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. 

Watercolor Winter cards

Morning,

I'm glad it's Friday! I hope you all have nice things planned for this weekend. Here's the second of the cards I made during my Christmas card session. I had some old papers left, called Jolly Holiday, from two catalogues ago! I decided I should use up as much as I could. I used a design that Kylie had asked me to make a card for her Inspiration Station, that unfortunately she didn't get a chance to finish off for the display. It's a card with half the front cut off, with the Label Collections Framelit Dies placed over half of the front. That's not explained very well, but I'm sure you'll understand from the pictures what I mean. For the card backgrounds, I used Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive, and the stamp set was the Watercolor Winter. I'm a real fan of this set now, after using it on a few cards recently. The sentiment is from a retired stamp set, Contempo Christmas. This is one of the sets I've had on my list to sell, so let me know if you'd be interested in taking it off my hands. To finish off the poinsettias, I placed a couple of pearls in the centre of the flowers.

Craft Decathlon - Diorama card

Last month I attended a fun class run by my Stampin' Up! upline Julie Kettlewell. Even though I'm a demonstrator and run my own classes, it's still good fun to go to other classes, for ideas and to meet other crafty people. The decathlon was a full day of 10 different projects (some of which I've not finished yet-oops)

The first I'm sharing is a diorama card, and it's so effective and a little different to a normal card. The Simply Scored board was used to score the folds in the Island Indigo card stock, and the Labels Collection framelit dies were used to create a window and the panel for the back of the card. The stamp set used in this card was Bordering On Romance, with sentiments from For My Family and Petite Pairs. The In Colour inks were used with the blender pen to colour the flowers and leaves. Finally, a couple of flowers were punched from the Itty Bitty Punch, and a couple of sprinkles of Dazzling Diamonds to give the card a bit of sparkle.

 

 

 

 

 

On yer bike!

When I saw the Summer Mini Catalogue for the first time, I knew I had to have the Pedal Presents stamp set. I loved it. You may have seen me post on here a few times that I've been out on my bike. I don't go out much, it's a bit of a hassle getting it up out of the basement, but when I do go out I always regret not going out more. There's a few too many hills round these parts for my liking too, it was much flatter where I grew up in Cambridgeshire!

There's a few of my colleagues from work who enjoy cycling too, so every now and again we go out on rides after work, the odd weekend ride, and even a night ride along the canal to Bingley and back to Leeds. One of my now retired colleagues set himself the challenge of riding the End to End ride, a whopping 1,100 miles from John O'Groats to Lands End over 3 weeks. Amazing! As a well done to him, and to give him a bit of sponsor money for his efforts (which went to RNLI for lifeguards and rescue at sea, and Sparks, funding medical research into health conditions affecting babies) I made this card.

 



I used Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla and Soft Suede card stock, and used the Labels Collection Framelit Dies to cut out around the bike and the border. I coloured the balloons in with Daffodil Delight, Real Red and Pacific Point markers, and used the Curly Cute stamp set for the Congratulations sentiment.

 

Card Stock / Papers - Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake

Stamp Sets - Pedal Presents, Curly Cute

Embellishments -

Tools - Big Shot, Labels Collection Framelit Dies

Inks / Markers - Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Pacific Point, Basic Grey

Stamp-a-stack 5 - Bordering on Romance card

Here's the fifth card from the Stamp-a-stack class.  This one uses the Bordering on Romance set, a really pretty flowery set, that involves a bit of colouring in.  Everyone likes to embrace their inner child using this set and it keeps everyone quiet for a while! 

The colour combo is Blushing Bride, Pear Pizazz, and Baja Breeze.  The Labels Collection Framelit dies were used for the Whisper White card stock, and the main image of the flowers was also stamped onto Whisper White then coloured in using the markers.  The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. The bow was made with seam binding ribbon, and is a lovely light material, and ties really nicely.

