Aloha, all!
The week before last I had a visit from a stamper from Australia. What fun that was!!! Actually Karin, and her husband, Cliff, had found my husband, Harry, as they would be visiting our part of Hawaii's Big Island, and my husband runs the local duplicate bridge club. They were looking forward to playing some bridge with our group and Harry got them all set up to play with us. Meanwhile, Karin was surfing the Internet and found a reference to a project on my blog. When she saw the name, "Messenheimer," and the "aloha" at the start of my blog, she put two and two together and came up with me!!! And, yes, I play bridge, too. So we were well met all around. Of couse we had to schedule some paper-crafting time, and I invited my neighbors, Marcie and Lucy, to come and have a fun class with me and Karin.
All of the projects that we did that afternoon involved the Banner Punch from this year's Stampin' Up! Sale-A-Bration Catalog. That's a punch that's FREE WITH A $50 STAMPIN' UP! PURCHASE of $50!!!
So what did we do with that punch? We took some sheets from the Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack (item #132996) and punched our choice! I punched 5 different sheets, but everyone chose their own sheets, and didn't necessarily punch that many different sheets. So many color variations you can make with that banner punch! And so many ways you can use that Paper Stack! The background of the card is one of the sheets from that set, too!
To go with the colors from the Paper Stack, we used Real Red and Crumb Cake Ink and Cardstock to create the rest of the card. We stamped one of the stamps from the Sale-A-Bration Stamp Set, See Ya Later. In the beginning I didn't really see much that I liked in that set. But once I had it in my posession, I could find LOTS of things to do with it! For the card, we stamped the entire Birthday Stamp on Whisper White Cardstock using Crumb Cake Classic Ink. Then we stamped the same stamp again using Real Red Classic Ink. We cut out the word, "Birthday," as well as the little cupcake at the top of the stamp and glued them onto the piece stamped in Crumb Cake. You don't have to be really particular about cutting that little cupcake as it's going to be adhered against Whisper White Cardstock anyway.
For the ribbon holding the banner, we used Real Red 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon. First we tied a knot in one end, leaving a nice length of ribbon for snipping to size. Then we carried the ribbon across the top of the card just as we'd like to see it dipping as the banner. Once we knew where we wanted the other side of the ribbon to be, we tied a knot at that spot and snipped the ribbon. We used a Mini Glue Dot to hold down the ends of the ribbon as well as the middle part to form the shape for the banner.
Once the ribbon was adhered, we attached a Stampin' Dimensional to the bottom of each punched banner piece and adhered it to the card front just under the ribbon. Where it was necessary, we used the punched piece to push the ribbon up into place.
It took us almost no time at all to complete this card! Karin will be taking one back to Australia with her and Lucy and Marcie now have some new cards to share, too. Oh, and so do I!!!
We had so much fun with the banner punch and I'll be sharing one more card that we made with you later this week. We also made copies of the card first shown off by Stampin' Up! Artisan Award Winner, Jennifer Timko, that features a sun with its ray made with the banner punch. Fun card, and I'm sure you've seen it all over the web so I won't bore you with just one more copy here! Jennifer's was the best, and I'll just leave it that way!!! On the other hand, none of the ladies at my "class" had seen that card anywhere, so it was new to them and they loved it!!
I had so much fun just showing off a few products in such a diverse group of projects that I'd love to do it again! If you're on Hawaii's Big Island and would like to have a class, please give me a call or send an e-mail and I'll be glad to work something out with you. We can have a class in Robin's Craft Room or at your own home or office! Wherever we do it, it's guaranteed to be lots of fun!!!
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