What will you stamp? #154

Hello again, I've been so busy this week I can't quite believe it's almost the end of Wednesday already. It feels like there is so much to do and not quite enough time to do it all so I deliberately took some time out to create a quick card. I find it very stress relieving and is like therapy. I currently follow quite a few challenge blogs so I had various ideas going through my head for a card this week but when the What will you stamp? challenge appeared in my inbox I knew that I wanted to give it a go. This week they have invited you to play along with the wonderfully cute Party Pandas set.

I have to admit when I first saw this set in the sale-a-bration offering I wasn't too sure about it but as usual I then saw lots of designs popping up on Facebook and Pinterest and couldn't resit getting the set for myself! 

My card isn't quite what I envisaged when I first set out to create it but I am pleased with my little Panda. He's been coloured in with my Stampin' Blends including a small amount of light smokey slate around the edges to give him a bit of definition. To colour in the balloon I have used my dark and light pumpkin pie and then used the colour lifter to remove some of the lighter area to make the balloon look more rounded. 

I hope you like this little cutie and would love it if you left me a comment below. You can find links to all of the supplies that I have used in the box below. Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Party Pandas Clear-Mount Stamp Set

[147221]

£0.00

Picture Perfect Party 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 Cm) Designer Series Paper

[145559]

£9.00

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

£8.25

Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad

[131171]

£6.00

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

[132708]

£5.50

Versamark Pad

[102283]

£7.75

Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder

[109130]

£4.50

Pumpkin Pie Dark Stampin' Blends Marker

[144577]

£4.00

Pumpkin Pie Light Stampin' Blends Marker

[144578]

£4.00

Rich Razzleberry Dark Stampin' Blends Marker

[144583]

£4.00

Smoky Slate Light Stampin' Blends Marker

[145054]

£4.00

Stampin' Blends Color Lifter

[144608]

£4.00

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

£3.75

Liquid Multipurpose Glue

[110755]

£3.75

Paper Snips Scissors

[103579]

£9.00

Stamping Sponges

[141337]

£3.25

Picture Perfect Birthday

Good Morning all, I'm actually quite embarrassed that it's been two months since my last blog post, I was convinced it had only been a couple of weeks not two months! Sorry about that. Well I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a good start to the New Year? Mine hasn't exactly started as planned as my car got flooded near where I work on the 4th Jan so has been written off and this last week I've been ill in bed with the flu! Not exactly what I had planned. 

 Other than the mishaps I have already mentioned this year my creative activities have rocketed so far and I'm hoping this is going to continue throughout. My first card making class was a huge success, it was fully booked, everyone said they had a lovely time and all are returning for the February class. I have now chosen to extend the class to two nights as Tuesday is now fully booked and I still had a couple of people interested. If you'd like to come along then get in contact and I can book you in. The next class with space is the 12th February.

In order to start as I want to carry on I have started looking ahead to see whose birthdays are coming up and so I've made a start on my birthday cards for the year.

This one has been created using the Picture Perfect stamp set which can be found in the current occasions catalogue. If I'm honest when I first looked through the catalogue I saw this stamp set and passed straight over it, however when I attended OnStage back in November this is the set we were all given for free in our goody bag. Since then I have seen so many great cards made with this so thought I would dig it out and have a play. 

The bows in this set are so cute and can be done in a range of colour combinations. This is a two step stamp and as it is photopolymer it makes it really easy to get good results each time you stamp. My favourite from the above combinations was the Fresh Fig and Berry Burst, they just work so well together. 

Once I had decided on the colours I wanted and the fact that I wanted to use the bows in the set I wasn't really sure what else I wanted to do. So as usual when I get a bit stumped I turned to the catalogues and Pinterest for inspiration. This time I found a lovely card created by the amazing Emma Goddard of Coastal Crafter to inspire me, click here to see her original card. Sometimes I find myself spending more time on Pinterest pinning ideas than actually making something but I'm determined to actually make more this year!

Just like Emma I used the wonderfully sparkly washi tape from the Myths and Magic suite to create my candles, I think I might actually be in love with this suite so expect lots of makes from this one in the future.

If you follow me on Facebook you'll have seen a small card made with the candles in this set a little while ago, you can see it towards the back of the below photo of my messy craft desk. My creativity levels may have increased this year but my ability to keep my desk tidy sure hasn't changed!! 

I once again have an online shop to make ordering through me far easier! There are links below to all of the products that I have used to create this card so click on any of them and it will take you directly to my shop. Don't worry you can still message, phone or email me to place your order for you if that is what you would prefer. 

Just a reminder Sale-a-bration is currently running which is one of the best things of the Stampin' Up! year. If you haven't encountered sale-a-bration before, put simply it means you get free stuff! This year there are two levels of freebies, level one freebies can be claimed for every £45 spent, if you spend £90 you can then choose to either claim two level one freebies or one level two freebie.  

