Mashup Vintage

Time to play with Friday Mashup again, I liked the simplicity of this layout because I am trying to be a bit more clean and simple in my creations and I struggle a bit with that.

I have stayed with the sketch fairly closely except for the corners which are on opposite sides to the sketch!  I wanted to focus on the details of this card, making it a bit vintagey (if that's even a word) by sanding the DSP layer and adding some sponging and sanding again until I was happy with the look.  I used some of the Crochet Trim and sponged it with Soft Suede to give it a bit more colour.  The butterflies were an easy edition, and I wanted to keep the centre fairly simple so used a small sentiment and soft colours.  The pearls on the butterflies and the corners were the final touch.

Happy Stamping

Fresh Vintage Valentine

Time for another challenge, or three!  This time I am entering in Colour Q, Freshly Made Sketches, and The Friday Mashup.  Have you noticed lately all the cards I am doing that feature the Fresh Vintage stamp set?  I just love the flower in particular from this set, and can't believe that when I first saw the set in the Sale-A-Bration catalogue I didn't think I liked it much at all!!!

I liked the "go long" theme at Freshly Made Sketches so made a card that will fit into the Small Open Ended Envelopes. Now the name of these initially had me not even thinking of buying them until we got to use them at Convention last year, although called 'small' they are actually 17cm x 8.9cm.  I have used the flower from Fresh Vintage again here both in the feature and again stamped in VersaMark on the Real Red card stock. 

Here is a close up of the featured heart.  In my last post I featured a little box with a heart on the front which I had made by stamping the flower from Fresh Vintage and punching out the majority of the flower with the heart punch.  When I was doing the clean up on my desk I found the scrap of card stock that was left over and I noticed how good the little swirls looked coming out of the punch out heart.  That was the inspiration for the feature of this card, what do you think?  I am really happy with the way it turned out, and even more happy that I have found yet another way to use this beautiful stamp.  

Happy Stamping

More Butterflies

As I went to title this post I realised that the image on my card is again butterflies, maybe it is time for me to get out in the garden!  Mind you it is a bit cold and overcast today, who knows what has happened to summer this year, just last week it dropped to 1.6 Celsius (that is 34 Fahrenheit for my US visitors) - maybe that is why I am craving butterflies, they have all hidden from the cold!

I have taken inspiration from three different challenges for this card, Just Us Girls challenge is to use collage stamping, Friday Mashup was to make a thank you card using DSP, and Colour Throwdown gave me my colours although I had to change Soft Sky to Pool Party.

I joined today with On-line Card Classes for Clean and Simple Card Making.  The reason I mention this is because one of the first techniques was to use masking to add a layer to a card without actually adding a physical layer, and I wanted to try this out.  In the class they used the masking to create a frame, I used it to add feature to the centre leaving a blank frame around the outside - which left it less clean and simple lol.  On reflection I could have stamped off the En Francais image so it wasn't as strong, but I think the All a Flutter butterfly stands out enough.  To bring in a little more of the Daffodil Delight I added some extra little butterflies from the Clearly for You stamp set and used some 1/8" Daffodil Delight Taffeta Ribbon over a piece of the 3/8" Soft Suede Taffeta Ribbon.  The Thanks So Much sentiment comes from the Pocket Silhouettes set.

Hopefully I will get a few more cards made today as I am off to do some of the on-line classes and try a few Clean and Simple cards.

Happy Stamping

ESAD Summer Mini Blog Hop

Today marks the release of the new Summer Mini Catalogue and my fellow demonstrators at ESAD have created some amazing items with some of the new products. 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

You might have arrived here from Libby's blog LibbyStampz, or you may be starting here, either is fine, just follow the link at the bottom of each post to hop to the next blog.  There are 25 in all so grab a cuppa, sit back and enjoy the creativity.

I was so excited at Regional Training this year because I won a door prize which was the Pretty Postage stamp set, so I chose that to feature in my post for this hop.  In this card I paired it with the raspberry stamp from the Clearly For You stamp set, don't they go so well together?  I used another couple of the new products - the 1" Square Punch, and the Postage Stamp Punch, again they go really well together.  I have also used the Bevelled Window Pane as a feature with Crumb Cake Seam Binding.

Here is another stamp from the Pretty Postage set, I like the concept of having a friend 24-7, someone you can count on to be there for you no matter what, so I paired the 24-7 stamp with the friends from the Tiny Tags set and matching punch.  I think sometimes these special people in our lives deserve a reminder and I think this little gift box is just the thing.  I have also used the amazing Spice Cake DSP to create a feature strip on the box. 

My final project also uses the Spice Cake DSP, it matches the Triple Flower Stamp, for this I wanted to use the sheet that is covered with these beautiful little flowers, because I wanted to make a set of little cards.  I have made a set like this before, and again the idea came from our Regional Training day, I made the card holder using the two tag die.  These little sets are so quick and easy to make and are the perfect thing to either have on your desk to attach to a gift, or to give as a gift to someone special.  

That is it from me, please keep hopping to see the great projects that Joanne Kechagias has to show you on her blog Joanne's Stamping Creations. Don't forget to leave some comments as you hop around, a bit of blog love is always appreciated.

If you don't have a current Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and would like a copy of the new Summer Mini please send me an email.  I have added a link to an electronic version up on the left side bar if you want to  have a look through all the products.

Happy Stamping 

Paper Lovin' Bookmark!

I was a bit fascinated by this square wreath in the inspirational picture at Paper Lovin' Gals, and just knew it was what I wanted to feature on my card.  What inspires you in this picture?  The colours, shapes, theme, layout, or something else?  What ever it is come and join in this week's challenge.  If nothing immediately pops out at you visit Paper Lovin' Gals and see what the other Design Team members have been inspired to create.

Now, as you can see I didn't make a card at all.  I got a bit stuck with how to incorporate this into a card, I had a few false starts and nothing was coming together for me at all.  It happens like that sometimes, so I put it aside and did some other things and then when I came back I threw out the idea of a card and decided to do a book mark instead.  Part of the inspiration for this came from one of the presentations at our recent Stampin' Up! Regional Training, one on the long list of things I have been wanting to try.

I stamped the background using More Mustard, which I then coloured in patches with my Stampin' Pastels in More Mustard and Old Olive.  I just love my pastels for this kind of thing.  I then stamped on the cute little birds from the same stamp set, Clearly For You.  I finished it off by attaching a large Bevelled Window Pane to the image using Adhesive Sheet and added Old Olive Satin Ribbon doubled over, tied with some twine and covered with an Antique Brad.

I was really pleased with the result.  I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this week's challenge.

Happy Stamping