CTMH Workshop

I went to my first Close To My Heart workshop this evening. One of the 'old' members of SWF was having one and I couldnt wait to try it out. I managed to be early since I didnt know how bad traffic was going to be going to LA and the other ladies were late which worked out well because it gave Shemaine and I some time to talk in person and get to know each other even better.

The other ladies that came were very nice and made me feel welcome. The projects were even better! We made a decorated bookmark/bag tag with stamps. It was fun to see how each of our were different even though we all had the same supplies and the same demo to look at. I was lucky because I was last to get started so I got to learn from everyone else's 'mistakes'. Though of course in scrapbooking there are no mistakes, everything is just a learning experience.

The next project we made was an acetate card. I had never worked with this either so it was a fun learning experience. We used special ink that dried immediately. So fast in fact that some of the ladies had trouble using it because it would dry before they got it on to the card. The hard part about using the Stayz On ink is that it really stays on. You have to wash the stamps as soon as you use them to prevent the ink from remaining on them. But it made a nice ink that would not smear on the acetate. Now I have something new too add to 'have tried' list. And new way to make cards.

One of the ladies discovered that though the ink dried quickly it was easily removed with a baby wipe so if we didnt like the placement of a stamp it was easy to wipe off and start again. Shemaine was nice enough to give us an extra piece of acetate so that we can experiment with making cards again at home.

Our final 'arranged' project was a glitter card. This card was fun to make, we placed the stamp on a glue pad (rather than ink) and stamped the image on the paper. We then immediately added glitter. The only issue we ran into was no matter how dry it was the glitter still came off. Even though the card didnt turn out perfect I fell in love with the glitter and plan on grabbing one of every color when I head to that scrap store with Shemaine!

While everyone was wrapping up their projects we were working on 'freestyle' cards. This is what I came up with. I always need blank cards and figure I cant ever have too many laying around.

All in all it was a great night. It was a lot of fun to 'get away' (while on vacation, lol) and do what Im used to doing frequently-scrapping!

I appreciate so much being invited and if it works out before I leave I may just get to go again. There is always more to learn and Im eager to do it.