We are celebrating 3 YEARS of Hopping together!!
We can hardly believe that it has been 3 years already, since our inaugural Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop!
We’re really excited, as we have the entire original group together, plus some of our more recent members as well! If you’ve been with us since the start of our journey, I hope that you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have! 
This fabulous group of people have been through alot together; we’ve celebrated anniversaries (within and outside of Stampin’ Up!), some have left Stampin’ Up!, some have mourned the loss of loved ones (and we have grieved along with them), and we have continued to celebrate our friendships.
If you haven’t joined one of our Watercooler hops before, you may be wondering who we are, and what it’s all about. Basically, we are a group of demonstrators who met in the online SU! demonstrator only site, called the ‘watercooler’ in a nod to offices in bygone days, where people used to gather around the literal watercooler, to chat and share stories.
Each of the participating blogs is linked via the ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ buttons you’ll see at the bottom of each post; to enjoy all of the projects created by each of us, simply click in one direction, and you’ll be taken to the next blog in the circle. In the event of internet gremlins messing things up, you can click on the ‘Home’ button, where you will find the complete list of participating blogs, and you can click on the links from there.
To celebrate our 3rd Anniversary, we’ve chosen to do the following projects:
Project One: Featuring an Anniversary Card.
Project Two: Featuring a stamp set that has survived since being introduced in 2013 (Wetlands, Gorgeous Grunge, Flower Shop).
Project Three: Featuring your version of a CASE from the original blog hop.
If you’ve been clicking the ‘Next’ button, you’ll have arrived here from Heidi Weaver’s blog – weren’t her projects amazing?! She never ceases to amaze with her creativity.
Here is my first project – my Anniversary card:
You’ll notice that I made it a ‘3rd’ Anniversary! I wanted the card to be a bit special, so I made it a ‘Z Fold’ card, using a base of Rich Razzleberry cardstock.
For the focal panel, I used the Number of Years stamp set, and first stamped the leaves in Emerald Envy, stamping them twice. I then stamped the different flowers in Rich Razzleberry, Sweet Sugarplum and Blushing Bride inks. I then attached the stamped panel onto a larger panel of Blushing Bride cardstock, and attached it (by the left side only) the the front of the Z panel.
I stamped the banner images from Thoughtful Banners and Number of Years stamp sets, then stamped the words inside the banners in Rich Razzleberry ink using the Number of Years stamp set. I used the Duet Banner Punch to punch out the ‘Happy’ banner, and the thinlit from the Large Numbers Framelits and the Big Shot for the ‘Anniversary’ banner. I attached the banners using Stampin’ Dimensionals.
In this picture, you can see the ‘Z Fold’ of the card:
I attached a panel of the Blooms & Bliss Designer Series Paper onto the inside base of the card, then a piece of Whisper White cardstock on top of that. I stamped the sentiment from the Floral Phrases stamp set in Rich Razzleberry ink.
My next project is a card that uses 2 stamp sets that have been in the annual catalogues since 2013 – our original blog hop – Flower Shop and Gorgeous Grunge:
The stamp sets may be ‘vintage’, but I used a couple of our brand new In Colours, Flirty Flamingo and Peekaboo Peach, along with Calypso Coral and Crumb Cake.
I started with a card base of Flirty Flamingo cardstock, and stamped the flower image from the Flower Shop and the dots from Gorgeous Grunge in the same ink, stamped off once, so that you can barely see it. On the panel of Crumb Cake cardstock, and repeated the flower and Gorgeous Grunge images, this time in Crumb Cake ink, stamped off once.
I layered a panel of the In Colour Designer Series Paper in Flirty Flamingo on top of the Crumb Cake, using Stampin’ Dimensionals, the wound the Linen Thread 3 times around it, then attached it all the the card base.
I stamped 3 flower images in (left to right) Peekaboo Peach, Flirty Flamingo and Calypso Coral onto Whisper White cardstock using the Flower Shop stamp set, then used the Pansy Punch to punch them out. I then attached the flowers, using Stampin’ Dimensionals, on top of the Linen Thread.
My final project is to CASE (Copy And Share Everything) a project from our original blog hop 3 years ago; it could be any project, from any of the other participants. I was intrigued by a folded box that was in Jean Fitch’s post – here is her original project.
Like Jean, I followed the video tutorial done by Tanya Bell, a demonstrator in Australia – you can see the video HERE. I created my box using a full 12″ x 12″ sheet of Pop of Pink Designer Series Paper.
The above picture shows the box closed, with a belly band created using the Botanical Builder Framelits, Melon Mambo, Sweet Sugarplum and Basic Black cardstock.
You can make the entire box just by scoring and folding, or you can add a few strips of Tear & Tape Adhesive (which I did, as Tanya showed in here video). It’s quite a roomy box, as shown in the picture below:
I put a container of the Metal Rimmed Pearls inside, but there’s room for more – it’s a bit wider than the container, and you could probably stack at least 2 or 3 on top of each other.
Another great thing about this box – it can fold flat, stored away until you need it! Here’s a picture of the box from the side, so you can see how deep it is.
Well, that’s it for my projects! If you have time to leave a comment, I love to read what you have to say
Now you’ll want to head over to Kathe Deck’s blog, to see her wonderful projects – be prepared for the WOW factor! Just click on the ‘Next’ button below. If you want to head backwards to see Heidi’s projects again, just click the ‘Previous’ button.
Until next time – happy stamping!
