Home Sweet Home

Hello everyone, I hope you have all had a lovely relaxing weekend and that you are ready for the start of a new week. While I went out for a lovely girly lunch today, Craig and Ethan went down to Portsmouth for a house warming party and as usual I had completely forgotten that I had wanted to make them a card to congratulate them on their new home. So I quickly dived into my craft room to make a card, I think it turned out pretty well considering I was in a rush this morning!

For this I used the 1" square punch to cut out three base squares from different colours of patterned paper then three more squares that were cut in half to form the roof. For the middle house I used the heart from the Itty Bitty Accents punch set as the saying is always 'Home is where the heart is' These were then stuck on with Stampin' Dimensionals to give them extra height. 

As this turned out so quick to make I even had time to make a matching gift card holder!

That's it for me tonight as I'm going to have a nice relaxing evening with hubby!

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Not SU

Card: Park Lane Designer Series Paper, Real Red, Daffodil Delight and patterned paper scraps

Inks and Pens: Real Red and Basic Black

Tools and Embellishments: Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack, 1" Square Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Gift Card Enclosures and Paper Snips.

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!

Flowers with love

Evening everyone, we have had a lovely day as a family today. We were meant to meet some friends for lunch but unfortunately they had to cancel so instead we took little monkey to the cinema after which Craig entertained Ethan so I could do a bit of clothes shopping because lets face it I don't think either of them would enjoy standing outside changing rooms while I try on hundreds of outfits and then only buying one! When we met up again my lovely husband surprised me with a gorgeous bracelet with amethyst stones in, I absolutely love it. He really makes me feel loved exactly when I need it!

The way I feel is fitting for today's post as I have been decorating hearts today for the Summer Fair next week (See my Itty Bitty Baby Girl post for more details on the fair). I will show you a picture of the finished product first and then there is a small tutorial on how to make the roses. This is my favourite of them all but I have done a variety of colours and there are also a couple made with fringe flowers (explained below).

Closed Rose: This one is so simple and fun to make, you just need the Spiral Flower Originals Die and a BigShot. When you run this through the BigShot you can use a piece of card stock that is A6 (A quarter of A4) and you can cut up to three at a time so you can create multiple flowers in one go. This is what you start with once your card has gone through the Big Shot:

The next step is to run your bone folder along the inner curl so that it starts to curl up like this:

The longer the stroke the bigger the curl, if you do lots of short strokes it becomes smaller and tighter. Once you have your flower looking similar to this take the narrow end and start to wrap it around a pencil to help get you started. Remove the pencil after a couple of turns and keep winding it round until you reach the wider end. The tighter you wind it, the smaller the flower so experiment a bit to achieve the size you are after. The two large circles at the end form the base of the flower like so:

The 'base' can then be glued using hot melt glue, glue dots or liquid glue. As I will be selling the finished products I opted for the hot melt glue just to make sure they stayed stuck.

Open Rose: The open rose is probably easier to make but takes that bit longer. I used the 1 1/4" circle punch to create mine but you can use any circle size, the larger the circles the bigger the finished flower. I cut 12 circles from my chosen card stock (in this example Real Red) and used my paper snips to cut a straight line from one side to the centre of the circle. The two edges are stuck together to form a small cone. Once I had all my cones I glued three together to form the centre and then kept adding circles round the edge until I was happy with the finished flower. You don't have to use all 12 or you could even use more. To finish it off I then stuck a Very Vintage Button into the centre of the flower.

Fringe Flowers (not pictured): Although I have not pictured the fringe flowers here you can see them here on the Burlap and Blooms Wreath. These were made by cutting a two inch wide strip from the designer series paper of my choice. The strip was then folded in half length ways and stuck down with sticky strip to form a one inch wide strip. Once stuck down I then put another section of sticky stripe on the edge that hadn't been folded and used my fringe scissors to cut from the folded edge to where the sticky strip was. The backing was then taken off the sticky strip and the paper rolled together. The fringes were then spread out to form the flower.

Sorry about the long post tonight! Hopefully I haven't lost anyone along the way.

Supplies:

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

Card: Real Red Card Stock, Real Red and Rich Razzleberry Designer Series Paper 

Tools and Embellishments: Wicker Hearts (Not SU), Bone Folder, Pencil, Very Vintage Designer Buttons, Hot Glue Gun (Not SU), Fringe Scissors, Sticky Strip, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, BigShot and Spiral Flower Originals Die

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!

