The Wacky Watercooler First Anniversary Celebration

Celebrate our First Anniversary with us!

That's right!  It's our First Anniversary!  A year ago a few friends on the Wacky Watercooler discussion group got together and began having blog hops where we shared our ideas with each other and an unsuspecting world.  We've grown in numbers.  We've grown as artists.  We've grown in our friendships.  This has been a very good year.  Thank you for supporting us and for coming to see what we come up with each month.  We really do appreciate your interest.

For those of you who are familiar with our Blog Hop, you'll remember it's a circular one.  Whoever you begin with, whether you go backwards or forwards through the names, you will eventually come full circle back to where you began.  For those of you who haven't experienced one of our Blog Hops before, you're in for a treat.

If you've worked your way through the blog hop from the beginning, you'll have come to my blog after having enjoyed Jackie Susnik's exciting creations.

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Since it's our Anniversary, what could be more natural than to share an anniversary card?  After all, the traditional gift for the first anniversary is paper and that's one of my favourite products.  Without paper, what would happen to making cards?  I'm not really into papyrus or animal skins. I've used a rainbow of colours over the simple black stamping thanks to my array of Blendabilities alcohol markers.  They colour over the Memento ink beautifully without smudging the black.  My card is actually an anniversary card to the "Watercooler gang".  We've used a rainbow of colours over this last year and what more appropriate way to remember that?

The "celebration" is from the Project Life Remember This stamp set, the "1st Anniversary" is from the Memorable Moments stamp set.  I've cut the black star out using my Star Framelits and the arrow using my What's Up punch.

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For my second project I decorated one of those great Kraft Gift Boxes so that I could slip my husband's new watch into it---it was our anniversary over the weekend.  Rather than wrap the box it came in, I chose to make my own very personal box for Ken.  The first thing that I did was to force the lid of the box into my Scallop Tag Topper punch and cut it.  It left a nice shaped flap through which I could lace ribbon to tie it shut.  Since I planned to clad the box in Gold Foil, I cut a gold tag and just cut a narrow piece of that to go around the hole.

I think it looks great plus it reinforces the hole so that it won't just begin to rip apart.  Then I used Early Espresso for the first layer on all sides and the top.  You can just make out that I embossed the cardstock using my Woodgrain embossing folder.  My next layer is the Gold Foil which I embossed using the Decorative Dots embossing folder.  Finally I cut the letters using my new Little Letters Thinlits dies and the hearts using various Hearts framelits.  I also cut the top from eight Gold Foil triangles and folded them in half to make the decorative corners for the box.

I'm really pleased with the finished box.  It is decorative but still looks masculine.  The Early Espresso Seam Binding ribbon and on-trend Gold Ribbon which I attached to the front of the box with a small brad finish it off nicely, don't they?

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My final project is a card I had meant to give my sister for her birthday.  I wound up making a different one for her but that's beside the point.  This one just appealed to me and would have tickled my sister's sense of humour.  It was made using the Giggle Greetings stamp set.  I love, love, love that cat.  Of course the fact that I have two cats that take turns presenting me with hair-balls might be part of that love.  

My card is very simple.  Well, it appears simple.  There is a lot more to it than first meets the eye.  The Basic Black cardstock I've used as my base was run through the Big Shot with my Woodgrain embossing folder.  I wanted some texture to the front of the card but didn't want to do anything to the Whisper White on which I stamped my cat and sentiment.  To colour the cat I used my Blendabilities which allowed me to seamlessly give shading to the cat and give it some depth as a result.  I also stamped and coloured a second head which I attached over the first coloured head using dimensionals.  That way the head seems to be slightly forward of the body, giving it dimension.   Cutting that head out wasn't too difficult until I decided I wanted to keep the whiskers.  That really added a whole lot of difficulty to the cutting.  But the whiskers remain intact.

I also added a real "hairball" by taking some fibres from my burlap ribbon and scrunching them into a ball and attaching them with a glue dot.  I love the texture and realism it adds to the card.

Finally I added the sentiment but placed it in a bubble near the top of the front of the card, adding little thought bubbles to connect it.

I really love that little cat and may just have to keep the card myself.

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Well, that's it for my projects.  I hope you've enjoyed them.  Your next stop will be the very talented Deborah Smart's blog where she will share some amazing projects with you.

If you have a moment to leave a comment, it would be terrific.  Thanks so much.