A Workshop for Wendy

Aloha, all!

I originally posted these projects as part of a blog tour.  What fun that was!  The tour group was made up of demonstrators who belong to the group, SUDSOL, which is for Stampin' Up! Demonstrators exclusively.  Great group!  And I provide a free 3-month membership to the group for anyone who joins my Stampin' Up! team.  For more information, just e-mail me.

     Now for my creative projects for the day.  My first workshop using the Stampin' Up! 2010 Summer Mini Catalog was with my new friend, Wendy, and lots of her friends.  After much discussion about how the workshop would be organized, we decided on three Make and Takes, with some of the luscious new Designer Series Paper set, Island Oasis, the Stamp Set, Tropical Party, and (of course) the Sizzix Big Shot.

     For our first project, we made a Favor Bag with the Stampin' Up! Exclusive Sizzix Bigz XL Die, Fancy Favor.  Wow has this been popular with my friends here in Hawaii, who love to give parties with lots of, well, fancy favors!  You've already seen some of my designs using the stamp set, Tropical Party, and I'm just not even close to getting tired of stamping the coconut cup.  Here on the Big Island, this cup is most likely to to have been purchased at one of the local farmers markets and contain coconut "milk."  We rarely see the little umbrella at the markets, but it sure is cute anyway.

     The accents on the Fancy Favor bag coordinate with my favorite colors in the paper I used for this sample:  Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, and Old Olive.  This bag does well with or without a handle, but I decided to use some of the Pumpkin Pie 1/2" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, which I tacked down on the sides with a couple of Turquoise Circle Ice Rhinestone Brads.   I added  a Turquoise Brad from the Bold Brights brad collection.  (I'm really hoping that we'll continue to see the Turquoise Brads, even though I fully expect to the set to retire as two of the colors in that set will retire at the end of June.  Lots of new products this year for sure!)

     The two flowers that accent the upper right corner of the bag front are also stamped with the Tropical Party stamp set.  I stamped on Tempting Turquoise card stock with Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink, and on Pumpkin Pie with Pumpkin Pie Classic Ink.  I then trimmed close to the stamped image and popped them on with some adhesive.  I got the idea for using these flowers from fellow SUDSOL member, Gretchen Barron, who used them in a sample for a recent Stamping 411 challenge.

     Project Number Two was a Tea Bag Holder made with (what else?) Tea Party Designer Paper.  Fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, Maria Matonti, introduced me to the basic project four or five years ago.  I frequently make it as a "get well" card as tea always seems to sound good to me when I'm under the weather.  

     The stamped saying is what connects this project to the Stampin' Up! 2010 Summer Mini Catalog.  I have to confess that I have altered my stamp a bit by removing Eleanor Roosevelt's name from it.  It just wasn't going to work with this particular design.  But isn't the saying perfect for this kind of project???!!! 

     Finally, here's what the inside of the project looks like with the two tea bags nestled into their little pockets.  Here are complete instructions on making the Tea Bag Holder and the Punch Art Teacup.

     The Third and Final Project for the workshop was a greeting card.  There I was back at the Stamping 411 blog, looking for this week's challenge project and I stumbled on the layout for this card.  Here is another use of the Island Oasis Designer Series Paper – there are actually 4 of the papers represented here!  For the greeting, the wonderful old fall-back Stamp Set, Sincere Salutations  seemed to be perfect.  The measurements for this card aren't really important.  What's important is that you scrounge around and find scraps to use to make your own unique card front!  Any set of Designer Series Paper – or even combinations of paper sets – works wonderfully.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at Wendy's Workshop!  If you're on Hawaii's Big Island and would be interested in your own workshop, I'd love to talk with you!  Just call or e-mail me any time!