This Original Rubber Stamp Convention has long been a staple in the Los Angeles area, and I guess I took it for granted.  There weren't as many vendors there but it was good too see my old favorites there like Judikins and, of course, A Stamp in the Hand, of the infamous pears, who also happens to be the organizers of this convention.


After that, it was high time to get out of there.  It's not what it used to be, the vibe, the buzz, the hundreds of stampers, but I had a really great time getting reacquainted with this local community of crafters.  I also really am grateful that I took a day off from life and had a little bit of long overdue me time for some fun.

I'm looking forward to playing with my new goodies this coming weekend.

I think creating so many cards for the SCS VSN kinda knocked the wind out of me, so I took a much needed breather from crafting.

In the meantime, I was thrilled to be able to join a new ongoing card swap called the Baker's Dozen on SCS in which we are partnered with another stamper and are to send each other handmade cards on every Monday for the next 13 weeks.

I honestly can't say that I stamp that often, so in addition to it being super fun to receive fun mail every week, this is definitely going to be quite a challenge especially my free time has decreased considerably. That means I'm definitely going to have to schedule down/me time for sure!

I was paired with Dawn Mercedes who happens to be the swap hostesses too! She sent me this very sunny cheery card. I absolutely love the way she used washi tape! I have very few rolls since this trend kicked off during my 4 year crafting hiatus.  You can see her blog post here and much better picture for this card she created:


I sent her my watercolored PSX Iris card as my first last week.

Today, the second Monday of our swap, I sent her this card that I watched as a demo at the Rubber Necker booth at the Rubber Stamp Convention that was held this weekend by A Stamp in The Hand. I absolutely fell in love with this flower stamp.  The high pigmented colors were from Color Bursts powders that was mixed in with water barrel brush. Then it was embossed to dry before the 2nd outline layer was stamped in clear embossing ink, and embossed with gold powder.  I too love that pencil drawn sketch frame around the flowers which is another stamp.

Since these were in a lovely bright orange, I thought to send this off to Dawn since orange is her favorite color.




I sure do miss learning all sorts of new stamping techniques when I attend stamp conventions.  I was short on time and cash, so hope to return again when they return in November later this year.

I'll share my Rubber Stamp Convention experience and buys in a separate post later this week.

Thanks for visiting!!