Grab Your Greetings Promotion

Between the 2nd to the 31st July, you can get 25% off the price of three Stampin' Up! sentiment stamp sets - Sassy Salutations, Sweet Essentials and Petite Pairs.  You can order them in either wood or clear mount, which ever you prefer, it's up to you!

Here's the prices of the stamp sets.  Check out those bargains!

If you're interested in this offer, please contact me as soon as you can.  These are such popular sets, and so versatile, you'd be mad not to take advantage!

Spring card class 3 - Flowering Flourishes

Hello,

As with quite a few of my posts on here, this is a scheduled post that I wrote on Monday evening.  I love catching up on writing my blog posts and sharing all my makes, and tend to write a few all in one go.  I've got  about 15 posts in drafts at the moment waiting to be written!  I think I wrote a few posts ago that I'd finished my box set of Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars, and I've just found that all the old episodes of Waterloo Road are on Lovefilm Instant, so guess what I'll be watching for a couple of weeks when I get the chance!

Today's share is another card that I made a couple of weeks ago at the Spring card class.  I enjoyed making this card, as I got to try a stamp set that I'd never really paid much attention to in the catalogue, or had a play with.  There's so much choice these days, it's nearly impossible to use them all, let alone own them all (in my dreams!)  The stamp set is called Flowering Flourishes, and can be found on page 121 of the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue.

We stamped the Flowering Flourishes stamp onto Very Vanilla using Crumb Cake ink, and then sponged the edges too.  The Happy Birthday Wishes sentiment is from Petite Pairs, and was stamped in Early Espresso and punched out with the Extra Large Oval Punch.  Two circles were punched out using the circle punches (I'm afraid I don't know what sizes we used, I was too busy making them into flowers!), which were cut with the paper snips into a spiral and then twisted to form a flower.

Papillion Potpourri Card 3

Morning,

This is a scheduled post that I wrote on Saturday afternoon, watching the last couple of episodes of Ashes to Ashes.  I get a bit hooked on box sets and series and I don't know what my next one will be...any recommendations?

Here's the third Papillion Potpourri card that I made at a quarterly training day. The Fancy Fan embossing folder was used on the Crumb cake card, and then cut in the middle with the Scallop Edge Border Punch.  The Best Wishes stamp is from Petite Pairs, and the Butterfly is from the Papillion Potpourri set.  The Elegant Butterfly punch was used to cut out the butterfly which was mounted onto a circle punched with the 1-3/8" Circle Punch and the Scallop Circle Punch. A little Vintage Faceted Button was placed onto the front of the butterfly.  Lastly some Rhinestone Jewels were placed onto the front of the card for a bit of sparkle! 

I've just realised that my next post will be my 200th!  I might make something special to share with you!

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 - Owl card

Last month I mentioned that I'd run a workshop for the Leeds WI, Buns and Roses.  You can read all about the evening here, written by Gemma Rathbone.  I had a great evening, and I think all the ladies that came along enjoyed it too.  It was the first time I'd ever run an event with so many people, there were 26 on the evening, and it was great experience. It was originally meant to be run by myself and Kylie, but she'd got her dates mixed up, and was actually in Germany that evening attending the Stampin' Up! Convention. She shared with the preparation and designs of the projects, and she kindly lent me lots of her projects for the display tables.  You can see these on the three photos below, and there's more on the Buns and Roses blog mentioned above (thanks to Gemma for letting me post the pictures she took on the night)

I'll be sharing the four projects we made over the next few days.  Here's the first, which uses the Owl Punch, which has been cleverly turned into a penguin!  Bashful Blue and Whisper White card was used, with Tangerine Tango and Basic Black for the penguin.  The snowflake stamp is from Snowflake Soiree, and the sentiment is from Petite Pairs.  It's hard to see from these pictures, but on the edge of the snow slopes, the glue pen was applied, and Dazzling Diamonds Stampin' Glitter was applied for the bling effect! 

October card class

A few weeks ago, I held my monthly card class at Dock Street Market in Leeds. There's been a few changes there recently, and an additional side room has been created where a small bakery used to be. I held my class in the side room, and it was much better, we had much more space, it was quieter and the light was brighter. I had six ladies come to join me crafting, and on arrival they were given a pack of the card stock they needed to make eight cards (Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade), and a pack of the Festival of Prints papers. I had made a few samples of the cards they were going to make, but I'd left it up to them to design their own. I'd brought along all the festive stamp sets I owned, so they could mix and match. The stamp sets used were Snowflake Soiree, Watercolor Winter, Scentsational Season, Delightful Decorations, and sentiments from For My Family, Petite Pairs, Teeny Tiny Sentiments and Owl Occasions.

Here's a picture of me in action! It's an bit fuzzy, it must be all the crafting that was going on.  Do you like my new apron, it was the first class I'd done since I bought it.

 Here's the cards that I'd made as samples.

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.

Crafternoon Tea Class - Mixed Bunch & Everyday Enchantment

The second card we made at the Crafternoon Tea class, was using the Mixed Bunch stamp set with the Blossom punch, and the Everyday Enchantment papers that were brought back in July due to popular demand! The papers were originally available during Sale-a-Bration earlier this year.

