And so the samples begin

Hidy Ho, crafty peeps!

As some of you know, I am one of the artists that makes samples for It's Cheaper Than Therapy. I recently convinced Maria (the owner) she needed to hire Jodi too. So she did. Together, Jodi and I are gonna be the sample designers for Maria's store. Maria carries the full line of Karen Burniston's new dies (which I adore). For those of you who are not in the know, Karen parted ways with Sizzix and is now working with Elizabeth Craft. Even though Maria is "the Sizzix Lady", she is still carrying Karen's dies, because 1) They're awesome, and 2) She loves Karen (who doesn't?).

Maria travels pretty much all the time going all over the country to scrapbook shows/conventions. Her booth is amazing. It's 40 ft. long and houses floor to ceiling dies and die-cutting accessories. Here is a pic of her booth from the recent Scrapbook Expo in Grapevine, TX. Maria, Julie and I set up the booth. I inventoried everything and the 3 of us arranged it all on the display racks. It took an entire day.

(The booth has 2 more sections at either end that I couldn't fit in with my camera.)

Maria sent me home with some of Karen's dies to create some samples. This first one I created, I used 6 of Karen's dies (I combined them all). I used the Pop It Up Accordion Circle and Accordion Fancy Label dies (along with their coordinating Circle frame, and Fancy frame dies) to create the following piece which I used as my "lure" to get people to stop by my demo table...and it TOTALLY worked. It was terrific eye candy. 

(yes, I was at the expo demoing all weekend).

I alternated using the circle then label dies to create my..."Create" banner. Since the tabs didn't line up for the middle sections...I cut them off completely and fashioned my own tabs using clear plastic (from some leftover packaging). I snapped this photo with my phone, so yeah...that explains the "quality".

Here is another sample I made using Karen's new Pop It Up Garden Bench die and the Agatha Edge die. The bench die is SO ornate! Here is the card both open and closed. I used the edge die to create the top "flap" of the card. It also acts as a support for the string of floating hearts and allows the hearts to dangle freely.

 

 

My final sample for today is one of Stephanie Barnard's new Flip-Its dies. I love her Flip-Its cards... a LOT. They make creating an interactive/3-D card SUPER easy...like it literally takes less than 30 seconds to make the base for one of her cards (I had people time me). Here is a card I made for the show. One really cool feature of these dies, is that it comes as a kit with dies that cut out all the parts to perfectly fit the spaces of the card...like the orange polkadot section, the blue background...etc. Each kit comes with like 9 or more dies! 

(Forgive the quality of the photos, I took them with my phone)

card mostly closed

and here it is open

More samples are coming. Maria needs them for her next show in a couple of weeks. So, as I get them done, I'll share them here. Thank you for stopping by! 

Happy Crafting, y'all!

Ingredients:

Karen Burniston dies (Elizabeth Craft): 

     Pop It Up Accordion Circle

     Pop It Up Accordion Fancy Label

     Pop It Up Circle Frame Edge

     Pop It Up Fancy Frame Edge

     Pop It Up Garden Bench

     Pop It Up Agatha Edge

Sizzix dies:

     Stephanie Barnard Flip Its Triple Square set

     Stephanie Barnard Framelits Birthday Cake set

     Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Mini Cat & Raven

End of Summer Digital stamp - Mo Manning

Patterned Paper/elements (Little Yellow Bicycle, DCWV, misc)

Ribbon

Brads

Embroidery floss

stamping ink

Prismacolor pencils

cardstock