Festive Friday #38

This week at Festive Friday Challenge we have a nice simple sketch which leaves you with lots of possibilities some pop on over and see what the rest of the design team have made to inspire you and join in with us - every Christmas card made is one less to rush at the end of the year!

I decided that with such a lovely big open space on the card I would do the Emboss Resist technique. Can you believe that I have never tried this one before? It is really so easy and so fun to watch it come together.  The ink used was Baja Breeze, and I built the colour up from the centre of each 'snowflake' not refreshing the dauber as I moved out so the colour became lighter. The lovely sentiment is from Greetings of the Season and I have cut it with my Apothecary Accents Framelits. 

   

Because I went with Not Quite Navy for the base of the card I wanted to put an inside layer in for writing on and decorated the corners with the same image as on the front of the card but stamped in matching Not Quite Navy.

Happy Stamping

ESAD Blog Hop - Holiday Catalogue

Welcome to the Holiday Catalogue Blog Hop, whether you have come from Kristine at Inkspot Creations or are starting with my blog, just hop around following the links at the bottom of each post. 

I just love this Holiday Catalogue, the first in the new 'non-mini' format, it is so full of amazing products, not just stamps but heaps of accessories too.  I have chosen a combination of items from the Holiday Catalogue and some from the new Annual Catalogue to show you how well they all coordinate together.  I have chosen the stamp set Joyous Celebrations as the focus of all of my projects today, so grab a cuppa if you don't have one, and enjoy my projects and those the other ESAD ladies have created for you.

I wanted to use the new little Kraft boxes, they are great and really cost effective (4 boxes for only $4.95 on p161) which makes them great for gifts.  The new Holiday Catalogue items on this box are the Fabric Ribbon wrapped around the box, and two of the small stamps from Joyous Celebrations stamped onto the Fabric Ribbon.  I love how this new ribbon makes it so easy to stamp on, and you can coordinate your ribbon perfectly with your project!  The sentiment is also from a lovely set in the Holiday Catalogue called Greetings of the Season which has four lovely Christmas sentiments.

I thought I would show you the steps I took to stamp on the ribbon:

Secure the ribbon using tape at each end, and place over some scrap
paper and mark out the distance you want between each image.

Stamp the first image using the markers as a guide.  I used the
mistletoe image as the stem helped me line up with my marks.

Finally I went back with the little bow stamp and positioned it
between  each of the mistletoe  images.

Inside the box is a selection of gift tags and cards, this would make a lovely pre-Christmas gift for someone special or just a lovely way to store your own Christmas tags!

I made these with the Two Tags Die, backing the Joyous Celebrations stamps with the Decorative Label Punch.  I made three of each in a variety of colour and DSP combinations. These are so easy to whip up and are so very cute.  A touch of Dazzling Diamonds onto the reindeer nose (red would have been perfect) and also to add some faux-brads to the other tag, this is great for adding some bling without dimension, so great for cards to go through the post.

Next I made a series of 3"x3" gift cards, making two of each of the following designs.  The tree in the Joyous Celebrations set is a tiny bit larger than some of the other stamps in the set, so I used the oval Designer Frame to layer it onto the card, backing this with some of the Be of Good Cheer DSP from the Annual Catalogue. A little bit of Dazzling Diamonds on the star helps to make it pop, I used the new Paper Piercing Tool to gently drag the glitter into the points of the star.

The next two cards are both made using what I think of as the 'dotted oval' stamp from the Joyous Celebrations set, and I backed them with Be of Good Cheer DSP cut with one of the Apothecary Accents Framelits.  I added a sentiment to the reindeer one, from Petite Pairs.  

The last of the tags are probably my favourite as I decided to try layering them with the Champaign Glimmer paper instead of DSP.  Let me just say if you have been a fan of the silver and red glimmer paper from the Annual Catalogue you will LOVE this new champaign one, it is so rich and yummy. You might recognise the bows and the mistletoe as the images I stamped onto the ribbon that wrapped around the box.  To make the bow out of glimmer paper I just stamped on the back and used that as a guide to cut out.  I used a small amount of Dazzling Details on the star in the centre of each ornament.