Making gift cards exciting again

Hello everyone, I hope you are all getting some crafting time in and not melting in this continued heat. Today's make isn't a card as such but a gift card holder, I don't know about you but these days for birthdays and weddings more and more people are asking for gift cards rather than actual presents. I've always thought that just slipping the gift card into a normal card was a little boring so when Stampin' Up! brought out their gift card enclosures I was really excited. 

As you can see from the photo below I have made quite a range to take with me to the Summer Fair. They are so easy to do and you can embellish them in any way you want. For the majority I have just made a band out of patterned paper by loosely wrapping the paper round the closed enclosure (so that it can easily be slipped off again) and gluing together using SNAIL. I have then used either Tag Talk or Label Love and their matching punches (Artisan label, Bracket label, 1" Square and 1" circle) to create the sentiment which is stuck on using Stampin' Dimensionals. Some have then had buttons or flowers added to them to finish them off. You could also tie a ribbon round or stamp on to the card enclosure itself. There are so many options to make giving a gift card exciting again!

The two below are probably my favourites. Unfortunately you can't see the sentiment properly in the photo for the right hand one but it says cutest baby ever and stands out well in real life.

Below you can see the inside of the card, the gift card fits nicely into the pre cut corners and I have then added some washi tape and another stamped image to finish it off. For several of them I have used the stamp 'to and from' so that you then have space to write who it is for and from on the inside. The possibilities with these are pretty much endless you just need some creativity, which is made easy with Stampin' Up! products! As you can see I have opted to stay really simple this time round as I am making them in bulk but they can very easily be turned in to a more complex piece to suit any occasion.

As I have used such a range of products I am not going to list them all here so if there is anything you want to know just leave me a comment below. I will say through that these gift card enclosures are available for £5.50 for 10 which is 55p each! Bargin!

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!

Itty Bitty Boy

Hello everyone, as promised I have now finished the baby boy version of yesterday's card. I have made two versions of this card, the only difference is the colour of the matt and the owl's eyes and I can't quite decide which one I like the best.

The other slight difference from yesterday's card is that the belly of the owls were created using the designer series paper stack to make him look a little more interesting than the plain colours I used on the baby girl card. When I make more of the baby girl card I will probably use the Rose Red designer series paper for the belly.

It was just a quick post tonight as it is mainly the same card as yesterday just in a different colour!

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Itty Bitty Baby and Celebrate Baby

Card: Whisper White, Island Indigo, Soft Sky, Garden Green and Regals DSP

Inks and Pens: Island Indigo, Pool Party and Blushing Bride

Tools and Embellishments: Owl Punch, 1" Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Whisper White bakers twine, Stampin' Dimensionals, Sticky Strip and Tombow Multi Liquid Glue.

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!

Itty Bitty Girl

Evening all, once again I am crafting late because it is so much cooler than during the day, it does mean however that the photos are not the best. 

I don't think I've mentioned yet that I am going to be having a stall at the Ash Friends of Shooting Star Chase Summer fair in two weeks time. Shooting Star Chase is an amazing charity which is a leading children's hospice charity caring for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and their families. Whether lives are measured in days, weeks, months or years, they are there to make every moment count. They support families from diagnosis to end of life and throughout bereavement with a range of nursing, practical, emotional and medical care. It would be great to see you all there to help support this wonderful charity. On my stall I will be selling my cards as well as doing ongoing demonstrations of Stampin' Up! products. This now means that I am panicking that I don't have a big enough variety of cards to sell!

When I was looking through the cards I do have I realised I didn't have any new baby cards and so that is where I started. Tonight's card is for a baby girl and tomorrow I will show you the baby boy version.

The idea for this came from a card made by Susan from Simple Stampin that I found on Pinterest. I thought the owl holding balloons was just cute and so decided to have a go myself. Mine is a little simpler than Susan's as I wanted to try and make a few in one go but could easily have extra bits added to it if you have more time. To create the owl wings I cut the front part of the owl that was created in Rose Red in half and then rounded the points, before I rounded them it looked like a pink bat! The stamps in the Itty Bitty Baby stamp set are just so cute and fitted really well into the 1" Circle to make the balloons. I then used the 1 1/4" circle to layer them. 

I don't usually put anything on the inside of my cards so that people have plenty of space to write whatever they'd like but this time I really liked the stamps from Celebrate Baby so this is the inside of the card.

Even if I don't sell any I currently know four pregnant women so hopefully one of them will have a girl!!

