After Remembering You

People often say that all good things must come to an end, and for the most part this is true. But often the end is not really the end, it's just a springboard to a new beginning. That's exactly the case with Stampin' Up!'s Simply Sent kits.

What am I talking about and why? Get ready -- you're about to get a tour of the muddled brain of this stamper! This morning I was sitting in my stamp room, having only had about 5 hours of sleep after last night's Bedlam, trying to figure out what cards I wanted to prepare for a workshop I'm doing tomorrow. I knew one of the cards would be the In Full Bloom card I made for the SCS swap, but I had no idea what to do for the second card. Suddenly my eye fell on the Remembering You Simply Sent kit. You know, the kit that comes with absolutely everything you need to create 10 cards (5 each of 2 different designs). I really love how easy this kit is to use for beginner stampers, and I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the stampers I was going to meet at the workshop to this awesome product. But the stamps in the kit are flowers, and I was already doing a flowery card. Hmm. What to do?

Suddenly, Eureka! I figured it out! I would design a card that would use the products that would be left over from the kit after the consumables from the kit are gone, to show people that just because a good thing came to an end, doesn't mean that the fun is over -- there are still cool products left that are just waiting for another creative avenue of expression.

On my first card I used the whale and turtle from my new Silly Sealife stamp set. I based my design on a card I saw by another stamper, Kelly Sampson. She used these two stamps and the greeting from Loads of Love on a shadowbox, and I was struck by how well the greeting and the stamps went together. So I stamped the turtle and whale on confetti white card stock in basic black ink that comes in the kit, colored them in lightly with the brocade blue, perfect plum and always artichoke watercolor wonder crayons that are also part of the kit, and blended the colors with the aquapainter that, yes, you guessed it, is also part of the kit. I matted the image on a piece of always artichoke card stock and tied black gingham ribbon around the bottom of the always artichoke piece as an accent. I attached the always artichoke piece to the brocade blue card base and stamped the greeting on the base in basic black ink. And I thought I had a pretty cute card that would show new stampers a great water coloring technique while demonstrating that even after they make their 10 cards from the Simply Sent kit, they will have products they can use over and over again on new designs.

I could have stopped there, but I wondered if maybe some people wouldn't prefer something more useful, like a birthday card. And, of course, my mind kept going back to the cute card designed by Meg Shumaker where the whale is bringing Christmas presents. So I decided to make a birthday card using Meg's idea and the same materials as the other card. As you can see, on this card I flipped all the card stock, so that the card would be vertical. This time the whale is the bearer of birthday gifts. Again, the images are stamped in basic black ink on confetti white card stock and colored in with watercolor wonder crayons and aquapainter. The greeting is from the Eat Cake set, and I got a kick out of the fact that it's in the same font as the greeting on the other card.

Since both cards use the exact same materials, tomorrow the workshop guests will have a choice of which card to make. I really like this idea and may try to incorporate it into future workshops.

So here are both cards, side by side. I'm rather partial to them. What do you think?