And now what many of you have been anxiously anticipating... My swaps... and a little something I made at the retreat....

Here is my swap card... I apologize that this first picture is a bit blurrrrrry... :( This was a joy fold card which I really like. You can also turn this card vertically and have it flip open from top to bottom instead of right to left.. I tried to use many different techniques and accessories on this card...

For the dies I Sizzix dies I used the beautiful butterflies die, the flower burst embossing die and the harlequin background embossing die...

Just an FYI with the flower burst, not only does it emboss but it also cuts out the flower... so you don't need to use your circle punch with it (like I thought I was going to need to do...).

The cardstock used was...... Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Not Quite Navy and Bella Bleu DS paper..

Ink... Sahara Sand, Soft Suede and Not Quite Navy..






Accessories... 1/2 pearls from the SUP pretties kit.

And finally, the stamp sets include... Friends/ 24 7, Hope Happens and Herbed Expressions.

I also made this ornament for the Christmas Party on Friday night. I really wanted to do something with Shell-a-bration.. So for this I stamped the fish on acetate in black stazon, cut out the circle and colored with permanent markers. When I tried coloring with SUP or Copic markers, the colors were very light and tended to remove the black stazon. I then added some sand and very small shells (I picked up in the craft department of Walmart). Before closing the can I cut a small hole for the twine with my crop-a-dile and added the twine for hanging. Because of the sand and the shells I did glue the can when closing it. Finally I added the bow and small shells on the twine for a little extra bling..





And finally... Friday night my roomie Nicole and I made a quick trip to Walmart. (quick.... right Nicole... LOL) ok, so it took us a couple hours to find the Walmart that was only 10 minutes away.. But it was fun anyway. And we did find the Joann Fabric store that we needed to find and a Starbucks... LOL

While pursuing Walmart we came across these large green clothes pins... Ohw awesome. I decorated these using My minds eye paper that I picked up in Michael's. The flowers were cut out using the Flower Fold Big Diezzzzzzzz, embossed with Glassy Glaze to add a little extra umph...... and then a chocolate chip corduroy brad was added to the center.. How cute are these.

That's it for now....

Happy Stamping... Come back soon.. I feel some blog candy coming your way..

Happy Stamping !!!