Christmas Ornament Week: Polar Bears

Today’s ornament features beautiful polar bears die-cut and placed onto an MDF circle which I painted all over with almost neat Blueberry Bushel ink.

The whole thing is spritzed with some rubbing alcohol mixed with Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint to make it all sparkle - unfortunately you can only see this under lights, not on the photo!

Stamp and emboss the snowflakes first. If you try to stamp on top of the inked surface, the embossing powder sticks to the whole area. Ask me how I know!

Snow Globe Scenes dies green non-shaker card

A bonus Sunday project because time is running out for cards unless you're going to hand deliver them!

I made this project using the beautiful Snow Globe Scenes dies, although I didn't make a shaker card because I was sending this abroad so wanted to keep it as flat as possible.

I sponged the globe shape with Granny Apple Green and Pretty Peacock then splashed it with some water to give it a snowy sky.

I die-cut the snow globe base but it didn’t quite cut through on the first rolling. Instead of die-cutting again and poking all those little pieces out, I left them in and attached them to the card with double-sided tape to keep them all secured. 

Year of Cheer Designer Series Paper gift bags with SAB sneak peek

Can you spot a sneak peek here? These are some little gifts I made for some of my stamping friends at a get-together last weekend. I used half a sheet of Year of Cheer DSP for each box, and the Gift Bag Punch Board.

These were literally thrown together before I set off in the morning, so they decoration is very simple; just a couple of strips of cardstock (Whisper White and Silver Foil), a piece of ribbon and the finishing touch... yes it’s that sneak peek!

This die comes from a brand new set; a Sale-a-Bration freebie which you can earn from 3rd January. How do I have it early? Demonstrator perk, of course! SAB begins in December for demonstrators, so we can earn freebies for FOUR months instead of three. Whoohoo!

If you’d like perks like this, please get in touch to talk to me about joining. There are literally NO drawbacks, I promise.

Merry Music rosette Christmas tree ornament

I spent Saturday really getting into the Christmas spirit, crafting with some of my stamping friends... all but one of whom I met through Stampin’ Up!®. Our brief was to bring a simple project for everyone to make so, to speed things up, I did a lot of prep for this Christmas tree ornament before I went. 

For instance, at home I used some rubbing alcohol with several drops of Crumb Cake reinker in it to spray the Merry Music Designer Series Paper and give it a softer, “aged look. I did the same to the silver glimmer paper, to tone it down a little. 

I also die-cut all the pieces, including the birds... well, I confess I opened my Best Birds stamp set and discovered a pile of stamped and die-cut birds in there. I knew they’d come in handy eventually!  

If you didn’t want to hang this on your Christmas tree, you could use it as a gift tag on a special present.

Link to diagram (in German) and instructions (in English)

Please note the instructions are in centimetres but they do not convert to inches.

If you need instructions in inches, I suggest you search “Stampin’ Up! rosette tutorial” and work from there. 

Merry Music rosette star

I saw this project on the Stampin’ Up!® Facebook page and thought it would be a great way to use up my surplus of Merry Music Designer Series Paper (you get 24 sheets in a pack!).

I made one of these for each of the ladies attending my Merry Star class, to decorate their kit bags.

The star is simple to make and the instructions are here. They're in German on the printable sheet but in English in the post. Here are my additional tips:

1. Stick to centimetres - if you try to convert it to imperial, you will run out of paper with these instructions.

2. Make one so you know how it works; I found drawing cut lines on the back of the DSP helpful.

3. Attach the two pieces of DSP together before you start concertina folding.

4. Hot glue really is the best for holding the rosette to a disc of cardstock, although strong tape could work too. When using hot glue, don't be tempted to blob a little in the centre of your disc as this won't do the job - you need a circle of glue with a hole in the middle. You'll see why!

5. When you've succesfully make one star, cut and score the pieces for a second star but don't assemble it - you can use this for further stars with no more drawing of diagonal lines; just fold and follow.

Have fun!

All-Day Craftathon - Hey Chick workshop

The second workshop of my All-Day Craftathon featured projects made with the Sale-a-Bration set, Hey Chick. This is by far the most popular set from the SAB brochure this year and has proved hugely popular with my regular customers. 

We made three projects: this cute egg box, which we filled with a choice of raffia or coloured tissue (Home Bargains) and Easter treats.

It’s sealed with some more Succulent Garden Designer Series Paper, another piece of that gorgeous new SAB Glimmer Paper and a label created with the Window Box bundle. 

This card was the next project and I think it’s my favourite project from the whole day. The Window Shopping stamp set gets another outing, as does the Succulent Garden DSP. A 1" (2.5cm) strip was cut from the front of the Old Olive card base, to be used in the next project...

... can you see it? It’s just below the main panel. And who would’ve thought this stripey paper came from the same Succulent Garden pack?

For the final workshop projects, please come back tomorrow!

All-Day Craftathon: Window Shopping workshop

I thought I’d skip Mix It Up Monday this week in favour of showing you what we made at the All-Day Craftathon at the weekend. The day was split into three classes, beginning with this one featuring the Window Shopping Bundle.