The colour combo for this card is Pool Party, Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeade, with Very Vanilla. The circle type images were stamped as a background into the Very Vanilla card, with a strip of the Everyday Enchantment DSP placed towards the bottom. Two flowers were stamped in Calypso Coral, and punched with the matching Blossom punch, with a Lucky Limeade In Colour designer printed brad through the middle. The I'm here for you sentiment is from Petite Pairs.

Reason To Smile

During the month of August, you can get a free stamp set, called Reason To Smile, with a order of £60, or you can buy it for £18.95 in wood, or £14.95 in clear. It's a lovely set, with background images and co-ordinating outline images. You can see from my cards, that you can use them separately, or combine the two.

These are a couple of cards I made at a recent team training event. The colour combo for both cards are Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, and Pool Party. These cards would be perfect to use at a workshop, to demonstrate a simple quick card, with a stepped up version to show how easy it is to make a simple card a bit fancier. The fancier card has a couple of Antique Brads and some Pool Party ruffled ribbon for extra impact.

If you'd like to get hold of this set, please get in contact.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Fox & Friends Stamp-a-stack card

Here's the second of the cards from the last Stamp-a-stack class.  It uses the Fox & Friends stamp set, a great  set for children's cards. The card used was Tempting Turquoise and Real Red with Whisper White, and a strip of Old Olive.  The Ink used were Tempting Turquoise for the whales, Early Espresso for the monkeys, Old Olive for the turtles and Daffodil Delight for the giraffes.  The Crimper was used to make the crimped effect on the strip of Old Olive, a simple way of adding a little more detail to your cards and projects. The Happy Birthday Wishes greeting is from the Petite Pairs stamp set.

Papers / Card Stock - Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight

Stamp Sets - Fox & Friends, Petite Pairs

Embellishments -

Tools - Large Scallop Circle Punch (retired), 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Crimper

Inks / Markers - Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Real Red

Beautiful Bows Card 2

Well it's all back to normal now after the long weekend, shame the weather wasn't like it was last weekend, but at least I wasn't tempted to sit outside, and instead I got some planning and organising done for my next two card classes.  I also realised at the weekend that as well as having two card classes in a week, I have an all day team training event with swaps to make, and another stamp-a-stack class to attend.  I'll be crafted out by the end of all of that! I'll have plenty of blog material to share with you at least, if I ever catch up with it all.

Here's the second card from the Beautiful Bows class.  This one features a double looped bow, and was the most scary looking one out of all the bows we made, I was sure I wasn't going to be able to make this one.  Luckily, it wasn't as hard as it looked, and ended up looking pretty good.

Paper / card Stock - Pool Party, Very Vanilla, Lucky Limeade, Everyday Enchantment (Sale-a-bration papers)

Stamp Sets - Everything Eleanor, Petite Pairs

Embellishments - Satin Ribbon, Rhinestone Pearls

Tools - Scallop Edge Border Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch

Inks / Markers - Crumb Cake, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party

Stamp a stack - Fresh Vintage card

Here's the fourth card from the Stamp-a-stack class, which uses one of the Sale-a-bration stamp sets, Fresh Vintage. Sadly, this promotion has ended now, and the lovely products are no longer available, I hope you all got the freebies you wanted and are enjoying them.  This was a nice simple card, quick and easy.  Early Espresso ink and Card Stock was used, with Very Vanilla.  The sentiments are from the Petite Pairs stamp set.  I love the velvet ribbon, which is in the Spring Mini Catalogue, I'd never used it before and it makes such a different having a feel and look at the products, rather than looking at the pictures in the catalogue. The Lace Ribbon Border Punch was used to create the strip behind the ribbon.

 

Close up picture of the lovely Velvet Ribbon

Papers / Card Stock - Early Espresso, Very Vanilla

Stamp Sets - Petite Pairs, Fresh Vintage (Sale-a-bration stamp set)

Embellishments - Velvet Ribbon

Tools - Sponge Daubers, Lace Ribbon Border

Inks / Markers - Early Espresso

Aviary card

Last night I attended another one of Julie Kettlewell's stamp-a-stack card classes, we made twelve cards in three hours, two each of six designs. I'll be posting these over the next week or so.

The first I'd like to share uses the Aviary stamp set, one that I own, and can't wait to try this design again. The colour combo on this card was Melon Mambo, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade with Crumb Cake. The Scallop Edge Border Punch was used, and the large Scallop Punch was used for around the owl and cage. The sentiment is from Petite Pairs, which is a nice set, it comes with sentiments for the outside and inside of your cards. To finish off the card, Old Olive Taffeta ribbon was used to make a bow for the top of the cage, and for the top left corner with a Rich Razzleberry button.

Card / Paper - Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake, Paper Stacks - 2011-2013 In Colour and Brights

Stamp Set - Aviary, Petite Pairs

Embellishments - Old Olive 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon, Brights Designer Buttons

Tools - Large Scallop Punch, 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Scallop Edge Border Punch

Inks/Markers - Basic Gray, Melon Mambo