Beautiful Friendship swap cards

I’m going to spend this week celebrating Beautiful Friendship, an oft-missed stamp set hiding on page 123 of the catalogue.  I've been using this gorgeous stamp set in all my events this month, so it was the obvious choice to use for a swap, too.

Swapping isn't usually for me but I thought I'd give it a go so I could show my customers a greater variety of project. The brief was to use at least two new In Colors, so I turned once again to Rococo Rose, Seaside Spray and Pretty Peacock and the Beautiful Friendship stamp set. 

When you need to make several of the same card, the Stamparatus really comes into its own. I set it up to stamp the background and the greeting on the stitched ovals, but stamped the foliage on the ovals freehand. 

OnStage Local (Telford) swaps

I’m taking a break from Mix It Up Monday this week as it’s been a busy weekend with my trip to Telford for the Stampin’ Up!® OnStage Local event. Instead I thought I would show you all the lovely swaps I received.

I’ve categorised them and, as you can see, the overwhelming theme was Christmas – and if my haul was anything to go by, that gingerbread man was very popular, too.

I know you shouldn’t have favourites, but I do love that vellum Totally Trees card... and the Swirly Bird Christmas card is very cute, too.

Next up are non-Christmas cards and, as you can see, I didn’t receive very many of those at all, although they are all very lovely. 

Finally, the 3D (non-Christmas) selection. I’m always amazed what people manage to create for their swaps as I am really not so good at 3D projects. I’m always doubly amazed that they manage to get them to the event in one piece as I rarely manage to get them all home safely and, in fact, one bit the dust. I haven’t shown it in case I didn’t put it back together properly and don’t show it to its best advantage. 

Hats off to the lady who made the little box holding the jar of lemon curd, both for the lovely gift and for getting that ribbon through those tiny holes. I have removed the jar but will never manage to get the ribbon back!

And those are my swaps. I don ’t go overboard on swapping and made about 40 I think. I have found that any more than that become hard to get rid of because people are “all swapped out”. 

Thank you to everyone who swapped with me – your creations are fantastic!

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Copper Leaflets CAS Telford OnStage swap

Now there’s a snappy title! Yes, this is my swap for Stampin’ Up!’s OnStage Local event in Telford this weekend. It’s not a great photo because I took it at night – waited all day yesterday for it to get light and it didn’t really happen.

Anyway, I’ve made about 40 of these little devils, although when we demonstrators make swaps,  we only do card fronts, to save on supplies... because what we’re really swapping is the idea.

This is an idea I CASEd from what I think is a non-SU project that I saw on Pinterest. I struggled to get the lovely embossed effect just by using the Versmark pad so I hit upon the brilliant idea (if I say so myself) of using Timeless Textures, stamped repeatedly to build up the ink towards the tip of the leaf. 

Although I love the Clean and Simple (CAS) look, it did feel a little bare, so I embossed the background with the brick wall... remembering just in time to stamp the greeting first. I do hope people like my swaps – I can’t wait to see what I get in return! I’ll report back next week.

Leaflets Framelits Dies [138283] £22.00	Timeless Textures Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140517] £18.00	Birthday Blossoms Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139471] £17.00	Brick Wall Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [138288] £7.75	Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] £8.25
Dapper Denim A4 Cardstock [141419] £7.25	Dapper Denim Classic Stampin' Pad [141394] £6.00	Copper Stampin' Emboss Powder [141636] £4.50	Linen Thread [104199] £4.25	Versamark Pad [102283] £7.75

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