Rhinestone Beagle: Craft Day Field Trip

August's craft day meeting was a field trip to an amazing store called Paper Source. If you have one in your neck of the woods and have never been you are missing out. I was fortunate enough to win a certificate for a card making class at a charity auction a few months back and we had been meaning to use it but it kept getting pushed back. Finally we made the appointment and met out class instructor, Taryn, to get down and dirty with some paper crafting.

This was a medium we had yet to tackle in craft club and now that I'm thinking about it I'm really surprised its taken us two years to do so. Our class was a monkey see monkey do kind of approach where we learned some fun and new techniques to make three different cards. (See finished products below.)

I have to admit the most fun process was using embossing powder and the heat gun. See below the intense concentration centered on our instructor as she explained this totally cool process.

Basically you take any stamp and ink it up. You stamp on your card where you want the graphic to be and while the ink is still wet you take some glittery, or not, embossing powder and sprinkle it on top. After tapping off the excess powder you use the heat gun to set it and the texture of the graphic becomes raised off the paper as the powder melts together. (On a side not, I always want to use the glittery embossing powder, not sure why anyone wouldn't want to. Mmmmm glitter.)

I learned this years ago in college but scrapbooking and cardmaking had fallen to the wayside in my arsenal of crafting since. Of course I still have all the supplies to make these things, since I'm a crafting horder but it was really cool to have a reason to get all glittery. Plus now that the girls know I have a heat gun they are all about doing some more cards and maybe even some scrapbooking. Look how excited Sarah was at the idea.

Before we knew it we were in the crafting zone and cranking out cards like nobody's business. Look at how messy our table got. Best part was we didn't have to clean it up. That alone was worth paying for the class.

Now I have to warn you about this store. In addition to having tons of fun paper, stamps and supplies Paper Source has the most adorable selection of cards and gifts. I love going there for stocking stuffers around Christmas time. Since we got a coupon to use in the store for taking the class we couldn't resist browsing around. Check out the apron modeling that was going on.

Are you paper crafting obsessed? What is your fave thing to make? We are always looking for projects for craft club and I really need to break out that amazing Silhouette so send me ideas if you have them.

What about the puppies you say? We did miss them but this is how I found them when I got home. They had a full day running around with Dan, can't you tell? Just made my heart melt.