All the guests received the Window Shopping stamp set in their kit, which is tremendously versatile; in fact we used it in every class throughout the day. 

We began by making this fun box. It’s a slight variation on the hexagon box as it opens at the side, Pac-Man style...

You do this by cutting and reassembling the box pieces as shown below, then joining the two halves together at the side. You can download a tutorial here. 

Three tags go inside, using a tiny strip of the gorgeous Succulent Garden Designer Series Paper, which featured in all three workshops throughout the day.

And there’s a matching card, too. This is made simply by sponging colour onto the front of the card base, then overlaying the die-cut piece. Simple but effective.

This completed our morning activities, so we paused for a buffet lunch before moving on to the second class, which I’ll show you tomorrow...

Festive llama banner

You know when you have a million and one things to do and should be crossing something off your list not adding to it? Isn’t this always the moment you have an “amazing” idea that you simply must carry out? That’s what happened this week.

Inspired by a beautiful pop-up llama/alpaca Christmas card, I just had to make a festive llama banner to send back in return.

And this is the result. A string of behatted llamas with some festive bling in between. I wanted to make pompoms but didn’ t have the time or resources, so compromised with some punched shapes instead.

The llamas are backed with a plain die-cut to sandwich the Baker’s Twine, and the stamped circles are backed with another one the same, just in case they flip around. The pompoms on the hats are carefully trimmed from the Whisper White pompom trim. Some of them are a bit ropey but needs must!

Ok, I’m off to hand it over, reluctantly... (wish I’d made two!)

Sweet Sugarplum gift and card combo

As I mentioned on Wednesday, my club members now get a present in their birthday month. I knew Kelly had made a recent U-turn and adopted Sweet Sugarplum as one of her favourite colours, so turned to my In Color paper stack to create a box using the Gift Box Punch Board. As always, the contents are a secret; suffice to say, one part of the present only just fit as the box was exactly the same size as its chipboard backing. 

Kelly’s card uses the same colours as her gift. I was aiming for clean and simple and started by stamping some Timeless Textures spatters in Tip Top Taupe. They weren’t doing it for me so I added some Sweet Sugarplum spritzing… and when you start spritzing with ink, anything can happen, as it did here. It’s hard to tell from the photo but I also spritzed some Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper with Sweet Sugarplum ink to match the project. 

Totally Trees Photopolymer Stamp Set [142198] £23.00	Tin Of Tags Photopolymer Stamp Set [142180] £19.00	Birthday Fiesta Photopolymer Stamp Set [141500] £19.00	Timeless Textures Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140517] £18.00	Gift Box Punch Board [135863] £18.00
Layering Circle Framelits Dies [141705] £32.00	2016-2018 In Color Designer Series Paper Stack [141408] £20.00	Sweet Sugarplum Classic Stampin' Pad [141395] £6.00	Dapper Denim Classic Stampin' Pad [141394] £6.00	Tip Top Taupe Classic Stampin' Pad [138325] £6.00
Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315] £4.50	Dapper Denim A4 Cardstock [141419] £7.25	Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] £8.25	2016-2018 In Color Enamel Shapes [141410] £8.25	Punch Corner Project Life [135346] £7.25
Sweet Sugarplum Classic Stampin' Ink Refill [141400] £3.00	Stampin' Spritzer [126185] £2.75	Dapper Denim 3/8" (1 Cm) Ruched Ribbon [141424] £7.25

Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com

Mix It Up Monday: Clean and Simple Christmas stars

It’s Mix It Up Monday again and time for another colour combination from my In Color charts.

This one takes its inspiration from Germany. I am frequently drawn to the blogs of German demonstrators; I love their clean, classy style, particularly at Christmas. The demonstrators whose blogs I follow employ this “scattered elements” look to great effect and are big users of Crumb Cake, Whisper White and Smoky Slate. It’s a tasteful but subdued colour palette which doesn’t lend itself well to CASEing for a colour combination challenge.

Undeterred, I had a go at adapting the style for this week’s Mix It Up Monday project and came up with this fun card for Christmas. I die-cut the large star using the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits set, which also has a strip of tiny stars, which I used for the red and green stars. The stamped star is punched out with the Itty Bitty Punch Pack star punch. 

And that’s it. Quick, clean and simple, with just a tiny hint of grey in the stamped background. Because, even though I love those German cards, I’m still not a big fan of grey. 

Rhinestone Basic Jewels Embellishments [119246] £4.50	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad [126949] £6.00	Cucumber Crush Classic Stampin' Pad [138324] £6.00	Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad [131179] £6.00
Real Red A4 Card Stock [106578] £6.50	Cucumber Crush A4 Cardstock [138342] £6.50	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315] £4.50	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock [140490] £6.50
Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] £7.25	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack [133787] £15.50	Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies [137547] £36.00	To You & Yours Too Photopolymer Stamp Set [139819] £14.00

Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com