At our retreat we made 9 cards and a cute little box. Since the set Under My Umbrella came with the cost of the retreat we did 4 cards with that set.  Mary Deatherige has a blog called Stamps-n-Lingers.  We CASEd the first card from her.  It uses water color paper for the background. Some of the ladies hadn't used the water pens and ink to do watercolor backgrounds so this was a quick and simple introduction.  The card also uses the technique of stamping on our Designer Series Paper and cutting it out, or punching out for the umbrella.  This new punch has both an open and closed umbrella as well as the handle.

The second card is a quick one since we were doing 10 projects. Just a quick scribble with a marker for the fun background and a little practice shading with the amazing Blends alcohol markers for the umbrella and boots.  This card was designed by Arie Hi who I think is from Germany.

I think I need to work on my direct to paper skills that we used on the Hello Sunshine card below. We just swiped a few times with the Versa Mark ink pad and poured embossing powder over it and used the embossing gun to heat set it. The Daffodil Delight ink was sponged on until it looked right and then some Granny Apple Green grass was also sponged on. This fun idea was from Paula Dobson. 

 The Whisper White 1/4" Crinkled Seam Binding was left white on this card but was colored with a Blend on another one. You can get one roll of the ribbon and make it match our cardstock exactly with this method. Cool!

The last card was a bit more detailed but I love it. The umbrella is punched from the Pleased as Punch DSP so that part was easy. The background was another great technique of rubbing the ink pad in the embossing folder before placing the paper in it and running it through the Big Shot. It makes great embossed effects but one of my favorites is the look of a wooden wall like this card.  

I love the Under My Umbrella stamp set. I hope it will be carried over into the next catalog because I can think of lots more things to try with it!