Keep Calm and Craft On!

While are all safe at home, we may be missing our friends but there are other ways we can reach out to each other – and, as a long-time crafter, sending cards is the obvious first choice.

I made a stack of these to send to my direct team members. Using three different stamp sets, I managed to come up with the perfect image and sentiment for our times. Those stamp sets? You Always Deliver, Happy Tails and Crafting Forever.

I coloured the images using Stampin' Blends – no mean feat when you are making a big batch!  

To isolate part of a stamp from the rest – in this case the word ‘CRAFT’ from the ‘Crafting forever, housework whenever’ stamp – the easiest way is to use a Stampin’ Write marker. Don’t use a Stampin’ Blend alcohol marker as they dry too fast to stamp with and also stain your stamp. The less easy way is to mask using sticky notes or tape, but this is fiddly, especially when making a batch of cards. 

Painted Poppies notebooks

 
My team is growing fast this Sale-a-Bration and I decided to welcome the first new members with a handy little notebook so they can write down everything they need to know about being a Stampin' Up!® demonstrator... or perhaps their stamping shopping lists!

These note books have a plastic sleeve front and back which makes them really easy to cover. I’ve had them for a long time but think I bought them in Home Bargains. Seems very probable.

 

The Painted Poppies stamp set is designed so you can colour the black outline of your poppy with just one stamp in red ink. But if you like a really intense colour – or your ink pad is getting ready for a refresh – simply ink and restamp a few times. It doesn’t matter if you go over the lines because you’re cutting out the image and it doesn’t matter if the ink is darker in places... in fact it looks more natural. 

A citrussy, crafty birthday

Do you get clusters of birthdays on your calendar? We do. I find I have loads of birthdays around Christmas – most of them are my downlines or other crafting friends. And right now is another heavy birthday season, with them coming thick and fast.

This one was for Ruby, who turned 18 last week and is a keen artist, so the Crafting Forever stamp set was just the job.

I began by watercolouring some citrussy colours onto watercolour paper, then die-cutting using the Happy Birthday Thinlits. I covered the whole lot in Versamark ink and then embossed using a mix of clear embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

I’m not a big glitter fan – it gets everywhere and is a nightmare if it ever goes down the drain as it can pollute our seas, so this is a great workaround for me as it keeps the glitter nicely contained.

The card is finished off with some paintbrushes and some splatters made with the Artisan Textures stamp set. Hope she likes bright colours!

A crafty gift for a crafty lady

A friend asked me for a gift voucher with a difference for her mother. Apparently her mum has “plenty of craft stuff already” (ha ha, how deluded are non-crafty people?) so she wanted to treat her to some classes – what a lovely idea.

I thought Crafty Friday would be the best “starter ” class for somebody who hasn’t experienced the full rowdiness of my evening or all-day events, but because you and I both know that you can never have “plenty of craft stuff already”, I have provided the option to use these vouchers for other events or products if the recipient prefers...

I’ve used outgoing colours Sweet Sugarplum and Soft Sky, because they go so beautifully together and I couldn’t let them leave us without one last play... or two... or three...


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Blooms & Wishes gift pack for a special silver celebration

I am very proud of my team member, Sue, who has just promoted to Silver! I may not be Sue’s direct upline but I’ve pledged to be better at celebrating my team members’ achievements so popped a little packet of Rhinestones in the post for her, with a matching card.

I used flowers – because Sue LOVES flowers – and a splash of silver to mark the occasion.

In Color notecards with Crafting Forever

I think year’s In Color release has been the best yet – it certainly seems popular with my customers, at least. So I hope they’ll like this set of note cards, which shows off all five new colours individually.

We have the fabulously zingy Lemon Lime Twist 

The subtle but warm Powder Pink

Rich and fruity Fresh Fig

Bright and punch Berry Burst

And, finally, the calm and classy Tranquil Tide

Sneak peek: Pieces & Patterns

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: How cute is this little dinosaur? For this card, I made a mask from a post-it note so I could enable the T Rex to write with his tiny hands - I just hope he doesn’t drop the pencil as he’ll never be able to pick it up again. 

I enjoyed making this card so much, that I had another go, with a pencil-themed variation and the perfect greeting from Crafting Forever. This Designer Series Paper goes perfectly with this sentiment, doesn’t it?

Mix It Up Monday - 2015-17 finale and new catty sneak peek

It’s the last project of this round of Mix It Up Monday today, as I come to the end of the 2016-18 set of In Color charts. And, at the risk of putting my neck out, I’m patting myself on the back for making a project with all 50 colour colour combinations… even the horrible ones!

For this project, I finally have my pre-order so am introducing a stamp set I know you’re going to love because it will speak to us all. It’s called Crafting Forever and features these paintbrushes, some scissors (they even look like our paper snips!), a rubber stamp of course, some pens and fun sayings. As the mother of an artist and friend of many writers, as well as crafters of course, I can see this set getting a lot of use in this house!

The brick wall was an afterthought, as you can probably tell. So I made myself a smaller “plate” from thick chipboard, so I could emboss just part of the image. I impress myself sometimes. 

Colour-wise, I’m not a big fan of this combo – it seems a little dated to me. But I’m not going to let it get to me because now I can move on to the next set of In Color charts, which I will be publishing on my blog next Monday. Exciting times, eh?