Something Completely Different

I'm baaaack! Wow, what a week it's been so far! Two workshops on Sunday; Day Job Monday and another workshop session Monday night; Day Job on Tuesday; Tuesday night when I got home, I placed the workshop order and also one of my customers came over for a stamping session. In between, I got to figure out if even one of my two vehicles was road-worthy for the trip to Michigan & Indiana this weekend. It turns out I'll be taking the Miata, which is fine, but I have a whole bunch of new books on CD, and the CD player in the Miata has not worked for years. Pooh! I guess I'll try the boom box. I have ONE DAY left to get my act together so I can leave at o'dark thirty Friday morning. I NEED A WIFE!!!!! Sigh. Okay, end of whining, but that's where I've been since Saturday.

An interesting thing came out of Monday evening's session. (Was that even a sentence?) Anyway, two of the attendees were new customers - I met them at one of my Sunday markets. They used to go to a monthly session with another Demo who has since moved out of town. They do not want to buy into the hobby (smart ladies!), but they do enjoy getting out once a month with their pals and making cards. I guess these two ladies were the Test Group, and they've since decided I meet their needs! (Yay me!) When they'd finished their projects Monday night, they asked how many people I could host at once. Um, I offer 8 slots, but 7 is cozy, and I really prefer 6. Turns out they want to have their whole stamping group come to my classes. This is a good thing, but it means I'll have to open up my house (teeny tiny condo) for another evening each month, and they can divide themselves across two evenings. I know ... what a dilemma, right? I think I'll probably do it, but not on a week where I'm leaving town in a few days!

Now on to the Something Completely Different. Most people who know me, my stamping customers included, know I do not 'do' certain holidays and events. Since I focus on selling my cards, I tend to make cards that work year-round. When I make holiday-specific cards and they do not sell, I get to store them until next year, and we all know I have no room to do that! So I decided a long time ago to not 'do' Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. I have Christmas cards I've been storing for years...people walk into my booth at my Christmas shows, heavily laden with wreaths and other decorating items, and go, "Oh, do you have birthday cards?" I could not make that up; I've heard it a lot. So I own no Halloween sets, and the Happy Halloween stamps in my sentiment sets have never seen ink. Until last night.

Several weeks ago one of my other customers who only ever pays for the classes (not buying into this hobby) said she wanted to make one of the projects on page 26 in the big SU catalog, but as cards instead of a box, so she came over to have me help her order just what she needed to do that. Her stuff came last week, so she came over to play last night. In exchange for my time and tape, I got a few stamped images and some cool punched images. And a very happy customer! She left with all her stuff cut, stamped, crimped and ready for assembly. And looky what I made:


This was a lot of fun to make! I stamped the house in Elegeant Eggplant Craft ink and clear-embossed it. I punched out a mask for the moon, then used daubers to color it. The witch is a Martha punch and the green band is what we called 'drippy paint', and is another Martha punch. Both punches were part of what she brought in addition to her stamps and stuff. The sentiment is from my All Holidays set. I stamped enough of the houses to make 5 or 6 cards. I'll see if they sell. ;-)

In true Crooked Stamper fashion, I messed up the daubering of the moons on 3 of the 5 extra images. Aaack! So I cut out the house and tried to save it. After all, I do not own the stamp, so I cannot stamp more of them! This is what I managed to do with the first cut-out house:

This is usually where I become my own worst enemy. I cut out the top half of the house and put it on the yellow piece. It looked stupid, so I cut off more. And some more. You can see where I stopped and you can probably figure out why.

Since I'd cut off most of the white card stock, there was a LOT of yellow showing, so I started in with the daubers. And I did more. And more. I think the orange and rust on the yellow looks kinda like clouds at sunset. Maybe. So I'll have two of the design at the top and three of that orangey-rusty-yellowish version.

I also stamped the tree image, also in Elegant Eggplant Craft ink and clear-embossed. This is what I came up with for those:

I am really excited about this card, because I used some of my old, hoarded Halloween DS paper! And, I snuck in some brads I got when I bought a travel mug at Angela's Happy Stamper when I was there filling up my credit card. There were some free goodies inside the mug, and these brads were part of the stash. Yay!

Okay, I hope to finish up these cards so I can clear off my stampin' space and write my September birthday cards, one of which is already late. If I wait until I get home from my trip, they will all be late. Certainly an option. Perhaps I should just start making Belated Birthday Cards and be done with it. I think I'll try that for next month.