Sunday 14 September 2014

Best Dad Ever

As promised here is the second post for this evening. I do enjoy playing along with the Freshly Made Sketches challenge and so I'm trying to do one each week now. Here is the sketch that inspired my card:


I had a couple of ideas going round in my head with this one especially some Christmas cards with the star stamp set but as there is still plenty of time for Christmas yet I thought I would do something else. My Dad has helped us out a lot recently (and all the time really!) so I designed this card with him in mind. I was disappointed when the feather stamp set retired from last years catalogue so when I saw Four Feathers in the Autumn/Winter catalogue I just had to get it! This is the first time I have had a chance to play with it and hopefully will make several more cards using these lovely stamps and matching framelit dies.


For the background I decided to use the Honeycomb TIEF but didn't want it to be raised and so I put the flat edge on the outside and the raised edge on the inside of the card. I felt that this way the feathers stood out more than if they were stuck to a raised background. I hope you like it.

As I mentioned in my previous post I now have the Stampin' Up! online store so instead of having a list of supplies at the bottom of each post I will now include a table showing the products and if you click on the picture it will take you directly to the item in my store. As always feel free to contact me with any questions using the details at the top of the page.

Supplies:


Current Stampin' Up! Promotions

Hello everyone. As I haven't kept the blog up to date recently I thought I would do a quick post to let you know what promotions Stampin' Up! are currently running. As usual they have their weekly deals that come out each Wednesday. Please click the link below to view these fantastic deals in my new online shop!



Thinking of hosting a Stampin' Up! party soon? Well the next promotion is for you. This one is only available when you host a party which reaches a total of £200 or more in orders (Catalogue prices before P&P) and only until 31 October 14. Take a look at the information below and if you are interested in hosting a party drop me and email and we can get something in the diary. You'll still receive all of the usual hostess benefits this is just an added extra.



There will be another post from me later tonight showing a lovely Dad card inspired by this weeks Freshly Made Sketch.

Saturday 13 September 2014

Stampin' Stars Autumn/Winter Blog Hop


Hello and welcome to another Stampin' Stars blog hop, hopefully there are some new people who have hopped over from Cary Buckham or Nic Parr's blogs. If you have started with me then please use the buttons at the bottom to keep going round the hop to look at everyone's fabulous creations. This hop has been done to showcase some of the wonderful things that can be made using items from the Stampin' Up! Autumn/Winter catalogue that is available until 5th January 2015.

I get quite excited about Christmas so I've made a couple of Christmas cards for today's hop, however the catalogue does not just contain Christmas items. There is plenty you can do for Halloween (watch this space for a Halloween party themed post coming soon) as well as Autumn and Thanksgiving which is great if you have friends or family in America. If you would like a copy of the catalogue just drop me an email and I will post you one out.

Here is the first of my two cards for today:


I just love how simple this card was to make! The card base was embossed using the Filigree Frame TIEF, I then stamped the sentiment from Cheerful Christmas in versa mark ink and heat embossed it with Stampin' Emboss Silver Powder. To finish off I used some candy dots from the Regals collection. I did this in both Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green. I have included a close up of the sentiment so that you can see how lovely and shiny the embossing powder has turned out.



The second card for today was really fun to make. I used the new Festival of Trees Photopolymer set which is a great two-step stamping set. This means that you can layer up the images to create lots of different designs with one set.


For this card I've used a card from the Trim the Tree paper stack as the background and then a strip from one of the All is Calm papers. I feel the colours work well together and the Lost Lagoon Silky Taffeta ribbon finishes it off nicely.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my creations today and find lots of inspiration on the rest of the team's blogs.



Supplies:

All supplies are from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise stated.

Stamps: Cheerful Christmas, Festival of trees
Card: Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Trim the Trees Designer Series Paper Stack and All is Calm Designer Series Paper.
Inks and Pens: Lost Lagoon, Old Olive, Hello Honey, Real Red, Blackberry Bliss, Tangelo Twist and Versa Mark Ink. 
Tools and Embellishments: Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, Lost Lagoon Silky Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals, SNAIL Adhesive, BigShot, Filigree Frame TIEF, Stampin' Emboss Powder Silver, Heat Tool and Regals Candy Dots

If you would like to order any Stampin' Up! products feel free to contact me using the details at the top of the page or alternatively you can order from Stampin' Up! directly using the button on the right remembering to find my name in the demonstrator list before completing your purchase!

Sunday 7 September 2014

Christmas in September

Evening everyone! It's been a very long time since I posted anything on here, I just haven't been able to get myself motivated to craft recently. It started with not being able to get in my craft room because we had builders in for two weeks then I just seemed to lose my crafting joy but now that the Autumn/Winter catalogue is here and my order has arrived I've started having a play again! I love so many of the Christmas stamp sets you'll probably be sick of Christmas before it gets here!

To get back in the swing of things I looked at this weeks Freshly Made Sketch for inspiration and it actually gave me a couple of ideas so I'll show you a second card later in the week that was inspired by this sketch. Firstly here's the sketch I worked from.



Now here's my card:



Everything on this card is from the new Autumn/Winter catalogue. The background was cut from one of the cards in the Trim the Tree Designer Series paper stack, there are several great designs to choose from and they make quick and easy backgrounds. For the strip across the middle of the card I couldn't find another card pattern that I was happy with but didn't really want it to be a plain colour. I then remembered that I had ordered some of the new washi tape and had a rummage to try and find it. I decided to use three of the five designs and like the fact that you can still see the design underneath the tape. The sentiment is from the set Mingle all the Way and stamped in basic grey, I felt this was close enough to silver that it worked well. This was then cut out using the 2 1/2" circle punch (I love how easy that is!) and given a bit of height with Stampin' Dimensionals. 

I was really pleased with the finished card, it took hardly any time at all and has got me back into the swing of crafting. I'll hopefully post the other bits and pieces I've made soon and make sure you check out the blog on 13th September as I'm taking part in another Stampin' Stars Blog Hop so there will be plenty of inspiration on how to use all of those lovely products in the new Auntum/Winter catalogue. If you would like a copy drop me an email and I'll pop one in the post to you.

Supplies:

All supplies are from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise stated.

Stamps: Mingle all the way
Card: Trim the Tree Designer Series paper stack and Whisper White Cardstock
Inks and Pens: Basic Grey
Tools and Embellishments: All is calm designer series washi tape, 2 1/2" circle punch, SNAIL adhesive and Stampin' Dimensionals

If you would like to order any Stampin' Up! products feel free to contact me using the details at the top of the page or alternatively you can order from Stampin' Up! directly using the button on the right remembering to find my name in the demonstrator list before completing your purchase!