I wanted to finish up my post today with the card I made to go with this little tag box, this one is a 10.5cm x 10.5cm one.  I used the new Paper Doily Sizzlits and Apothecary Accents Die to compliment the cute little reindeer stamp.  I think he is my favourite from this set, and I can see me using him quite a bit on my Christmas projects this year.  This whole set of stamps is so versatile, great for gift cards as well as full sized cards, it also fits perfectly within the new Holiday Frame Textured Embossing Folder also found in the Holiday Catalogue.

I hope you have enjoyed my somewhat long post today.  Now it is time to hop on over to StampingT! to see what Tanya has created.

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin" Up! demonstrators. 

We so love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know-how, and cyberstamps, and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed.

 So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group

Happy Stamping

ESAD Annual Catalogue Blog Hop

Welcome to the ESAD Annual Catalogue Blog Hop to celebrate the start of the new Annual Catalogue released on 1st September. Whether you are starting with my blog or have come over from visiting Kylie at Stampin with Kylie, it doesn't matter, just follow the links at the bottom of each post to hop to the next blog. 

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin' Up! Demonstrators.

We love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other as demonstrators.  We run swaps, challenges, product know-how, and cyber-stamps and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed. 

So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group.

Now onto the cards I have created to showcase the Daydream Medallions stamp set and the Floral Frames Framelits to show three different ways to use them incorporating them with some of the other products in the new catalogue.  I just love this set, the way the images neatly fits inside each other makes them great to use as a group, but equally the images are great on their own to either subtly enhance or bring focus to a project.

This one uses the new Floral District DSP, the more solid background sheet is primarily Rose Red, the other sheet, that I cut out using Apothecary Accents Framelits, has images printed all over it that match the Betsy's Blossom stamp set on a background of Lucky Limeade.  I added a flower made with images stamped with Daydream Medallions and then cut out with the Floral Frames Framelits. I cut two of them out and on the top one made some small cuts at each petal and then folded them in to give dimension. I added another layer of vellum stamped with the smaller image of Daydream Medallion and topped this with one of the lovely Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons. 

For this next card I used the Daydream Medallions to create a second layer of 'DSP'. The bottom piece of DSP is also from the Floral District set, I love the vesatility of this set of DSP as it has beautiful floral images, images to match stamp sets, and then some sheets with subtle images in monochromatic colours. I have taken the Baja Breeze and Rich Razzleberry out of the DSP colours and used them in my two cut out 'flower' images.  I think these make a great back ground to bring the focus to the butterfly.   

This one is punched using the Elegant Butterfly Punch after spritzing the card stock with Champaign Shimmer Mist.  I added some Rhinestones to the body for some extra bling and curled the wings to add dimension.

My last card today is again using the Daydream Medallions stamp set, this time I stamped the largest image directly onto the card stock using Raspberry Ripple.  I then stamped the descending images onto Vellum and cut out free hand, layering each one onto the card and again topping with the largest of the Vintage Faceted Buttons. You know how I like to add bling, well I decided to add some with small Rhinestones around the petals of the large image.  I just love these images stamped onto Vellum, it gives such a lovely soft feel to a card.

Thank you for visiting my blog, please hop on over to Karen at Viva La Stamping! to see what she has created. I hope you enjoy the remainder of the hop, if you started here just keep hopping around the circle until you come back to my blog.

Hoppy Stamping

Festive Friday

I am happy to be joining the Festive Friday Design Team, this week is my first project as a team member although I have joined in from time to time in the past.  This week we have an inspirational photo for you, isn't it great?  The best part about an inspirational photo challenge is that you can take any element from the photo as inspiration for your card, it could be the colour, shapes, theme, whatever catches your eye.

The first thing that caught my eye was the colours, the deep rich red that reminded me of Cherry Cobbler.  When I looked closer at the picture I noticed the baby's breath on the table and it made me think of snowflakes and from there just knew the sheet from Be of Good Cheer DSP would be perfect.  I then picked up some of the green from the plates, and while I appreciate the rather healthy looking food prepared for this Christmas feast I wanted to go a bit more naughty and so chose cute little gingerbread men.

I hope this has helped to inspire you to join in the challenge this week, if you need a bit more inspiration pop over to the Festive Friday blog and see what the other talented design team members have come up with this week.  

