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

Perfect Punches

To challenge myself a little I decided to make a card with each of the 6 new stamps in the Perfect Punches stamp set that I got as part of my sneak peek.  Perfect Punches is a level 2 hostess set, so if you like the look of it all you have to do is book a workshop and get $600 total sales and with a group of 6-8 friends that's not too hard!  Here are my first 3 cards with this stamp set, I hope you enjoy.

This first one is with the Joy at Christmas stamp that fits with the Scallop Circle Punch, and in this card I have paired that with the 1 1/4" Circle Punch as well.  Real Red as the base of the card just makes it Christmasy to start with, and I have added some Wild Wasabi striped ribbon that was part of my prize on Helping Hudson question of the day. I coloured the leaves around the scallop with Old Olive (no wild wasabi pen just yet, though hang around for the new IB&C which starts 1st Sept). 

To break up the red on the front of the card I stamped the little snowflake from Hello Again stamp set - it will say "hello" again in the new IB&C

I punched through the base card with the 1 1/4" punch to make the window, then stamped out the image once and punched the centre out and lined it up with the window.  Then punched out the remainder of the image with the Scallop Circle Punch and lay this over the window on the front of the card. Then wrapped the ribbon around and tide in a knot.

The idea for this card was CASEd from Leonie over at Pepperpot Stamper sadly she hasn't put her card up there, but she did put it up in the gallery of ESAD a website for Stampin' Up! demonstrators. 

My second card is using the Thanks from the Perfect Punches set.  Here I have paired it with Cottage Wall DSP, and butterflies from the Flight of the Butterfly and Butterfly Prints stamp sets.  With the smaller butterflies I highlighted the dots on their wings with the uni-ball Signo Gel Pen which really gave them a lift.

I just love these stamp sets and not only does the Thanks stamp fit perfectly with the Scallop Oval Punch, the beautiful butterflies are a perfect match for the Butterfly Punch!  I love the use of punches, saves so much fiddly cutting out. 

Final stamp from this set for today (there are 3 other stamps that I just haven't finished using yet) is the Happy Birthday stamp which fits with the Large Oval Punch.  For this card I used the Black Magic technique and was really happy with the overall effect.  The card itself is a bit outside my usual "go to" colour scheme, but I am really happy with the result.  Comfort Zones are meant to be exited from time to time!  I watched the you-tube video by Dawn Olchefske to learn the technique, its a really easy video to follow. You do need to have Basic Black card stock and White Craft Ink as well as Watercolour Pencils - all available from Stampin' Up! contact me to place an order.