ESAD Seasonal Blog Hop 2013

Welcome to another Blog Hop brought to you by the talented ladies at ESAD, you might have started at my blog or you might have hopped on over from the talented Jenny at Stampin by the Seat of my Pants. To hop to the next blog just follow the link at the bottom of my post and enjoy the creations featuring items from the latest Seasonal catalogue.

For my creations I wanted to prepare a set of cards using the same basic elements and layout, but with some minor differences, the main feature in all of these cards is the a la carte stamps "Just Thinking" (p 21). I hope you enjoy my creations and are inspired to try some of these techniques yourself.

I love this stamp as it is really quite versatile.  In this card I have stamped onto another product in the new catalogue the white Canvas Creations (p 21), these sheets have a lovely textured surface and are just wonderful with this stamp.  After stamping with Early Espresso I allowed it to dry before colouring the outer textured portion with my Stampin' Write Markers, the canvas surface takes the colour really well.  I have also used the new Borders Scoring Plate (p 26) to create the scallop embossed images.

For the next three cards I have substituted the sentiment in the centre of the stamp with stamps from a range of different Stampin' Up! sets.  For this one I used the lovely flower branch from Elements of Style.  After stamping and colouring the image I then ran it through the Big Shot using the Square Lattice folder which gives it, and the other following images, a tapestry look that fits so beautifully with this stamp.

This card uses the same technique but with the stand of flowers from Just Believe.  I have also added to all of these cards one of the Delicate Doilies (p 5), they are so economical at just $4.95 for a packet of 24! I have used some distressing on both the doily and the base card to give a more aged look, I was very happy with the way this one turned out.  

 For my last card I have used Serene Silhouettes, again cutting the centre piece from Very Vanilla and running through the embossing folder. I have also used the Borders Scoring Plate on the top of this card, however this time I have used the 'valley' of the embossing and highlighted it with small pearls.  On all of the cards you might also have noticed the Flower Trim and added a pearl to the centre of each to give more of a vintage feel to them.  You may have noticed that the flower on the first card was smaller than the rest, this is achieved by using your heat tool on the flower to gently shrink it. Again this Flower Trim is very economical and very versatile as they come on a strip of netting that allows you to either use in a row or individually  the 1.8m of flowers gives you approximately 90 flowers for only $11.95 (p 5), with that many you will be adding them to all your projects!  They are also very easy to colour using markers or re-inkers to match any project. 

I hope you have enjoyed these creations if you don't have a current demonstrator and would like to purchase any of these, or other Stampin' Up! products you can do so through my on-line store by following the link on the top left of this blog.

Now it is time to hop on over to see what lovely creations Narelle has for you at Simply Stampin. Then keep hopping around all of the lovely creations the ESAD ladies have created to showcase the wonderful products in the Seasonal Catalogue.

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 contact me for an invitation to this wonderful group.

Happy Stamping