TGF October "All Clear" Release & Surprise!

This is a long post, so hang with me and I am sure you will be as excited as I am!  I have been patiently waiting to announce...I am a TGF Farm Fresh Challege Design Team Member!  Wooohooo!  It has been hard to keep mum, but here are my first new release cards.  Check the bottom of the post to find out the other surprise and a chance to meet the rest of the new TGF Design Team!
This is the new TGF acylic clear mount set called "Tea-rrific".  Head on over to The Greeting Farm site to see all five of the new sets!   I am so excited about this set!  The first thing that popped into my head was Alice in Wonderland and Mad Tea Party, so that was my first stop!

This card is made with Stampin' Up's Very Vanilla with layers of retired Pawsitively Prints designer paper and scrap from DCWV's Tattered Time photo stack.  I used my sewing machine to sew the edges, wrapping with Early Espresso baker's twine before mounting to the base.  The sentiment is printed on cardstock then punched with the 1 1/4" circle punch and layered with 1 3/8" circle and scalloped circle punches.  I used a scrap piece of twine to tie on the button.  The images are TGF's Wonderland digis and Tea-rific and colored in copic markers.  I used a craft knife to make a slit in the top cup to slide the Mad Hatter in.  The tea cups have three layers - top cup is a single layer, middle is two layers, bottom is three.  Inside, is some scrap and the white rabbit. 



close up of layers

I am also constantly looking for teacher gifts, so I wanted to make a card that is fast to reproduce.  (When you have three kids with a minimum of 5 teachers - more, if you count extra ciricular teachers - you need fast and reproduceable.)
The next card is two different designs of the same card I have seen all over the web.  The first card opens like a traditional top fold card.  The base is vanilla, with layers of sand, chocolate, whisper white and retired Pawsitively Prints from Stampin' Up.  The form is easy enough - measure in 1/2" on the open end, then cut diagonal to the top corner.  I cut the designer paper just a bit short to show some lip at the top and bottom of the "cup" front.  The lid, is cut slightly wider than the card top, corners rounded and a 1/4" score along the bottom for the bump where the lid fits the cup.  Right before I attached it to the card front, I used my SWAK that I got from Michael's dollar bin around Valentine's.  The cup hugger is a piece of sand colored paper run through a crimper then trimmed to fit the cup.  I used chocolate cardstock to punch the decorative label.  I stamped my image and overstamped the sentiment, then punched with a wide oval and mounted with dimensionals.  I added pearls for some bling.  Last, I stamped and punched the heart stamp with a 1" square, sandwiching a scrap of string between two layers and added a Tim Holtz tiny staple. 

For the gift card holder, I made the opening at the top of the card with the fold at the bottom.  I sealed the sides, leaving the top open, and making a chocolate colored insert to attach to the "lid".  A gift card can be tacked inside. 

With my own exciting announcement today comes another HUGE bit of news for TGF! The Greeting Farm is beyond thrilled and honored to have been invited as the newest Member Company at SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS!
For those of you NEW to Splitcoaststampers (SCS), it is the single largest online community for stampers and a wonderful place to access tutorials, a vast online gallery, and tons of ways to get involved with their awesome forums dedicated to stamping and much more!
As one of only ten Member Companies on SCS, The Greeting Farm now has our VERY OWN FORUM to encourage ALL of our customers, new and old to get out there and chat with us, while we keep you up to date on the latest TGF happenings :) With over 700,000 unique hits a month, we are excited about the potential to meet NEW Farm friends, but we are mostly SO, SO very excited about being able to have a 'home' to chat with you, get to know you better, and post fun and important information ALL in one place! We really look forward to this being a means of getting closer to our stamping community, welcoming new stampers and getting to spend more time with our cherished current customers, as well!
Splitcoaststampers also offers a wonderful Member gallery where you can upload ALL your photos, even non- TGF cards, to their gallery and use different keywords depending on what you're uploading. Please use this keyword for all SCS gallery posts: thegreetingfarm (no spaces :)
If you have ANY questions whatsoever, please contact Jess and she will be happy to answer them! With this announcement also brings GREAT news for Galleria users! While we love our galleria and still plan to keep it open for your use, we will now offer the option to post challenge cards, contest entries, etc. to SCS as well. We will be using the INLINKZ system from now on for ALL challenges. Again, we will still keep the Gallery open, but you now will have the option to upload there, to SPLITCOAST, or your personal blogs. All entries will be counted as LONG as they are posted to our INLINKZ below each challenge post. Splitcoasts offers a WONDERFUL gallery option and we can't WAIT to see your cards there!
There is a TON more info about this on the Farm Fresh Challenge Blog today...so be sure to check out my announcement there too! Thank you for reading!    April