PROVOKING THOUGHTS POST 3 - LAST FEW PICS TO SHARE

I wanted to share a few more samples from our Provoking Thoughts Class this past Saturday. There were at least 30 pages that I completed with the help of Linda and Hsiao-hui but I can only post so many. The one above has a clear button and a rhinestone placed on top of it for the embellishment.
This quote has some embossed butterflies. A lot of people liked this embellishment a lot.
Linda distressed the card stock on this one and I have to say that I really like it. I also love her embellishment that she added. The 3D embellishments really worked nicely in this book.
Linda designed this one also. She dyed chipboard with rich razzleberry ink and the chipboard - when done - looked like suede.
Looks like Linda got in a photo of Sharon and I working on our books.
Kim put together some really nice pages.
Amanda made so many great pages. I was snapping photos of each page as she completed it.
Ok, here I am again....making more embellishments. We couldn't have enough of those.
One of Amanda's great pages!
Linda even stamped in her book and it really looked great.

PROVOKING THOUGHTS POST 2 - THE MINI BOOK

This past weekend several of us got together to make this awesome mini book of quotes called Provoking Thoughts. We also made the accompanying box and the roses on top. Today I wanted to share another photo of the box with book and to talk a little bit about the book. I got the idea to do this for a class when several of my friends and I went to the Remarkable Stampers Retreat in Harrisburg Pa this past Spring. A fellow stamper named Jeneve Pike showed me her book and my friend Paulette Hall and I just fell in love with the book and vowed that we had to make it. I bought the original design and directions from a sideline demo Deann Oliver. She is pretty clever to have come up with this. I loved Jeneve's version using the Cottage Wall Designer Papers so I did mine with card stock that matched the dsp - namely rich razzleberry, old olive, pale plum and orchid opulence.
I added the clear specialty window sheeting to the top of the book called Flower Fantasy. I'm almost positive that SU! has sold out of it but you could easily use regular SU! window sheeting and just stamp with staz on for the cover. I loved how the window sheeting matched the dsp perfectly. Those who made the book loved this added touch.
Each page has a quote on it. We borrowed most all of the quotes from Deann who included them with the planner. Linda Kincaid retyped most of them in a font we thought worked best with our book. Linda even added a few quotes she really liked. Then Linda and I split up 24 quotes and made 24 pages. We added dsp to each page and backed each quote. We added embellishments to each page. In the photo above I punched some flowers with the boho blossoms punch and ran each through the Big Shot embossing with the square lattice embossing folder. I love the texture. On top of each flower I added a SU! clear rhinestone that I took out of it's metal prongs. In the new Idea Book out this July 1st (yeah only a few short days) SU! will begin to sell sticky back rhinestones that can be added to any papercraft. They will also have pearls.
On this page I used the mini punches from the summer mini catalog and put clear buttons that match the punches right on top. I love these mini buttons. They are adorable and add such a nice accent to the page.
The page just above was designed by Linda Kincaid. I love how she gathered the rich razzleberry ribbon (say goodbye to it June 30th. That is the last day I know of that you can purchase it even though Rich Razzleberry is a color SU! will continue through the new idea book). The filigree brad is a nice touch also. Look at the quote. It says "let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." I'll tell you that Linda and also Hsiao-hui who created the box, do this for me. They are great crafting friends. I want to thank them so much for all of their help in getting this project realized. It was truly a great project and I will have one more post to show you a few more pages we made and a few more photos of our stampers making them. This project certainly makes a great gift for you to give yourself or a friend. I hope to be able to repeat this class in the new SU! year with some of the new papers that will be available Thursday. Watch for it!

PROVOKING THOUGHTS POST 1 - MAKING ROSES

We had a really wonderful time at Linda Kincaid's home yesterday. We got together to make our Provoking Thoughts book and gift box with roses. Wait til you see the finished book. I'm going to be posting that tomorrow or the next day, but I wanted to show you at least some of the photos I took at class. This is the finished box that Hsiao-hui Lin designed for us. The box holds a mini book or cards, or candies or whatever you would like. I love the roses on the front and the top note was embossed with the Big Shot using a brand new folder for SU! called Vintage Wallpaper. It comes out July 1st with the new idea book.
Amanda Hindle came to class and it was great to see her and everyone else. Amanda absolutely loved the class and you can tell by her sweet smile how proud she is of her box. Isn't it lovely?
Hsiao-hui taught us all how to make this great gift box and also gave us a tutorial on how to make the roses from the large flower punch. Sharon Liberto is in the foreground in red reviewing the steps for rose making. Kim Kincaid, Peggy Kincaid and Kim Titus are in the background and Hsiao-hui is teaching.
These roses are absolutely gorgeous! Look how delicate they are in Amanda's hand.
These are some close ups of the folding part.

Hsiao-hui told us we need 3 flowers punched out and she showed us how to cut them and fold and twist them to make those gorgeous roses. We had the technique mastered after we made our first rose. We each needed 3 for our box.
I love how Hsiao-hui had it very detailed for us. She also took us through all of the steps to making the box. I'm going to make a few of these boxes. I must give my mother one of them. She will just cry when she sees it, also. By the way, the colors we used match the cottage wall dsp (retired and sold out - I think I bought the last few packs SU! had for this class - so the ladies who came got a real treat!) we used on the book - rich razzleberry, orchid opulence (retiring and almost sold out), and old olive card stock.
This was a really well thought out project and was so beautiful. I love the way Hsiao-hui took us through each step and helped us make the roses.
Linda really loved these roses. At the end of class, Linda punched the blossoms out of all different kinds of card stock colors. Someone mentioned sitting and watching tv and making a bunch of roses while you watched a movie or a favorite tv show and Linda got to thinking...."these boxes will make great gifts with the roses on them." so she is getting a head start on teacher appreciation gifts for next year, by working on her roses. I think the packaging is just amazing and such a wonderful presentation for a gift. You could give the box and it would be a gift in itself. I am thinking that it is a great way to give a gift certificate to someone and secretaries will love these also.
Kim is working on her rose and I have to say that she really did a nice job. Even Peggy who is next to her in the background did a really nice job with the roses.

Watch for Provoking Thoughts Post 2 and Post 3 coming this week. I have to show you the book and some of the pages we did. Absolutely stunning!