Wow! I'm not sure where the last 2 weeks have gone, but I think a week of Convention travel and excitement, followed by a mad scramble to be ready for another one of my very favorite events of the year – my annual Hostess Appreciation Party – had *something* to do with moving the date marker from "early July" to "late July" in the blink of an eye!

Convention was awesome (as always!), and in fact I'd probably rate Convention 2011 as among the "awesome-est", lol!  But we'll save that for another time and skip directly to last Friday night – when I got the chance to hang out with some of my very favorite people, my 2010 – 2011 Hostesses!

As you may already know I try to do something "a little bit different" for the invitation to this fun, fun annual event, and although not exactly planned this way, this year ended up with TWO elements of "different".  Not only was the design of the invitation on the unique side, but because of the timing of how everything mashed together this month (new catalog debut, then my regular card classes, followed by having to move Crafting Adventures up earlier in the month to accommodate the timing of Convention – and then of course Convention itself…..), hard as I tried, I couldn't get the invitations completed before my plane headed off to Salt Lake City……. and, I WANTED TO BE ON THAT PLANE! 

So once back from all the Convention excitement, I found myself running up and down the Island the middle of last week hand-delivering 13 invites!  Which not only turned out to be lots of fun 'cuz I got to watch some of you actually OPEN your invitations, but also may have kept them safe from potential damage (melting, crushing, whatever) in the mail. So it was probably for the best anyway.

So, here's what the pile of invitations looked like before heading out to their respective homes:

And here's what one looked like partially open (some elements of the invitation wording have been altered for photography purposes). But as you pulled on the ribbon tab at the top, the Hersheys bar pulled out and simultaneously the invitation card extended out the bottom! 

BTW, if you'd like to learn how to create the mechanics inside this card, be sure to join us for one of my Crafting Adventures class sessions in August; – 'cuz we'll be making a similar type of card – although it won't include chocolate this time, lol. 

And here's something else you might like to know: while you MAY find some examples on the web for creating this basic style of card, at my Crafting Adventures class next month I'll teach you the UPGRADE version I've invented – so your slider card can actually stand up to being played with over and over and over again without tearing or falling apart! (And after all, isn't that why you MAKE an interactive card like this in the first place?)

So in case you were wondering, yes, the design on the cardstock was done with My Digital Studio.  I took the chocolate bar image (available as part of  a digital download) and placed it randomly all over an 8-1/2 x 11 page (at all different angles) in Early Espresso, and then did the same with the little hearts (digital punch images filled with Island Indigo).  Then printed that page out onto Crumb Cake cardstock and cut to the size I needed for my project.  I kept 'hold of the section I trimmed off and didn't need, though, and used THAT section for another project.  (Stay tuned for that in an upcoming post…….)

So let's get your late summer/fall workshop on the calendar now so you'll be assured of an invitation to NEXT summer's Hostess Appreciation Party!  Call me to claim a date on my calendar soon!