Spring card class 2 - Bees

Hi,

Here's the second card that I made at the Spring card class a few weeks ago. For the background, we used Whisper White and Basic Black card stock, and embossed Daffodil Delight using the Honeycomb embossing folder with the Big Shot. The sentiment is from Friendly Phrases, and was stamped onto Whisper White with Stazon ink, as we were advised at the class that its less likely to bleed in the way that the Basic Black inkpad can sometimes do on the white card. The bees are from the Spring Sampler stamp set, these were also stamped with Stazon ink, and were coloured with the markers. Dazzling Diamonds was placed on the wings to give a little sparkle. They were punched out using the 1" Circle punch, and one was mounted onto a background punched with the Scallop Circle punch.

Papillion Potpourri Card 4

Here's the fourth Papillion Potpourri card.  This card has a fancy technique on it that you might want to try if you never have before.  The butterflies have the same embossed pattern as the background, but have colour added.  The butterflies were punched out with the Elegant Butterfly punch, and the Petals-a-plenty embossing folder had Wisteria Wonder ink rubbed all over it.  The butterflies were run through the Big Shot, and the result is that the ink is transferred to the flatter areas of the embossed card.  Clever eh!  The Scallop oval punched card was run through the Big Shot too, and mounted onto a Primrose Petals card which had been punched out with the Scallop Oval Punch. A strip of the Stitched Satin Ribbon was placed across the card.

Team Training - Dapper Dad Card 3

Morning.

This is the third and final Dapper Dad card that I'll be sharing from the team training day on Saturday.  I love this one, it's so easy and incredibly effective.  The Argyle Embossing folder has been used to emboss two strips of Night of Navy card stock, and have been placed onto a Very Vanilla card blank so it looks like a cardigan.  How clever!  The bow tie stamped image was stamped with Early Espresso ink onto Crumb Cake card stock, and three of the smaller Silver Buttons were placed underneath in a row to look like buttons on a shirt.  The sentiment which reads "It's your birthday, Oh, What fun! Blow out your candles one by one!", has been stamped onto Crumb Cake in Early Espresso ink, and punched out using the Decorative Label punch.  Bakers Twine was tied around the label, and attached to the bottom of the card with dimensionals.

A close up of the three Silver Buttons, don't they look nice and shiny!

A close up of the bow tie, stamped with Early Espresso ink onto Crumb Cake card stock.

If you've been following my Dapper Dad posts this week, I hope you've liked all the cards, and are inspired to use it yourself.  It's £16.95 for the wood mount stamp set (129195) or just £13.95 for the clear mount stamp (129198).  These stamps are so versatile and can be used for lots of different cards.  You don't have to just limit them to masculine cards, at the training day on Saturday one of my fellow demonstrators suggested "blinging up" the watch using pearls or rhinestones for a ladies watch, I thought that was a great idea.  

Team Training - Dapper Dad Card 2

This is the second card from the team training day on Saturday, using the Dapper Dad stamp set.  Similar to the first card I shared on Monday, it uses Night of Navy, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake card stock.  The shoe was stamped in Night of Navy ink onto Very Vanilla card stock and then cut out using the Paper Snips.    

The Happy Father's Day sentiment from Bring on The Cake was stamped onto a square piece of Very Vanilla in Early Espresso ink.  The Crumb Cake cardstock was embossed using the Big Shot and the Argyle Embossing Folder.  A piece of Early Espresso Bakers Twine was tied around the Crumb Cake, and finished off by tying a Silver Button through the twine.  The shoe was placed on the card with Dimensionals.  

A close up of the stamped image of the shoe, and the Silver Button with the Early Espresso Bakers Twine.

As I mentioned at the bottom of my last post, there's plenty of time to get hold of any of these items before Father's Day, contact me now to place your order.

Team Training - Tuxedo Card

Evening!

