A NEW CARD AND LOTS OF ENVELOPES

Here is my swap card for Chinese New Year event that I participated in this past weekend with my stampin sistah's and friends.  The cards were to be any design using current SU! products if possible and could be any theme.  I wanted to use SU! saleabration papers and stamps.  I made 15 of these cards - 8 for the swap and 7 for family members for Valentines.  Certainly a different spin on Valentine colors, wouldn't you say?  But honestly, I love these colors.

The colors are calypso coral, lucky limeade, pool party (all SU! IN COLORS) and whisper white.  I used my SU! distressing tool to distress the edges of the pool party card stock. I embossed the lucky limeade with the dots SU! embossing folder for the BIG SHOT.  The ribbon is calypso coral and unique to Stampin Up!  The designer paper is Everyday Enchantment which I earned for FREE from SU! for Saleabration!  I LOVE THIS DSP!  It's worth a $50 SU! order to get a pack.  I heat embossed the heart which I stamped using the NEW stamp set from the Occasions Mini Catalog called Take it to Heart.  It's a great SU! set!  The hearts behind the embossed heart were embossed and die cut with the heart embosslit from SU!.  I also used the same white embossing powder on the Amour stamp and then sponged some peach parfait ink over it to bring it out.  The sponging around the dsp edges is soft suede.  This is a must have color ink for distressing and making papers look more vintage which is really HOT these days.

The inside of the card was left blank for the swappers but I stamped the sentiment and flower inside for my family to wish them a happy valentines day.

Here are the envelopes I created to send the cards to family members.

This is a little simpler envelope.  I really love decorating these and then sending them SNAIL MAIL.  The recipients really smile when they see these envelopes amongst the business mail and bills they receive.

I tried to match the colors on the envelope with those of the stamped card.  All of these are going in the mail later today.  I want to head to the post office to get some new postage stamps.  I saw that some of the cool new February releases are out now.  They have some really wonderful designs.  Too bad that the price for mailing went up recently.  I must stock up on those forever stamps.  I'm glad they make them.  I still have a bunch of 34 to 44 cent stamps in a folder at home and I need to buy other denominations  to make them work.  It's all good, however.  I just get to make the envelopes even more colorful.