Today I thought I would make a start on sharing my swaps that I received last weekend at OnStage Live in Brussels. I have too many to share in one go, so I thought I’d break them down over a few days.

I am a member of the Stampin’ Stars team and some of us decided to take part in a WOW swap. Are you are wondering what that is? Quite simply its something that makes you go WOW when you open it. I was so glad to hear that there were only 10 people (including myself) who decided to take part. Being a WOW swap, these are extra special and can be pretty time consuming to make.

First off, here is the swap that I made.

I found some plastic calendar cases sitting in a cupboard and thought it was about time that I used them up. There are 6 inserts for the case – a month on each side. Each month has it’s own colour and I used the Perpetual Birthday Calendar Stamp Set through out.

I used the Lots of Labels Framelits and the Little Numbers Thinlits to decorate the front of the box. Just so you know, I made the box using the Envelope Punch Board.

I’m not going to bore you will photos of every single month, but here’s February’s. The heart was punched out of Real Red card stock and then glossed up using Crystal Effects. Got to love that stuff.

Here are the fantastic swaps that I was lucky to receive.

This little cup filled with sweets was from Jackie Hall. She very kindly gave me the cutting and punching instructions for this so I am going to be giving it a go when I have a spare minute or two.

If its purple, then it must be from Rebecca Willmore. This type of little box was featured on here back in September and there is a tutorial for it on the tutorials page. There is a cute little slice of cake inside the centre box.

This cute box from Kim Fee holds a sachet of Hollyberry scented wax. The bells on it (not Stampin’ Up!) are really cute. The greeting comes from the Flurry of Wishes stamp set and the silver embossed splats are from Awesomely Artistic.

This cute card (it measures 8.5 cm x 8.5cm) is from Char Wijers. It opens out to show a scene made using the Sleigh Ride Edgelits and Cozy Christmas stamp set.

I have a few more to show so please bear with me.

This cute pull out card and bag was made by Eimear Carvill. The bag was made using the Treat Bag Thinly die with a hole cut using the Oval Framelits. The pull out card inside was embossed using the Woodland Embossing Folder and sponged with various colours. The cute little flowers are embossed with white embossing powder. I’ll have to go and research which stamp set they come from.

This swap was from Lesley Lendon. It opens out to show a scene stamped using the Wonderland stamp set. The belly band (picture above) uses the Vintage Leaves stamps set. You can’t see it too well (bad lighting) but both sides of the card (they fold over the front) are embossed using the Woodland embossing folder.

The star above folds out flat and was made by Gill Moore. I had a little bit of a problem closing it when I first got it so I’m reluctant to open it up again to take a photo of the gold glimmer paper inside.

This cute wood ornament was decorated by Jan Frances-Dicks using the Festive Flower Builder Punch. The flower is embossed using Gold (petals) and Black (leaves) embossing powder. The greeting from Teeny Tiny Wishes is also embossed with clear embossing powder.

Last but not least is this card made by Andrea and Cary using the Be the Star and Fabulous Four stamp sets. There is a lot of embossing going on – both black and gold. The inside of the card is an aperture card. The aperture opens as you open the card and the greeting inside says “Be The Star You Are”. Very appropriate given that this is a Stampin’ Stars swap.

I think you will all agree that they are a fabulous set of WOW swaps. If you are coming to class in the next few weeks they will be on display for you to see close up.
In the meantime, I’ll be back soon with some of the general swaps I received. There are lots of those so I’ll split them up into cards and non cards.