Stamping Friends Regional Gathering

Lorinda, Cindy, Marsha, Erin, and Holly

I had a really fun outing with friends yesterday at Rose Ellen's Stamping Friends Regional Gathering.  We watched some informative and inspiring presentations, swapped cards (well, only Cindy made card swaps so the rest of us just enjoyed looking at hers), ate lunch, did make & takes, and overall had an enjoyable time getting ideas and stamping together.

My team leader, Michelle Suit, gave a presentation on Project Life and I felt inspired to give it a try, even though I gave up on scrapbooking years ago. This seems really doable and something I can just do here and there without feeling the pressure to scrapbook my whole life.  I try to keep a record of our family on my family blog that I print out, so I'm just planning to do some "highlight" project life books here and there.

Michelle Suit--awesome team leader!

One of the presenters, Cathy Williams, showed us how we can make our cards unique with fancy folds.  The card shown below was one of my favorites.  When you first open the card, you see the curtains covering the bear, as you pull it open, the curtains slide to the side and you see the bear peeking through.  So cute!

These are some of the make & takes we did.  I didn't end up finishing all of them:

This next project was one of my favorites, maybe because it was so simple and something I could easily reproduce and mass produce for a variety of occasions.  It uses a craft bag, folded to make a pocket for a gift card.  You slip a small card in the opening of the bag, and the gift card in the pouch in front.  Simple and cute!

Here's a few more pictures from the event.  Looking forward to the next stamping day!