ESAD New Catalogue Blog Hop

I hope you’re ready for the ESAD New Catalogue Blog Hop! This may be your first blog or you may have come from browsing the creations over at Rhonda's blog, th....INK BIG with Rhonda.  The great thing with a blog hop it's like a big circle so no matter where you start just follow the links to the next one and you will hop your way right around all of the participating blogs. One of the things we all love are comments so please let us know what you think of our creations as you hop around. Comments are particularly important on this blog hop as there is some Blog Candy up for grabs - just comment on each of the pages in the blog hop and then email Leonie at leonie@stamp-a-latte.com, winners will be drawn on Tuesday 7th September.  Entry is open to all customers, sorry but demonstrators don't qualify.  Good luck and enjoy the hopping.

Now onto the creations I have to share with you.  I have chosen to do a variation on the mini magazine holder that I have seen on a number of blogs. My variation is to make a group of holders to help categorise my cards. 

The idea to do this came to me when I saw the Cute by the Inch level 2 hostess set.  I thought what great category tags they would make, and chose 4 for my mini magazine holders.  The patterned one is for miscellaneous cards.

I have used Certainly Celery and Pumpkin Pie card stock as they both seemed to go really well with the new DSP. I love the Daffodil Delight in this DSP and can't wait to get my hands on this and the other new colours. 

Now when you have such a lovely way to organise your cards, there is no excuse not to create a few to fill it.  That way when you have an unexpected birthday, thank you or just want to send off an "I'm thinking of you" card you will have some on hand ready to go.

Firstly my two "Thank You" cards, I have taken individual pictures of these. This first one is using the Greenhouse Gala DSP and the Perfect Punches for the sentiment.  This was then embellished with some Whisper White Ribbon and pearls.  I am loving how the Baja Breeze goes so beautifully with Whisper White for a clean elegant look.

This second card in my Thank You selection is using a base of Chocolate Chip with some textured Wild Wasabi card stock, the envelope is cut out of Greenhouse Gala DSP using the Scallop Envelope Die for the Big Shot.  The little thank you note is made out of Chocolate Chip and the sentiment is from the Occasional Quotes and embossed with gold.

These two cards from my Miscellaneous set are both with Artistic Etchings.  I was initially not a fan of this stamp set, having only seen the images stamped in black on a white page (part of the sneak peek we got as demonstrators).  I am lucky enough to have a great friend Cathy who has let me have a play with her set, and I am starting to fall in love with Paris!  Both of these cards use the new Newsprint DSP and team it with Real Red and Very Vanilla card stock. 

These are my two "Friends" cards, both using butterflies, though from different sets.  The card on the right uses Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip with the Great Friends stamp set; the one on the right uses So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie with the Butterfly Prints and Flight of the Butterfly stamp sets. The butterflies in both Butterfly Prints and Flight of the Butterfly go with the Butterfly Punch. Both of these cards use DSP from the Greenhouse Gala set, I always find it interesting how different colours can give similar prints such a different look.

Finally my birthday cards, and better set than Party This Way? For both I have used Tempting Turquoise and Night of Navy.  The one on the the right I used Very Vanilla which gives a brighter effect to the use of Whisper White on the left. I have kept these fairly simple using a tag from the Lots of Tags Big Shot die on one and the Word Window Punch on the other. 

I hope you have enjoyed my creations for the ESAD New Catalogue Blog Hop. What is ESAD?  ESAD stands for Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators and it is an online group just for Australian and New Zealand demonstrators for Stampin’ Up! 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 its 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.

Please head on over to see the lovely creations that Andrea has prepared for you, you can find them at Creating Cards With Andrea.

Here is a complete list of the blogs to visit:

Leonie Schroder

Keryn Campbell

Vicki Were

Aly Adcock 

Juliette Chapman

Kristine Thompson

Jo Weedon

Jan McAnulty 

Karen Southwell

Kim Conway

Jane Norrish 

Pauline Bennetts

Gemma Coumbe

Genelle Little

Sharlene Meyer

Susan Joyce

Rhonda Statham 

Monique Fielder --- YOU ARE HERE 

Andrea Buckland

Bev Watt

Lisa Ryder

Claire Mcilhatton

Mae Collins

Charmaine Black

Lynn Powell

Cute by the Inch

Another look at some creations using one of the stamp sets I got with the Sneak Peek order. These also come from Cute By The Inch level 2 hostess set. There are 9 stamps in total in this set, some with words and some just decorative like the ones I have used here. I wanted to make a little box of cards so chose the mini pizza box to store the four 3"x3" cards in. I wanted to match them with the Haiku DSP available from the current Idea Book and Catalogue, so they are a little earthy in colour, but I was really happy with the way they came together. For the base of the box and the cards I used Kraft (soon to be renamed Crumb Cake).

This is the top of the mini pizza box. I wasn't sure of this little owl stamp but have come to really like the little fellow.

On this one I used Elegant Eggplant for the main colour, adding in Old Olive and More Mustard in the little flower stamp. I love the versatility of the Stampin' Write Markers and colouring directly onto the rubber stamp allows you to add colour to the image.

Here I used that little owl again. The highlight of the "h" and "i" in the alphabet to say "hi" adds a cute playfulness to this stamp set.

Similar to the first card, this one uses the flourish stamp, which I think will be my most used stamp from this set, this time inked with Old Olive. Again used the marker directly onto the stamp to highlight parts of the flower.

Lucky last in the set. I loved the way this little stamp matched the Haiku paper so well, again inking up the stamp with markers prior to stamping to add different colours to the flower and highlighting the sentiment. The ribbon on this card I won by answering one of the questions of the day over at the Helping Hudson - A Wheelie Good Cause. Please pop over and join in the challenges, answer the question of the day, purchase one or more of the great tutorial packages or just visit and show your support.

Watch out for more Sneak Peek posts through out August. And Don't forget to check out the Last Chance List for all the products that are retiring from the current IB&C, some are already sold out so get in quick if you have your eye on something.

Sneak Peek

The exciting thing about being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator is that we get to have a sneak peek at the new Idea Book and Catalogue a month before it "goes live" as they say. As well as a peek in the IB&C we get a small range of stamps, DSP and other bits and pieces to purchase from starting 1st August. Well mine arrived on Thursday afternoon, and yesterday I had some fun with them, and would love to share what I created ....

This one was done with the big cupcake coming from the Party Hearty stamp set that is carrying on into the next IB&C, the little cupcakes came from "Cute By The Inch" a level 2 hostess set available from 1st Sept, and the sentiment is from Occasional Quotes level 3 hostess set.

Cute By The Inch is especially designed to fit inside a new punch that is to be released in the new IB&C. Unfortunately we didn't get to pre-order that but I was really happy with how versatile the stamp set was even without having the punch.

Colours: Melon Mambo, Chocolate Chip