ESAD Blog Hop - Holiday Packaging

Well it's time for another ESAD Blog Hop to celebrate the start of the new Seasonal Catalogue in Australia and New Zealand.  Whether you have come from visiting Keryn's blog Keryn's Cards, or are starting here, just follow the link at the bottom of each post to hop around the wonderful creations with some of these new products.

I thought I would show you two of the new Gift Boxes available in the new catalogue, these are similar to the boxes available in the main catalogue but come in different sizes, and this first one, Decorative Window Gift Box (p36) comes with a built in window!  I have used DSP from the Winter Frost DSP Stack and the smallest snowflake from Festive Flurry stamp set.  These are so pretty and come with a matching set of Framelits, so no need for fussy cutting!!! In the centre of the snowflake is one of the most beautiful embellishments so far Frosted Finishes Embellishments.  I have added some seam binding and a couple of tags punched from That's the Ticket.

My second project is made using one of the Extra-Large Gift Boxes (p37), all of the boxes come flat and ready to assemble, which makes adjusting their size really easy.  For this project I cut the box into two separate pieces,  by doing this you get two boxes for the price of one! I have used the smaller box to make a gift set of Christmas cards and tags. By cutting the box 1" from the bottom and making a clear lid from Window Sheet I was able to fit in a set of 6 cards and about 14 tags.  The belly band is made using Winter Frost Specialty DSP with some added bling, and an embellishment using the Festive Flurry stamp and die.

This is the first card in the set, made using the sunburst technique to show off the pretty papers in the Winter Frost DSP stack. The embossing is from Northern Flurry embossing folder and the sentiment from Greetings of the Season which is part of the Autumn Winter Carryover List, check out some of the favourites from last Holiday Catalogue that are still available. 

 This next card is similar to one I made a few weeks ago, however this time I have kept with the monochromatic theme of the gift box, and also used the ornament from the new Very Merry Tags stamp set.  This is a great set with stamps that match a number of our punches (again no fussy cutting)!  I stamped two of the ornaments from two of the snowflakes from Festive Flurry, adding a little rhinestone to the centre of each.

 My final card in the set again uses Festive Flurry stamp and framelits combo, and this time paired with one of the pretty DSP sheets from the paper stack. These paper stacks are a great way to get card-sized sheets of DSP at a really economical price, you don't get as many patterns as in a pack of 12x12 DSP but the quality is just the same and you do get four different patterns so still have lots of options.  Again on this card I have used a Frosted Finishes Embellishment and a strip of silver glimmer paper.

Finally in the box are two sections that hold these cute little gift tags.  The tags are made with the Chalk Talk Framelits trimmed down on one end, punched through and some Baker's Twine added. Remember how I said Very Merry Tags matched a number of our punches?  Well these are just two of the stamps in the set, both of these are stamped in VersaMark then embossed with white (left) and silver (right) embossing powders.  In the Very Merry Tags there is also a cute "To:   From:" stamp that has been stamped on the inside of the tags.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my projects, I certainly enjoyed making them!  Time now to hop over to visit Amity's blog Stampinamity to see what she has created using some of the scrapbooking products available in the 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 love what we do & love to share with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors. We also share what we love in our ESAD Demonstrator community, through swaps, challenges, sharing knowledge, ideas & friendship, and we're always there to help and support each other.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address and I'll contact you with information on how to join our wonderful group.

Happy Stamping

Popping 18th

My daughter had a birthday celebration this weekend and of course looked to me to create a card for the birthday girl.  We had a discussion about a gift and she decided a gift certificate from one of the local cinemas was a good option.

 I had remembered seeing a card much like this one on the internet somewhere so decided to create one of my own.  To make this I cut a rectangle 9.5cm x 12cm.  Along the bottom I made a mark 1cm from each side and cut from there to the top corner.

I ran a piece of whisper white cardstock through the Fancy Fan embossing folder then used the 7/8" scallop circle punch to make each piece of 'popcorn'.  A little sponging with Daffodil Delight completed the look.  I adhered 7 of these to the top of the 'carton'.