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Itty Bitty Baby and Celebrate Baby

Card: Whisper White, Rose Red, Pink Pirouette and Sahara Sand

Inks and Pens: Rose Red and Blushing Bride

Tools and Embellishments: Owl Punch, 1" Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Whisper White bakers twine, Stampin' Dimensionals, Sticky Strip and Tombow Multi Liquid Glue.

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!

Blended Bloom - Hello

Hello everyone, it's been another hot and sticky day here in Farnham, I do like the sun but I'm not one for sticky heat. It also means that I don't start my crafting until later in the evening once it has cooled down! I thought it was about time I took part in another card challenge so this week I have had a go at another Freshly Made Sketches challenge, I like a lot of their sketches so I think I'll try and have a go more often. Here is the original sketch we were given to play with.

As I wanted to have another go with my blendabilities pens I decided to swap the circle shape for the blended bloom flower which I cut out after colouring using my very sharp paper snips. Usually I'm a little reserved with my colour choices but I loved the green paper in the Park Lane pack as I thought they looked a little like leaves and so went well with the flower image but I wasn't sure what other colours to use. So I pulled out my colour coach again to see which colours would go with Olive Green and it suggested Cherry Cobbler and Pumpkin Pie. I didn't realise how useful the colour coach was until I bought it, I would never have picked green, orange and red to go together myself but they work so well together! Anyway here is the card I have created for the challenge.

Originally the card didn't have the butterflies on but I felt it needed something else to just finish it off, hopefully I'll still be able to enter the challenge but if not I still enjoyed creating it! I stuck the paper directly onto the card and then used dimensionals to give the butterflies and flower a bit of height. Although I used 'Hello' as a sentiment from the Peachy Keen set I feel this card would work well with a variety of sentiments.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Blended Bloom and Peachy Keen (No longer available as a physical stamp but can still be found on MDS)

Card: Park Lane Designer Series, Whisper White and Cherry Cobbler

Inks and Pens: Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight Blendabilities

Tools and Embellishments: Paper Snips, Stampin' Dimensionals, Bitty Butterfly Punch and 1" Square Punch

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!

Well and Truly Cased

Hello all, it's quite a late post from me tonight. I really struggled to get started tonight, I knew I wanted to make something, I just didn't know what! So as I usually do when I get stuck I searched Pinterest for some inspiration and I found a lovely card by Nitestamper which I decided to try and recreate. The reason for the title is that when I visited her blog to get a closer look at the card I found out that she had found her inspiration on Card Creations By Beth with a similar card. As you can see I have chosen to use different colours to both of the other cards as I really like Blackberry Bliss and so I try to use it whenever I can.

I decided I wanted to add a couple of other colours to my card so that it didn't appear too dark and so I pulled out my trusty colour coach which suggested Old Olive and Soft Sky which I think work really well. As both Old Olive and Blackberry Bliss are quite intense colours I had a practice on my grid paper in order to get the colour combinations just right, in the end I stamped Soft Sky straight onto the card, Old Olive twice on scrap first and Blackberry Bliss three times before stamping on my actual card. Even then my sentiment gets a little lost in the purple. The new Park Lane designer series paper is just gorgeous and as this sheet had my favourite colour on I just had to use it.

Don't forget that in order to get Hostess sets like the Bloom with Hope set I have used here you need to either spend £150 (or more) in one go or host a Stampin' Up! party which is a great way to have fun and earn credit to spend on exclusive hostess items. Check out the tab at the top for more information.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Too Kind, Work of Art and Bloom with Hope (Hostess)

Card: Park Lane Designer Series Paper, Blackberry Bliss and Whisper White Card

Inks and Pens: Soft Sky, Old Olive and Blackberry Bliss Inks

Tools and Embellishments: Blackberry Bliss Stitched Satin Ribbon, SNAIL adhesive and Grid Paper

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!

Using your scraps

Hello everyone, I have a question for you. Are you the type of crafter that can't bear to get rid of any bits of scrap card or do you bin everything straight away? I've heard several people say that if it won't cover a card blank then it needs to be thrown away. I just can't do it, what if I can't finish a fantastic creation just because I threw out that small scrap of card. Unlikely I know, which is why I now have an overflowing scrap box! This is what inspired me to create today's card as I needed to clear some space so that I could close the lid again.

This card could easily be made with any colour scheme as it just uses up scraps of coloured or patterned card you have laying around. As I have used the Moonlight paper stack a fair bit I found that I had several small pieces left over that wouldn't be any good for covering a card blank but made a perfect pile of presents once the ribbon had been put over the top. To finish it off I then used a sponge dauber to ink the edges of the white card which was then matted on to Soft Suede card stock. As I don't like waste I used my new Stampin' Trimmer to cut out a frame of Soft Suede so that I could use the inner part of the rectangle for another creation. 

