HAVING FUN AT RHODES GROVE

Welcome to our Bon Voyage Party at Rhodes Grove in Chambersburg, Pa. We are having a truly fun time with all of our scrapbooking, papercrafting and card making friends. This is a 3 day/ 2 night retreat. Ok, we played a little too!
Here I am with Pat Nuckels on night one. We all wore Hawaiian shirts and got in the island spirit.
Carol Hartline has such a pretty smile.
Eileen was having lots of fun!
Linda Murphy is really enjoying the party.
Sandi and I got into some island dancing and partying!

FAUX REPTILE SKIN

This is a super technique that Linda Kincaid demonstrated at our last class at Amanda's home. It is really cool and has a true "wow" factor. The technique is cased from the regionals video that SU! produced last year. It is also very easy to do.
Linda tells that us that the finished results look like reptile skin - a turtle or lizard or alligator - whatever you like. Diana looks on.
Amanda is feeling the skin and can't believe that Linda made this.
She feels the texture and agrees that this is really cool.
Linda says take a cheap paper towel. The more textured the towel, the better the technique will work. She actually said that the less expensive paper towels from the dollar store work the best. Just apply different colors of classic ink directly to the paper towel.

Such a great effect.

This is really very easy. After you color the towel, apply versamark ink all over.
Next, place the paper towel in clear embossing powder.
Begin to heat the embossing powder.
The colors really "pop" on the paper towel and then give the towel a plastic or skin feel.
Next, color your subject. Linda always gives good directions on how to color. She used watercolor crayons and her aquapainter which she loves to paint her turtle.
Amanda is featured above heating her new faux skin.
Paulette is watercoloring by coloring first with the crayons but you can also apply the color with the aquapainter.
Katie is applying versamark to her paper towel.

This technique is so much fun and all of the stampers enjoyed. it. Look for some projects from them showing off this great technique.

USE THE SU! JEWELRY TAG PUNCH TO MAKE A FENCE

Tnis is one of the cards we made last night at class at Amanda's home. We were so glad we had the opportunity to get together. I was really excited to show the stampers how to use the jewelry tag punch to make fence posts. Easter is really just around the corner, even though Maryland is bracing for another snow storm tonight/tomorrow. The colors used for the card are pretty in pink, so saffron, certainly celery, chocolate chip and creamy caramel. The ink for the Easter Sentiment is chocolate chip (stamp set is well-scripted) and the ink for the bunny is chocolate chip craftink that I used clear embossing powder on.

The envelope by the way is stamped using the hostess level 1 set (you can earn this for FREE with a workshop order) that is called of the earth.
This chocolate bunny looks good enough to eat! Perfect for a fun Easter project. Cost is only $7.95 number 116980. Order anytime from my website. You can also order the jewelry tag punch which is an absolute must have. There are so many cool things you can do with it and making the fence is just one. Use number 117190 cost is $10.95.
Punches are a quick and easy way to add interest, dimension, and color to your cards, tags, and scrapbook pages. You can glue punched shapes directly onto your projects or layer a sheet of card stock that has been punched over a coordinating card stock for a reverse effect. The large cutting surface of our punches give you better punching leverage and cutting precision, and the sleeker body makes it easy to store. I really love our SU! punches and the new ones in the Occasions mini catalog are all exclusive to SU! In fact the one that I used to edge the card with open scallops is one that you can only earn during saleabration time.

Here is a close up of the fence I made with the jewelry tag punch. I also used the woodgrain background stamp 117100 so that the fence looked real. I also stained the wood fence posts with some chocolate chip ink and a sponge dauber.
I've got another great bunny card that Katie Ford demonstrated for us that I'm going to post a little bit later. It is really adorable.

MY SU! STUDIO AGAIN

If you would like to make a House and Cards see the above post for how you can obtain the pattern, ideas and a class kit.

