Nor-Cal Paper Crafters Shoebox Card Swap-Saturday June 26th

This past Saturday, the 26th, 13 ladies from Shoebox Card Swap group got together and made cards and ate some yummy food. The theme for the swap was "Summer Fun, 4th of July, etc." The first two cards are the ones I made. The images are from AMuse on both cards. I put clear twinkle stickers on the sparklers and red stickers in the "God Bless America". The designer cardstock was purchased at Michael's. This is one of the cards I did for Elizabeth only it is a bigger size. I also cut a strip of blue cardstock for the ocean which I didn't do for the card I made for her. That card base was from AMuse and it had a strip of blue at the bottom as part of the card. I drew in some waves on my card. The ladies actually had to stamp the sailboat and clouds as it is basically a one layer card. I provided the Copic markers for them to do the coloring.

Julie submitted this card sample with kits for everyone. She was the one that was going to host June's swap and then had a conflict. She wanted to still play so she dropped off her card and kits to me on Friday night.

Michelle's card. She also couldn't come but wanted to play. I loved this card and thought it was quite clever the way she has the ribbon going diagonally across the card.

Linda did two cards also. On this one, she stamped the fish and circles around it on white cardstock, colored the fish, then enclosed some hair gel in a small plastic bag and glued that on top of the fish image. How clever is that!!

Linda's second card.

Karen's card. Another neat card. I didn't get my cards finished so I hope I can figure out how to put this one together.

Joyce's card. She just returned from a five week trip to Kentucky and made her cards while she was visiting there. A side note, her friend that she visited, joined my card swap that I am hosting on Splitcoast Stampers and made the cutest cards.

This is Jenni's super cute card. This is the second shoebox swap Jenni came to, her first one was the one I hosted last year in August. Jenni lives in Vacaville.

Tyana's card. She and Jenni are bestest friends and this was her first Shoebox card swap of ours that she attended.

Renee's card. The popsicle slides out of the card. Renee lives in Woodland. Another cute card.

Renee brought her mom, Sue, and this is her card. She said Renee helped her. She is a quilter and does other sewing. I went to Renee's last year for a workshop she had and met Sue there. So it was nice to see her again. She is a really sweet lady and lives in Lincoln.

The next two cards were made by Rhonda. This was Rhonda's first shoebox card swap with us. She happened to be lurking on SCS and saw the thread for our swap and decided to sign up. Her husband was not sure that she should do that because she didn't know "those people". She assured her husband we were good people because we're "stampers". She lives in Antelope, not too very far from me and shops at the same Bel Air as I do.

Lisa's card. This was her first time also. She and Candice, our fearless leader, are good friends and the two of them hosted a Stamp Retreat earlier this year. They are planning another one in September.

Pat did this adorable card...a popiscle on a stick. So clever!

The next two cards were made by Bonnie. Bonnie is such a neat person. She has had an overflowing plate with dealing with health issues of her husband. He is home now after being in the hospital having surgery and in a nursing facility. She works full time too. I was so happy to see her name on the sign up list and she mentioned that she really needed to play.

An adorable card!

And this last one is Candice's card. I love the color combination on her card. So very nice!!

L to R: Pat, Joyce and Linda.

L to R: Rhonda, Lisa and Candice.

L to R: Bonnie, in purple, and Karen.

Sue, Renee's mom.

L to R: Renee, Tyana and Jenni.

Well, we can't make awesome cards without yummy food to enjoy. This is Karen's chicken salad. YUM!!

Bonnie brought 2 salads. This is cole slaw with raisins. YUM!!

And her fruit salad.

Joyce's macaroni salad.

Tyana's pasta salad. This was so good!!

Jenni brought brownies. Gotta have chocolate! YUM!

My sliced fresh strawberries...

And pound cake slices from Bel Air to put the strawberries on top. I also had some Cool Whip.

