XOXO My Crafty Friends - Trinity Stamps

Hello and welcome back!  Some of you may know I was lucky to be able to attend Creativation for the first time this January!  It's a terrible time for me to be having fun... tax season... 1099s... payroll taxes... all that nonsense... but I DID NOT care!  I had this opportunity and I wasn't going to miss it.  And I'm so glad I didn't.  Sure... it was awesome to meet some of the celebrities of craftiness and see all of the new products but my very favorite part was the people.  The people I got to meet and talk to while helping my friend Kim from Paper Smooches demo in the Photocentric booth and the bloggy friends I've only known online until that weekend.  I got to meet and have lunch and/or dinner with many of them and THAT to me is what this whole thing is all about.

Above is the gang that met for a long lunch of more talking than eating (Left to right Me, Kim, Lisa Golzbein (her daughter Taylor is taking the pic), Katie Brooks, Shanna Slater, Amanda Wilcox and Taniesa Vlasak from Trinity Stamps.  I also got to have dinner with Michele from CAS-ual Fridays and Larissa Heskett and Kim, but believe it or not none of us thought to get a pic before we left (really???... really!)

The wonderful and beautiful ladies from Trinity Stamps gifted me a couple of the new release items that are in the shop over at Trinity!  The A Crafter's Heart stamp set, the Bold Love die set and some adorable Crafty Heart Sprinkles were included in a beautiful little gift pack and I was so honored to get to take one home!!  I've used these items here today for this Valentine for one of my sweet Crafty Friends!

They all do inspire me on a daily basis... every single one of them.  I decided it was the perfect opportunity to make an eclipse card which I haven't done in a while.  I stamped the Crafter's Heart image onto a die cut cardstock panel.  Then I laid the XOXO dies (and of course I did not cut these apart!!!) over the heart and ran it through my Gemini.  Then I used the XOXO dies to cut another set from some hot pink paper.

I layered my stamped background piece with the cut out XOXO onto some more pink cardstock and then those onto a black base.  Then I layered the pink outline from the pink XOXO into the cut out space and then popped up the stamped XOXO into the appropriate spaces... careful to line up the images on the letters to the images on the background.  Be sure to save your inside circle pieces as well... once I had the XOXO down I added the inner circle pieces back inside and flat.  I colored the letters only after I added them to the card so it would be easier to figure out what the images were that I was coloring!

I stamped an extra envelope with the heart coming out of it separately so I could color it and pop it up also.  It was the perfect accent for my sentiment.  I stamped the You Inspire Me onto black card stock with Versamark and heat embossed it with white, and stamped the Crafty Friend directly onto the card using my Misti of course.  I popped up the black piece just above where I stamped the rest of the sentiment and added a few of my very favorite sequins... like.. the most used sequins I have... from Trinity... you can find them right here!

So I just wanted to send a huge shout out and thank you to every single person I met and talked to during Creativation weekend and thank you Katie and Amanda and Taniesa for this gift!  I have many more ideas for it... good thing because I need to send a few Galentines this year!  The question is... will they get out in time? HAHAHAHAHA... of course they probably won't... but they will get out.

And don't forget about the Turner Syndrome Awareness Blog Hop!  You have until February 7th to hop and comment to win prizes and learn more about this genetic disorder.  You can find my project for the hop here and a link to all of the info you need!