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

Butterfly Frames

Another week has passed so it's time for another Paper Lovin' Gals challenge, the design team have come up with some great creations to provide additional inspiration so please consider joining in with us.  All you need to do is to make a project taking some inspiration from the picture, for me it was the colour and the frames, and of course the butterfly.

Surprise, surprise, surprise ... I used the Fresh Vintage stamp set again!!!  This time however I chose to down play the floral image, and used the stamp image which I haven't used before.  Instead of cutting it out directly with the postage stamp punch I cut free hand and then mounted on a black postage stamp frame.  I kept to the main colours in the photo and used Naturals Ivory for the base, and then Very Vanilla, Cajun Craze and Basic Black.  The red colouring on the butterflies is actually Cajun Craze coloured with a blender pen, it brought out more of the red tones!

'Til Next Time ... Happy Stamping

Playing With New Toys

Don't you just love playing with a new stamp set for the first time?  I certainly do, and it was definitely the case on this card, my first with the Kindness Matters stamp set.  I received this set as part of my final gift from my Secret Sister, and so happy she sent it to me, it's such a cute little set with pretty butterflies, swirls and sentiments I think it will be getting a real work out.  

I was inspired to use it in the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week. I enjoy the simple lines of the Freshly Made Sketches, not too many layers and there is a lot of room to be creative.  I chose much softer colours than I would normally put together, I think the delicate nature of the butterflies steered me in that direction.

I used a Baja Breeze base for my card and layered the First Edition Specialty DSP which I gave a spot of colour to using my Stampin' Pastels.  I find Pastels give a softer finish than sponging and that was just what I was looking for with this card.  If you look closely the typed passage is all about butterflies, so it went really well with this card.  I stamped the three butterflies onto Very Vanilla and then ran it through the Big Shot with the rectangle Designer Frames embossing folder and trimmed off the excess. I usually would only use an image that fits within the frame, but lately I have seen so many where the image is larger than the frame I thought I would give it a go!  I used Pastels again on this piece on the edge of the frame and in the centre to match it up with the Baja Breeze and So Saffron that I used on the DSP.  I also used some sponging right on the edges of the frame, and used my Stampin' Write Marker to highlight the inner crease of the frame. 

I finished the card off using the Lace Ribbon Border Punch layered with Crochet Trim, and then a single piece from the same punch as the embellishment with one of the flower shaped buttons from the Subtles Buttons.

Happy Stamping

Another SS Gift

I hope you liked the last lot of things my Secret Sister sent to me, I know I did :)  This time I want to share with you my October gift which completely blew me away.  Isn't she a clever lady! I want to show you each of them separately so you can see what work has gone into them.

 Firstly the little packet of thank you cards.  These are the ones I copied for my last workshop I was so taken by them.  My SS has used the Morning Mocha Speciality paper, why is it special? Because the black pattern is made from velvet, it feels amazing - I am quite tactile and just love the richness of these.  She has even stamped the bag topper with the matching stamp from Elements of Style set.

 The next part of the gift was a cute little soap in a tin, which my lovely SS has decorated with the same DSP. The soap is scented lightly with Grapefruit and Mandarin and smells so fresh, I think I will just take it out of the wrapper and leave it on my desk to add the soft citrus scent to the room.

Finally this is a beautiful 2012 diary which has been covered with the same amazing paper, it almost is too good to use ... almost!  But good news is I have been able to put my first workshop booking for 2012 in it already so the timing was great.  The ribbon on the front with the flower is actually a bookmark made from a length of ribbon, a hair elastic, and the beautiful flower.  I have been wanting to try one of these for a while (on my very very long to do list), they are so neat. The hair elastic allows some give in the book mark for when you are sliding it over the pages.

Here is a close up of the flower, you can see my SS has embossed it with the Petals-A-Plenty embossing folder, and cut the layers of the flower with the Fun Flowers Big Shot Die. You might not be able to see in the picture but she has actually cut them out of black leather, and then spritzed them to give that effect, they look so great in person, and the Antique Brad in the centre of the flower is a great finishing touch.

As you can imagine I feel pretty spoiled right now, I can't wait to find out who made these lovely gifts for me. We have the big reveal at the end of November so I don't have to wait too much longer.

Happy Stamping

Workshop Cards

I wanted to take some time out from challenges to share a couple of projects that I presented at two workshops I did recently.  I love doing workshops and sharing new techniques with people, because I know how much I love it when I get shown something new.

Belinda's Card

My Take on Belinda's Card

The first one is a card inspired by a fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Belinda Neil, I kept most of the card identical to hers but changed the colours because I wanted to showcase the bleaching technique.  I used Baja Breeze for the base and Soft Suede for the embossed panel.  I just love the satin ribbon put on as a little feature.  I think the "Just For You" stamp from Tagtastic set is such a good stamp to show off the bleaching technique because of that lovely banner in the centre.

This is the project from the second workshop I did, also using the Tagtastic stamp set.  The cards were inspired by the lovely Secret Sister gift I received in October (I will post a picture of that in the next few days), and the little card holder was inspired by something we were shown at our Regional training day - I told you I love learning new things!  The little card holder is made from the Two Tags die and holds 4 little 3"x3" cards and envelopes.  I used the bleaching on the embossing as well on the stamp to highlight it.  

The little cards are quite easy to make, the embossed oval is the perfect size to hold a piece of DSP or even a stamped image punched out with the large oval punch.  For these ones I punched the flourish from one of the sheets in the Beau Château Designer Series Paper.

Happy Stamping