Remember every Christmas card made now is one less to rush to make later in the year!

Happy Stamping

Father's Day Cards

We have just had Father's Day here in Australia and of course that meant card making time.  Today I have two Father's Day cards to show you, the first is the one I made for my dad, and the other is the one my daughter made for her dad.  I love that she is creative too.

Firstly here is the card I made my dad.  I used the now-retired Well Worn DSP and Junior Type Alphabet die and matched them up with the new Apothecary Accents Framelits and a new a la carte stamp aptly named World's Greatest.  We received this stamp at Convention and to be honest I wasn't sure it was my style, however it was perfect for this card. Even though the Framelit chopped off the bottom part of the stamp I think it still works well.

This is the card my daughter made for her dad, she took inspiration from the butterfly card I made but changed it to be more masculine.  I love what she has done with this, she kicked me out of my craft area and then went to work.  I love how she did the background, she had started off sponging the edges but decided to tap the ink pad directly to the card stock which gives it a great texture.  She added some ribbon, and even though it is satin ribbon she has chosen the grey and added a layer of Baker's Twine.  I love the way she off set the sentiment and embossed the layer.  I am such a proud mum and of course my husband loved the card!

Happy Stamping

Stampin' Royalty

Just a quick post this morning because I don't want to miss the deadline for the Stampin' Royalty Challenge this week!

I made this card yesterday but didn't get chance to photograph it because of all the mess I had made while creating it.  I just love this colour combination, and chose a few stamp sets and tools to create this card.  It is the first card I have made using the beautiful new Paper Doily Sizzlits die, for this card I actually trimmed down the doily shape.  That is one of the things I love about this die, you can use it at full size where it just fits on the width of an A5 card or you can trim it off at various points to make a variety of doily shapes.  For this one I just trimmed off the outer layer so it didn't overpower the rest of the layout. I have layered the base image from Everything Eleanor and layered it three times, I got the idea for this from Teneale, and have kept to the basic sketch of her card, mostly so that the main image covers where the layers meet.  

Happy Stamping

One more ...

What a great day today has been, nothing I had to do but create and what do you know the mojo was flowing!  My daughter is at a sleepover and my hubby has mates over so I have had all evening to create as well.  I have paused to do a few around the house jobs, in part to get circulation going to my lower limbs.

For my fina l card of the  day I went  with the  colours from the Pals Paper Arts challenge, Elegant Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie  and Lucky Limeade. 

This is another of my new stamp sets Everything Eleanor, there are a few reasons I chose this one in my first order from the new catalogue.  Firstly there are a nice variety of images and I will be able to use them on a wide range of cards.  Secondly it has this amazing flourish stamp, seen here in the background, I love a good flourish stamp!  Thirdly it has a great image that matches one of the Apothecary Accents Framelits, and I hve used this as the centre of the card, it adds the perfect layer to the Framelit and really helps make the sentiment the focus of the card.

Well that is it for me today, got to save some mojo for tomorrow - although I have a couple more jobs to do before I can create.

Happy Stamping

Sketch Frenzy Sympathy

I am on fire today! Sketch Frenzy Friday Challenge gave me the inspiration for my next card, I like the simplicity of this sketch and wanted to keep my card as simple as possible.

I again used the Serene Silhouettes stamp set and kept the colours to Whisper White and Basic Gray.  I wasn't going to add the ribbon but it just needed something to give it some lift.  I think this makes a lovely sympathy card, and it is always good to have a couple on hand.

Happy Stamping

Freshly Made Silhouettes - Two Ways

Looking for a sketch to base my next card on I turned to Freshly Made Sketches, I like these as they are nice and clean layouts, without the 'simple' aspect of a lot of Clean and Simple challenges.  

This time around I used my new Serene Silhouettes stamp set, I just love the little birds on the tree and did some fussy cutting after stamping them in Cajun Craze to make them stand out from the branches.  I wanted the card to have a fairly muted look to it so I used my brayer to colour the back ground for the birds and then decided to try and colour the DSP with the brayer also.  I am really happy with how it turned out, achieving the effect I was after.  

Here you can see a picture of the un-brayered DSP beside the piece I coloured with Pool Party.  I think this worked because I was using a fairly pale colour, too dark a colour would just cover the DSP.