 The ribbon was stuck down using the new Fast Fuse Adhesive, which is great once you get used to it. I have to admit when I first tried it out I did not get on with it at all, it nearly ended up in the bin the same day it arrived along with the card it was getting stuck to! However I stuck with it (literally at some points as my phone almost got stuck to my card too!) as a lot of people have said how good it is and now I quite like it, I'll still stick to my SNAIL for most of my projects but for sticking ribbons and anything else you want to be truly permanently stuck I would recommend Fast Fuse. The clue is definitely in the name, it sticks really quickly and is very strong, there's no time for repositioning with this one. It is also fantastic for sticking down pieces you have run through an embossing folder as you need very little pressure to roll the glue out and so it doesn't lose any of the texture.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Sassy Salutations

Card: Whisper White, Soft Suede and Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack

Inks and Pens: Soft Suede and Lost Lagoon Ink

Tools and Embellishments: Stampin' Trimmer, Fast Fuse Adhesive, Lost Lagoon Satin Stitched Ribbon and Sponge Daubers. 

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!

A Male Happy Birthday Card

Evening everyone, I think I have said before that I struggle with cards for men so I'm really hoping that my friend likes this one. I am going to have to practice making some masculine themed cards so that I've got some to fall back on in the future. For this one I have used pool party for the background but I think it would work equally well with smokey slate or basic gray.

The background piece for this card has been embossed using the arrows TIEF and then stuck on using Stampin' Dimensionals so that it doesn't look all lumpy where the bakers twine wraps around the edge of the card. The sentiment is from Tag Talk and I have used the co-ordinating punch in order to cut it out neatly, this is also stuck on using dimensionals. I do like making nice simple cards sometimes as you get a good result relatively quickly.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Tag Talk

Card: Whisper White and Pool Party

Inks: Island Indigo

Tools and Embellishments: Arrows TIEF, Silver bakers twine, Stampin' Dimensionals and Bracket Label Punch

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!

Blended Birthday

Hello everyone, I've got my fingers crossed from my tent in Devon that you will actually be seeing this post! As promised here is the card I used the blended flowers for, I decided to keep the background in black and white because I felt it made the colours of the lovely flower really stand out. With this one I decided to pick out parts of the petals in the darkest shade as well as the centre of the flower, I love to experiment with pens and it's so therapeutic.  

Both flowers come from the Flower Shop stamp set and I chose the happy birthday sentiment from the new hostess set Bloom with Hope as I felt it was nice and delicate which fitted in with the style of card rather than standing out too much and taking away from the flower. I chose to heat emboss the sentiment using Pool Party Stampin' emboss powder so that it would also stand out slightly but not too much. As you can see from the picture below I got a little carried away and made a card for each colour set of blendabilities I have, I can't wait for the next six colours!

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Flower Shop, Bloom with Hope (hostess)

Card: Whisper white and Basic Black

Inks and Pens: Tuxedo Black Memento and Versa Mark Ink & Cherry Cobbler, Coastal Cabana, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie and Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities

Tools and Embellishments: Pool Party Stampin' Emboss Powder, Heat tool, Stampin' Dimensionals and SNAIL Adhesive

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!

Blendabilities - Tips

Evening everyone, my big order of brand new products arrived on Monday and although I was itching to have a play I had to sort them all out first and find a home for them so that I knew exactly what I had, I'm weird like that. I've now had a chance to have a play! One of the new items I ordered were the Stampin' Up! blendabilities which are brand new alcohol based markers. These are available now in six different colour sets and a skin tone set, the next set of six colours come out in August. Each set contains a light, medium and dark shade of your chosen colour, which make them perfect for shading and blending together. There is a brush end for larger areas and a pointed tip end useful for smaller areas. Below I will show you in steps how to use them but I would definitely recommend watching the Stampin' Up! video (Click here to view) as this is really helpful.

In this tutorial I am using the Rich Razzleberry set but the same tips apply to all of the colours. You can either start with the lightest moving to the darkest or the other way around, I prefer to start with the darkest shade but it is down to personal preference so have a play and see which works best for you. Here I have used the tip end of the pen rather than the brush end simply because I was in an excited rush to see how they turned out and I tend to be less careful when rushing (as evident in the last two photos where I went out of the lines, not the pens fault that was all me!) I feel the brush end needs a bit more concentration as it can cover large areas quickly.

