2012 Hosting Schedule

Sat 2/4 6pm – Leanne Young (Fall City) – Thank You or Blue Challenge
Sat 3/10 6pm – Tina Holt (Kirkland) – Birthday or Yellow Challenge
Sat 4/14 6pm – Stephanie D (Renton)– Purple Challenge or feminine cards
Fri 5/18 6pm – Stephanie M (Issaquah) – Green Challenge or masculine cards
Fri 6/8 6pm – Jennifer Mace (Kent) – Graduation/Congratulations or Bright Color ChallengeWed 7/11 – Janet Gillies (Auburn) – Jewel tones or animal challenge
Wed 8/8 6pm – Roselyn Robison (Auburn) – Earth tones or nature challenge

Christmas/Red Challenge 2011

Stephanie D.
Gretchen

Stephanie M.

Tami

Janet

Carrie

Emily C.

Teri #1

Teri #2

Teri #3

Charlene

Jennifer

Gretchen

Robin #1

Robin #2

Melanie #1

Melanie #2

Leanna

Teri #4 (Ornament)

Roselyn (Hershey Nugget Holder)

In the interest of my own sanity, I decided to one "entry" for all of the cards. The Christmas gathering is always one of the most fun!!! Who can resist all of the tempting appetizers and treats? Everyone's favorite seemed to be the Kahlua fruit dip (Melanie maybe you could post the recipe?), but I sampled everything and there was nothing that disappointed. Even better than the food was the wonderful creativity of the cards and crafts this time. Some personal favorites were Jennifer's with her creative recycling effort of a pop can popper thingy, Gretchen's "May Your Holidays Sparkle" cards that many commented looked professional, Melanie's use of rhinestones (I love them but just can't ever seem to integrate them into my projects), the only non-holiday card created by Stephanie, and Teri's simple, but adroable paper ornaments. I can't wait for next month and see what everyone comes up with.

October Playdate Offerings

I'll try to fill Rose's shoes this month and add my commentary along with photos of the amazing cards from our Thanksgiving/Fall and Brown Challenge evening!

Ashley, our kind host, made this cute little bird card. Roselyn would say it wouldn't be our group if there wasn't a card that had a bird on a branch. While this one doesn't include a branch, it sure fills our cute bird quota!

Carrie's card used the Big Shot to add texture to the background. It's a deceptively "simple" layout and is very elegant. (Sorry, I've tried 5 times and can't get the photo to load straight, the blog keeps turning it sideways -- please turn your head to see it!)

This fun card was made by Emily and incorporated several techniques. At first glance, I didn't realize the main pumpkins were stamped. They looked like they were professionally printed onto the paper. Very crisp images!

Gretchen made these darling gold embossed turkeys for us! She let us color them as we wanted to make these turkeys our own. Gobble gobble indeed!

Janet's card certainly fits our Brown Challenge! I adore the little sparkly gem below the ribbon which came in several versions ranging from champagne to gold to bronze. So-so-so pretty!

Jennifer was unable to join us, but her card wowed us all! Her card also used a Big Shot to emboss the happy birthday images at the top of the card and she purposely left the bottom blank for us to add our own birthday sentiment to the lucky recipient.

Leanna brought two cards this time, the first is her offering for the September playdate which she was unable to attend. Its fall colors and tree theme makes it fit in perfectly with the October cards.

Leanna's second card incorporates multi-colored fall leaves and a simple greeting. It reminds of my lawn with the colored leaves blowing about!

This is Melanie's first card for October, an elegant tree that is in the midst of shedding its fall leaves in preparation for winter. The background is also stamped with Versamarked leaves that may not show up in the photo. I love the circle punch hillside that the tree is standing upon.

Melanie is Cricut crazy! This is her second card for the night, a perky little turkey who has bright fall feathers.

Robin is the first to incorporate fabric into our projects! Her card involved tools, wood, leaves and pounding! We pounded the pigment onto the muslin fabric and then attached the fabric to our card with some antique-y mini brads. Such lovely authentically fall-colored cards!














