When I was young, my parents always had this saying when we got back to the house after a time away… “home again, home again, jiggity jig.”  Well…. Isaac forgets to say the home again part and just does jiggity jiggity…  all that to say… “I’M HOME!”

AND boy… I’m tired and the craft room/office has vomited stamp stuff. This is bad news for me, but good for you cause most of it is the stuff that is going to be in my “rubber garage sale”.  Love that term… heard it at convention…

Anyway, Anne and I met 2 wonderful new friends from Tacoma, Washington.  Shannon and Tara… I wanted to share the swaps they did cause they are just beautiful:

Here is Shannon’s:

That fence is hand pieced on… strips of c crumb cake cs stamped with the Woodgrain stamp and layered over the images. The result is that the vine looks like it is growing on the fence. She chose beautiful, saturated corps to give the late summer feel. But it could easily be recreated in more subtle colors for a more serene feel.  Wonderful…

And here is Tara’s:

This is what is called card candy. It’s artwork or embellishment that can be added to a card. It has a wonderful vintage vibe with the old postage stamps and the monochromatic color makes it appear very expensive.  Just beautiful.

Here is the last card for today:

Chris Talbot designed this one. I didn’t actually meet her (something unique to the swapping phenomenon) but must have swapped in order to get this fantastic card. I chose to show it because It gives ideas of how we can taylor cards to specific people even when we may not have an exact stamp for the occasion.  By using alphabet and number sets we can make anything. Chris went the extra mile by embossing gold the edges on the front plannel. It really needs time be seen in person….

Anyway, tomorrow is the first day teachers report….officially… so I gotta go to bed.  See you Saturday at 9:00….