CHA SuperShow in review ;- )

     Well, yesterday was the day my friend Susan accompanied me to the CHA SuperShow, as it exists now. Susan is not a paper crafter. She is a quilter, but she came because she is my friend and knew I wanted company and she is always up for that. We both basically knew were it was, but exact directions, escaped us, so from her driveway, I called my DH and got his input. Off we went and after exiting the tollway (let me explain here, that first you get off at the O'Hare airport exit, but from there you exit to a street before you actually reach the airport, that was why we didn't have actual directions, because this is a confusing exit), and finally getting to the street level we drove a bit and then realized, this isn't right. We tried to figure out our way back and after awhile, we were sure we didn't really know how to get to the convention center from where we were. We phoned my husband and interrupted his meeting (it was an informal one), he had the people there trying to figure out where we were going. I said, " I know the address of where we are going, it's where are we now, that's the problem." We eventually got there and since Susan and I are both practical, we had left plenty of time and weren't late at all.

     We procured our tickets to Splitcoaststampers cupcake reception. I will try to post photos of the wonderful gifts that were in the goodie bags we received there. They were so generous. Then we went to the Lion Yarn booth and they were showcasing a new loom, (think the modern version of the kind you used to make pot holders with long ago) by Martha Stewart that will be coming out soon. It has modular pieces and can be made to the size to make place mats down to about 2 inches on each size. That's the size I used to make this flower at the Make and Take.

     A bit later we did the Make and Take at the My Favorite Things booth. They were soooo generous and allowed us to keep the stamp set we used. The ribbon project was the first, of it's type project, that Susan ever made. She was happy that we weren't the first group, so she got to watch the people before us, but she did a wonderful job and was faster than me. Thankfully, she brought an extra pair of reading glasses, that were 1 times magnification, because the brads holding the pin backs on were so small, I couldn't see to open them ;- )

     Our next Make and Take was probably the one from Crafter's Companion. Susan was very impressed with their pearlized cardstock. (One of my planned purchases, though I wasn't getting it until later, so I wouldn't have to carry it.) We used the new boxer board to make this, as well as the Ultimate Crafter's Companion.

We stopped by Archiver's booth and made this.

     Flowersoft gave each person a different little tag or picture, that they could try out some Flowersoft on. We enjoyed talking to the people working at this booth for awhile. Here is mine. 

     One of our great discoveries was a company called RaisinBoat. They are about a year old and they have such wonderful images. Their booth was full of examples made with their stamps and we were told that they had sooo many more in the gallery on their site. Each image had a great variety of examples, all done very differently and all done without a design team. The very unique thing about this company is they don't only sell their stamps, but they also have a rental plan, that works like NetFlicks. What a great idea. You get such a variety of stamps and your cards will always look different.  You should check out how it works and see their interesting designs here. One of the lines I remember from one of their retro sets was something like "May all your clouds be hairspray." I just thought that was so original. The people we talked to at the company were extremely friendly as well. We also, found that they had a Make and Take as well. The stamp was a graphic one from a set called "Splash."

     Upon returning to Crafter's Companion to get my paper, I was happy to run into Sara. She is the beautiful brains behind The Ultimate Crafter's Companion, Rock-a-block, the Boxer, Envelobox Creator and The 5-1 Clevercut Rotary Paper Trimmer. If you've never been to their site, you should check them out too. Both the US and the UK site, because if you sign up on the UK site there are some great member digital freebies monthly.  www.crafterscompanion.com/ and www.crafterscompanion.co.uk/

     Well, like I said I'll post info on the free goodies we got from the Splitcoaststampers reception next time and our trip home story. Yes, there was a story there too, ha ha. This was a long post, but I hope you found it informative. Oh, I forgot to mention, www.stampsbyjudith.com. She was another creative and wonderful person we met who was doing demos. No, Susan's not going to jump into papercrafting. She likes it, understands why I do it, but knows there is only so much time in a day and has 3 unfinished quilts at home ;- ) Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you have any time left ;- ) Have a blessed and playful weekend. 