 

 

Papers / Card Stock - Blushing Bride, Whisper White

Stamp Sets - Bordering on Romance, Sincere Salutations

Embellishments - Rose Red Seam Binding Ribbon

Tools - Big Shot, Labels Collection Framelit Dies

Inks / Markers - Pear Pizazz, Baja Breeze, Blushing Bridge, Rose Red

Stamp-a-stack 4 - The Open Sea

Morning,

I'm trying to keep up by good blogging behaviour, so here's another post to share with you.  This is the fourth card from the Stamp-a-stack class, and I love this one.  Julie cased it from one of her downline, and I'm glad she shared it with us.  I'd just bought this stamp set, so it's great getting ideas for future cards I'll design myself.

The stamp set used for this card is called The Open Sea, and many of us demonstrators were really excited about this.  It's a great set to use for masculine cards, or where something different is required.  It can be difficult sometimes to come up with designs for men's cards.  The colours used for this card are Marina Mist, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake and Basic Grey.  The images were stamped at random to create a background on the Very Vanilla card stock, and the edges were sponged with Marina Mist.  The ship was stamped and then the Framelits Labels Collection dies were used to cut out the image.  This was mounted onto a strip of Striped Grosgrain Ribbon.  The sentiments were from the For My Family stamp set, and was punched out using the decorative label punch.

 

 

Papers / Card Stock - Basic Grey, Very Vanilla, Marina Mist

Stamp Sets - The Open Sea, For My Family

Embellishments - Striped Grosgrain Ribbon

Tools - Labels Collection Framelit Dies, Big Shot, Sponge Daubers, Decorative Label Punch

Inks / Markers - Basic Grey Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Marina Mist

Regional Training - Name Badge

Another one of the requirements to attend the Regional Training in Leeds on Saturday was to make our own name badges to bring with us.  I had too many ideas for this, and after much deliberation, this is the design I came up with.  I used the Labels Collection Framelit Dies, and cut out the largest in Pool Party and the next size down in Whisper White, which was also embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder.  I used the Pennant Parade stamp set and the Petite Pennants builder punch with the new In Colours to make the bunting flags.  The Just Perfect Alphabet was used to stamp the letters in Basic Gray, and cut with the 3/4" Circle punch.  Finally, the Beautiful Wings Embosslit die was used to cut the butterflies in Pool Party. 

Regional Training - Swaps

Today, I'm attending a Stampin' Up! regional training day in Leeds.  I've never been to one of these events before, so I'm really looking forward to it. There was a number of things we had to make to bring with us, and I'll be sharing these over the next few days.

As with many of the training days, we had to bring along swaps.  It's a great way to meet and chat with other demonstrators, and share ideas and techniques.  For today, I made 50 swaps, this is the most I've ever made before.  I didn't start off too well, when I went to Kylie's (my downline) last week, I realised I'd left all my card stock at home.  It turned out ok though, and after some discussions over what I could do without it, we came up with making these pillow boxes, using the Pillow Box die with the Big Shot.  I used the Twitterpated and the Beau Chateau papers, and the Apothecary Art stamp set, with the new Labels Collection Framelits dies.  To finish them off, I added the Stampin' Glitter Dazzling Diamonds and some Linen Thread tied around the box.  It was obvious I'd been using the glitter, it was everywhere, all over my face, jumper, and all over Kylie's house! In the photos below, not all of the boxes have Linen Thread tied around them, I ran out and had to order some more at the last minute.  Lesson learnt, make sure I check my supplies first!

For the Twitterpated papers, the colours used for the Apothecary Art label were Pear Pizzazz, Riding Hood Red, Island Indigo, Blushing Bride and Baja Breeze.

For the Beau Chateau papers, I used Soft Suede, Marina Mist and Pink Pirouette for the labels.

Papers / Card Stock - Twitterpated, Beau Chateau, Whisper White, Very Vanilla

Stamp Set - Apothecary Art

Embellishments - Dazzling Diamonds, Linen Thread

Tools - Big Shot, Pillow Box Die, Labels Collection Framelits Die, Paper Piercing Tool

Inks / Markers - Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz, Island Indigo, Blushing Bride, Soft Suede, Pink Pirouette, Marina Mist