What a lovely sunny day it's been.  I've missed most of it, as I attended a Julie's Jems team training event run by Julie Kettlewell.  The theme of today was cards for men, as it's something I think most crafters struggle with at times.  There's loads of lovely sparkly pretty crafty stamps, colours and embellishments out there for feminine girly cards, so Julie decided to get us out of our comfort zone and challenge us!  We did some crafting, which I'll be sharing over the next few days, and we had some great business training too.  Stampin' Up! is a great opportunity whether you want to be a hobby demonstrator, or turn it into a business.  It's flexible too, it can fit around your life and more effort can be put in when life is less busy.  As Julie pointed out today, demonstrators only get out of it, the effort they put into it.

We also had a special guest today, Paula Gorry who is the UK Business Development Manager at Stampin' Up! UK.  It was really nice meeting her and chatting to her, and hearing about how Stampin' Up! operates.  She did a crafting demonstration for us, and we all learnt a few tips and tricks.  It's great seeing other peoples ideas, and seeing things we wouldn't have thought up ourselves.

We always do swaps for out training events, and as the day was based around cards for men, so were our swaps.  I spent a bit of time on Pinterest getting a few ideas together, and decided to use a tutorial to make a tuxedo card.  The link to the tutorial can be found here from Lynn Pratt, an American demonstrator.  Normally when we hand out or swaps, it's a mad half an hour of going around the room trying to find who we haven't swapped with yet! Today we did it in a more structured manner, which worked well.

I used Basic Black and Whisper White card stock to make the jacket and the shirt. I printed out the template and traced them onto the card stock and used the Paper Snips and the Paper Trimmer to cut them out.  The Simply Scored Board and the scoring blade on the Paper Trimmer were used to score the lines.  I used the Dimensionals to stick down the collar edges on the jacket and shirt, and one to hold the two sides of the jacket down.  The bow tie was cut out and also stuck down with Dimensionals.  Lastly I used the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die with the Big Shot to cut out the button for the front of the jacket, which was also attached using the Dimensionals.

I made thirty of these, but forgot to take a picture of them all finished, so here's a picture of just one of them.

Below is a close up picture of the button cut from the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die.

Here's a photo showing the shirt part of the card pulled up from inside the jacket.  This could be the area the message is written on, or could have a sentiment stamped onto.

Shoe Box Swap Card

Evening all

I hope you're having a nice weekend.  It looked nice and sunny today as I was driving to and from the Shoe Box Swap crafting day I attended with a group of demonstrators from Julie's Jems.  It was a bit of a struggle to be honest, I've got terrible dizziness (some would say that's no different to normal!) following a trip to Bruges last week on the ferry.  I've never been on a long ferry journey before, and wasn't sure what to expect, luckily I felt fine whilst I was on board, it was after I got back onto land that the swaying continued.  I've got some tablets from the doctors now, so I hope it won't go on much longer!I think out of the 11 projects I made today, I completed only one or two fully, and I made a couple of daft mistakes on the other projects, but I think I did well considering.

Just in case you're wondering what a Shoe Box Swap Day is, and you haven't seen my previous blog posts about the day we had last year, it's where each attendee brings along a project prepped for everyone else to make.  Each project should take about 30 minutes to complete, and it's such a great way of learning new techniques or trying out different products that we might not have bought ourselves yet.  Today, there were some gorgeous projects, and everyone went to so much effort before today making sure that they were prepared.

Here's the card that I designed and brought along for the ladies to make today.  It's the same design as I used in my card class on Tuesday, just with a different stamp set and different papers.  The theme was to use products from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and since I've not gone too mad with buying products from it yet, I was limited to this stamp set.  For once, I've not bought everything I possibly can (or can't!) afford.  I made a tri fold shutter card, with Crumb Cake card stock as the card blank.  The papers are from the In Colours 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack, in Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals and Midnight Muse.  These papers stacks are great value, for just £19.50 you get 40 sheets of 12"x12" papers, and they come in all the colour families and In Colours.  I'm still getting through the Subtles pack that I got when I first signed as a demonstrator two years ago.

