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!

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!