MORE NYC PHOTOS

I just wanted to share some more NYC highlight photos. These were taken by Amanda Hindle. Shown above are Hsiao-hui Lin and Debbie Coomes in Chinatown. They bought these adorable hats for $4 each. What a bargain.
We went to the wax museum and some of us had our photo taken with the Obamas.
Above is my sister Christina Deyo. She is Martha's television producer. She does an amazing job. She got all of us the tickets.
View of NYC and I think you can see Hsiao-hui with her pink hat the bottom center of photo.


I'm in the foreground above looking like a typical tourist in NYC. We were in Chinatown for this photo.
Amanda in the audience at the Martha show.
The above photo is the church outside our window at the hotel. It was snowy and slushy the day we arrived. NYC is better equipped to handle snow than we are here. It was a funny site to see 9 women lugging suitcases from Penn Station to the hotel. We didn't get a photo of that because we were cold and just wanted to get the suitcases to the hotel.
Debbie is enjoying her Starbucks. We all loved the hot chocolates, teas, and coffees there.
I'm waving from outside the Martha show. We lined up around 8 am and were let into the audience around 8:30. We had special priority seating and grouping so we were the second group to get our seats. So nice to have a connection to the show. We also got some great gifts while we were there.
The above photo is just before we left on the bus. We took the Megabus from White Marsh. It was a really smooth and quick ride. I highly recommend the bus as a way to get to NYC.

Hopefully more photos in the next week. These were just some scattered highlights that Amanda sent me. Love them!

WINGS OF LOVE

A good friend of ours lost her mother recently and I wanted to get a sympathy card off to her. The Big Shot butterfly embosslet (exclusive to SU!) butterflies remind me of life and how it should be cherished every single day. I thought a butterfly theme was a good choice for sympathy. Yesterday, I was at my good friend and Upline Janet Wakeland's home and a very similar card was one of our DIVA projects. I decided to make a second one and modify it just a little for my friend. The background stamp is the fine flourish stamp (under $10 from SU!) stamped in taken with teal. The card stock is sahara sand, whisper white, and taken with teal. I also used the modern label punch and wrapped it around the sahara sand - clever idea from Janet. The brads are teal rhinestone brads from SU! that I love and I put the one in the center through a small white SU! grommet. The sympathy stamp set is a retired set that I still love and have kept called Brighter Tomorrow.

GRACIOUS GIFT FROM KATIE AND CLASS PHOTOS

Yum! It's a lollipop! But this one is a special one. It is a tea light candle with a lollipop stick. Isn't this clever? Katie Ford demonstrated this to us at class at her house a week ago. She dyed our satin ribbon with re-inker also, isn't that cool. The sentiment is from one of my favorite stamp sets - Define Your Life, which is also included in My Digital Studio. Katie stamped hers. Katie told us she couldn't take credit for the idea. She got the idea from Dawn Griffith.
Paulette Hall is holding up 2 of the lollipops. Katie gave us 2 each. How generous!
I think these are really adorable treats to give out and really clever idea. Below you see Rita Gorrick working on the Valentine treat we made using the 2 tags die (exclusive to SU! for the Big Shot and a Shelli Gardner original). You can also see our tech card we did that I featured in an earlier post.
Hsiao Hui Lin is below working diligently below on one of the projects for the evening. Hsiao-hui also demonstrated a card I'll feature later this week.
Next we have the lovely Linda Murphy. Linda really enjoys stamping when she can. She is the mother of 2 adorable boys who love to craft also. Linda is working on a card that JoAnn Bernard demonstrated that I'll also be featuring later this week.
Paulette Hall loves those SU! Stampinwrite markers. Ahhh! What colors to choose!
JoAnn Bernard is such a sweet person. We get really lucky when she comes to help demonstrate. If you see her name listed as a guest demonstrator at any of my events, sign up quickly. She has some of the most beautiful projects.
Our featured Hostess Katie Ford is below. She is wheeling some of the card stock for Paulette and I for Hsiao-hui's card.
Young Brown is a fabulous demonstrator. She actually is not a SU! demonstrator (yet!) but she is great at it. She likes to do intricate folds and origami. We have a cool upcoming card by Young to watch for also.
Ok, more to come tomorrow and throughout the week. We will see some of you at Amanda's Mardi Gras party/class Tuesday. Can't wait!