I used the Collage Curios stamp set for this card.  It's one of the sets I really liked from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and co-ordinates with the Bottle Tops.  The images were stamped in Summer Starfruit, Baja Breeze and Primrose Petals, and were punched out using the Petite Curly Label Punch which is one of the Sale-A-Bration items this year.  These were then daubed around the edges with Crumb Cake Ink.

This is a close up of the Baja Breeze panel, which has been embossed using the Big Shot and the Honeycomb embossing folder, another product from the Spring/Summer Catalogue.

This is a view of the card from the top.  You can see how each fold alternates to make a zig zag effect.  I've not taken a picture of it flat, but it folds together so it would fit inside a normal A6 envelope, for easy posting.

I hope you like this card, and if you were one of the lucky ladies that attended the class today and happen to be reading this, please leave me a message to let me know what you thought of it.  If you'd like the tutorial, please also leave me a message or drop me an email at mycardsandcrafts@hotmail.co.uk 

As I spot the other ladies projects appearing on their blogs, I'll be sharing the projects that I made today.  If you like them, why don't you drop onto their blogs too to take a look at their other creations.

1. Papers / Card Stock - Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze, In Colour 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack
2. Stamp Sets - Collage Curios
3. Tools - Petite Curly Label Punch, Sponge Daubers, Paper Trimmer
4. Embellishments - Dimensionals
5. Inks/Markers - Baja Breeze, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit

Christmas Craft Class - Scentsational Season

Last Saturday, I went to my friend and downline Kylie's Christmas Card Class. She's got a lovely house, with a conservatory that's perfect for holding classes at home. There was 9 of us altogether, and I went as a guest (although I was on tea and coffee duty!). We made four cards, and I'll be sharing these in the next three posts.

The first two cards we made was with the Scentsational Season stamp sets and Framelits dies, and the Festival Of Prints DSP. The card blanks were Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade, with Very Vanilla. I chose to use the tree stamp and the ginger bread man stamp for the cards. It was nice seeing all the other designs that the other ladies made in the class. The star on the tree and the hearts on the ginger bread men (punched from the Owl punch) were made using the red Glimmer paper.

Customer Workshop

Morning,

I thought I'd share the projects I made at a customer workshop last month.  Ama kindly held a workshop at her home, and invited a few friends and family along for an evening of crafting.  There was a few non crafters, but they enjoyed it still, and did a great job at the make and take card, which is shown below.  We used the Scentscational Season stamp set and matching Holiday Collection Framelits dies, and Curly Cute was used for the Seasons Greetings sentiment.  Ama has a few pieces of the Emma Bridgewater pottery, so this card was perfect with the stars.

I also showed Ama and her guests how easy it was to make a little gift holder, using the Labels Collection Framelits dies.  I used the Be of Good Cheer papers on this gift.  As a thankyou for hosting the workshop, I gave this to Ama, and inside it contained lots of ribbons and buttons for her to use on her own cards and projects. 

I also showed them how easy it was to make an envelope using the Simply Scored Board, and a sheet of Designer Paper Series.  They really do look good, and they are so much nicer than a plain envelope.

Ama is a great baker, and she always puts on a good spread!  Her cakes were delicious.

We all had a nice evening, and Ama received some great benefits for hosting the workshop.  She earned £40 of free products, and chose some lovely items.  If you'd like to host a workshop, please let me know.  I have a few spaces available before Christmas, it could be a great opportunity to get some gifts if you have crafty friends, or to buy products to make Christmas cards, it's not too late still!  Don't forget the fantastic offer is still on for the free set of ink pads, available when workshop sales reach £325.  That's in addition to the £50 you'd have to spend on products from the Catalogues, and a half price item. 