The card is a pocket that holds a gift card (here my Costco card used for measurement purposes lol), I adhered 6 more pop corn pieces on top of this.  I left the bottom half of each piece unstuck so that it would overlap the main card.  I adhered a piece of Whisper White to the back for my daughter to write on, this also hides the tails of the ribbon wrapped around the middle. I used Memorable Moments for the 18, and adhered this to a white embossed image from Sketched Birthday.

Happy Stamping

Thank You Tags

Don't you just love it when you have a creative streak, and the time to revel in it? That was me this weekend, sure the housework might be quite up to speed, but hey, it will just need doing again anyway! This time I am joining in with the Friday Mashup, an old favourite of mine.  This week the challenge was to use tags, and/or colour combo: Crisp Cantaloupe, Primrose Petal, Bermuda Bay and Soft Sky.

As usual I like to do the mash up and I am pretty happy with the outcome.  I used some of my Chalk Talk Framelits and the very cute daisy from Best Of Flowers.  I think the sentiment from Petite Pairs works really well with the double tags.

Happy Stamping

Blackboard Fusion

Boy have I been busy today, time for another challenge ... Fusion Card Challenge is a fairly new challenge site that I thought I would play along with this picture and/or sketch challenge this week.

I know immediately I would use both the inspirational picture and the sketch in my card, who could pass up an opportunity to use the blackboard technique? I chose the colours from the picture as well.  While the sentiment is pretty easy to pin down, can you guess what I used to make the wood grain?  It is the lined stamp from Gorgeous Grunge! I added the chevron stamp from Tape it for the banner.

Happy Stamping

Sketch Challenge Take 2 ...

I so loved Create with Connie and Mary's challenge sketch I decided to use it again, this time pairing it with the Pals Paper Arts colour challenge. Don't you love the softness of these new in-colours and how well they go together?

Instead of DSP this time I used Everything Eleanor stamp set to make the "patterned paper", I just love the flourish in this set and stamped that in Pistachio Pudding.  I then added flowers, the flowers stamped in Crisp Cantaloupe, with the large ones stamped directly onto the Whisper White cardstock and the smaller ones 'stamped off' before adding to give them a lighter shade.  I took inspiration from one of the design team members and raised the front panel on dimensionals before adding to the main card.  

The flower in the centre didn't look quite right once I had cut the panel so I added a complete flower over the top.  The sentiment is from Sweet Essentials which is on sale this month!

Happy Stamping

Starburst Christmas

Don't you just love it when you find a new technique you love, and it's easy too?  For me that is Starburst cards and inking up embossing folders, so it only made sense to put both on the same card!

What do you think of the result?  I changed up the Starburst this time by mirroring the burst, I quite like this way of doing it.  I also just adore the effect of inking up my embossing folder with Cherry Cobbler ink and then just putting the Whisper White in and running my hand over the folder to transfer the ink onto the cardstock.  The sentiment is a combination of the Label Love stamp set and Petite Pairs - I love how versatile Label Love is.

Here is a little tip that I thought I would share:  I have stamped and then used a craft knife to cut out the sentiment of one of the stamps from the Label Love set. I use this to check against sentiments in the catalogue (pic on right) to see which will fit in the space.  With the new wood mount cases it is really easy to store both this template in the sleeve at the back.  I have also stamped a completed image and stored that in the sleeve as well to remind me for next time.

Happy Stamping

Anyone for Tea?

Time for another challenge, this time the Create with Connie and Mary sketch challenge.  

I was flicking through my Afternoon Picnic DSP and saw the sheet with these cute images on it and they seemed just perfect for this challenge.  I did have to alter the size of the card but I think the effect was worth it.  The sentiment is from Happy Day and reminds me of all the sweet moments I have shared with friends over a cuppa.

Happy Stamping

Beautifully Baroque Starburst

Just a quick little post today to show you a card I made having seen the tutorial by Dawn Olchefske on making Star Burst cards. I changed the dimensions slightly to fit with our metric measurements here in Australia, my rectangles were 10.5cm x 4.5cm cut diagonally to make the bursts.

I was planning on using the Beautifully Baroque embossing folder, but remembered that I hadn't yet ordered it!  I had ordered the stamp of the same name (note you can get both in a bundle for 15% discount), so I used the stamp with my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig in Crushed Curry, on Crushed Curry cardstock.  The sentiment is from Hello, Lovely stamp set.

Happy Stamping