ESAD SAB Blog Hop - Banner Punch

It's that exciting time of year again, Sale-A-Bration (SAB) is about to begin! For those new to SAB it is a wonderful time of year when you can earn beautiful Stampin' Up! products for FREE!  In Australia just spend $90 on anything from the main or occasional catalogue and you can chose something from the range of SAB products.  To get you in the spirit the Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators have made some great creations with the free items.  You may have hopped on over from Little Scraps of Paper and Delys's lovely creations, or you might be starting here - it doesn't matter, just follow the links at the bottom of each post until you have hopped around all of the blogs!

Now onto my creations ... I chose to showcase the cute little Banner Punch. I love a product that has more than one use and so I got to work looking at alternative uses for this cute little punch. 

Firstly I wanted to use it in a fairly traditional way, by making three little flags down the side of the sentiment panel. This is great if you have a bit of spare space on a card.  The background DSP, Sweet Sorbet, is also from the SAB free products and is so pretty, matching with the 2013-2015 In-colours. 

This next card I have used the Banner Punch to make longer flags for my sentiments, to do this cut strips of cardstock 1.5cm wide and insert one end into the punch, line up and then punch.  By stamping the sentiments first you can get the length of the banner just right.

The little flowers are punched from Sweet Sorbet DSP using the Petite Petals punch, which is a sneak peek from the new Occasions Catalogue also going live on 28th January.

Finally I have used the Banner Punch to make a faux banner on the front of this card.  By cutting a strip of card stock 1.5cm wide, adding a sentiment, then laying it over two banners punched from the same colour cardstock it provides some added interest to the front of a card.  I used dimensionals to pop it up slightly to add to the effect. In this card I have also used the Banner Blast stamp set to create a border along the top and bottom edges of the card, I stamped using the flat edge of the banner alternating two of the patterns.  The DSP on this card is also from Sweet Sorbet, this paper has such a lot of different looks and you will get lots of use out of it.  The centre butterfly and sentiment banner are stamped on Brushed Gold.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have enjoyed my creations. Now it is time to hop on over to the next blog:

Creating Cards With Andrea 

If you get lost along the way there is a full list of all the blogs at the bottom of this post, don't forget we all love it when you leave comments to let us know what you think of the things we have created - happy hopping!

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 contact me for an invitation to this wonderful group.

Narelle Hoggard
Kathryn Ruddick
Nikki Sadler
Emily Campbell
Keryn Campbell
Leonie Schroder
Chloe Evans
Amity Knight 
Alisha Watson
Ann Gerlach
Delys Cram
ME - Monique Fielder
Andrea Buckland
Paula Reid
Pauline Bennetts
Dianne Dunk
Tamsin Adams
Corina Beyer
Richelle Fletcher
Mel Sharp
Christie Kunkel
Nerida Carter
Gail Kirby
Michelle Grech
Sally Williams

Happy Stamping

Baroque Wedding

I don't often create midweek, but this sketch from Try Stampin' On Tuesday really caught my eye.

I was planning on doing the whole card in Very Vanilla and Gold but decided when layering to add a layer of Elegant Eggplant, and I am glad I did.  You might notice my new favourite stamp Beautifully Baroque ... this time I cut it out with the new Deco Labels Collection. I am loving how versatile this stamp is and how many shapes it can be cut into.  You might not notice but the strip behind the image is brushed gold, and to get my buttons to match I dipped them in VersaMark then gold embossing powder.  They look really great in person as the slight shimmer of the original buttons shows through the thin layer of gold.  Sentiment from Loving Thoughts.

Happy Stamping

ESAD Seasonal Blog Hop 2013

Welcome to another Blog Hop brought to you by the talented ladies at ESAD, you might have started at my blog or you might have hopped on over from the talented Jenny at Stampin by the Seat of my Pants. To hop to the next blog just follow the link at the bottom of my post and enjoy the creations featuring items from the latest Seasonal catalogue.

For my creations I wanted to prepare a set of cards using the same basic elements and layout, but with some minor differences, the main feature in all of these cards is the a la carte stamps "Just Thinking" (p 21). I hope you enjoy my creations and are inspired to try some of these techniques yourself.

