Austin Shoebox Swap

Here's a little Hambo Week bonus post - it's not Halloween, but I want to share it anyway!! Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Austin Shoebox Swap with a bunch of SCSers. It was my first time at one of these events, and it was soooo much fun! A full day of making cards - what's not to love?!? I didn't even know about the thing until my buddy Carole mentioned it a little while back - really funny that I learned about it from somebody in Oklahoma - not only was it in my state, my town, but it was right here in my own neighborhood!! Which was GREAT - literally two minutes from my house. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go - Courtney doesn't take a bottle, so I wouldn't have been able to be away for a full twelve hours! With it so close, I just ran home a few times, during lunch and other breaks in the action. It worked out really well - I only missed a couple cards. As you can see from the photo, I was able to make PLENTY! :-) I got some GREAT ideas that you will probably see featured here in the coming weeks! For my swap card, I decided to combine some of my very favorite things - polka dots, scallops, and the Hambo elephant stamp!! This was my first time at a large swap like this (there were 45 swappers), and I learned several things that I'll know to do next time. First of all, my card wasn't as simple as it should have been for a swap. I did premake the little "Hello" tags, but it still took too long to make. And, some instructions would have been helpful. So now I know! I'm all educated for the next swap! The swap was so well organized - Brenda (sassybee), Rae Anne (huera90), and Karen (gamblemom) did such a great job!! It's really cool how these large swaps work - in this case, there were 9 tables of 5 cards each. Each card was supposed to take 10 minutes or less - so we stayed at a table for about 50 minutes and then rotated to another table. The order of rotating had been painstakingly figured out by Brenda - she did all she could to try and get everyone a chance to sit and stamp with a variety of people. Very impressive. And very well-run! Oh and there were a couple Stamping Superstars in attendance (and I got to make their fabulous projects!!) - I got to meet my favorite ribbon queen, Jody Morrow (texasjodylynn) (and she even hand-delivered my ribbon order!), and Jen del Muro was there too, but sadly I didn't get to meet her. I was hoping to be at a table with her at some point, but she ended up leaving early while I had run home to nurse Courtney. Sad. Who knows if I would have ever said hi anyway, I am fairly shy. Especially around Stamping Superstars such as Jen. LOL. Anyway - it was very cool. I highly recommend you attend one of these things if you ever get the chance!

• Stamps: Elephant and Hello from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Cool Caribbean, Tempting Turquoise, Georgia Pacific White, Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Black StazOn, Tempting Turquoise
• Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol, stumps, Stardust pen, Black glaze pen, Blue Spica glitter pen, SU scallop edge punch, Fiskars tag punch, Swiss dots cuttlebug folder, black brads, silver eyelet, Hobby Lobby ribbon, clear button, safety pin, embroidery floss