Back Into the Swing of Things and Color Renovation

I am back to blogging!  And just in time too.  Stampin' Up! has announced a Huge change!  But more on that in a minute.  Thanks for all the support with my layoff!  I am still job hunting but now that things have settled down and I have actually finished working at my previous job, I am able to get into my stamp room a little more!  The last couple of days I have been working on cleaning and rearranging my stamp room.  I will post pictures of that "renovation" later this week. 

(Making you wait another minute on that big announcement.) 

Yesterday I was able to go and hang out with a couple of my stamping girls during the day!  That was a first for me and we had So Much Fun!  We made two cards that were modifications of cards that I have done in the past.  Yes, we were together for half a day and only made two cards!  We were having so much fun talking and teaching that we didn't accomplish as much as we originally thought we would.  Here are the two cards we made.

This is the same card as here; however we used Vintage Vogue for the flower top instead of Awash with Flowers.  The only reason we made this change is because when I was grabbing stamp sets to take I grabbed another set instead of the solids part of Awash with Flowers.  I was so mad at myself but we recovered nicely.

This card is using a retired set one of the girls was playing around with.  I just think it is a beautiful card!  The dimensions are 5 1/2" x 2 3/4".  We used Bravo Burgundy, So Saffron, and Kraft paper.  The background is stamped with White craft ink and the flower is stamped with Basic Black.  We then used Bravo Burgundy and Blender pens to color in the flower.  Just varying the amount of ink on the blender pen and mixing in the white craft ink that wasn't quite dry, we were able to get the different shading.  It is hard to tell from the picture; however, on the Bravo Burgundy we stamped a retired background stamp with Basic black to give the card a nice texture.

Color Renovation
Okay I held out long enough, now for Stampin' Up!s big announcement!  We are going to have a color renovation in the 2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalog released on July 1st!  I love that Stampin' Up keeps things fresh!  Colors and styles are constantly changing and cycling—and Stampin’ Up wants to stay on top of current trends.
First, for the very sad news; to accomplish these great changes some current colors will retire as of June 30. Everyone has their favorite colors, and I am no exception. If some of your favorites are retiring, you will definitely want to stock up on them before they’re gone. You can place orders for retiring colors through June 30, while supplies last. Click here to see a list of the retired colors.

The good news is that there are some beautiful colors being added. Our core color line will be reorganized into four color collections of ten colors each for 40 core colors. And then each July 1st 5 additional "In Colors" will be released and best of all, they will last for two years each time instead of just one as they do now! (so that will be 45 colors in the 2010-2011 catalog and then 50 in the 2011-2012 one.)

Within the new four core color collections we will be getting 6 brand new colors (including a great one called Crumb Cake that is an ink version of our current Kraft card stock) plus 10 former In Colors that were very popular are returning! Click here to see the new color families.

Now I know you're wondering about things like pastels, markers, watercolor crayons, etc. that you may have in your stash. Stampin' Up is going to be offering lots of great kits to retrofit lots of existing color tools you may already own. I will have more on that soon.

I am so excited about the new colors and I can't wait to share them with you soon!!!