Everything AND the kitchen sink!

So the challenges for Hope You Can Cling to are still going strong, and I'm having a blast working on them, but way more fun checking out the almost 500 and counting entries in the gallery! I'm just constantly inspired (and stamp buying ENABLED) by the creativity of the papercrafting universe! I've favorited so much stuff my thumb hurts!!

But in addition to that, I had the Austin Shoebox Swap, which was a BLAST, a class in Houston, Regionals in Ft. Worth, a craft fair next weekend and my own stamp class, so October is a little whirlwindy.

So first things first! I made the following card(s) for the Austin Shoebox Swap, for a Hope You Can Cling to challenge by Sara Henton and for a swap I was doing with Yvonne and Chriss - a color challenge that I gave them for our monthly stampy dinner. It's a much beloved combo of mine, and now that Cherry Cobbler is one of my fave colors, I wanted to put it with kraft and blue. I made two variations of this card - one with Chic Boutique and one with Artistic Etchings - just for a different mood with the two different styles of Eiffel Tower. The one on the left uses Basic Grey Whites background paper and the one on the right uses Very Vanilla. They were very simple but super fun. I saw a card somewhere with some dark silhouette images in the foreground that I used for my inspiration, but I can't find the card now. I think it was Michelle Zindorf. Which one of these do you like better?

Then, this weekend, I went to Houston with my beloved Dana for a class with Kitchen Sink Stamps. Holy cow. This was the best class I've been to in a long, long time. Dana said what the class felt like was that very first time you ever stamped - when your mind was just blown and you squealed a lot. And we did squeal a lot.

Notice how we are goofing off and everyone else is working. :)

Their stamps are amazing - they have a very unique photographic quality. You stamp them in multiple steps with different colors to get this amazing detail. They taught us these incredible tricks about combining colors, making shadows, etc. And Maria, the owner and artist, and her family and team, including Makiko Jones, were just the sweetest, most fun bunch of girls. We had a bunch of Splitcoast peeps in the class so the day was just like a fun stampy family reunion.

Maria designed Texas themed stamps JUST FOR OUR CLASS and that's what we got to use - how cool is that? We made this cowboy hat corner bookmark and boot card that I'm sending to one of you. :)

Aren't they amazingly realistic? What fun!!

I hope you are having some sort of crafty fun this beautiful weekend.