A passion for purples with the Hand-Penned Suite

My regular customers and I have rediscovered a penchant for purples lately, which was the inspiration for this card using Stampin’ Up!’s new Hand-Penned Suite.

It's a busy card for the ‘avid’ crafter, using the new Hand-Penned Petals bundle and Hand-Penned Designer Series Paper. This is such a pretty, delicate suite which reminiscent of the hugely popular Cath Kidston designs.

Hand-Penned Petals is a two-step stamp set, which means you can colour the images instantly by stamping on top. And no, they’re not supposed to fill right to the edges! If you want a full image with no gaps, you can colour them with Stampin’ Blends or one of our other many options. 

 

Hand-Penned 12x12 Designer Series Paper

The Hand-Penned Designer Series Paper features lots of colours, giving you many choices for your project's colour scheme. For this card, in keeping with our purple passion, I’ve concentrated on the Highland Heather and Mint Macaron, which are both found in there. 

 

I’ve used a piece of the Blushing Bride patterned paper as my background as it’s subtle enough to allow the die-cut flowers to stand out. Slicing a section off and flipping it over gives you this beautiful floral design which features Highland Heather flowers. 

The main image is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and then on top with Highland Heather and Mint Macaron. I’ve left the base of the flower blank as there isn’t a stamp for this, but you could colour it in if you preferred.

The pink and green flowers around it are stamped and die-cut with the lovely dies. I’ve stamped in Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron. 

 

If you like precision, stamp the stem first, then die-cut this shape before adding the seed heads. That way you can get the heads within the die-cut image – which you can do easily as the set is photopolymer.

Behind the stamped flowers is a die-cut flower cluster in Gorgeous Grape, created using the Penned Flowers dies from the bundle. The smaller flowers are also from this set and, handily, you get two larger ones and three small ones in the set, so you can create multiples in one go. 

 

I’ve finished off with some Gorgeous Grape ribbon and some Pastel Pearls, which conveniently come in all the colours used on the card. I haven’t added a greeting to this card as I think it stands alone – I can always add one later if I change my mind. Lots of my crafty friends do this an I think it’s an excellent idea.

Is this set on your wish list? I’d be very surprised if it isn’t!

If you are in the UK and would like to order, please visit my store and, if you use the May host code RMSS4YFY, I’ll send you a thank you gift in June!

To make it easy for you, please shop using this link 

 

Does your wish list come to more than £99? Please get in touch and I will help you get more for your money and unlock discounts all year round.  

 

Please message me via my website 

 

 

Sponged trees with the Evergreen Forest 3D Embossing Folder

This Evergreen Forest 3D Embossing Folder delivers SO much more than it seems to at first glance. Yes, it looks great when used on green cardstock, and super-classy when used on crisp white cardstock but stop! Why not have a bit of fun with it?

I saw these beautiful designs by Barry and Jay at Mitosu Crafts and couldn’t resist having a go myself. It’s just a simple case of embossing then sponging on some colour. 

For the blue card, I used Seaside Spray, Misty Moonlight and just a hint of Night of Navy in the corners.

For the purple version, I used Highland Heather, Gorgeous Grape and just a hint of Blackberry Bliss in the corners and at the base. 

Next I took some diluted Whisper White Craft Ink (about 1:1) and, using a small paintbrush, spattered it across the sponged sections. And they’re finished off with some Adhesive-Backed Snowflakes which I absolutely adore.

 

For the base of the cards, I used the Pine Woods Dies, which I LOVE, obviously, and I have two great tips for these dies, in case you decide to add them to your stash (which I highly recommend, obviously). 

The Foam Adhesive Sheets are ideal when die-cutting this tree. It may feel a bit fiddly to press out but that’s because the die may not have gone all the way through to the backing sheet, but if you peel the tree out carefully it will be perfectly fine. And it looks so much more professional without all those fiddly little bits of cut-up Stampin’ Dimensional on the back.

When I was cutting the snowy hill using these dies, I kept getting an unsightly embossed line where the edge of the die had been. Then I had a light-bulb moment and realised I was using them upside-down. Use them as I have done in the pic on the right, and the embossed line will be on the piece you discard (unless you wish to trim it off and have a smaller hill for another project).

So what do you think? Are you going to have a go at sponging this gorgeous embossing folder? Which colours do you prefer?

Old and new combine for thank you pouches

A mix of old and new here: three outgoing products and not one but THREE new products! Can you spot them?

The three outgoing products are:
1. Perennial Essence Designer Series Paper
2. Gorgeous Grape Mini Striped Ribbon
3. You Always Deliver stamp set.

And the three NEW products are:
1. A tiny image from a new stamp set called Comfort & Hope
2. Some little flowers punched out with the new Confetti Flowers Border punch
3. Labels created with the very clever new Lovely Labels Pick a Punch.

They came from my fantastic pre-order which arrived on Friday. Feast your eyes on this little lot...

You too can order brand new products before the  catalogue goes live if you sign up as a Stampin’ Up!® demonstrator! You get lots of perks and meet some wonderful people, too. Please get in touch if you’d like more details of what you could order, or click below to get started. 
 

