Product of the Month Collaboration - True Blue Florals

Welcome to our first Product of the Month (POM) Blog Hop!  If you've followed my blog for  while you will know that in previous years we have had a period of Sale-A-Bration (SAB) at the start of each year. Well Stampin' Up! have implemented a new initiative instead of SAB, and that is Product of the Month. For POM there is a new product released every month that can be earned for a greatly reduced cost, $9 in Australia, with the purchase of $125 in product.   So a group of demonstrators decided to help showcase these products we would run a blog hop each month to give ideas.

For December 2025 the product is a pack of 12x12 DSP called True Blue Florals, and it won't be a surprise that the patterns are all lovely florals in Balmy Blue and Night of Navy. I chose this design for my card to show off both sides of the lovely DSP. The front of the paper reminds me of wallpaper and I liked the idea of looking through a window with pretty blue curtains. I added some pieces from Beautifully Adorned Ephemera Pack to the front of the card, its from the upcoming mini catalogue. This is a beautiful ephemera pack with gold printed on quite thick vellum, and I love how the corner pieces look great on this card.

Time to keep on hopping and see what the rest of the team have created with this gorgeous paper, just follow the links at the end of each blog post to make your way around the hop.

Happy Stamping
Monique

Card Swap Chain Series 4 - CASE-ing Genna

Back in May 2025 we started the fourth series of the Card Swap Chain, arranged by the lovely Tracy Held. The idea is the we each made a card and sent it to another person in the chain. That person would CASE (Copy and Share Everything or Copy and Selectively Edit) the card and send it to the next person who would in turn CASE it and send it on. There are 10 of us in this chain so quite a few variations between the first and last card, and these blog hops take you on the journey through the CASEing process. 

Genna's Card

This chain started with this gorgeous colourful card from Genna, I love all the floral images and how Genna coloured them so beautifully. If you haven't started the hop with Genna's card I would really recommend following the link at the end of this post and you will be able to see the progression of her design as it makes its way through all our creative hands. 

I was eighth in the chain, and you can see how the layering technique from Genna's card has made its way around the hop.  I love this technique but don't use it as often as I should. As you can see it is great for a collection of small images or one larger image as I have done. 

Time to keep hopping to see how this card was interpreted for the rest of the chain, I am guessing it won't have changed too much over the next couple of cards. 

Happy Stamping

Monique

Card Swap Chain Series 4 - CASE-ing Ros

Back in May 2025 we started the fourth series of the Card Swap Chain, arranged by the lovely Tracy Held. The idea is the we each made a card and sent it to another person in the chain. That person would CASE (Copy and Share Everything or Copy and Selectively Edit) the card and send it to the next person who would in turn CASE it and send it on. There are 10 of us in this chain so quite a few variations between the first and last card, and these blog hops take you on the journey through the CASEing process. 

Ros's Card

This chain started with this fun card from Ros, don't the turtles make for a cute birthday card? You should start this hop at Ros's blog so you can see the progression of the card, her link is first in the list below.  

I was sixth in this round and you can really see the key elements of the two-layered background and three focal images have carried through to my card. Interestingly, like Ros, I also used cut out images from DSP, which Mandy hadn't done on her card.  I love this Celebratory Sips DSP, and its fitting especially as we hit the warmer months in Australia to imagine the clinking of ice in a lovely cocktail. My go to summer cocktail is a mojito, let me know in the comments what yours is.

Time to keep hopping to see how this card was interpreted for the rest of the chain, and if it is still recognisable by the end of the chain.  What elements do you think made it all the way down the line?

Happy Stamping
Monique

Let's Craft Together Blog Hop - Christmas Decoration

Welcome to the monthly Blog Hop by Let’s Craft Together and thank you for joining us. We are a group of multi-cultural Stampin’ Up!® demonstrators in Australia who have developed a strong friendship though our love of stamping and our admiration of each other’s style of crafting.

The challenge this month is to create a Christmas tree decoration using any materials or techniques you like. Let your imagination run wild and make a decoration that is truly yours. 

Here is my ornament made from the Ornamental Christmas dies to cut a total of six stars from Traditions of Christmas DSP and Gold Foil Sheets (three of each).  This is made by scoring the pieces down the middle and adhering them together alternating colours, attaching the start to a piece of twine and attaching to the Large Gold Hoops.  I have a few tips on making this that I worked out along the way, you can find these at the end of my post.  

I love how this looks but as usual photographs don't really do it justice, so I took a little video which you can watch below to see it spinning and showing off the lovely shiny golds. 

The first tip is to use your score board to help get a neat score line by aligning one of the star cut out pieces centrally on the longest of the "arms". Just add each of the stars in turn and and carefully score a line down the middle of each.  Don't stress too much about getting the thin pieces of the star to fold down the middle, but it is important for the top, middle and bottom pieces to score well. 

The next tip also uses the score board, with the Large Gold Hoop pressed into the corner it is easy to mark the centre point on the top and bottom with a small permanent marker, don't worry, this will be covered by the twine.  It was much easier to adhere the star to the twin once I had secured both ends on the gold hoop using a very small dot of Tombow Multipurpose Glue. 

The third and final tip is to adhere five of the pieces of the star together before attaching to the twine. I would also suggest leaving a DSP piece to be the last one you add as it is a little easier to manipulate into position.  Add a line of glue up the centre of both pieces you are attaching to ensure a good hold on the twine.  

I hope this helps should you decide to trade one of your own. Now time to keep hopping to see what the rest of the team have created to decorate their trees. 

Happy Stamping

Monique