Swap - Lyssa's Convention Quality Swap

I joined 3 groups for Lyssa's Convention Quality Swap for Leadership this year. This swap was posted at SCS (http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/) on the demo side of the site. I happen to follow Lyssa alot on her blog (http://www.songofmyheartstampers.com/) . I chose to use 3 stamp sets that are in the Idea Book and Catalog instead of the Occasions mini. Many people had signed up with stamp sets from the mini - but we are still selling sets out of the Idea Book.

The first card photo was made with Greenhouse Garden and En Francis background. I stamped the EnFrancis in Soft Suede onto Very Vanilla Cardstock. Then I sponged it with Crumb Cake ink. Over that I stamped the flowers with Calypso Coral and the interior of the flowers with Poppy Parade. Notice I did stamp off some of the flowers. The ribbon is Calypso Coral. The cardbase is Soft Suede with a Poppy Parade mat. Sentiment comes from Blessings from Heaven. I used my Early Expresso and Poppy Parade markers to ink the sentiment on Very Vanilla cardstock. Then I used an Oval punch to punch it out. The mat is Poppy Parade cut from the Scalloped Oval punch.

Card 2 is one stamp set that I don't think gets enough ink. That stamp set is Courage. I stamped the image with Black stazon onto Whisper White cardstock. Then I cut it out with our new Label Framelits. I also cut a Night of Navy mat with the Label framelits. The red mat was ran thru the Big Shot with the Square Lattice Embossing folder to give the card some texture and depth. Then I used a white mat to make it more eye-appealing (and not overly a dark card) and put it all on a Night of Navy base. Coloring was done by markers. Sahara Sand for the uniform, Real Red for the stripes and Night of Navy for the background of the stars. Believe it or not, this is the only card of the bunch I forgot to color the shoulder of the soldier. When I saw the photo I went back and remedied this problem. Because we had to add an embellishment, I colored 4 rhinestones with a red Sharpie permanent marker and added them to the card. I love that Sharpie marker trick on the clear rhinestones (and my pearls) to achieve the color I want for my card. The sentiment was stamped with Night of Navy on Whisper White cardstock. Then cut with the Word Window punch. It was matted with Night of Navy cardstock and cut out with a Modern Label punch.

Card 3 uses the stamp set Everybunny. The background paper comes from the Hostess section of the catalog. It's on page 11 and it is called Cheerful Treat DSP. I stamped that cute bunny in the balloon using Stazon black ink onto Whisper White cardstock. Then colored it in using Pink Pirouette, Concord Crush, Lucky Limeade and Bashful Blue markers. The mat and the card base are Wisteria Wonder. Then I got creative and used the Word Window punch to cut out 3 white strips. Matted them onto 3 Wisteria Wonder punches made with the Modern Label punch. Attached them to my image base and then started adding embellishments. As you see, I chose 3 flower buttons and placed rhinestones in the center of each button. The sentiment was stamped in Concord Crush and cut out with an Oval Punch. It was then matted in Wisteria Wonder using a Scallop Oval Punch.

I made 20 of each card for my 3 groups. So I came home with 19 new cards (or new to me in trade!). My 20th card in each group I used for open trading when it was returned to me.

I will be back to show you some of the cards I got in this swap.