Painted Poppies Week: Monochromatic Poppies

It’s the last day of Painted Poppies Week here at All Things Stampy but I’m sure this won’t be the last you see of this lovely stamp set!

These four fun cards were quick and easy to make – and I love how you can tailor the design to almost any of our lovely colours.

I borrowed the idea from Lynn Dunn, but simplified her design slightly to use Label Me Bold instead of embossing – I really have to be in the mood for embossing!

My colours are Crushed Curry, Gorgeous Grape (but with Highland Heather stamping), Flirty Flamingo and Coastal Cabana. Which one is your favourite?

Some colours will swamp your poppy heads, which is why I used Highland Heather instead of Gorgeous Grape. If you don't have a paler ink, you can stamp off onto scrap paper first, then this will give you a lighter shade.

A patch of purple poppies

 

Who says poppies have to be red? They absolutely don't and I love the colourful Californian poppies which sometimes spring up unexpectedly in the garden.

Purple poppies are beautiful, too, and I've just this minute learned that they are symbol of remembrance for all those animals which served in wartime, such as the military working dogs, horses and ponies which didn’t ask to get involved in human conflicts.

On a brighter note, here are two cards I made along very similar lines, using the lovely and oft-neglected Purple Posy cardstock. 

I love the version with the bold flowers and on-trend white embossing on a black die-cut label but knew this wouldn't be practical in a home party situation so made the one with the flower border and Story Label punch, too. But which do you prefer?

We may not be able to order Purple Posy ink but we can get the look with Highland Heather by stamping off onto scrap paper first. You can also get the look with Versamark and, of course, our Stampin’ Write Marker and Stampin’ Blends Alcohol Marker.

#Simplestamping with Accented Blooms

My new(ish) Cuppa & Card sessions at Dawson's Café in Borrowash are a great way to meet new people... and I’ve already signed two of them up into my team. Not a bad start to the year.

This month we used the lovely Accented Blooms stamp set, which is really popular not just because of the great images but because there's a co-ordinating punch. Who doesn't love a co-ordinating punch?

I kept things simple (#simplestamping is the best!); the first card is just stamped in Gorgeous Grape and the colour pulled from the edges using a Blender Pen. The second card is a little more complex, with the image coloured in using ink pads and blender pens.

Wonderful Romance - Stampin' Blends or Blender Pens?

Stampin’ Blends or Blender Pens - which do you prefer?

The image on the left is coloured with Blender pens in a mixture of greens, including Granny Apple Green, which is why it is more vivid. The one on the right is coloured with Old Olive and Calypso Coral Stampin’ Blends (light and dark), with an outline of light Pool Party.

Both are stamped onto Very Vanilla cardstock and cut out with the fabulous new Stitched Rectangle Framelits.

But the most important thing to remember when colouring is this...

Simple Stamping with Love What You Do

I have started new Cuppa & Card sessions at Bugs Tucker Cafe in Borrowash, near Derby. These are the cards we made at our first session. They use a lovely, spring-like colour palette, with blender pens to colour in the images.

Colourful Christmas with Snow is Glistening

I have loved playing with the Snow is Glistening stamp set, and really enjoyed creating these colourful cards with the Stamparatus.

I inked up the stamp using sponge daubers, then stamped onto the Whisper White cardstock. The great thing about the Stamparatus is that if you miss a bit, you can stamp again, perfectly.

Scroll down for close-ups of all the colours...

Wonderful brayered Rooted in Nature cards

I do love to brayer... as you may have noticed. The new sponge brayers are so much quicker than the old rubber version, and I made these cards in minute by brayering across a whole piece of A4 Whisper White cardstock. Then I cut it into three pieces to top these cards.

Perfect positioning was achieved with the Stamparatus and bam! Three cards made in minutes, to celebrate my lovely team members who have gone above and beyond this month. They all get a voucher, too – happy mail!

If you’d like to find out more about becoming a demonstrator, please click here, email me or if you’re ready to take the plunge, you can join my friendly team here.

Varied Vases - and a summery colour combination

How gorgeous is this colour combo? Three new colours mixed with Daffodil Delight give us a really summery look. I’ve decided I’m not going to commit to Mix It Up Monday this year, but will be bringing you colour combinations as and when I use them. You can still see all of my colour combinations on my Facebook page, here (you don’t have to be a member to view).

I’ve used Varied Vases, a brand new stamp set which handily has a co-ordinating punch, so you don’t have to fussy cut those vases. I did, however, fussy cut ALL of those yellow flowers... which are actually stamped in every shade of yellow possible. 

I confess, however, that I only went down that route because I messed up the stamping of the stem (should have used the Stamparatus!) so wanted to cover it up. There’s always a way!

The background is watercoloured using Balmy Blue, Highland Heather and Daffodil Delight. I painted one big piece then cut it in half to make the panels for these two cards; you can probably see where the Balmy Blue section originally joined.

Hope you like them! I confess I love them!