Bring on the Purses

To kick off the year for my Create-A-Bunch at Lunch club, we made purses to hold all the cards that we would be making during the year. Initially we were going to do this in January, but since the January date snuck up on me, we pushed it back until February's class.

I learned how to make these purses from Rita Kegg last spring. They're nice and sturdy, and are perfect for holding a bunch of cards.

This time, instead of showing you my sample, we decided to take pictures of the completed projects the club made. Everyone chose their paper ahead of time and I cut it for them and brought it in on the day of the class. All of the purses have unique personalities, and the girls were pretty excited to have their work featured on the blog. Unfortunately, the initial class was a small one, and when I did the repeat for the others, I forgot to take pictures. So you're only getting to see the creativity of about a third of my group.

A Little Bubbly

On the train on the way home the other day, I was talking to one of the girls from my Create-A-Bunch at Lunch class. She was talking about how a friend of hers was doing a church retreat, and about how she was supposed to write a "note of encouragement" for her to read while she was there. We got to talking about how nice it is to receive a random uplifting note. Then we were saying, wouldn't it be nice if we sent some of the cards we made during lunch to each other just as a pick-me-up, to tell the others in the group "you rock!".

Almost the next day, one of the other girls from our lunch club was talking about how she thought she was going to finish this huge project that really had her stretched to her limit, and about how she was so ready to go home and get drunk when it was all done. So I made her this card to congratulate her on completing her project and to say I recognized how hard she worked on it, and could sympathize, having just finished a few of those types of projects myself recently.



This card uses stamps I got in a stamp store in Wichita, Kansas. I remember loving the champagne bottle as soon as I saw it, but it's managed to sit in my stash unused until now. The bottle is colored with Copic markers. The bottle is G24, G28 and G29, the label is E40 and E41 and the top is E51, E53 and E55. The background is stamped in Charcoal Palette ink, and then stippled with the very fittingly titled, Champagne Encore ink.

Natural Hope Sympathy Card

This is another card I made using leftover scraps of Maggie paper. The background is embossed with the Paisley Spellbinders Impressabilities embossing template. The stamp sets are The Angel Company's retired Natural Hope set inked with VersaMagic Pink Petunia ink, and the sentiment is stamped in Palette Charcoal ink with words from the current With Sympathy set.

Relax and Unwind

After all that work I did during the past six months was mostly past, my husband treated me to a massage. (Isn't he the best?). The massage place we go to, Unwind Massages, is a little mom and pop place that's been having difficulty, like just about everyone else is right now, so I thought I'd make them a card they could put on the front desk as a testimonial.



This card used scraps of The Angel Company's Maggie paper that I had left over from making my March Create-A-Bunch cards, the Fundamental Frames stamp set that coordinates with Nestabilities Labels 4, with a sentiment from the retired Here's To You set.

The girls were tickled that I made them a card.

Elegant Thank You

For my second card for the Create-A-Bunch group in January, I also used an idea I saw on Eva's blog, but this time, I made several changes to it, so that it hardly resembles the original except for the initial sketch.



This card uses the Damask Backgrounder and Running Stitches stamp sets from The Angel Company and the retired Great Greetings set. The paper is from Paper Pizazz.

Eva Costigan to the rescue

I've been working A LOT recently. We've had projects going non-stop since November that have had me at work until late almost every night. During this time, I was also still hosting my Create-A-Bunch Lunch with the girls. In January, the date snuck up on me, and I had to put something together quickly. I did some blog hopping and found a quick and easy card done by Eva. I unabashedly stamp-lifted it completely for the class.



This card used C'ordinations cardstock and The Angel Company's Linear Sentiments stamp set for the heart, and the retired Wishing You set for the sentiment.

Once things calmed down a little bit, I went back and used the leftovers from the class to make a set of four cards using the same stamp set (for the most part - the "You Rock" is from The Angel Company's retired Kid Praises set), card sketch and pieces. But, I used different border punches and punched elements to make them all different. Then I took the set into work to show everyone how the same idea can be used to make cards for different occasions. Hopefully this redeems me for copying the original.