Great day for stamping....

~~ Warning - long post!! ~~
Late this morning the weather in Auckland was terrible... thunder and lightening and torrential rain... wasn't I glad to be inside at Sandie's place for our stamping group!!!!!  Nice and cosy.  We had the wonderful Jacque come and demonstrate some of the new products from Stampin' Up!  We did this amazing make and take

I really liked the set we used called Vintage Vogue that I ordered it!!!!  So some more of these will be made. 

After a wonderful lunch... lovely hot veggie soup from Sandie and other goodies from the rest of us.... we got on with more stamping.  Today there were a total of 8 of us.  So lots of sharing, talking and card making.    I started with a card using my new Tim Holtz birdcage die.

I started by cutting out the cage and bird in cream card stock and sponging with distress ink,  I then stamped the bird with Antique Brocade in the Shabby Shutters ink.  My PP was a piece of some of the Peachy Keen paper by Gina K that I had printed out a few weeks ago.  The sentiment is from a set by Three Bugs in a Rug.

My next card came about as I had really liked the owls I did last weekend, but didn't want to buy the die set... so I thought about what I had that would work instead.  I remembered having an Owl in an Inkadinkado set I got at Stamp Camp a couple of weeks ago.  So hunted him out and this is what I finished up with.

I was pleased with the result.  Janet, Helen and Sue all stamped him off as well, so more owls around Auckland!!!!!

My next card for the day was inspired entirely by the amazing Nancy from her post on her blog.  She is teaching a class this weekend and had showed the card she was going to do with the Hero Arts Poppy Background stamp - here -  and this is what I did

I stamped the Poppy background onto white card with Garden Green Ink ( from the wonderful Oz)  I punched out 3 pieces from the stamped piece and matted with black card.  I stamped the Antique Background - 2nd generation to get a very light look- on the right side of the Olive base card.  Then finished with the sentiment - similar to Nancy's card.

and this is what Helen came up with

Sue also did one but I didn't get a photo of it. In her one she cut one strip of the matting and put all three pieces of the green poppy straight onto it rather then individually matting.  She used a white base and added the word " Happiness" in Kiwi Kiss green ink at the bottom.  So, one inspirational card and 3 different takes on it.  Many thanks to Nancy for the inspiration.   

I even managed to make a start on another card... more Poppies... I just LOVE that stamp!!!! ( almost as much as my butterfly stamps!!!!)

thanks for visiting me today... Hope your Saturday was as much fun as mine.....  next weekend  - NO STAMPING GROUPS - but lots of housework to catch up on after 4 Saturdays in a row of cardmaking!!!!