My Very First Swap

Hello ladies,

I am here to share my experience with you of my first swap.  I realize that some of you may be pros at Swaps, and some of you may be wondering what I am talking about (like I was).  And some may even think "swaps aren't for me" which is what I thought!  But I'm pretty sure that I am hooked!  It's a great way to meet other crafters from everywhere really, and find uses for all those fun little paper crafty things you want to do but don't because you aren't sure if is useful or not!  Well the swaps make it useful!  I go turned onto swapping by a good friend of mine, Nichole - who is a very very very talented Stampin Up! demo, her work is just beautiful and I always admire the things she makes especially for swaps.  Every time we get together, I am excited to see what she it working on.  So I decided I wanted to try swapping, because really, anything she does it awesome and try worth in my book.  This decision lead to these:

Supplies: DCWV Holiday Collection The Christmas Stack, GCD Animal Fanatic, Bazzill (Paper); Stampin Up! (Ink), Spellbinders (Label); Simplicity Halloween Trim (Fur Top); Stampin Up! Tags Til Christmas (Stamp)

I have been dying to make these forever really, I love them and have had a similar idea for ages, but simply did not want to go through the trouble of designing it myself.  The template was created by Claire Brennan and can be found here.  Because I was lazy, I converted it to an SVG file to cut with my Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot - took a little more work, but a lot less by hand cutting! And here is the inside