Stamp'n It Up!

4 of 10 cards we completed!

               Have you ever been to a stamp party meets make 10 intense cards in 4 hours meets craft workshop meets lunch social event with 15 women?  Neither had I.  That is until I had the pleasure of being invited to one by my friend Cindi.

                It was unlike anything I had ever done before.  I don’t normally attend many gatherings of women; I am normally extremely awkward and quiet because I never know what to say in a room full of women  But, as I continue to barrel through my interests and womanly hobbies I hope that this changes.  Because I had a great time!

                Cindi and I got there at about noon and the event started off with sodas and a buffet lunch .  (Only YUM moment of the blog is in the next sentence. Use it now or save it and check out the bacon scallop post below this one and yum yourself up there.)  The hostesses had a wonderful slew of salads, fruit, salami, Bree cheese (a personal and biased fave) and YUMmy chicken salad croissant sandwiches.  The best part is they had so much food the wonderful hostesses kept trying to fatten us up by reminding us to take breaks to get more food.  As you can tell, I definitely would have stepped into the witch’s oven as a kid as long as you promised I could have a lolli pop. 

                After a fantastic lunch, we had the strength and energy to begin our card making odyssey.  There were 6 tables set up, 4 of which had 2 card stations and 2 tables that had 1 card station.  The tables with only 1 station had the harder and more complicated of the 10 cards to create, which is of course where Cindi and I started.  Each station had a completed card sample, step by step directions on how to complete the card, and necessary materials.  Each card needed to be built in layers, and certain layers needed to be built before any gluing to the folded card could happen.  This was very difficult for me! Each station had a new technique to master for a minute detail that would, as I found out, either make or break the card.  The colors were endless, and each theme was darling!  Each time you finished a card, you moved on to the next station.  If you have ever played bunco, this luncheon was very reminiscent of the rotation system.  Which, is a great way to meet new people.  That is, if you can talk and read instructions at the same time… (not me.)

This is the most complicated one and my fave!

                The best part was, of course, the stamps!  I had no idea stamping technology had come so far.  I thought stamps were just designed rubber glued to wood.  Apparently, there are sheets with rubber designs you can pop out and stick onto a singular clear platform.  This is so you can interchange the stamps over and over again but use the same stamping platform.  Clever space saver.  Interchanging the stamps on the platform was the funnest part for me, besides the magic machine.  (I enjoy smelling the flowers, and the more simple things in life.)  The magic machine is this device where you can imprint paper right on the spot.  You insert a piece of paper in a plastic case with the imprint design desired, and place it on a belt and crank it through a machine that imprints the paper via pressure supplied by your crank.  I made that process sound much more complicated than it really is.  If you are familiar with a pasta making machine, imagine inserting the case through thepasta machine to imprint the paper.  

                It was extremely fun to do a whole new craft.  I don’t scrapbook or do any paper crafts, really, of any kind.  The paper I have is used for drawing, painting, and sometimes tracing and transferring.  It was challenging to make myself stop and think about how the layers of the card work and stop to make each layer match perfectly asymmetrically with one another.   My brain does not easily process things in this way.  It was like trying to fit a circle in a square hole.  But, that is why I enjoyed the 4 hours of card making so much.  I have a newfound respect for people who love paper crafts because it is a lot more complicated than I ever could have imagined.  But, I definitely see how it can be relaxing and therapeutic for those who do it.  Some find comfort in straight lines and developed layers.  I suppose I find comfort in curved lines and other kinds of developed layers.  That is what makes each of us beautiful.

CHEERS!