Lisa's banana bread. I wanted to have some of this, however by the time I finished what I had on my plate, I had no room for dessert. It looked so moist and smelt incredible.

This is an oops. Didn't realize I had two pictures of Jenni's brownies. She left a few pieces and I brought them home to enjoy. Very good!!

Linda's pulled pork. She put root beer in with the pork when it was cooking then pours in a whole bottle of bbq sauce after it is cooked. She had rolls to put it on. This was incredible!!

Renee's incredible pasta casserole. It had sausage in it. She was driving us all crazy while she had it in the oven cooking. It was very good.

I realized that I forgot to get a picture of Sue's pulled pork dish, which was also wonderful; Rhonda brought a veggie tray with dip and Candice brought salsa with chips. We did not leave hungry.

We all had an amazing time. Our next shoebox swap is in August and Julie will be hosting.

I want to thank everyone who stayed to help clean up, put the tables back and the chairs around them, put the table cloths and centerpieces back on the tables and helped me carry all my stuff out to the van and made sure we left the clubhouse as we found it. We have an awesome group of ladies.

Palm Trees, Pina Colada's - SCS Card Swap

These are the cards I received for participating in the Palm Trees, Pina Colada's SCS Card Swap. This card was made by Janet. Her origami swim suit is quite clever.

There was no name with this card so I don't know who made it. However, the card is adorable. I love the hula girl image. This one was made by Kathleen. She used sand paper for the sand. How clever!! She cut out all of her images and popped them up.

This is Diane's card. So very relaxing. Love this card.

Jess's card. The top of the coconut tree and the flamingo were stamped twice with the second one being popped up for dimension. The sentiment is popped up too.

This last card was made by Pam.

These ladies did a great job with their cards.

I Have A Winner!!

On one of my previous posts, I shared a picture of a card kit that I purchased at the Scrap & Stamp Fest I attended the end of May. I said if anyone was interested in the kit to leave a comment on my blog.


Elizabeth, Amy, Michelle, Florence, Jalna and Yvonne left comments. I finally got around to writing every one's name on a slip of paper and a few minutes ago went outside and asked my friend Sherry to pick a slip of paper out of the basket I had the slips in. And she picked .... YVONNE! Congratulations, Yvonne, you've won the card kit I purchased at the Scrap & Stamp Fest.


Thank you to all of you for leaving a comment. I loved reading what you all had to say. So, Yvonne...send me an email message on Facebook with your address and I will send the card kit to you. If you would like to see what the cards look like again, check out this link: http://elegantreflections.blogspot.com/2010/06/playing-catch-up-on-here-too.html
Scroll down half way through that post to see the pictures. The colors used in the cards are golden yellows, orange, turquoise, yellow, some green.


I am happy to put the cards together for you. There is a box that comes with the kit and I would leave that for you to put together. There are pieces of sticky tape where the box needs to be taped down. An informational sheet comes with the kit with pictures of the cards and box if you'd like to put the cards together yourself. It might be easier if I put them together for you, however you are more than welcome to do it.


Look at the pictures and let me know. Thanks again, Yvonne!! :)

Two SCS Card Swaps Mailed Today

I got the "Through the Year" and "Wedding Anniversary" card swaps mailed today. So I am up to date through July. I have one swap due in August, 2 due in September and 2 in October. So I can probably look in the threads and see if there is any others I want to join.


I got my first card and kits done for the Shoebox Card Swap next week Saturday. I'm going to do a second card for that swap. Then I can take a break for a little while. I need to take an inventory of my cardstock and see what colors I should think about replenishing. I use a lot of cardstock for these swaps. I need to find another source for purchasing cardstock besides Stampin' Up. Green Tangerines, a scrapbook store that was in Rocklin had a nice variety of colors. They closed several months ago. The stamp stores around town don't have as nice a variety of colors as Green Tangerines.