I love this stamp as it is really quite versatile.  In this card I have stamped onto another product in the new catalogue the white Canvas Creations (p 21), these sheets have a lovely textured surface and are just wonderful with this stamp.  After stamping with Early Espresso I allowed it to dry before colouring the outer textured portion with my Stampin' Write Markers, the canvas surface takes the colour really well.  I have also used the new Borders Scoring Plate (p 26) to create the scallop embossed images.

For the next three cards I have substituted the sentiment in the centre of the stamp with stamps from a range of different Stampin' Up! sets.  For this one I used the lovely flower branch from Elements of Style.  After stamping and colouring the image I then ran it through the Big Shot using the Square Lattice folder which gives it, and the other following images, a tapestry look that fits so beautifully with this stamp.

This card uses the same technique but with the stand of flowers from Just Believe.  I have also added to all of these cards one of the Delicate Doilies (p 5), they are so economical at just $4.95 for a packet of 24! I have used some distressing on both the doily and the base card to give a more aged look, I was very happy with the way this one turned out.  

 For my last card I have used Serene Silhouettes, again cutting the centre piece from Very Vanilla and running through the embossing folder. I have also used the Borders Scoring Plate on the top of this card, however this time I have used the 'valley' of the embossing and highlighted it with small pearls.  On all of the cards you might also have noticed the Flower Trim and added a pearl to the centre of each to give more of a vintage feel to them.  You may have noticed that the flower on the first card was smaller than the rest, this is achieved by using your heat tool on the flower to gently shrink it. Again this Flower Trim is very economical and very versatile as they come on a strip of netting that allows you to either use in a row or individually  the 1.8m of flowers gives you approximately 90 flowers for only $11.95 (p 5), with that many you will be adding them to all your projects!  They are also very easy to colour using markers or re-inkers to match any project. 

I hope you have enjoyed these creations if you don't have a current demonstrator and would like to purchase any of these, or other Stampin' Up! products you can do so through my on-line store by following the link on the top left of this blog.

Now it is time to hop on over to see what lovely creations Narelle has for you at Simply Stampin. Then keep hopping around all of the lovely creations the ESAD ladies have created to showcase the wonderful products in the Seasonal 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 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 contact me for an invitation to this wonderful group.

Happy Stamping

Shaped Card

This week at Just Add Ink the challenge is to make a shaped card.  The perfect challenge for my new set of Hearts Framelits, and the challenge to use them to make an easel card.

I decided to decorate the card like an old fashioned box of chocolates, and used a few of the new products from the new Seasonal Catalogue, the Flower Trim and the Paper Doilies.  These cute little flowers come on a net backing and can be used in a strip or cut into individual flowers, so I decided to use them both ways for this card.  They can also be sponged and dyed to give them more colour - so versatile and you get 90+ of them which is really economical.  The sentiment is from Loving Thoughts and I think fits perfectly with this layout.  This one is more of a Valentine's Day card, but you could use less colour on the layers and make it a beautiful wedding card as well.

Here is a close up of the flower cluster,  I trimmed the net around the individual flowers and adhered them with Sticky Strip, finishing off with an antique brad and a little bit of crochet trim. You can also see the doily that I used, for this card I trimmed the doily down so it only had a small amount of the lace showing.

Happy Stamping

New In-Colour Challenge

This morning just before I left for work a Postie knocked on my front door and had my pre-order for the new Annual Catalogue.  I had time to open the box, hug my new catalogue, and then head off to work!  Talk about torture.  I was so excited to try the new In-Colours and in the new style of ink pad too, so how perfect is the Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge this week - to use all of the new in-colours.  I went in search of a sketch and settled on the Mojo Monday challenge, I figured all the layers would be perfect for the number of colours I wanted to add.

For the first time ever I now qualify for a Title Bundle - a special bundle of coordinating products that I got at a 20% discount because I promoted with Stampin' Up! the bundle this year included this cute set Betsy's Blossoms and so I was itching to ink it up.  I like the layers and the mix of stamps on this card, it certainly isn't "clean and simple" like my last card more like "bright and busy" lol.  I stamped the bird image twice, once in the new Midnight Muse, and once in VersaMark on the Summer Starfruit and then embossed with white embossing powder.  I cut the wings from the second bird and lined up on the first image, then popped the bird up on Dimensionals.  The sentiment is from Loving Thoughts, I am so glad this set is continuing in the new Annual catalogue this year.

Happy Stamping