Start with the darkest shade in the centre of the flower (see above) using straight or circular motions. Then apply the medium shade (see below) other the top of where you have already coloured and edge further up the flower. Do this using small circular motions so that it blends nicely with the dark colour rather than leaving a band where the colours meet.

Finally add the lightest colour over the top of the previous two colours and fill in the rest of the flower again using small circular motions. You then end up with a beautifully blended image as shown below.

A couple of tips worth remembering is that the colours really pop on the recommended whisper white card stock, I did try it on some other white card just to see the difference and the colours were not as bright and slightly dull. Use the recommended memento black ink to stamp your images and leave these for at least 30 seconds to dry, other ink types tend to smudge and cause the colours to 'leak' out of the edge of the image. When colouring try to work quickly as it is harder to blend when the ink has dried. As you will see in Friday's post I have used these flowers to make a birthday card and for those I did each petal one at a time and the overall finish looks better. Another thing to remember is that the inks do carry on spreading out slightly once you remove the pen so it is better to leave a small gap at the edge of your image as the ink will spread out to fill it in, leaving a nice crisp finish. You can always add a little bit more ink if it doesn't spread as far as you expect.

Have fun experimenting with these as they are great fun to use. I am off on holiday on Friday so I have got a few posts scheduled to go live while I am away. Hopefully all will go to plan but please bear with me in case they all go live at the same time or none go live! Happy crafting!

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Flower Shop

Card: Whisper White

Inks and Pens: Tuxedo Black Memento Ink, Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities

Tools and Embellishments: Pansy Punch

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!

Crafting with Friends

Hello everyone, I have been meaning to add this post for almost a week now. Last Tuesday I went to Lauren the Crafty Hippy's monthly card making course with a couple of other friends. Lauren is my Stampin' Up! upline and a good friend and it is all her fault that I am now into Stampin' Up! products! While sometimes I enjoy the escape to my craft room on my own it is always great fun to create with friends. Lauren had made four different cards for us to do and not one turned out the same. When creating with other people around you get to see each others different crafting styles and pick up different ideas to use in future projects. 

My favourite of the night has got to be the just because card in the front left. Lauren showed us the post it note technique which I haven't used before but absolutely love. I will definitely be trying this out again. I enjoyed last week so much and now can't wait to start my own classes in September. I'm hoping to meet some lovely new people as well as spend time with friends. Please take a look at the tab at the top if you think you'd be interested. 

There are a lot of supplies used as there are four different cards. If you would like to know which products were used in a particular card then please leave a comment below and I will let you know.

Supplies:

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

Stamps:  Wetlands, A Dozen Thoughts, Perfect Pennants, Nuts About You

Card: Whisper White, Moonlight Paper Stack, Crumb Cake

Inks: Jet Black Stazon, Rich Razzleberry, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Hello Honey, Night of Navy, Lost Lagoon, Mossy Meadow, Chocolate Chip (Marker), Garden Green (Marker) and Melon Mambo

Tools and Embellishments: Silver Baker's Twine, Basic Black Baker's Twine, Basic Rhinestone Jewels, Stampin' Dimensionals, Decorative Label Punch and Paper Snips

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!

You're Too Kind

Evening all, today has been a lovely day here in Surrey. We were slightly worried that it was going to rain as we had a family BBQ planned but it turned out really lovely. Craig and his friend Rob cleared out the back garden this morning so it now looks a lot bigger and nice and open so that we had lots of space when the Herrington's turned up. I really enjoy it when we can all get together for family meals but we can't often do this at our house as we can't seat everyone so BBQ season is perfect. Mini monkey loves it as he gets lots of attention from his uncles but is always sad to see them leave. As dinner was done and Ethan was so tired he went to bed early I have been able to have a relaxing hour in my craft room to create this card.

I've used my favourite In Colour's again as I just can't get enough of them. The stamp set Too Kind is so fun to create with. You can create two tone flowers easily with the different flower part stamps, either using different colours or as I have done here the same colour but stamping onto scrap paper first. I had forgotten how intense the Blackberry Bliss ink was so with the big flower I only stamped the background section on scrap once before stamping onto my card but with the small flower I stamped the background section twice onto scrap and then onto my card. This way I could see the front section a little clearer but I think  both flowers have turned out well.