Because I brayered a whole 12" strip I had a piece left over so decided to use the same basic sketch but make some changes.  Firstly I made this card landscape instead of portrait. I added some ribbon and a sentiment as well.  The butterflies are stamped with my new Papillon Potpourri stamp set and cut out using the new Elegant Butterfly Punch. If you look closely at the centre butterfly I have stamped on it with the new Illuminate Glimmer Watermark Stampin' Pad - this is a bit like VersaMark but has a distinct glimmer to it, and is so pretty.  It is hard to capture it in the photo.

Happy Stamping

Beautiful Blue Butterflies

I am happy to say I have made my first card with my new toys, it took me a bit to get going as I kept finding new toys on my desk and wanting to play with them all - I felt a bit like a 3 year old!  I decided the thing to do was clear off the desk, put the new toys away and focus on the one at hand, which worked a treat.

This card is made completely with new products (apart from adhesives lol).  The DSP is from Comfort Cafe, which I think is going to become my new favourite DSP, it is so pretty, if you look closely behind the main pattern the paper is printed in such a way it looks like it is fabric, which gives such a lovely feel to the card. The butterfly images are from Papillon Potpourri and are punched out with a matching punch (my new favourite punch), no more fussy cutting of butterflies!  I stamped the butterflies once onto Very Vanilla card stock after cutting it out with the Apothecary Accents Framelits, then again onto Vellum, when adhering the vellum butterflies onto the card I used used a strip of TomBow glue along the body of the butterfly, that way the wings can sit up off the card.  

I used some of the new Dazzling Details on the bodies of the butterflies and on the Happy Birthday banner.  You will notice a very neat row of paper piercing around the main Framelit image, this isn't from a steady hand (I wish) but rather is with a new set of paper piercing tools called the Essentials Paper-Piercing Pack. The pack has three sheets of templates for use with a variety of dies and punches as well as some straight rows.  The best part is that it measures 15.2cm x 15.2cm so there is now no longer a need to re-position the smaller guide that SU used to stock. 

I am loving the new products, and when I have hung out a load of washing I will be back at my desk creating something else to show you.

Happy Stamping

Less is More #83

Just a quick little post this morning before I get stuck into creating with my new stamps - my big brown Stampin' Up! box full of new catalogue products arrived yesterday!  But before I get on with that I wanted to share a card I made for the Less is More Challenge, this week the challenge was to use pink and brown.

I quite like pink and brown together, and for this card chose Pink Pirouette and Soft Suede.  I think I am improving with CAS cards although I had to add some texture to the suede layer!  I did think about making this a baby card but went with Thank You, using the sentiment from Curly Cute instead.  I think for a baby card I would use more pink and less suede.

Speaking of baby cards I did get the cute little Two by Two in my order yesterday and I can see it making a very cute baby card.  Well I am off to play with my new toys, I will hopefully have a few to post up over the next few days - mojo permitting!

Happy Stamping

Nacho Challenge

Nacho Average Challenge is a fairly new challenge and I loved the colour combination this week.

I have again used my Apothecary Accents Framelits dies, using one to back the main image.   I stamped the flowers from Bordering on Romance onto water colour paper and then coloured using blender pens to get the various shades of the Raspberry Ripple.  The sentiment is from Language of Friendship, and I realise that I don't use this sentiment enough!  I have used the new stitched wassabi ribbon on cross corners and added a bow.

Happy Stamping

Sunny Flowers

Sunny Challenges Blog has a sketch challenge this week, there were a few new toys I wanted to use making my card to play along.

 There are some new, roll over and retired products on this card, such a shame they are not all current products, but I am sure I will find alternatives.  New products include the Raspberry Ripple card stock, Daydream Medallions stamps and matching Floral Frames Framelits and Itty Bitty Framelits.  I used Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine because in such small amounts it matches the Raspberry Ripple well enough.  I framed the Itty Bitty Banners using the Word Window punch with the ends snipped off - I was really happy to see how well it fit the little banner.

I have arranged to have the remainder of the week off work, and have a new box of Stampin' Up! toys due to arrive any day now, so I am hoping to get some serious creating done over the next week.

Happy Stamping