I’ve Been MIA

My apologies for being MIA over the past several days.  After returning from a trip to the East Coast I had to get busy on several birthday and anniversary cards.  August is a BIG month for our family, and I got down to business right away.  Then I had to get ready for my Sunday Crafternoon.  I had a lovely group of attendees coming and I knew I needed to delight them with the cards they would be making.  So in spite of jet lag and a bit of craft drought, I knuckled down and pushed through to ready my cards.  I’ll be sharing them over the next few days, as I am now headed to Las Vegas for Stampin’ UP!’s BackStage Leadership Conference!  So excited!  

But…this created another rush to prepare some swaps to bring.  Swapping cards with other demonstrators is a great way to get new ideas, figure out how to use stamps or dies that seem a little unclear (do you ever look at a stamp in a set and wonder, what do I do with that piece?) and learn some new fun-folds.  But of course I wanted my swaps to be special.  So more late nights playing with all my new pre-order goodies from the upcoming Mini Catalog!  

So there are my excuses!  But now I have a nice stash of cards to show you over the next several days, and once I get back from Vegas I should have a bunch more!

So I’ll start with a few birthday cards.  My daughter and two of my granddaughters had nearly back-to-back birthdays.  Here’s the first:

Matilyn is now 5!  (In case you can’t tell from the card).  Mattie is a dancer, so I pulled out a favorite retired set, Hippest Hippos, to create a special card just for her.  In fact, this card used almost all retired products.  You don’t have to get rid of sets when they are no longer for sale - use them!

What I especially like are the bright colors - Lemon Lolly, Parakeet Party and Melon Mambo.  I stamped the WooHoo several times in yellow for a background, then stamped and fussy-cut one more for the making greeting.  

I also like the off-kilter layers.  It’s a fun way to show multiple colors of background layers without being “stuffy” and lining everything up!  

The inside of the card is stamped with images from Celebrate with Tags, a current and versatile set.  

So tell me - what retired stamp sets do you hang on to?  And how long do you keep them?  Me?  I keep sets that are unusual (like the hippos) that I know will be used again and again.  And it’s funny - these are the ones that are easiest to sell once I decide I’m done with them; I guess there are other stampers like me who like the unusual!