Blizzard Thinlits meet Peaceful Noel

Today I want to show you the last of three workshops we completed at my Autumn All-Day Craftathon.

We returned to the Christmas theme by combining Peaceful Noel with the Blizzard Thinlits die to create this no-waste set of projects. Can you see what we did?

We began by die-cutting the snowflakes from Pool Party and carefully prised out all the snowflakes to leave this lovely template behind. It would be a waste to discard this so it formed the basis of the front of this Night of Navy gift envelope, again using the Farmhouse Elements, this time sponged in Blueberry Bushel.

As you can see, it’s just a standard envelope, created using the Envelope Punch board. We used it to store four gift tags, but it could easily contain a gift card, money, or a small gift of jewellery.

Take a look at the tags close up... we’ve used the little stars from Farmhouse Elements, too, as well as red rhinestones for a touch of glamour. The “splodge” and greeting both come from Peaceful Noel.

As for the card, that continues the theme but keeps things Clean and Simple, too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my Craftathon projects. The next All-Day event will be early next year and in you’re local to Derbyshire I hope you’ll join me. The ladies have asked for fewer workshops next time, to give them more time to chat, so we’ll be doing one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a buffet lunch in the middle and lots of cake available all day. Hope you can come!

Peaceful Noel tealight holder and card

Are you in a festive mood yet? I hope you will be by the end of this post as this is the first project from my Autumn All-Day Craftathon. ”Autumn” was a bit of a misnomer as two out of the three classes were decidedly Christmassy, starting with this fun card and gift set. 

The card is largely based on this beautiful project by Monica Gale. As you can see, CASEing (Copy and Share Everything) doesn’t have to be exact; I’ve taken my favourite elements of Monica’s card – the stitched circle frame, the stamped background, the die-cut words and the Pinewood Planks embossed layer, and made them fully festive with brand new products from the Autumn/Winter catalogue. These included as the lovely Farmhouse Elements, which come in grey but can easily be sponged with ink, or coloured with markers (as long as you leave them at least 20-30 minutes to dry).

Inside, the card looks like this...

At this point, I should state that every guest had the Peaceful Noel stamp set in their kit, so all the projects were geared around this set. And I believe we used every single stamp from the set during the course of the day.

To accompany the card, we made this fun tealight box, although the guests had festive apple and cinammon-scented red candles to put inside their creations, instead of bog standard white!

The candles slide out, matchbox-style, and there’s a fun lift-up lid, too...

I love this project which I made using this tutorial from German demonstrator Nicole Schlack.  For a tutorial in English, please visit the Notes section of my Facebook page tomorrow.

I hope it’s helping to put you in a Christmassy mood... but if not, don’t despair as I have a non-Christmas project for you on Wednesday.

Dashing Along Christmas

I found this beautiful card idea on a Dutch demonstrator's blog and my limited (ie non-existent) knowledge of the language leads me to believe it was created by a lady called Janneke.

Having been totally engrossed in creating projects for my upcoming All-Day Craftathon, I needed a design in a hurry for a party last week so turned to Pinterest and found this beauty.

The only element I changed was the twine colour (because I need all the Cherry Cobbler for next weekend’s event) and I added some stamped flowers, too, as they match the Designer Series Paper perfectly.

The DSP is FREE to hostesses whose party totals reach £200 in September, so I'm delighted to say my host earned this and will soon be able to make lots of fabulous Christmas cards with it.

Winter Woods layered ink project

This is a lovely Stamparatus technique which I found thanks to Patty Bennett's great video tutorial. I didn’t have all the green markers I needed so incorporated some ink sponging, too.

I used one of my favourite stamp sets of the moment, Winter Woods, which is in the Autumn/Winter catalogue and is just perfect for loads of occasions, not just Christmas. It goes brilliantly with the Wood Textures Designer Series Paper, too... all of my favourite things in one project!

A whole lotta shakin'...

I loved this card by Leslie Webster and just had to make a Stampin' Up!® version using the new Autumn/Winter catalogue projects. 

This was one of our projects at Crafty Friday last week, and the ladies loved making a fun shaker card. 

The background is stamped with Winter Woods in Crumb Cake onto Crumb Cake cardstock, then coloured using the chalk marker.  The rest is self-explanatory. I'm afraid the sequins aren't current items but we do sell very similar sequins in the Annual Catalogue; I just didn’t see the point of updating them when I have so many in stock!

What I love about these dies is a) the stag pops out of the die beautifully, with no effort at all and b) you get four of these little flower dies so you can make them all in one roll of the Big Shot!

Autumn/Winter catalogue goes live today!

It’s time! The Autumn/Winter catalogue goes live today!

Click here to view the catalogue

Get your wish lists ready and please get in touch if you’d like to order. 

Or click here to shop online

Sneak peek: Peaceful Noel

This stamp set from the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue is called Peaceful Noel but I think it's versatile enough to use for much more than Christmas projects. 

Here I've stamped in Lovely Lipstick to make an everyday card with a greeting from Love What You Do. Not sure I've quite pulled off the non-Christmas effect, but it was fun trying!

Sneak peek: Detailed Deer Thinlits

Another sneak peek for you... this time some stunning new dies which will appeal to your wild side!

They're called Detailed Deer Thinlits Dies and there is, of course, a co-ordinating stamp set which I have resisted... so far. I love the white on white look but felt this needed something to make the deer stand out a little - can you guess which stamp set I’ve used?

The pearls are coloured with a Pool Party Stampin' Blends alcohol marker. Takes seconds and makes your pearls co-ordinate with any project.

Sneak peek: Peaceful Noel

Fancy a sneak peek? This is a gorgeous new stamp set from the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue called Peaceful Noel. Yes, it’s a Christmas set, but I took one look at it and decided it could be so much more.

This is why I chose it for my upcoming All-Day Craftathon - everybody who attends will receive this set in their kit, and we’ll be using it during the day to make festive projects as well as non-Christmas projects such as this one.

Not everybody was impressed with my efforts though... Hamish just loves to photobomb when I’m trying to sort out my project images.

I love this colour combination, but I have to confess it’s the first outing for Pacific Point for absolutely ages. I don’t know why; it looks lovely with Mint Macaron here. Maye that’s why? Maybe I needed Mint Macaron and Mossy Meadow to come back (I’m so pleased they did).

Sneak peek: Winter Woods

Who’s ready to start on their Christmas cards? The Autumn/Winter catalogue will soon be open for business, but as demonstrators, we get to order early so we can prepare some lovely samples to show you.

This gorgeous Winter Woods stamp set works great on its own but even better when combined with the Rooted in Nature set, which has smaller trees. And the dies are fabulous, too - look how gorgeous they look with the branches popped out.