Red Hot Sassy Rubber Artists

Cute, whimsical, classy, retro, vintage, seasonal - TAC has it all. Great sayings for the outside and inside of your cards. My personal wishlist is growing daily. And with the Spring/Summer Serendipity magalogue good thru January 2010, and a new Fall/Winter magalogue to be unveiled in the late September timeframe, there will be lots of pages to browse and ideas to try.

Check out my sidebar links for the July Stamp of the Month and Vintage set. Plus I’ll add new links as any new goodies are announced.

The TAC Seminar in Wichita was a blast, but soooo exhausting. I saw lots of friends (old and new) and tried out some of the new stamp sets in the new catalogue. Yes, folks, we have new rubber (samples of which I’ll be stamping and sharing over the next few weeks).

One of the more fun activities at a stamp company’s annual convention is that time-honored tradition of swapping (or trading) stamped items with a hundred other (or more) like-minded crafters. My contributions included 100 Halloween themed cardfronts (a nod to a Halloween-loving angel…you know who you are); 36 chocolate filled, patterned paper covered, layered scallop circle topped round tins; 60 little faux crocodile chocolate filled treasure chests (ohmigosh, those were fun to do); 8 little pop-up notepad holders (good for golfers and bunco players!); and my absolute favorite trades were the 3 trinket boxes I made for my managers lunch prop swap and my two roomies.

Can you say ‘over achiever’? I mean really. I knew I wanted to do the Halloween set, I knew I wanted to use kraft cardstock sponged with white (um…100 cardfronts x 4 sides to each cardfront…not thinking too clearly there). Oh, and I wanted it to be special, so of course I would color the image. Let’s count how many colors I used. Yellow and orange markers for the moon, three colors of prisma pencils for the fence, two purples for the hat, one green (oh, how dull), two prismas for the broom straw, a silver prisma for the hat buckle, gray tombow marker for shadows, and stardust glitter pen on the hat buckle and broom straw for bling. All that on 100 cardfronts. Yikes!

Here’s a sneak peek of my faux alligator treasure chests. I’m working on a step by step tutorial. I actually took photos of each step.

 
Here’s a picture of the three trinket boxes. The bases are 8 four-inch circles folded into squares, cool, huh? A picture tut will also be forthcoming within the next few days.

And here’s a photo of my team gifts. I love how the pencil flips up when the front is opened. Very easy to make using the ScorPal too.

But THIS one is a quick and easy card. Digging around in my card stash I found this card from last year’s May sassy stampers class. Seeing as how I started my blog last July, I hadn’t shared it yet with you, and since Father’s Day is moments away, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you now. This is a fun card that can be used for all sorts of ‘guy’ events…father’s day of course, but don’t forget birthday, thinking of you, graduation, going away…wouldn’t it be a hoot to use tropical print paper for a ‘have fun on your cruise’ card? My shirt uses a 4-inch by 6-inch piece of patterned paper and it fits onto a normal A-2 sized card. Just think of the doodling possibilities too. Faux stitching, add a pocket or two, add a center line for the front seam, even clip the center top seam (under the front collar) to create an open throat shirt. And let’s not forget the girls. Round the corners of the collar, add a bit of lace, and you’ve got a sporty shirt for your girlfriend!

Stamps: TAC Trendy Greetings; Paper: TAC Designer Collection (lightweight paper works better than cardstock because the folds tend to get bulky if cardstock is used) - a few other TAC choices include HipHop, Kaleidoscope Boyz, and Just Like Dad.

The origami folded shirt has been around for ages (usually with dollar bills). I can’t find my original source (if you could peek into my creative retreat, you’d see the stacks of printouts I’m collecting to eventually categorize and use as inspiration…and my card IS a year old…lol), but Katie has recently posted an awesome tutorial with very clear instructions and photos.

And whoo hoo! I get to participate in a Father’s Day blog hop. So click on the links below to see some other fabulous Father’s Day papercrafting inspirations:

Participants:
Jamie
Carol
Bridget
Christina
Maria
RitaK
Seleise
Laurie
Ellie
Stacy
Heather

Ohmigosh! This is another absolutely adorable kid-themed set (and it will be available in the new catalogue). Click here and here for some cute ideas using it too. You can buy it in June at a discounted rate with a $30 purchase (and with that same $30 purchase you are also eligible to buy the June stamp of the month, vintage set, and Spring into June sets…wow)!

Omigosh! If you’ve got little daughters, granddaughters, or nieces, you need to pop on over to the TAC website and visit the uploaded downloads page. Melanie Montes de Oca designed a fabulous paper doll duo complete with clothing for download! And then if you pop on over to Mischelle Smith’s Savvy Projects Blog, you’ll see how gorgeous are the fully decorated dolls and clothing. I’m personally going to print the dolls and several sets of clothing and adhere them to 8×10 magnet sheets (you can purchase those at most office supply stores). I can’t wait to share the dolls with my sweet little granddaughters (and a few special neighbor girls).