SUper Friends April Swap Cards

Hi!  Happy Wednesday!  Today I have a treat for you -- the swap cards we exchanged at the most recent gathering of my SUper Friends demonstrator group!  Our theme was "fast and fabulous," and it was fun to see how everyone interpreted that.

Here's Jana's beautiful card, which features the Sheltering Tree set:  

That wonderful texture in the background is the Fancy Fan Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, which is on the retiring list and available at a discount right now -- while supplies last or until June 2nd!

Nancy created this clean and simple beauty using the Another Thank You stamp set and Papillon Potpourri set and coordinating Elegant Butterfly punch:

The speckled background was created using a stamp from Gorgeous Grunge.

Cheryl created this stunning and timely Mother's Day Card, using My Digital Studio (also on the retiring list -- I'm sad to see that, but will keep using it as long as I can!!!) and the Petite Petals stamp set and punch:

Inside, Cheryl shared a special and touching poem written by a friend of hers.  And, Cheryl dressed up the envelope as well, using the Envelope Liners Framelits:

Connie created this perfectly detailed note card (-- making me realize I'd totally missed that Stampin' Up! has been offering Crumb Cake note cards as well as Whisper White -- not sure how that happened, but I'll be getting some of my own soon!!!):

She used Bordering Blooms and Pictogram Punches to create the floral border.  Another beautiful detail on the card front are the lines Connie embossed around the edges of the card.  I'm guessing she did that with the Scoring Tool.

Connie finished the inside of her card using the same embossing technique and one of the flowers from the front, plus a coordinating greeting, also punched with the Word Window Punch:

Her envelope also was dressed up beautifully:

Agnes created this sweet and fun Mother's Day card using the Sweet Laughter stamp set from the Occasions Catalog and the retiring Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder and Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die:

For my card, I started with the Something Borrowed Designer Series Paper, but discovered I didn't have Sahara Sand for a card base (have since fixed that!).  Anyway, I decided to use that for a butterfly embellishment on the card (top layer of the butterfly), and use Cantaloupe Crisp for the card base instead.  I sponged the designer paper with the Cantaloupe, and stamped on it with the beautiful foliage from the Butterfly Basics Stamp set.  The butterfly embellishment is multiple layers -- the Sahara Sand die cut; under that a Cantaloupe piece, stamped with Early Espresso and die cut with the smallest of the Butterfly Framelits; and on the bottom a piece of wax paper, cut at the same time as the Sahara Sand piece as part of the "sandwich" I use to make the butterfly easy to separate from the little die cut pieces -- that sandwich, from bottom, is multipurpose platform, cutting plate, unscented dryer sheet, card stock, wax paper, cutting plate.  The finishing touch on top of the butterfly are the large pearls, which are from the Artisan Embellishment kit.  The "thanks" is from the Hello You stamp set, on a strip of Whisper White, which I punched just on one end using the banner punch.

After I finished the card, I decided I wanted to dress it up a bit more, so I used Crystal Effects to adhere some Crisp Cantaloupe Sequins:

Here's another version, using a different grouping of pearls:

To dress the card up more if I were creating it again, I think I would add a layer of Whisper White in between the card base and designer series paper.

Hope you enjoyed these fast and fabulous cards!

Thanks for visiting!

- Michelle