Roselyn was busy being her normal superhero self this weekend and couldn't attend, she sent a variety of cards for all to choose from. This is the one I selected. I love her clever styling of the ribbon, which I would not have thought of myself yet will happily copy. She is a very clever girl.

Tami's card had the cutest bear who is clearly a huge fan of s'mores. Smart bear, s'mores are divine! Tami might not admit this willingly, but a fleece top was sacrificed in the embossing of the the ingredients for this card. Just another example of her dedication to our group!

My first card incorporated the cricut, while I love how cute the items are once they are finished, they really are time consuming to assemble ahead of time. Luckily, for those present, all they had to do was glue the major pieces to the card. You're welcome, ha ha ha ha

This was my 2nd card, a fall/family card. Either a simple note to say hello to a family member or possibly a thanksgiving card with the addition of a sentiment inside. The felt pumpkins I had purchased last year and forgot to use and wanted to put into use this year!


















This was my 3rd card, simply just some punch-friendly trees in some fall colors. Who can't use some fall-themed thank you cards?!














This was my 4th card for the night. It was stamped with brown ink, then stamped again and embossed with Versamark/clear powder and finally painted with LuminArte iridescent paint all on thick watercolor paper. The yellow cards are my new fave as they have sparkles.

This was Tina's adorable card, nice use of her Create a Critter Cricut cartridge to make this funny little turkey all dressed up for Thanksgiving.

2011 Halloween/Orange Challenge

This was Roselyn's project for the night. It is made from wood blocks and mostly involved modge podging. It was an attendent only project. On one side it reads "Halloween" and flip it over, wham, bam, it reads "Christmas". Who would ever have guessed those two words had the same number of letters. It also had little yellow stars on each end with wire attaching them to the wood blocks.

This was also a card that was a left over from last time. This was Roselyn's creation as well. What adorable little bug brads.

This was Janet's card for the night. She used a technique called kissing where she stamped the flower stamp with another stamp and then stamped the card with the flower stamp. It all came together to make one amazing card.

This was submitted by Ashley and was the only black cat card of the night. What a great little card. I love the sparkly and spooky stars and paper.

This one was actually a late submission from last time. I completly forgot who did it, so you'll have to add a comment and claim this one. Otherwise, I guess I can claim it - it's definatly nice enough that I would like to.

Robin did both the challenges too and created the spider (with adorable little googly eyes) and the orange bubble card. They are both just too cute - I might not be able to send these ones out.

Gretchen was the newcomer for the night, but despite being a newbie she really brought IT with this cute little card. I love the neon green detail on the ribbon. Welcome Gretchen.

Carrie's little card was just precious. The background paper was originally all orange, but we swiped it across a black ink pad and ended up with this really cool effect. We also used a very strange distresser tool to get the rough edges at the top and the bottom. Carrie has all the fun toys.

These adorable trick or treaters are Tami's design for the evening. On her original there were also candy corns; I went rouge and put them on the inside of my card.

Jennifer created this spooky little card. There were many options to choose from, including pumpkins and skeletons, but I loved this scary little ghost. Great use of chipboard here.

This card is simply to die for. I love the different way to use a button and ribbon. Great detail with the jute as well. Nice work (as always) Stephanie M.

My version really does not do this card justice!!! What an adorable stamp that Tina picked for us!!! I loved the little flowers.

This was Melanie's adorable card for the evening. I really liked hand-drawing on the little pumpkin eyeballs- thanks Mel.

Our host outdid herself as usual. And these are only the cards!!! The little ghost is raised with diamond glaze, the pumpkin is outlined with brown ink, and the thank you card has a 3d flower. She did it all too" orange challenge, Halloween, and fall.

Stephanie D. went over the top with this card. First ever time at stamp club using puff paints. The inside reads "Boo" and "Happy Halloween".

Bats and pumpkins!!! Nicole outdid herself. She also had, it seemed to be the general consensus, the cutest "Happy Halloween" stamp of the evening. The bats have diamond glazed wings - great touch!!!