Tuesday 25 October 2011

Autumn Splendor Scrapbooking

Sorry for my long absence from blogland. Things have been pretty crazy here recently. I have a stock pile of projects to share with you over the upcoming week but a pretty dodgy internet connection. So please bear with me.

This is one of the scrapbooking projects for this weeks Stampin' Scrappin'. At the request of my Mum I have been experimenting with Autumn themed layouts for this months theme. I have had the lovely Autumn Splendor stamp set in my cupboard for months and never even mounted it. Well what a perfect excuse to ink it up.

The colour scheme is: Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Cajun Craze & More Mustard. I created the background my stamping the various leaf stamps in the colours above. I then layer plain cardstock with a strip of the gorgeous Christmas ribbon from last years November incentive (sadly now retired). I created a border for the photo with More Mustard and finished by stamping the leaves on to Whisper White and attaching these for a corner embellishment with dimensionals.

Happy to be back in touch. I'll try to upload again in the near future. Need to ensure I catch the good light for photo taking (a somewhat impossible task with these big grey rain clouds at the moment).

-XXX-

Saturday 15 October 2011

Christmas gift box ideas

Here are two projects I shared last month with my card class ladies. The hanging cone would be ideal for a Chrismas tree and would hold sweets or a small gift. This is made with mainly retired products now. Apologies for that. This was the only sample I had made up. You can see that i created the handle using the gorgeous new Lace Ribbon  Border and this was attached with Fancy Flower Brads on either side (couldnt quite capture this detail in the photo).

The small pillow box was cut using a Crumb Cake base and wrapped with a strip of Always Artichoke Designer Series Paper. I then punched the gift tag from the new stamp set Beautiful  Season. I designed this to match the Beautiful Season card I shared earlier in the week.

Right, normal service should resume now as I am back from my holidays. This should be the last of my scheduled posts.

Happy Crafting ;0)

Friday 14 October 2011

Lovely as a Tree stepped card

This card was inspired by a card I came across in the In Love With Stamping gallery. I love this stepped effect paired with Lovely as a Tree. It was quick and simple to make and so Christmas-y.

Again I used Stampin' Up!'s Shimmery White cardstock and Night of Navy. The background Night of Navy panel was heat embossed in white. I drew on the snowflakes with my white gel pen. The sentiment is from Contempo Christmas and sets off the colours of the card really well.

So that concludes my week of Christmas cards. But if you come back tomorrow I have one final Christmas project to share with you. Just a couple of quick and easy gift box ideas.

Happy Crafting (and a happy start to the weekend too).
-XX-

Thursday 13 October 2011

A Beautiful Season

 So this is a card I showed my new catalogue launch ladies. We created this using Chocolate Chip, Cherry Cobber, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake cardstock, Choc Chip Scalloped Ribbon and the stunning new stamp set Beautiful Season.  We inked the main bird image with Versamark to create the watermarked background. We then stamped the main bird image onto Very Vanilla and coloured with Watercolour Crayons. This was then punched with the 1 3/4" circle punch and layered onto the Cherry Cobbler scallop circle cut with the new Pennant Die for the Big Shot. We then embellished the berries with a touch of Crystal Effects. This can be seen better in the close up below.
Come back tomorrow for the final card in Christmas card week. Another beautiful Lovely as a Tree card...

Happy Crafting ;0)

Wednesday 12 October 2011

An acetate Merry Christmas

So it turns out my acetate creation was incredibly difficult to photograph. I tried to take this photo against so many different colour backgrounds and it wouldn't show up properly against any.

I created this with a 12" x 4" piece of acetate Window Sheet which I scored at 6" to make the card shape. I stamped the acetate with White Stazon using my Season of Joy flourish and flower stamp. I embellished two of the Season of Joy snowflakes with Basic Pearls. I created the centre panel with Shimmery White and Cherry Cobbler cardstock. I stamped the panel with Cherry Cobbler ink and embellished with a string of Basic Pearls. I created a blank panel for the inside and back panel for writing on.

Tomorrows card is a new catalogue inspired creation.....

Happy crafting ;0)

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Christmas Cards Day Two

Here is another recent Christmas Workshop Make and Take card. This time I went for a more unusual Christmas colour scheme: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White and Crumb Cake. I'd not thought to use shades of brown with Serene Snowflakes before and was really pleased with the effect.

This is a straightforward easel card with a mounted Chocolate Chip panel with the main Whisper White snowflake stamped on to it. This panel is edged with a generic gold calligraphy pen  (sadly not Stampin' Up!). The sentiment is from Contempo Christmas and was stamped onto one of the frames from the Four Frames stamp set (and punched with the Decorative Label punch). This was then mounted with dimensionals over a length of Whisper White organza ribbon.

