Saturday Sketch Challenge ~ and sneak peek!

Good Evening Friends!

Boy, have I been a blog slacker!  :)   Last week, I attended Stampin' Up's annual convention, and this week I spent doing {even more} swaps and a Christmas in July card class at my home last night!  After spending a week on the go, walking the stage (yea) and dining out every night, it's hard to come back to reality of cooking meals and balancing work with family life.  All is good!

I'm really looking forward to huddling around the TV tonight for the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympics!  It's amazing to see all the wonderful athletes that are the *best* at what they do!  It's really quite astounding! 

I drew up tonight's sketch and it's reminiscent to some of my first day's as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  I remember being at my upline's house and asking (way too) many questions, and wanting to hold my first open house.

She suggested I look through her swaps for ideas.  The diamond, square, diamond for this weeks' sketch came from that first swap card I ever picked up in my hand.  I borrowed (and returned that sample) but I have to say, I've used this layout a bunch of times!  With this sketch, I made the card square and the focal point really pops I think! 

I used this card for my Christmas in July stamp camp last night and although this card was a bit of work, I think the ladies enjoyed making their "vanilla chai tea" card. :)

So first we stamped the focal point on a piece of scrap paper.  We inked up with gumball green, then (a convention trick) we removed the "green tea" from the cup with a blender pen.  It picked the ink right up off the stamp.  Then, we filled the expresso color for the part inside the cup.  "Huff" on the back of your stamp and stamp it onto cardstock.

Next, we used a blender pen, and used it to pick up versamark ink from the pad, to make the cup wet.  Pour vanilla embossing powder on and heat!  We used the new heat gun from SU.  It has two heat settings; Setting one is for drying ink only and setting two is for heat embossing.  The new guns are a lot more quiet!  We could actually still talk with the heat gun going. 

Then, we took the cup over to the big shot and cut it out with the coordinating framelit that is coming out with this set August 1st!  Isn't that the coolest?  If it wasn't bad enough with all of us sniffing our cups, we decided to emboss the steam as well.  Versamark by itself would have probably done the trick, but I wanted it a little bit darker.

Some folks were very concerned about SU retiring all the craft ink, but in class we just ink up in versamark, then ink up in the color we wanted (espresso) and stamped that on the cardstock.  it works just like craft ink.  It does add one small step of cleaning the stamps in between every layer but it works the same.

So one more word about square cards with a 4 1/4" measurement.  If you use the regular medium envelopes, you wont pay the extra postage that is associated with mailing a square card.  Just sayin'

So how about some measurements:
Base: 8 1/2" x 4 1/4", scored and folded in half at 4 1/4"
Layer 2: Espresso 4" square
Layer 3: Candlelight Christmas Specialty Designer series paper (brown snowflakes!! woohoo!) 3 7/8" square
Layer 4: 2 3/4" square espresso, (attached to the card on the "diamond" pattern)
Layer 5: 2 3/4" square vanilla, (attached straight like a square)
Layer 6: 2 1/2" square espresso (attached to the card on the diamond)

Supplies!
Stamps: sentiment is from Winter Memories, the coffee cup is from Scentsational Season (holiday mini)
Ink: Gumball green and espresso.  Versamark, blender pens
Paper: Candlelight Christmas Specialty Designer Series Paper, espresso, vanilla
Accessories: vanilla embossing powder, stampin sponges. 

Oh and I sponged almost all the layers!  :)

I don't think the photo does it justice.  So here's your smellavision.... IMAGINE how Vanillarific it is. You know the girls in class couldn't stop sniffing their cards, but what happens in the studio, stays in the studio!  In person this card is like a warm sweater in the mid winter. :)  Comfort card.  :)  I'm making myself chuckle here!   I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Rubbah hugs!
Selene