Shop Hopping (and a surprise card)

My local stamping and scrapbook shop, Ink About It, is taking part in a "Summer Stroll" with seven other shops.  To participate, you buy a "passport" at your home shop and then try to visit as many of the other shops as possible over the summer.  The passport entitles you to a one-time 20% discount when you shop at each store.  If you get to six of the eight shops, you are entered into a drawing at your home store for a prize package valued at $100 (and if you get to all eight stores you get two entries in the drawing).

I bought a passport on my birthday and when I looked at the card with the list of shops I realized that four were in Massachusetts and four in Connecticut.  I thought I would probably only get to the Massachusetts stores.  When I went to see my Dad last week, I decided to check out the locations of the stores in Connecticut and remapped my journey so I could visit one on the way down and two on my way home.

It was great fun to see a few new stores and I still have two of the Massachusetts stores to visit. If I go to Pennsylvania again before the deadline in September, I'll try to get to the other shop in Connecticut.  The stores I visited on my trip last week were The Inspiration Station in Stafford Springs,  Papercraft Clubhouse in Westbrook and Wiggles and Giggles in Wethersfield.  All of these shops are well worth a visit if you are in the area or passing through.

I was able to find some things that I was looking for at each of the shops.  While I was away, a surprise party was planned for our niece on Friday night.  I didn't have anything with me to make a card and I didn't want to buy one  When I saw the new Paris Girl line from Carta Bella at the Papercraft Clubhouse I got the idea to put together a card at the store.  I asked if I could "borrow" the classroom and use a few tools to make my card and they were very accommodating.

This is just one corner of the large classroom.  Along the wall were some items on sale and I browsed through these to see if there was anything I could use for the card.

I found these stickers from SRM on the wall.  I normally use a stamp or a die cut sentiment but I thought these were cute (I took the photo at home after I made the card so the bits I used are missing).

I found these ribbons in another section of the store.  I loved the ruffles on the pink ribbon for a girly card and while I was making the card, I decided I needed a narrower black ribbon.  I think these were both from May Arts.

I purchased two sheets of Bazzill cardstock - pink and white - and started to flip through the pad of "Paris Girl" paper to find a design for the card front.

I chose the page with an assortment of dress forms.  The store had a very nice paper cutter (by Genesis) so I quickly cut a card base in pink and one in white.  I looked around for a score board but didn't see one right away.  There was another customer working on an album and when I asked her if she knew where there might be a score board she very kindly offered me the use of her trimmer and switched the blade out for the scorer.  We got to talking and I didn't pay attention as I scored the pink card base and ended up with a scored line at 4 inches instead of 4 1/4 inches (so the back of the card was not even with the front).

I decided to just go ahead and use this base and cut a 1 1/4 inch strip of black dotted paper to cover the extra area that would be exposed when the card was closed.  Then I added the "celebrate" sticker to a piece of the white cardstock and trimmed it to about 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inches.  I placed it along the black dotted strip and then added another sticker for the sentiment.  The sticker landed a bit off center so I punched a few flowers and added them to the right side to make it look like "I meant to do that!"

I trimmed the layers for the front, added the ribbons, adhered all of the layers to the card front and tied an extra piece of black ribbon around the long ribbon and trimmed the ends.  I found some Sizzix  dies to cut the number "18" and used another punch for the deckle edge square. 

It was odd to make a card without using any electronic die cutters since I usually start with a cut file but I had fun improvising and figuring out how to "fix" my mistakes!  I enjoyed meeting Dotty, who also gave me some foam tape and was interested to hear about my blog.  She was working on her Project Life album and asked if we could have a photo taken together so she could use me as her important thing that happened that day.  I was really flattered by that! 

The photo taken on my camera came out blurry but here it is very small just to say hi to Dotty!  I think you meet some of the nicest people when you visit independent shops and I try to do my part to keep them in business so we all can enjoy the community of crafters.   I hope I'll have a chance to stop by this store again.  I found a few other things I had been looking for and something new that I can't wait to use...

Please forgive the lighting and small number of photos - most of them were taken in the back of the car before I got to the surprise party!  Friday was a very long day but I made it to the party and the birthday girl was truly surprised.  I got home over twelve hours after I left so I took a break on Saturday to catch up!  Today I hope to try out some of my new goodies from the shop hopping!  I also found a package waiting for me at home and I have some experiments to do...that's all I can say for now!

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