For the Shoebox card swap the theme is "Summer Fun - picnics, 4th of July etc.". For the card I finished tonight, I'm using one of the cards I made for Elizabeth, the one with the sailboat. The second card is going to be patriotic, something simple. I'll probably work on that tomorrow. I need to come up with something for favors. Any ideas?

Two SCS Card Swaps

I have been working on the SCS Card Swaps I signed up for. These two swaps are due the first part of July. This first one is called "Through the Year" and there were different categories to sign up for. I chose Sympathy, Male Cards and Anniversary. Two of the cards for this swap are ones that I've made before. On this Sympathy card I changed the color scheme from the previous card I made using this layout and stamp. The base card is a dark peach, then a soft green that I used the Swiss Dot Cuttlebug embossing on, a layer of brown, peach and ivory. The stamp is from Stampin' Up's Artfully Asian stamp set. I used the yellow Marvy scallop oval punch for the sentiment and popped it up with foam tape. I used brown chalk ink to stamp and rolled the scallop oval through the ink. Also, Copics to color the image. The ribbon is a generic sheer ribbon edged in peach. This card is for the Male category. The stamps are Stampin' Up. I don't remember if I used Stampin' Up cardstock for the card base or not. The striped paper is some paper I have in my stash. I used a soft blue, black and then white that I stamped the bear on using brown chalk ink.

I've used this design so many times. It can be birthday or anything you would want to celebrate. This is my Anniversary card. The card base is dark teal, with a layer of black and then kraft. I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder on this and then scored lines under the embossing on the top and bottom. The ribbon is from AMuse. I love this color combination. I need to find more of this teal, I think I used all I had for this card. The lady hosting this swap lives in Indiana where they've been having some really bad weather.

The next swap that is due in July is one for Wedding Anniversary cards. Again I've used this design before, I just changed the paper used for the butterflies and the ribbon. The card base is white as is the layer which I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on. I then scored lines under the embossing and at the bottom of the card. Its a little difficult to see that it is white on white. I cut the butterflies from a sheet of Basic Grey designer cardstock. It looks black, it's actually navy blue. The ribbon is navy blue also. I put some tiny pearl stickers down the middle of the butterflies and popped them up with foam tape. The hostess for this swap lives in Maryland.

I'll put these in the mail tomorrow. The next SCS swaps are due in August so I can take a little bit of a break. Although, I now need to get ready for another Shoebox Card Swap which I am hosting here at the park next week Saturday. We'll be using the clubhouse. Fourteen ladies have signed up so it should be a fun time. I was going to host in August, however, Julie who was going to host this month had an unexpected conflict so we are switching. She'll host the August shoebox swap.

The theme for this month's swap is Summer Time Fun or Patriotic. I don't know if I have anything that will work. I need to look and see what I might have, I don't want to have to go buy something. :) Yeah, right!!

SCS Card Swap - Whipper Snapper Stamps

Scrapinnut620 is hosting a few swaps on Splitcoast Stampers. I signed up for 3 of them. This is the third one. The requirement was to use stamps from Whipper Snapper Stamps. I don't have any of them so ordered 3 stamps from this company.


Here's the card I came up with, the turtle's name is Tyson. I used Copics to color him. The card base is a dark teal. I've been hoarding this cardstock because I am not sure that I can get any more of this color. The layer of designer cardstock is from Basic Grey. Recently I purchased a set of Cuttlebug corner die cuts. This is the first time I've used them. I cut them using the reverse side of this piece of designer cardstock. I added some pearl stickers at the top right corner and bottom left corner. Here's a closeup of the die cut flourish. I've seen these used on cards when I've been surfing SCS or card blogs.

Inside of card.

Another of the die cuts from the Cuttlebug set. I flipped sides to cut these out. Since my card base is a dark color, I wanted to put a layer inside the card so something could be written inside and some sort of embellishment so it wasn't plain.

I'm pleased with the way the card turned out. Now to get all three swaps packaged and mailed out. I was going to do that today, it may be tomorrow or Monday. All three are due on 6/30.