Betsy's Blossoms card

A few weeks ago, Kylie had an open house catalogue launch party at her house.  She'd set up displays of all her projects and cards, and she took us all through the Annual Catalogue and the Seasonal Catalogue.  She'd also baked some tasty cupcakes, which we munched our way through while we got to play with some of the products.  The card below is what she'd prepped for us to make.  The colour combo is Lucky Limeade and Daffodil Delight, with the Floral District papers.  The stamp set is Betsys Blossoms, and the sentiment is from Petite Pairs.

I had a really enjoyable afternoon, it's always fun enthusing about Stampin' Up! products, and Kylie got some really good sales from the afternoon.  She'd done a raffle, and offered the hostess benefits as a prize.  Her friend Louise was lucky enough to win, and got an amazing £60 worth of free products!  Kylie also offered the half price items to us, and I was thrilled when she pulled out my number, so I used it to my advantage to purchase a Big Shot.  That will be really useful, as I've been borrowing Kylies so far for my classes and workshops.

Buns and Roses Workshop - Snow Flurry card

Here's the second card from the Buns and Roses workshop.  This was the quickest project out of the four tables, which was good, as it gave the ladies a chance to catch up! This was the only card that used the Big Shot, I think they all liked having a go at embossing and die cutting. The Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder was used for the panel in the centre.  The card used was Whisper White, Crumb Cake and Gumball Green.  The other exciting part of this card was that it was spritzed with the Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint, which gave a lovely shimmery finish.

Here's a close up of the die cut snowflake, and you can see the Glimmer Brad in the middle.  These are nice sparkly brads, and come in gold, silver, champagne, black and gray.

Here's a close up of the greeting, from the Curly Cute stamp set, in Whisper White ink.  The edges of the card were daubed with the Daubers and the ink, to give a snowy frosty effect.

Floral District patchwork card

This should only be half a blog post really! This was one of the cards that Kylie had in mind to make for the inspiration station, and allocated to me to make. I got half of it done, and she finished it off. I'm sure she won't mind me sharing it too.

I used the square punch to cut out a piece from every design of the Floral District papers. I tried to arrange them so the same colours or patterns were not next to each other. These were stuck onto Whisper White card stock, in a grid, and then carefully lined up on the Big Shot using the Top Note die. I also ran a piece of Baja Breeze through the Swiss Dots embossing folder, which Kylie then later edged with a stitched effect in White pen. She tied a piece of Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon around the Top Note shape, and tied a bow. Rich Razzleberry card stock was punched with the Curly Label punch, and the sentiment is from For My Family, which was punched out with the Large Scallop punch.

Christmas bunting card

Morning,

It's a bit chilly isn't it this week? Definitely the right sort of weather for getting in the right mood for making Christmas cards, snow and dropping temperatures! I hope you all made the most of your extra hour of sleep today, or will you spend the day, like I will, checking every clock twice and not quite trusting any of them!

Today I'm sharing the last of the Christmas cards I made a few weeks ago. This one uses retired papers, Jolly Holidays, the same papers I used on a card I shared a few days ago. This design is based on a card I made at a class last year, with the bunting flags across the card. I used Cherry Cobbler card, with an embossed Whisper White layer. I made four cards of three designs, using the embossing folders Swiss Dots, Vintage Wallpaper and Square Lattice. I stamped onto the papers with Basic Black ink using the Pennant Parade stamp set, and used the Petite Pennants punch to cut out the flags. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, which has changed names from the old catalogue, and is now known as Teeny Tiny Sentiments. The sentiment was punched out with the Word Window punch and mounted onto a punched out piece of Cherry Cobbler using the Modern Label punch.

Open up your door

A couple of weekends ago, I was at my Stampin' Up! friend Kylie's house, for a crafty get together. She was getting things organised for her Inspiration Station at our teams quarterly training and I got busy making some Christmas cards to sell. The next four blog posts will show you these cards. I used some retired items on them, to use them all up, so I can justify buying more!