****Edit... as the below image was very popular when I shared it on Facebook I thought I would add it to the bottom of this post to help give you some more colour inspiration****

Supplies:

Picture Perfect Birthday Photopolymer Stamp Set

[145519]

£15.00

Fresh Fig A4 Cardstock

[144248]

£7.25

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

£8.25

Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper

[135315]

£4.50

Myths & Magic Specialty Washi Tape

[145602]

£5.50

Fresh Fig Classic Stampin' Pad

[144082]

£6.00

Berry Burst Classic Stampin' Pad

[144083]

£6.00

Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad

[131173]

£6.00

Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad

[140931]

£6.50

Subtles Stampin' Write Markers

[131263]

£27.50

Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies

[145372]

£27.00

Layering Squares Framelits Dies

[141708]

£32.00

Fast Fuse Adhesive

[129026]

£9.00

Paper Snips Scissors

[103579]

£9.00

Sunday Retirement Showcase - Happy Ribbon

Morning all, well it's Sunday again already, time seems to be going so quickly at the moment. My boys are growing up too fast, the weeks are flying by, getting closer and closer to when I have to go back to work! Hmmmm not a happy thought! It is also getting closer to the 31st May which means you don't have long left to get those items on the retirement list before they are gone for good. A happier point is that it's getting closer and closer to when the new catalogue comes out, I am loving some of the new items and already have a wish list as long as my arm. If you would like a copy of the catalogue just drop me and email and I will get one in the post to you when they become available.

So as part of my mega tidy up in my craft space I bought a ribbon box as I have lots of reels and I hardly ever use them because I just can't see them. So now most (I hadn't realised how many I had, I need another box!!) of my ribbons are in my box and I can see all of them poking out through the holes at the end. The problem being I could now see how pretty they were but still had no idea what to do with them. So once again I opened Pinterest to see what I could find. I found a lovely card by Lisa of I'm in Haven which had Happy down the side of the card with ribbons going across the card the same colour as the letters and then birthday stamped at the bottom. Unfortunately I couldn't find the post that the photo was from which is why I haven't linked directly to that post. Here is my card recreated with retired Stampin' Up! supplies.

I'm going to give this card to my brother in law but it could easily be changed to be more feminine. I don't feel it's as good as Lisa's but I'm happy with the result and I will be looking for more ways to use up my stacks of retired ribbons so that I can buy some of the ones in the new catalogue.

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog, I'll be back on Tuesday with another card to show you.

Supplies:

Birthday Wishes

Morning all, I hope you are all having a lovely week. I always find a week with a bank holiday in it feels strange, you think it's going to go quickly but in reality it goes really slowly! Still not long until another weekend.

Today's card is such a simple little card which again shows that you really don't need a lot of supplies to make some lovely cards. The It's my Party DSP pack has so many different papers in that this card could easily be changed to use for a male or female recipient depending on what colour cardstock you use as a base. Having said that my sons favourite colour at the moment is pink so he would quite happily receive this card!

This card was made for the Less is More challenge which this week was to use designer paper in a CAS (Clean and Simple) style. I think this card has managed it! I will let you in on a little secret though, you see the silver slimmer card at the top left of the card? That was actually only put there to hide a mistake. I stamped the sentiment up the top and hated it straight away, I had decided from the beginning I wanted it in the middle so I have no idea why I stamped it at the top! I couldn't bear to throw out the card and start again so I hid it, hopefully it adds a little to the card but if I make this card again it will not be featured!

Thanks for stopping by to read my blog. I hope you like what you see and if you fancy shopping with me feel free to click the links below or on the left hand side of my blog.

Supplies:

How is he four?

Afternoon all, I have no idea how this happened but my little boy turned four a couple of weeks ago. I really cannot believe that he is four already, time goes so quickly when they are growing up and now we have little cub too it seems to be going even quicker! 

I usually make a card for little monkey's birthday but this is the first year he's actually asked for one and been very specific with his list of demands for his card. He said it had to have Spiderman, red, a big four and a Minion on. Not too much to ask for....I thought about printing a picture of Spiderman and then colouring it in but that seemed too easy, I wanted to make him. So I went onto Pinterest and searched for Spiderman punch art, I have a lot of punches so I was pretty sure I'd be able to make something! I found this card by Two Crafty Girls with a tutorial on how they made him. I didn't have all of the punches they used or the spider web embossing folder but I think he turned out pretty well. What do you think? 

For my Spiderman I used a versamark pen and Stampin' Emboss black embossing powder to create the webbing effect. The background of the card was created with stamps from Gorgeous Grunge in Real Red and Pacific Point, I stamped each one off on some scrap paper first so that it wasn't too bright. I didn't want to take away from the main focal point. So we have Spiderman, there's red and there's a big four on the front, where's the Minion you ask? He's hiding on the inside of the card with a little birthday flag.

As I've posted this photo I've just realised he doesn't have a mouth! I'm not sure how I missed that but luckily little monkey didn't notice! When he opened his card he actually did a fist pump and said 'Yessssss' so I'm pretty sure he liked it. 

Just to let you know the oval punches that I used on this project and the black Stampin' Emboss powder are all on the retirement list so if you want them you had better get them quickly! Thanks for stopping by to read my blog.

Supplies:

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!