Retiring product focus: Pop of Paradise, Happiest of Days

A panoply of retiring products here... Pop of Paradise for those lovely pineapples, the gorgeous Tutti Frutti Designer Series Paper stack and Happiest of Days for the greeting.

I wasn’t in the mood for fiddly masking, so I simply covered the leaves and flower from the sentiment image with a couple of pineapples. Cunning, eh?

This ribbon is retiring, too, which is a shame as it’s lovely Lemon Lime Twist – don’t worry, there will be something equally fab in the new catalogue.

Don’t miss out – these are all fabulous products which would make a great addition to your craft stash!
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Mix It Up Monday: Springtime Foils get the In Color treatment

What’s this? Flowers? You don’t see pretty floral cards here very often, do you? But I absolutely love this new Designer Series Paper which is part of the second wave of Sale-a-Bration freebies and fits in nicely with today’s Mix It Up Monday colour combination from my In Color charts. 

There’s copper in the paper, which I’ve brayered in Basic Black (you should see my brayer now!) and also coloured with Blender Pens using Berry Burst and Tranquil Tide ink. The flower from Happiest of Days goes perfectly with these flowers, too. The paper is called Springtime Foils and is free with a £45 order. Take a look here:

Mix It Up Monday: Happiest of Days fancy fold birthday card

Good morning! I have the post-holiday blues today as it’s back to work after a week in the beautiful Scottish Cairngorms. We’ve never been before but will definitely be back – we just wish it was closer than an eight-hour drive. 

It’s business as usual on the blog, too, as it’s Monday and time for another Mix It Up Monday project using a colour combination from my In Color charts. 

Today’s Mix It Up Monday project uses three shades of purple and that lovely rich green, Tranquil Tide. This should be a winning combo but I admit I struggled, probably because I need to get back into stamping after a week away. 

As you can see, it’s not your run-of-the mill card. It’s a fancy fold inspired by Connie Stewart, who produced a very helpful video, which I recommend you watch if you want to have a go at this project. Be warned, though, it uses US sizes so to save you the hassle, I sat down with a load of scrap paper and came up with my own measurements so that the card would fit in a C6 envelope and can be made using A4 cardstock.  

Whisper White/Very Vanilla cardstock: 14cm x 20cm

Score @ 4.5cm and 7cm from each end.

Card base: 10.5cm x 14.8cm 

DSP design 1: 4.2cm x 13.7cm (you’ll need three pieces of this size)

DSP design 2: 2.2cm x 13.7cm (you’ll need four pieces of this size)

Belly band: 28cm x 3cm (or wider - adjust the width to suit your main image)

Tree Rings with Happiest of Days and Pieces & Patterns

This card is my version of one featured in Stampin’ Success, the magazine sent out to demonstrators. And don’t tell anyone... but I like my version better. Possibly because it features my favourite new colour, Lemon Lime Twist, and possibly because I got to use two of my favourite new stamp sets with the Tree Rings.

This completes a set of three cards made with the same three stamp sets to create three very different looks. This was the first – a cute mushroom is offset with two different wood effects. The second was a masculine look and this one is, as you can see, unashamedly girly... for me at least.

The background is stamped in Craft Whisper White ink and then embossed in white, just to give it a bit of extra oomph.  I love the effect this creates and some of the ladies who made this at the weekend – my team in the morning and my club members in the afternoon – said she thought the tree rings looked like flowers in this context.

Personally I think they look like Tree Rings, but who am I to argue?

Mix It Up Monday: Tree Rings and a little bear

Three stamp sets, same three as on this project, but a very different look for today’s Mix It Up Monday project. My club ladies made this project, along with another card using the same stamps, at Welcome event over the weekend. 

I think the pop of Lemon Lime Twist (my favourite new In Color - did I mention that?) really makes this card zing and the Tree Rings background stamp really comes into its own when used in Soft Suede as a subtle woodland backdrop. 

I wanted to see if I could use this fairly girly greeting from Happiest of Days on a gender neutral card. I couldn’t face masking off the flower so stamped it all and covered it with the little bear. I had planned to cover it with the dinosaur (hence the green) but it wasn’t quite big enough. Dinosaurs may not have been green anyway… and bears certainly aren’t, but who cares?

For more fab colour combos, take a look at my In Color charts… and, if you get chance, why not play along with the challenge?

Tree Rings with Happiest of Days and Pieces & Patterns

As soon as I saw this Tree Rings background stamp, it went straight onto my wish list. But then, when I finally got my hands on it, I sat here for ages, not knowing where to start... completely stumped (see what I did there?).

Finally, last weekend I managed to create some cards with this set. I’m holding off showing you the other two for now as they may well become the Make & Takes for an event I’m holding for my club ladies, and I do like to surprise them.

I’ve used it here with Pieces & Patterns (love that set!) and the ever-so-versatile Happiest of Days. This stamp set will be getting a lot of use tomorrow as I hold a charity stamp a stack for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Guests will be stamping up a storm to donate cards to the charity, which provides accommodation for families who have to travel to specialist hospitals around the UK. We will be creating at east 50 cards to donate... hopefully many more!