This card was inspired by a card that was made for me last Christmas by a friend, and by the Tea Shoppe dresser card that we made at the Shoe Box Swap day. I made 12 of these cards, 6 using the Woodgrain background stamp for the wood effect and 6 using the new Woodgrain embossing folder in the Big Shot from the Seasonal catalogue. I used Cherry Cobbler card stock for the card blank with Very Vanilla for the background. The pieces of Woodgrain stamped or embossed Crumb Cake were sponged around the edges with the same colour ink with the Daubers. To create the wreath, I used the bird punch leaf, and the berries were punched using the owls eyes from the Owl punch. I made a couple with hearts instead of berries, also punched from the Owl punch.

*Sorry about the bits of glue on the cards, I took the photos before the glue had dried*

If you'd like to buy any of my Christmas cards, please contact me for more details.

Stamp-a-stack Christmas 6 - Joyous Celebrations

This is the last blog post about the Stamp-a-stack class I went to a few weeks ago. I'm pleased I've got through these all now, as I've been busy with lots of other projects I can't wait to share. I've made lots of Christmas cards, I helped my downline prepare for her "Inspiration Station" at our team training event which is tomorrow, I've had a customer workshop, and in a few weeks time I am running a workshop at the Buns & Roses Leeds City Centre WI. Busy eh!

This card uses the Joyous Celebrations stamp set, with the new embossing folder called Holiday Frame. Gumball Green card stock was used for the card blank, with Whisper White. You might notice on the pictures that some of the white card is wrinkled. A tip I have read on how to avoid this, is to slightly dampen the paper first. I've not tried this tip yet, but I'll let you know if it works. The oval frame was punched with the Large Oval Punch, and the cards were decorated with the new Silver Sparkle Dazzling Details, a little tube of silver glitter glue with a fine nozzle for easy application. Nice simple effective cards aren't they?

I'll be back soon hopefully with lots to share. As I mentioned above, it's our team training day tomorrow, so I'll have my swaps to share with you, and lots more.

Shoe Box Swap - Kindness Matters

This is a post with a product from
the new Annual Catalogue. Excited? I am! This was one of the cards that we made at the Shoe Box swap class that I have mentioned before. This card was designed by Jane Bisby.

The colour combo for this card is Rich Razzleberry, Regal Rose, Crumb Cake with Very Vanilla. The stamp set is from the new Annual Catalogue and is called Kindness Matters. The butterflies were stamped three times and coloured with the marker pens. The middle butterfly on the bottom row has another one stamped and cut out and placed on top to add a bit of dimension. The Crumb Cake card stock was embossed using the Big Shot and the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder. The Regal Rose card stock was punched with the Scallop Trim border punch, and a piece of Scallop Dots Ribbon in Old Olive was tied around the centre of the layers in the middle.

The inside of the card was decorated too, I really like this idea and it adds an extra level of detail and makes it a little more special.

Stamp-a-stack Christmas 4 - Merry Minis

I hope you've all had a good week, I've not posted much for a few days. An update on the broadband situation-it works, but I have discovered it's very slow, and when using my phone it's quicker to have the wifi switched off and use 3G instead! That's no good is it? I'll have to do a speed test and do some call centre ringing again.

So here's another post (from my phone!) from the Christmas Stamp-a-stack class from a few weeks ago.

This one used the Merry Minis stamp set and punches, a co-ordinating set. They are cute little images of Christmas trees, stars and baubles, three of each. It's a set that's mostly aimed at Christmas, but I think it could be used all year round, especially the stars and one or two of the trees. The baubles could even be used as fairy lights.

Crumb cake card stock was inked around the edges with the White Kraft ink and the daubers, and then a strip of the Festival Of Prints DSP was placed at the side of the card. The Apothecary Accents Framelits Dies were used to cut the Whisper White card stock, with the rounded shape cut off one end. A Bronzed Button with some linen thread tied around the holes was placed on top. The Merry Minis had been stamped in Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler and Baja Breeze, and were placed across the card. The Merry Christmas sentiment is from Petite Pairs.