As this card involved six different stamps, several of which I wanted to line up neatly, I found my Stampin' Scrub and Stamp-a-ma-jig invaluable. These are two tools that are always in easy reach on my craft table as I hardly make any cards without them. The Stampin' Scrub is a great stamp cleaner with a wet side and a dry side which means I don't have to get up each time I've stamped something in order to wash the ink off the stamp. Especially good if you want to use the same stamp with different colours. The Stamp-a-ma-jig was really handy for this card as I wanted to make sure that the flowers met the top of the stems and the sections of the two flowers lined up nicely. All you have to do is place the plastic in the positioning tool then stamp straight onto the plastic. You then place the stamped image over the top of your card where you want the image to be, remove the plastic from the positioning tool and stamp in the same place. Perfect every time.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Too Kind

Card: Blackberry Bliss, Hello Honey, Whisper White and Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack

Inks: Blackberry Bliss, Hello Honey and Mossy Meadow

Tools and Embellishments: Stampin' Scrub, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Stampin' Dimensionals and SNAIL Adhesive

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!

Hope is a wish with a little more clout

Afternoon everyone, because I now have to wait for the UPS man to deliver my new goodies there will be a couple of cards this week that don't necessarily use new products but everything used is still current. Many of you will know that in February I was 22 weeks pregnant and we lost our baby boy, it is now the week he should be due and so I am finding this week very tough. I made this card a couple of days after we lost him and at the time the sentiment was just what I needed, when I was rummaging though my craft room the other night I found it and once again it has brought a smile to my face.

I really like how easy it is to make a spread of butterflies using the Beautiful Wings Embosslits, you just pop a piece of card stock in, run it through your BigShot and you then have five different sized butterflies each with a different pattern embossed on. 

Just a short post today as I feel I need a change in my life so I'm off to try and sort some things out. 

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Blooming with Kindness

Card: Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Night of Navy and Cherry Cobbler

Inks: Coastal Cabana

Tools and Embellishments: Beautiful Wings Embosslits, BigShot, Stampin' Dimensionals. SNAIL Adhesive and Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents

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!

The new catalogue is here - Celebrate with a blog hop

It's here, it's finally here! The Stampin' Up! 2014-2015 annual catalogue is here and to celebrate I am taking part in my first blog hop. Welcome if you have hopped over from either Nikki Acton or Fiona Whitten's blogs and if you are one of my regular readers don't forget to check out the other 16 blogs! There is so much to say in this post but lets start with a couple of cards using new and current products. 

As we are saying hello to the brand new catalogue there is a weak theme of just saying hi between my two cards today. This first one uses two brand new stamp sets and two brand new colours. I love the Work of Art stamp set as it can make great backgrounds and I think it combines well with Gorgeous Grunge. For the background I simply inked the stamp really well and then stamped it three times without re-inking or pressing too hard. The sentiment is from one of the brand new hostess sets and is called Hello There. Don't forget that in order to get any of the lovely hostess sets you either need to host a party (check out the tab at the top for more details) or place an order with me for over £150 to gain hostess credits to use on free stuff!

My second card today is using a couple of products that you will already know of but uses the brand new colours and Designer Series Paper Stack as well. Have you noticed yet that I really love this years new In Colours? I get the feeling I will be using them a lot! I think these owls are just so cute and the paper stack just seemed to fit really nicely for the front of the owl. This punch is so easy to use as it just cuts everything perfectly so that all you have to do is layer them up. So that my speech bubble looked nice and neat I used the coordinating framelit die because as you can see from my hand cut branch, my cutting skills leave a lot to be desired! 

So now that I have shown you some of the new items in the catalogue I wanted to offer you all a couple of incentives. If you don't have a copy of the new catalogue yet then drop me an email and I can get one out to you, they cost £4.50 including postage however you will then receive £5 off your first order of £25 or more made through me. For the second incentive, does anyone remember these?

This is the Eye-Catching Ikat Photopolymer stamp set that Stampin' Up! were giving away a month or so ago and are not available for purchase. I have 7 of these left over from my own orders (yes I spent a lot!!) so the first 7 people to make an order of £35 or more, made through me, will receive one of these lovely stamp sets. If you make an order through the Stampin' Up! online store and put me as your demonstrator I will then post this set out separately. I can't wait to make my first proper order of the brand new products today, can you?

That's it from me today so don't forget to either hop forward to Fiona Whitten or back to Nikki Acton using the buttons below.

Supplies:

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

Stamps: Hello There (Hostess), Work of Art, Just Sayin'

Card: Whisper White, Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon, Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow and Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack

Inks: Lost Lagoon and Tangelo Twist

Tools and Embellishments: Owl Punch, Word Bubbles Framelits Dies, 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!