And the winner is...

...Jessica Strub!!  Jessica was the 11th person to complete my online survey and, lucky her, the random number generator I used chose her number!  That means Jessica receives a $40 Stampin' Up gift certificate to redeem with yours truly.  Congratulations, Jessica!

Now, on to today's news.  With the start of a new month there is always a new promotion to tell you about.  This month's offer is a GREAT one!  Its BOGO time at Stampin' Up!  When you buy 3 packs of Designer  Series Paper (DSP) from either the Summer Mini or the new Idea Book & Catalogue, you get a fourth pack FREE!!!  That's like getting 25% off each pack.  To put that into dollars and cents, the regular price of  a pack of DSP is $13.50 or $1.13 per page;  during this promotion it is only $10.13 per pack or $0.84 per page!!  You can't get gorgeous paper like this ANYWHERE for that price!  Take advantage of this offer and stock up...you'll be glad you did!!  Click HERE for a pdf listing all of the products included in this promotion and call or email to place your order today!

Also this month, I am getting back to my regular schedule of clubs and classes.  Check out the "Upcoming Events and Classes" tab at the top of this page for a listing of this month's offerings.

Another thing I look forward to with the start of a new month is our monthly team meeting and swap.  This month's challenge is to create a card using some kind of technique and the Just Believe stamp set.  The idea is to have a selection of cards using the same set to show how versatile our stamp sets are.  For my card I decided to try brayering.  I am by no means an expert at this technique...in fact, I'm pretty novice.  However it just goes to show you don't have to be Michelle Zindorf (the goddess of brayering) to create a pretty decent looking card using a brayer.  Check this out:

Brayered Just Believe card for our monthly team meeting swap.

Not bad, eh?  Now those of you who were are convention may be thinking this looks kinda familiar...that's likely because I was inspired by that gorgeous "GROW" set on the main stage!  I went for a late-summer-wild-flower-garden-at-sunset kinda look...did I succeed?
This card is WAY out of my comfort zone for a lot of reasons:  first of all the brayering thing...not so good at it yet.  Secondly there are NO embellishments whatsoever on this card!!!  Talk about a departure from the norm for me!!!  The only details I added were the pierced holes in the upper corners and on the sentiment tag.  Now, my critics will be saying "But there are still 4 layers on this card..."  and yes, its true, there are.  But you gotta give me props for the sheer au naturel nakedness of this card, no?  In any case, I was proud of myself and the restraint I showed...I hope  my fellow team members will be too!

For those of you who want to try this background yourselves, the colours I used (in order) were daffodil delight, peach parfait and cajun craze.  The images were stamped using the mahogany ink spot from the distressing kit.  I just found it was  darker and more opaque than the early espresso I had originally planned to use.  The sentiment is stamped using the same ink on very vanilla, punched out with the decorative label punch and then sponged with peach parfait and early espresso. 

This really was an easy card to create, aside from the steep brayering learning curve.  Even so, I did 10 in 2 hours...which translates to 18 minutes per card.  Pretty quick, if you ask me!