Using the flower bouquet.

     I wasn't sure I was going to get today's card posted. I got a notice from my online photo company that they are going out of business, so I've been busy editing photos, to get some printed before they close. They are going to transfer all of my photos, that are stored on their site,  to Snapfish, but I like the quality of this company better and they were cheaper. I've gotten a large batch done,  and I have until April 4th.

     I made today's card using the flowers I made with flower soft, a number of posts ago. You can see them here. I purchased the lacy mat, the cone for the bouquet and the ribbon from Flowersoft. Custom Crops has them in different colors. I colored the pearls and  rhinestones with copics (E11 Barely Beige & Y17 Golden Yellow and B05 Process Blue & R29 Lipstick Red).  The sentiment is from Cricut's Storybook Cartridge. This is an anniversary card for a friend of mine that I've known since grammar school. She is my son's Godmother.

The inside was done digitally on Photoshop Elements 3, with a free brush called Valentine Clip Art 3 (to make the beautiful heart.) I think it's found here. If not, there a number of other cool free heart brushes at this site, including vol. 4. (I got it a long time ago, sorry.)  The font is from Scrap n Fonts, called  SNF Classy Charm.  They are having Dollar Days right now, too. Lettering Delights is having a contest for the Silhouette, electronic diecut machine, on their site. Their link is on my right sidebar. The 2 small flowers are stickers from Jolee, that a friend gave me for my birthday. 

     What would I do differently? The bouquet could have used 2 more flowers, but I decided this after I had glued them in and made it too difficult to add more. I meant to do more inking, but I always remember after I've glued the piece down. Why is that? What would you have done differently? Well, I have another boy birthday card to do. thanks for stopping by and sharing your time. Please share your thoughts as well. I truly appreciate hearing from you. Have a blessed weekend ;- )

  

More flowers...

     Today, I was able to get a new quilling board at Hobby Lobby and I found this product.

     DH had a 40% off coupon, as well, and this item cost $9 regularly. You get 120 die cuts to make into spiral roses and 80 die cut leaves. I thought for the time and paper savings, this was a good deal for me. I hadn't made the spiral roses yet, though they were on my list of to do flowers. Today was the day. The die cut sheet looks like this and the are 10 of them.

You get 3 sizes of flowers. Here is my result.

I used my quilling tool to form them and my Tweezer Bee to shape the petals.

     Next I got out my Flowersoft and made another flower I'd been meaning to try. I had purchased the supplies for this, sometime around Christmas. I decided to use the Delphinium Flowersoft on wires. Flowersoft TV has a special on Cardtoppers for Neon Flowersoft, which look pretty fun. You can find them here.  After you watch the show, you can click on offers, to see this week's deal. There is a new one every Friday.

I didn't have any styrofoam to stand them in to dry, so I improvised.

Here they are just lying on the craft sheet. I'm sure you'll see them in a card soon.

     I thought, OK, what now. I should make another flower, so I got some cuts I made with my Expression, when I first got it. When practicing on how to use the Expression, I used Accent Essentials and made flowers in different sizes and colors and stored them away for emergency, last minute card making. They have come in handy before. I have a number of sizes. These are 1 1/2  inches, 3/4 inches and 1/2 inches. I inked the edges and  I used a stylus to give them a 3D effect. I have in the past used the handle of a paint brush or the end of a pen cap to do this.  I curled the edges and added an embellishment.

     So there you go, 3 different homemade types of embellishments for you cards. You can, of course cut your own spirals for the roses, but some time savers, are what I need to actually get over some humps. Penny Duncan does have an SVG for the cut on her blog, as well, and that's the next weapon I'd use to get them made. Thanks, Penny!!!!!!!! ;- ) Maybe, quilling next, though I haven't made the paper rose from CHA (the Craft Hobby Association, winter show) yet. Thanks, for your time. Your comments are so very appreciated. Have a wonder-filled week.