Nerds at the Helm or Stampalooza #1

Nerds at the helm, was a term coined yesterday at the the first annual Laura Duet Stampalooza. I can't remember what it referred to anymore, but I think it is hilarious, and an apt description of the day. Lorie, Trish, and Jane came over for 12 hours of stamping, experimenting, challenges, lunching, and talking. It was totally therapeutic and lots of fun, fun, fun!! I brought down lots of supplies from my upstairs stamp room to the dining room and set up a "mini-store" of paper, stamps, inks, punches, soufle pens, photo twin markers, and ephemera. We made tons of cards and ATCs and just generally had one of those perfect days in life. Mike made us lunch too!!!

Above is my favorite card I made yesterday....Luckily I found the background paper when I was shopping for door prizes (galaxy pens, ribbons, and rub-ons for all!).....I love the colors together (my favorite combo yellow/blue) and later when I turned it over, I saw that it was made by Anna Griffin...I love her papers. The rub-on is from Daisy D, and the vintage picture is from a shop in Sandwich, Illinois.

Below is a totally cool and adorable ATC made by Jane. She took a black and white picture (copied on matte paper) and colored it and made a polka dot dress! Love it!

Below is a total masterpiece of a card by Lorie! She used a Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous stamp and went from there. She is a master of using lots of elements on a card and making it come out beautifully!!!! (She also used those #&$%*# Microbeads and made them work! Something that I have never been able to do!!)
I love the card below made by Trish! Isn't it totally cool??? She used Jane's Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous ticket stamp as the background and then a stamp that everyone made fun of me for buying!!! (Stampers Anonymous jester stamp) with a background paper and Hero Arts Dots to create this. She spent an hour cutting out the jesters, but the effect was totally worth the effort!

I will be posting more of the creations from Stampalooza throughout this week! May this inspire you to gather a group of buddies for your own stampathon!