Stamp Class and a Stamp Company's Anniversary Party

Katie's first class at Stamp Fever today involved one of the new Hero Arts Shadow Ink pads, an assortment of stamps, and an assortment of Ranger's Tim Holtz Distress Stains.

The first thing we did was learn to dye satin ribbon with the Distress Stains. There was quite a range of colors and combinations among the four of us.
For this one, I dyed the ribbon with "Faded Jeans," and when it was nearly dry I inked the HA Fabulous Flourish stamp with "Scattered Straw" and stamped a bit of the swirl on the ribbon. We used "Picket Fence" stain on the HA Old Letter Writing stamp for the ground. Let that dry, glue the ribbon down, trim off the overhang, attach the flowers (I tried dyeing some, but wasn't happy with the outcome) and the leaves (punched from a dyed strip of card stock with a Martha Stewart leaf punch), and attached the sentiment strip. Even the sentiment strip was dyed.

I'm not usually a front-of-the-card sentiment person, but went with the flow this time.
The second card used one of the HA layering papers--a nice cardstock that's white on one side, so if you use it for the card base, you have a white innard. I used not just the large blossom image from the HA Bold Bloom, but also the bloom-stem-leaves image and the leaf image, both of which ended up poorly placed--the same bloom-stem-leaves image was used as the focal image and was placed right over the background image, and the leaf image ended up buried under the ribbon. The ribbon was stamped, too. I used the Picket Fence stain and stamped a bit of the flower image and the leaf image on it. I also spritzed the focal image with Perfect Pearls so there's a bit of shine which doesn't show in the picture.
This card used the HA Daisy Outline background stamp. I used Antique Linen Distress Ink because I thought the Vintage Photo was too dark. The ribbon was dyed with Scattered Straw, and because most of it was covered with the focal images, it wasn't overstamped at all. The flower stamp is the Penny Black Classic Tea. The green on each one is "Peeled Paint," and the flower heads are (left to right) "Spun Sugar," "Dusty Concord," and "Scattered Straw," all stamped on watercolor paper.

Fun class, and I really enjoyed learning a new technique or two for the stains.

We took a break and headed over to a Del Taco for a light lunch after class and before the Lawn Fawn 2nd Birthday celebration. The make-and-take was really a bit complex for a make-'n'-take, but then, I don't think they expected the turnout they had!!
The Lawn Fawn style isn't mine, but I enjoy learning techniques.