The Big Shot--it's a BIG deal!

Yesterday I had an open house featuring the Big Shot for Stampin' Up! die-cutting machine. I had a blast preparing the projects, demonstrating various types of dies and techniques, and helping my customers create their two make-n-take projects.

Now I am the first to admit that I am the "queen of CASEing"! The VAST majority of projects that I use at my classes and workshops are lovingly copied from some other creative stamper's ingenious idea. However, the above beauty (and I am quite fond of how it turned out), is all mine. There may be others out there similar or even the same, but I did not copy them. This came out of my very own brain. Except for the thin Kiwi Kiss layer behind the Baja Breeze panel. That was Beth's idea. I had the rest of the card completed, and I took a picture of it and emailed her with the subject line: HELP! She said what I already knew...it needed more Kiwi...but I was trying to add ribbon somewhere, and when she suggested that I add another layer, I knew she had hit a home run. So thanks, Beth!!!

We used the Birds & Blooms sizzlits and Swirly decorative strip dies and the Backgrounds I texturz plates.

This project, however, was CASEd. There was recently a demonstrator only challenge over on Splitcoast to make these adorable treat holders. The original idea came from a customer of Barb Mullikin. She has a great tutorial on her blog, so I won't reinvent the wheel. Here's the link to the Petal Card Hanging Heart Pouch tutorial. In addition to using her tutorial and the demo challenge for inspiration, I totally fell in love with this gorgeous rendition by stampalooza. I didn't want to change a thing, but I did want to use the Delicate Dots DSP from the Sale-A-Bration brochure because the first 10 people to join my Big Shot club are receiving a pack of that paper and the SAB ribbon bundle. I also used the texturz plates to dry emboss the petal cards once they were cut out (I haven't figured out how to "dry emboss" with my Crop-A-Dial yet). And the absence of the flower on the front is due to the fact that I'm still trying to figure that out too. I know it's not difficult and there are semi instructions in the SAB brochure, but it I had had a very busy week and weekend, and I just didn't have time to conquer that part of the project.

Here we used the Petal Card bigz die (the same one I used for my kiddos' classes' valentines!) and the Backgrounds I texturz plates again.

I also demonstrated a bigz xl die and an embosslit die, so everyone got a good sampling of all that the Big Shot can do. The one thing I didn't show is the various materials that it can cut, but we'll explore that side of this baby during my club classes. If you are interested in finding out more about my Big Shot club, see the bottom of this post.

Sweet wishes!