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!