, I volunteered (more or less) to do a lot of the prep work for the event.
I decorated 36 white paper bags with winter theme SU wheels.  Then I spritzed them with different colors spritzes I had in my stash, added 5 ribbon streamers, a hand stamped name tag and a Christmas bow.  Another one of our stamping friends did the names in calligraphy - beautiful job too!!  I started out with a stack of narrow Christmas ribbon spools.  As I ran out of one ribbon, I just added another!
Here are pictures of a couple of the bags showing the gorgeous name tags and decorations:

When spritzers aren't used regularly they do tend to glob :(  In each bag will be a packet of 15 envelopes and card kits for the 15 cards we're doing.

I am amazed at the mountain of card stock I went through cutting pieces for 180 cards.  Fortunately there were five different designs so I didn't get really sick of just one.  I posted pictures of them 4 or 5 posts ago.  I had to go buy more of a couple of the ribbons, but I did empty several spools. Talk about and inventory reduction project!!

We will also have 6 door prizes - 3 Magnolia Tilda calendars and 3 House Mouse calendars.  The idea for these calendars and the Excel files are from a Splitcoast Stampers group who did 2011 calendars.  One of the ladies posted some of her pages and I loved them.  The files for the calendars was emailed to me.  I am so sorry, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was.

They are not colored so the winner can color however they would like.  I used a different stamp for each month that would represent something that month is known for.

Here are the Tilda calendar pages -

 

I edited these pics so they were all the same brightness, but as you can see ---


And here are the House Mouse pages -

Again I had all the pages looking the same when I did the edits on them.  Oh well ---  I'm tired, it's letting late and I'm using Kodak EasyShare and Blogger.  What more do I need to say!?!

I hope you have been able to stay awake through this looooooong post!  Please leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge # 59 - Snowflakes

Happy thanksgiving to everyone!  Gobble, gobble, gobble!!
Our Inventory Reduction Challenge for this week is "Let me see some snowflakes".  What a fun theme this is!  What a needed break from cutting papers and ribbons for our upcoming Christmas Stamp Camp.
I have gone through so many packs of paper, I've lost count.  Then there are the spools of ribbon and other embellishments - WOW!!

Here is my card with snowflakes.

That luscious paper is from Webster's Pages petite papers Botanical Christmas - long name for a collection of great papers.

The snowflakes were die cut using Cuttlebug Snowflakes #2 and DCWV Glitter card stock.

Mini Snowy Hugs was so fast to color.  The shading is a bit tricky on those tiny images.  I put Liquid Applique on the hat bands, pom poms, top of broom, bottom of Tilda's jacket and on the ground under Snowy.

Here is the inside of the card opened.  The ribbon was from my stash.  It was wired ribbon that I removed the wire from.

The paper is from the new Sweet Christmas Dreams paper pack.

The charm was from Magnolia's Christmas theme charms.  It says "think snow" with a tiny snowflake attached at the end of it.

The snowflakes are the same as on the front.  The jotting panel was cut using Cuttlebug's Labels Four dies.

The holly leaves and snowflake on the jotting panel are from Magnolia's Sweet Christmas collection.
The background DP is from DCWV Christmas Stack from 2 or 3 years ago.

Here are close ups of  the embellishments. 

Thank you all for stopping by and leaving some sweet comments to make my day extra special!
Be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs to see the wonderful creations they've made!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #58 - Thanks giving

Good morning everyone!  I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a card for this challenge.  Why? you ask - because I had a particular stamp in mind for the inside and needed an appropriate front of the card.  After a full day, it's a bit difficult to think creatively at midnight - especially when the body says "Bedtime" and the mind says " Just a few more minutes".

I did get the card finished about 1:00 am.  At that point I wasn't in any mood to deal with Blogger :(
So -- here is the masterpiece!!

I used Tilda with Pumpkins (Pilgrim Tilda - my name) and Native American Tilda and Log.
The large background wreath is from Debbie Mumm's Harvest & Holiday stack from JoAnn Fabrics.  It is so glittery.  I colored all the images with Copics.  And YES! I have the numbers this time.

Pilgrim Tilda - B99,  95,  93, 00, C6, 7, E35, YR24, 21, 18, 15, 12, YG67, 63, E000, 00, 11, R21.

Native American Tilda - E39, 34, 31, 15, 13, 11, 00, C9, 7, 5, 3, BG49, 45, Y06, 02, YR07, 04, R08, and Red metallic pen.
Log - E25, 29, 53

 Here is the inside of the card:

This image is from Cornish Heritage Farms Stamp of the Month, November, 2007.  I colored this goofy looking guy with Primascolor pencils that I did not keep track of.

I hope you are having a huge laugh at this turkey!!!  He really is very funny ;D.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  As you're preparing your Thanksgiving feast, please remember this poor scrawny bird.
Be sure to check out my team mates' blogs to see what they have done with this challenge.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #57 - Something with Wings

Our challenge theme this week is Something With Wings.  I had thought of an airplane, butterfly, and Beautiful Tilda.  She has very large wings in that stamp.

I finished up this fairly clean and simple card last night.  So if you were looking for a complicated scene with stand up figures and big floral bouquets which I love doing, you will be disappointed -- I'm sorry.

I've had this gorgeous Cornish Heritage Farms bluebird stamp for about 3 years.  I inked it up and stamped out several images but never colored them up.  After taking Suzanne Dean's Color Me Creative Copic coloring classes, I have learned how to blend and shade colors.  The color blending is precisely what this image needs.

Here is the card -

It's a regular size card, not the 6"  large ones I make with the Maggies.

The card base is SU River Rock cardstock.
The background is light green from Scrapblocks Layers papers.  The design is Cuttlebug Floral Screen.

The bluebird is stamped on Whisper White and River Rock is the scalloped frame.  I put Liquid Pearls drops on each scallop.  I really need to practice that technique!  Behind the bird is from SU Herbal Expressions and is stamped with Always Artichoke.  The ribbon and bow are from my stash.

The Copics used are B21, 23, 24, YR00, 01, 02 for the bird.  The branch - W0, 2, 3.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking some time to look at my latest creation!  Be sure to stop on by my team mates' blogs to see what they have chosen with wings!

Christina
Danielle
Rene

By the way - have you heard that Cornish Heritage Farms will be having a Grand Re-Opening November 19?  They will have digi stamps and are offering a free one for just a few days at
www.cornishheritagefarms.com.  I can't seem to get the link to work, but copy/paste the link and it should work.


Huggeroonies,