Connecting with some great ladies

Last night I attended a Connections event at our local church. Connections is the Ladies group at the church. They meet once a month with a different theme each month and it's usually pretty fun. Last night the theme was Winter Warm Up and they invited everyone to come in their jammies for a relaxing evening and hear some people share about their hobbies. I was asked to share about my card making and I had a great time doing it.

Another lady shared about her hobby of making homemade soap. It was so interesting! You can check out her Made by M.E. Handmade Soap website and check out some of the cool soap she makes on her Our Collection page. It looks, and smells, good enough to eat!

The card above is one I made in preparation for my presentation. I wanted a card that would allow me to demonstrate a few different tools and techniques. Here's what I did:

I used my trimmer to cut the card base and the card mat out of Very Vanilla cardstock.

I put the 4 x 5 1/4 card mat through the texture boutique machine with the Lovely Lace embossing folder.

I used sponges to apply some colour to the embossed flowers with Crisp Canteloupe and to the embossed leaves with Pistachio Pudding, though the Pistachio pudding had a brown tint to it so I'm thinking I must have accidentally put the sponge in baked brown sugar at some point and not realized it. I sponged the edge of the mat with Pistachio Pudding.

I used a piece of the left over Very Vanilla and the Big Shot to cut the middle size butterfly of the Butterfly Thinlits*. I sponged a little of the same two colours on the butterfly and around it's edges.

I stamped a greeting from the Good Greetings hostess set** onto a thin piece of cardstock and used the What's Up Punch to make the v's in each end (a neat tip I learned from the Back to Black Funky Fruit Card post at Patty's Stampin Spot).

I adhered it all together and Voila! - an elegant looking card appeared.  :-)

It was a fun night at Connections and I'm hoping maybe it may inspire more people to join in the fun of cardmaking!

Anybody that was there last night, and even if you weren't there, and you are interested in learning more about cardmaking, trying out some of my supplies, or taking a class, let me know and we'll set something up. I'd love to hear from you.

*unfortunately the Butterfly thinlits were so popular that Stampin' Up! ran out of them! They may have more in the future so keep your eyes open.

**the Good Greetings hostess set is no longer available for purchase.