Recently I joined this yahoo group, because I read this swap on their blog; Travel the world! Sounded Very Interesting so I joined this yahoo group, to be able to join in the fun of the swap! These haven't been my style, as most of my friends know ~ I luv Cute, Clean, a bit of Fancy... it took me a while to get used to tim holtz Distress ink cuz they weren't bright colors! lol! But I always admired the stampers who luvs to do the Vintage style, Collage, etc, and that was why I've been "following" this blog. It's also nice to get inspired from different perspective. Anyways, I enjoyed making these! They are different! One thing I noticed is that to make a piece like this, it's better to have all kinds of knickknack! lol! You'll never know what comes in handy, to finish the card. When I was deciding what places/cities/countries I want to make the bookmarks of, I could think of US (and Hawaii and guam), Japan, Australia & Germany where I lived long enough to get to know the places, but I don't have enough images for Australia & Germany. When I remember Sydney, Opera House & all different kinds of animals and birds came to my head and I even searched online for digis (so that I can just download right away) but no luck. When I think of Germany, all drinks & food & beautiful buildings/bridges but not enough images to make a card/bookmark. Then I remembered ONE 12x12 paper of the pic. of the collection of Stamps from all over the world, which I bought, like 2 years ago but never had a chance for my card yet. In fact, I was looking for a German postage stamp in there, but instead, I found the Jamaican Stamp!! I lived in Montego Bay for 3 months, so I got to know the place, just a little bit, and remembered Blue Mountain Coffee!! "Coffee/tea" theme has been my fav. for many years so I have those stamps. And other than coffee, I remembered the word; "ya man", and Beautiful beaches, which I have plenty of stamps of, from me living on tropical islands for 12 years. I made Jamaican flag, using the distress inks. I used the distress stickles for sand on both Jamaican & Hawaiian bookmarks. I made my Hawaiian card first. That was easy, from the recent memory. I still remember, being able to watch many turtles on the beach, like a couple of feet away, although this turtle stamp is from Guam. I used glitters on the flowers, incld. on hula dancer's heads. Small plumeria flower & "aloha" are stickers. All stamps for Japanese bookmark is from Posh Impressions' Japanese Collection. I used sakura clear star gel pen for wings of the butterfly, to give a subtle shimmer. It's hard to see it on pic. though... The small nestie label says "Japan" in Japanese, and RED in the middle, to imitate Japanese Flag. Those bubbles are stickers. I used stamps from different companies for US one. I also have many selection of Patriotic stamps. I used "liberty" stamp, trimmed them with stamp edge scissors, and attached them. "D.C" are stickers. So, here you have it! My long post on these 4 bookmarks! Those stickers I used are leftovers from my scrapbooking, which I hardly do, so i don't have that many, and when i found places to put, I was happy :-) Thank you all for visiting my blog & reading this long post! :-) You'll all have a great day! :-) ps. I'm submitting these to Simon Says Stamp and show challenge blog for this week's theme "Tags". UPDATES; These are the returns I received; from the left Paula Akero, Gerri Herbst, Trisha Too, & Cathy Peper. They are fabulous!! I'm glad I joined in this swap! :-)
