I arrived in hot and sunny Portland at my daughters yesterday. We fly out of Portland together for our first Stampin’ up! convention. We spent several hours last night working on swaps and having fun. For the next few posts I will be sharing some of my swaps. 

Aren’t the In Colors yummy! I am in a 3D swap and we needed to make 6 of the item. So I made these little suitcases ; one per color. I put a little chocolate in each one to sweeten the gift. The suitcase outsides  were stamped with versamark using the Circus Circles stamp set. I quickly discovered that versamark shows up much better on some colors than others. All look good in person but some are lighter than another. 

Here is another view of these delightful cases.  I found the pattern from Mirkwood Designs for the suitcase itself, then started making tweaks. I used SU natural hemp twine to make the handle. with the Add of our Crystal effects, I turned two pieces of twine into a flat handle, a little messy but I liked the effect. I also enjoyed the look of the new In Color ribbon that I used for the straps.