Watercooler Anniversary hop adventure

Earlier this week I got back to challenges, now I'm back to blog hopping - Woot! fun and more fun!  This is the 3-year anniversary of Watercooler blog hops.  You can find the home page for the original hop here.  I enjoyed revisiting those projects (they're still wonderful), but we were a bit inexperienced with permanent links back then, so it's no longer circular, as intended, and you'll have to return to the homepage and hop from there in order to see all of the original 2013 pages.  Three years later, we've had some practice, so you'll find the circular, permanent links should all be in working order.  Since you can progress all the way around simply by choosing Next or Back links, you've likely just been wowed (as I always am) by Deb's projects, and you'll find Kath's amazing projects next.

Happy Anniversary to all of us:

stamp set - Number of Years; ink - Peekaboo Peach, Emerald Envy, Sweet Sugarplum, Blushing Bride; card stock - Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Peekaboo Peach; designer series paper stack - Playful Palette; Big Shot with Large Numbers framelits and Happy Hearts embossing folder   

This is a gate-fold card, and I forgot to take an "open" picture, but the Anniversary banner opens to the right and the Happy opens to the left.  We made these cards at a workshop last week because the hostess requested a fun/fancy fold.

Unfortunately I completely forgot I signed up for this hop until yesterday, so I had to make my other projects in a hurry!  (See what I did there - "huge hurry"?  Sometimes I just crack myself up)  While I was revisiting our 2013 posts, I knew that Kath's washi Halloween card would be fast-and-easy to CASE, so here's my Thank You to all of you for joining us in our special celebration:

stamp set - Rose Wonder; ink - Basic Black; card stock - Emerald Envy; designer washi tape - Playful Palette

I also CASE'd my third card (from Tracy Evans Langley), using Marsha's beautiful color challenge from Watercooler Wednesday (because I just couldn't resist combining the two watercoolers), in combination with three stamp sets that were new in 2013 and are still available three years later: 

stamp sets - Flower Shop, Gorgeous Grunge, Wetlands; ink - Night of Navy, Mint Macaron, Pink Pirouette, Sweet Sugarplum; card stock - Very Vanilla, Night of Navy, Mint Macaron

It was so nice of you to join us for our third anniversary; I do hope you'll continue on by choosing one of the buttons below!

adventures that were more work than expected

I've been working on custom thank you cards for a friend who organizes and flies in kite events.  I was really excited when I received this stamp set for attending OnStage Local last year - it's perfect! The request was to include a beach scene, if possible, and Amanda did all the thinking for me with her card.  My watercoloring skills, even with an Aquapainter, are not strong, so I decided on sponging.  That meant masking, including the little kite flier.  That was a bit more work, but much better results for my skill level.

I didn't want a square card, since those require extra postage, so I borrowed Peg's framed layout.  I planned to emboss the frame, but couldn't decide where to put a sentiment, so instead used several stamp sets.  That was a bit more work, too, but I think it was worth it:

stamp sets - Happy Home, Another Thank You, An Open Heart, Crazy About You, Petite Pairs, So Very Happy (retired); ink - Sahara Sand, Soft Sky, Marina Mist; Stampin' Write markers - Soft Suede, Summer Starfruit (retired), Gumball Green (retired); card stock - Naturals White (retired), Gumball Green (retired); Big Shot with Ovals Collection framelits

Since kite-theme thank you cards took most of my crafting time this week, I'd like to submit these at the Watercooler, where Anything Goes this week.

When I finished six sets of four kite cards, I had an evening left to work on a card for Jingle Belles' Washi Wonderland.  Some time ago I learned that washi tapes fit the wider stripe of our Stylish Stripes embossing folder, so I decided to try that.  Since I hadn't put away the Circle Card Thinlit that a friend borrowed and recently returned, I decided to try that, too.  One of my favorite bloggers used to say that she "stamped without a net" and that's exactly what was going on here. Narrow washi tapes fit that stripe, but one of my two Christmas design tapes is wide, so I needed to do a bit more work.  I put strips of the tape on an empty Stampin' Dimensionals backing sheet and trimmed it.  Then I applied it to the card and trimmed the edges.  Trimming the edges on a straight piece isn't difficult, but I hadn't really thought through the process of trimming the edges inside a curve in the middle of the card - that turned out to be a bit more work.  To match the stamp to the washi tapes, I decided the stamp needed to be multi-colored, and therefore done with markers.  Yes, a bit more work, but again, worth it.  After all that was done, I didn't like the plain white right side, so I found a coordinating piece of paper.  It needed to be retro fit around that cut curve in the middle of the card, so, I'm sure you've guessed, I needed to to bit more work.  (whew)  At least, I found places for the trimmed-off narrow strips of washi tape, and you almost can't see the seam:

stamp set - Wishing You (retired); ink - Cucumber Crush; Stampin' Write markers - Cucumber Crush, Real Red, Garden Green; card stock - Whisper White thick; specialty designer series paper - In Color envelope; Big Shot with Circle Card thinlits die and Stylish Stripes embossing folder; washi tape - unknown