Stamping Retreat Swirls

 I have spent all day in a virtual stamping retreat with the Creativate team. I have watched a bunch of tutorials and made some cards of my own. I even did my first mystery stamping! But first!

One of the team made this gift card holder, and I put my version together pretty quickly. I "made" DSP with the stamp set using highland heather (first and second generation), not quite navy for the swirls, and granny apple green for the leaves. The cardstock is blueberry bushel. The ribbon is just something from my stash that matched pretty well.

On the left hand section, you can see the gift card holder. It has a little thumb notch so you can grab your gift card and go!

The sentiment is stamped in gorgeous grape with the sentiment from perfect pairings.

The morning started with a card made from four pieces of DSP. They were cut and put back together to make this patchwork design. This DSP is well suited, and I popped it on to pacific point card stock. On a couple of them I tied ribbon to look like ties! Isn't that more manly than a bow? (On one of the cards I had to camouflage a mistake.) The sentiment is from upsy daisy and punched and layered on pacific point.

The first set went so quickly, I thought I'd try it with a Christmas DSP (Merry Moments Stack, ret.). The sentiment is heart of Christmas, and I stamped it in cherry cobbler. I am going to need to get some cherry cobbler cardstock so that I can layer the sentiment. I think the card may also be cherry. This goes so quickly! I have never started making my Christmas cards so early. I don't want to jinx myself but...

Today I tried something I have never done before--mystery stamping! We were told to cut certain types of papers certain sizes and to get out a large sentiment stamp, to have embellishments and ink pads handy. We started by cutting up the DSP (field and flower) and had to follow instructions blind. I think mine came out pretty well. The card in the lower right hand corner may be a little sparse, but I could add loads of those punched flowers because they mimic the "filler" flower in the DSP.

At 7pm I got a delivery from Stampin' Up and not gonna lie, one of the sets I ordered would have been better on this card. 

There are a number of projects I look forward to trying over the next few weeks. This was such fun! Okay, one more presentation! Bye.