Strawberry Kisses - Party Invite

Hi Everyone

Well i have recovered from yesterday's demo at Frankies Crafty Touch, Darlington.  What a fab time we all had and many laughs along the way at my expense.  However i have reflected on it since and realise that some really good tips and pointers came out of my bloopers.  I will share one in detail but the others were really just minor hic ups.

Frankie had just received her order of spectrum noirs so i had taken my set along to do some colouring and blending and give lots of tips to be able to achieve really good results.  I started by explaining about the pens, which ink to stamp with and of course which paper is best to use.  So i covered all of the points around using neenah card, ie not wasting your valuable speccy inks, no bleeding across lines and also the blending you can achieve and how it is so different to normal plain white card.  So i stamped an image using rockablocks (and i must say yesterday i was the queen of rockablocks) i stamped loads of images and all of them perfect.  I had 3 ladies also try them out, 1 of which had used them before and not achieved a good result.  So i talked the technique through to get the best result.  All 3 ladies stamped a perfect image each time and they were amazed as was everyone else.  

Then it all went wrong.  I continued to colour and blend (and i did think something was amiss) but i carried on thinking it'll be ok.  Showing everyone the blending and 'how good' the pens are and then passing the image round for everyone to agree. However Debbie Clough who is experienced in using neenah noticed how the colour hadn't come through to the back when i lifted the image up.  Then the penny dropped.  I had mixed up my neenah card with plain card and not noticed the difference.

However what was really good was then i could colour on the neenah and really show the difference in the two.  The blending was different and the pens weren't dragging on the paper.  What a dingbat i am!  Anyway it was a really good learning point for everyone (including me about making sure my prep is done right so i don't get mixed up).  You might have even thought i had planned it to show the difference but anyone who was there would know that i was gobsmacked so i could never had planned it and the look on my face would have given the game away immediately.  I really thought be safe i had only packed neenah but some plain pieces of white card were mixed up in my centura pearl for demoing the ultimate pro.

Ok onto my next sample, this is strawberry kisses and the party girl image.  These are still currently the pick of the week on Create and Craft so pop along to take a look before they sell out and watch the demo's.  If you are a member of the Crafters Companion website then you can purchase them from there too.  And anyone can join at any time.  Isn't Louise McLean doing fab on her debut on Create & Craft.  I missed her yesterday but i caught the show this morning and the ecraft shows on tool shed.  Its doing well again!  I decided to make an invitation using the background papers from the CD ROM.  Of course the image is coloured with Spectrum Noirs onto Neenah Card.

As you can see i have made it out to Leann for next years new years eve party at my house, but I'm not really having one, it was just for effect.  I have used a square piece of card and used my enveloper on my ultimate pro to make the invite.  it is just a 5" square envelope but not taped up. The inside is blank but I'm wishing now i had printed the card on both sides and then there wouldn't be all that white showing, however it still looked ok.

The seal is made from one of the embellishments from the CD to match this image and finishes it off perfect and then just a piece of ribbon to keep it closed.

I then made a separate smaller card and envelope for the RSVP to send back.

Hope you like it.

Louise xx