I hope you're enjoying the Christmas cards so far and please come back tomorrow to see the next in the series, a creation with acetate and Stazon....

Happy Crafting ;0)
-X-

Monday 10 October 2011

Serene Snowflakes Christmas

Here is the first in my week of Christmas cards series. This is a card we made at a recent Christmas themed workshop. I wanted to teach the sponging and masking technique and illustrate how quick and easy this effect was in creating a one layer card (simple and easy to post as a straight first class letter).

We first created a mask with a post it note and the Curly Label punch and then sponged the three Curly Label shapes with Baja Breeze and Marina Mist ink. Tbe various snowflakes were stamped in Pacific Point ink. The lighter colour small snowflakes are stamped on the background with Baja Breeze. The Curly Cute greeting was stamped with Night of Navy. We finished with several of the smallest Basic Pearls to embellish the snowflakes.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll have the second of my Christmas cards tomorrow. So please come back then ;0)

Happy crafting ;0)

Saturday 8 October 2011

Lovely as a Tree Thank You

Here are a series of customer Thank You cards I recently made all carefully drying (I'd only just glitter glued them).  This is my new favourite inking technique (one which may reappear this week)- to create a post it note punch mask and then sponge different shades over the mask. Then stamp your main image over the top.

I created these mini cards using the Decorative Label Punch as my mask and Baja Breeze and Marina Mist as the sponged background. I stamped the Lovely As A Tree stamp in Night of Navy (and the Thank You Kindly sentiment).

Unfortunately I used a generic (non SU) glitter glue to embellish the frosty trees which made the Night of Navy bleed a bit. They all still looked lovely though.

Right, I'm away on my holidays this week. But i am about to schedule a week of Christmas cards starting Monday. So please come back for some lovely Christmas inspiration.

Happy crafting ;0)
-XX-

Sunday 2 October 2011

New Catalogue Celebration Blog Hop

Happy blog hopping Sunday to you and welcome to the Isle of Wight part of this In Love With Stamping blog hop to celebrate the launch of the new Stampin' Up! catalogue. Thank you for joining me from Kara's blog and I hope there has been inspiration-a-plenty so far.

I have two quick and easy projects to share with you today using two of my favourite new items from the 2011-2012 catalogue.

The first project is a swap I recently completed for our Regional Training in High Wycombe. This uses the much loved stamp set Aviary. I know a lot of us Demonstrators have been asking for this since it launched in the US catalogue. It is such a cute and versatile stamp set.

For this card I used Pool Party as my theme colour to highlight our lovely new In Colours. I then combined this with So Saffron, Whisper White and Basic Pearls to create this little 4x4 card front. It doesnt show up too well in the photo but I also ran this through the Big Shot using the Perfect Polka Dots Textured Embossing Folder.
The second of my favourite new buys is the Lace Ribbon Border punch. I just love this effect using a tone on tone Lace Ribbon strip backed with circles cut with the 1 inch circle punch (which fits 100% perfectly- yet another reason to love Stampin' Up!). This simple card could be altered to fit any occassion just by changing the colours used behind the punched strip. But as my thoughts are turning towards Christmas I decided to go with my favourite festive colour combo, Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive. And I finished with a large Basic Rhinestone in the centre of each circle.

Apologies for the simplicity of my projects today, I have been a little under the weather this week and between work and sleep my crafting has taken a little bit of a backseat.  But I hope you have enjoyed your unseasonably sunny stop by the Isle of Wight today and now click on over to Tracey's blog to continue your creative blog hop.....

-xxx-

Saturday 1 October 2011

The new catalogue has landed ;0)

So we all know what October 1st means......... the new Stampin' Up! catalogue is here!!!



And what a fantastic new catalogue it is too. So many new things to share and ideas for new projects to make. There are some great new stamps including sentiment stamp sets and matching stamp and paper product suites. The catalogue finally features the beautiful Designer Series Paper matching fabrics we've all admired from the US.  As well crochet trim, Antique Brads, some fab new punches including the Dotty Triple Layer Punch and a greater range of dies and Big Shot accessories.


There is a great new hostess benefits system. You can now choose from a greater range of exclusive hostess stamp sets (no levels anymore) and if the order/workshop sales are more than £300+ you can choose any item from the catalogue at half price. So never a better time to host your own in home workshop and plan for a big half price purchase.

And as if all the lovely newness of the catalogue was not enough. For the month of October only anyone joining Stampin Up as a demonstrator will get ink pads in the 5 new In Colours as well as a multipack of matching A4 cardstock as an added extra on top of the fabulous value £119 starter kit (the 2011-2013 In Colours are Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder).

So much to take in. If you have any questions or would like to have a chat about hosting a workshop or placing an order, please get in touch on: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249/ 07830 343830.

-xxx-