RAKs in the Mail

VC Rocks blog banner! Isn't it cute!!!

I belong to a very fun group of people called VC Rocks. The VC stands for Virtual Convention! Every summer, Stampin' Up! has a real convention in or near Salt Lake City, UT but it is really spendy by the time you get your plane tickets, motel, meals...well, you get the picture, so not every Stampin' Up! Demonstrator can go or even wants to go. Me, I would love to do it just once! I guess it's quite the Hoopla! So, several years ago, someone got the bright idea to start this virtual community to celebrate the new annual Stampin' Up! catalog, summer, stamping, and just having fun! I signed up last year and thoroughly enjoyed my time with the group that "meets" from May 1 through September. Yes, the group is dormant the rest of the year except for a brief surge in December!

VC Rocks is open for registration May 1-31 and accepts Stampin' Up! demonstrators and customers. But this is not an easy group to belong to...fun, but not easy! There are Swaps, RAKS (random acts of kindness), Challenges, Blog Hops, oh my! We even have a charity that we donate to at the end of the summer. This year our donations will go to Ronald McDonald House:) 

In the last week I have been the recipient of two RAKs and I wanted to share them with you! This first one if from Karen Gibson in Brunswick, Ohio...

This is a Clean and Simple; Quick and Easy card! Love it! Can you see the embossed frame behind the Happy Birthday sentiment? How about the texture she added to the banners? Great card! Thanks, Karen!

The second card is a Fancy Fold from Debbie Peterson in Arlington, Washington...

This is how the card looked straight out of the envelope but then you take the ribbon off and...

Check.it.out!!! What a beauty! And check out the cute tags in all the pockets!!!

I feel so blessed to have received both of these amazing cards AND to be part of VC Rocks for another wonderful summer!

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed these beauties because I sure did! Now I need to get some cards of my own made! 

Kat

June Thank You Cards

I have been busy working on my June Thank You cards! I decided to do the ones for my customers and hubby's clients all the same since I was doing them at the same time. I wanted a Patriotic theme and found one in this card. I also wanted something Clean and Simple since I didn't have a lot of time. Besides it's fun to see what you can do quick and easy sometimes. However, I really like all the layers and fussing so don't do a lot of Clean and Simple! I CASEd this card from Loll Thompson at Stamping with Loll.

I stamped some of the cards with Real Red...

And some with Midnight Muse because I gave the Brilliant Blue stamp pad to my daughter because it was retired. Good for her; unfortunate for me this time.

For these cards I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies...

• Whisper White Card Stock
• Designer Series Paper: Brilliant Blue (retired) and Polka Dot Parade
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Midnight Muse or Real Red
• Other: 1 1/4" Punch (to make flag ends); Square Lattice Embossing Folder; Basic Rhinestones

After making several cards, I got the brilliant idea to color some rhinestones to make them red, white and blue! How fun is that?!!! It just takes the right color Sharpie marker and tada! you have colored rhinestones. It works on the Basic Pearls, too.

So, if you purchased Stampin' Up! products from me in June or are in my downline, you will receive one of these cards in your mail box real soon!

Kat

Creative Elements Birthday

My card today is the one I did as my design team project for The Cupboard Trilogy Challenge for June. I had a hard time getting it to photograph well but this is pretty close to "real life"! I love the colors pink and gray together and this card did not disappoint! Usually I try to do something a little bit fancy for my design team project but this month I went with Clean and Simple! There's a lot of elegance in Clean and Simple:)

I used the background image in the Creative Elements stamp set to stamp on the Basic Gray card stock in Basic Gray ink. I also used the same image in Pink Pirouette to stamp on the white but used the stamp-off technique to make it very light. Pink Pirouette is a very light pink and I wanted to flowers to show up so had to make the background image even lighter by stamping-off. If you're not familiar with stamping-off, it is when you ink up your stamp, stamp once (lightly) on a scrap piece of paper and then on your card stock. 

For this project I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Card Stock: Whisper White, Pink Pirouette and Basic Gray
• Stamp Sets: Creative Elements, Papillon Potpourri and On Your Birthday (retired)
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Pink Pirouette and Basic Gray
• Other: Sponge Dauber (to color in butterfly); Elegant Butterfly Punch; Basic Rhinestone

The new Stampin' Up! Catalog started last Friday! If you would like to browse, click the button on my side-bar for a pdf version of this fabulous new catalog! If you would like to order, click the "email me" button on the side bar or go to the Stampin' Up! website, order and choose me, Kathy Skinner, as your demonstrator (if you don't already have one.

I will be back this afternoon with my Happy Homemaker Monday!

Kat