Retired Stampin’ Up!® product showcase: Sweet Thoughts Memories & More Cards

The Stampin’ Up!® Last Chance Sale begins today and there are some beautiful products available, some at amazing discounts.

Today I have four cards to show you using some of the fantastic retiring Stampin’ Up!® products which by happy coincidence are all reduced in price. This does mean that they are likely to sell out fast, so please don’t delay. And if you shop with me, I will give you a £10 voucher for every £10 you spend in April. You can use this voucher on my retired items in May.

Four ideas for In the Moment stamp set

As soon as I saw the gorgeous In the Moment stamp set, I knew I wanted to run a class with it. In fact, I am running not one but three different classes with it, as I transition into my new system of showcasing a stamp set each month.

My first event was a fun evening on Zoom combining this fab set with the technique of paper piecing and beautiful Expressions in Ink Designer Series Paper (which is retiring and I believe has now sold out).

We made four beautiful cards, some of which were inspired by my talented friend Julie at The Paper Haven.

In the Moment meets Waves of the Ocean for International Women’s Day

When you planned to use the In the Moment stamp set to celebrate International Women’s Day but you also want to show off your new Waves of the Ocean Designer Series Paper... THIS is what you come up with. 

 

I love the marble patterns of this gorgeous paper in its rich blues on one side and tropical pastels on the reverse. Naturally, as someone who frequently shuns pastel shades, I am drawn to the richer colours so used this stunning green and blue piece as the background to this card. 

 

Rich Blue Foils (another new product only available while supplies last) add some shine to the horizontal strip and the image is cut out using Layering Circle Dies to break up the hard lines. 

I’ve coloured the image using a combination of Stampin’ Blends, including some of our new Natural Tones, and paper piecing. This is a simple technique which means you stamp the image again on to Designer Series Paper and cut out the shapes. Here I’ve cut out the shape of the dress and overlaid it onto the first stamped image; I love how this gives the dress a really natural look of printed fabric.

This is one of three images of women in relaxed poses in the beautiful In The Moment stamp set, available to Stampin' Up!® UK customers in the current Jan-June Mini Catalogue, is perfect for creating cards for all the fabulous women in your life. 

 

 

Waves of the Ocean is a new pack of Designer Series Paper which is only available while supplies last. The designs were created by Stampin’ Up!® artists who look like they’re having lots of fun in this video. This beautiful patterned paper is designed to coordinate with our new Waves of Inspiration stamp set and die bundle which is an early release ahead of the upcoming Stampin’ Up!® Annual Catalogue. However, it is versatile enough to work well with lots of other stamp sets, such as In the Moment as I’ve used here. 

 

  

For my second card I used the image from In the Moment of the lady sitting on the window seat enjoying a cuppa and a look at the view. I’ve cut this one out using Stitched So Sweetly Dies, which left the perfect space for this sentiment from the Rainbow of Happiness stamp set.  

To show off as several designs of patterned paper from Waves of the Ocean, I cut strips and overlapped them at jaunty angles. I finished off with some silver Metallic Mesh Ribbon and Rhinestone Waves Basic Jewels (trust me, there’s nothing basic about these!). 

 

I’ve used the paper piecing technique again here, adding pattern to the T-shirt and cushions to link the main image to the background designs. 

If you want to know where all those tiny pieces of Waves of the Ocean Designer Series Paper came from for the paper piecing, take a look at this card, which goes in a very different direction...

It’s a variation on the card on the Stampin’ Up!® website, which looks like this:

 

 

My version uses the same paper pattern, with the blending brush behind, but I don’t have the Waves of Inspiration bundle so I compromised by using Seasonal Labels dies and the small clouds from the Brilliant Rainbow dies. The greeting comes from In The Moment.  

The starburst pattern is created by making a starburst mask (or drawing lightly in pencil directly onto your patterned paper if you’re feeling brave). I explain how to do this in this blog post. 

This created lots of scraps of paper which I retained for the paper piecing you see above, to reduce waste. 

I hope you like my In the Moment/Waves of the Ocean cards for International Women’s Day and are inspired to create your own. If you are a crafter in the UK and would like to order any of the products you see here, you can order at any time, day or night, via my Stampin’ Up! store. If you do this and use the March host code UDVDUXFH I will send you a thank you gift next month. Plus I will donate 10% of the purchase price (excluding shipping) to the British Red Cross Ukrainian Crisis Fund.

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

In The Moment cards coloured with Stampin’ Blends

It’s new Stampin’ Up!® Mini catalogue time! And I have a beautiful stamp set from the new Jan-June Mini Catalogue to show you today. The set is called In The Moment and is in the same style as other popular sets we’ve had such as Beautiful Moments and Beautiful You. It’s a very popular style with good reason – the images are beautiful and so satisfying to colour in. 

Browse the new Jan-June Mini Catalogue here

There are three images in the set but so far I have only used the lady reading her book in bed with her canine companion, probably because that matches my winter mood!

I made this slimline card for my lovely friend Mrs B, whose birthday was yesterday. She loves reading and has a beautiful whippet but this pup is the nearest I could find. I made this card to fit one of our gorgeous new slimline envelopes, and decorated it with a panel of Hand-Penned Designer Series Paper to match the Pale Papaya background. 

The image is coloured using Stampin’ Blends, which I don’t use often enough, and the gold elements are from the Expressions in Ink Ephemera Pack... including the scalloped strip which I cut from the leftover pieces using the new Brilliant Rainbow Dies. 

 

The standard-sized cards were inspired by US Stampin’ Up!® demonstrator Chelsey Christensen, who demoed a similar card at a demo event towards the end of last year. I made mine as part of my demonstration at my annual Twixmas Party last week. This was held on Zoom and guests could vote on various elements to help me create the card. 

To begin with they voted to use the image of the lady reading her book... which is another reason all my projects are made with this design! I was glad they did though, as it gave me the opportunity to show them how fab it looks with the paper piecing technique. 

I stamped the image once on the Very Vanilla circle and again directly onto this Pale Papaya piece of Designer Series Paper with its delicate polka dot pattern. The DSP image was cut out and pieced on top of the Very Vanilla circle so the duvet cover and pillows could feature this pretty dotted design.

After I’d coloured the image and stuck the DSP down, I went around the edges with a Blending Brush and some Pale Papaya ink.

This Designer Series Paper is from our fabulous new Sale-a-Bration collection and is called Daffodil Afternoon; it features bold floral illustrations on one side of the papers, with more subtle designs on the reverse. 

 

 

Browse the Sale-a-Bration brochure here

For the torn rectangular panel, I gave guests a choice of the dark green side with its lush foliage, or the reverse pattern of delicate green hearts. They chose the little hearts, as I suspected they would, so I had already created a version using the darker side to show them, too.

 

Underneath this is a panel of new vellum called Layering Designs. This features black and white printed designs, including this fine print which I’ve used in white across the base of the card, and in black as a tiny element beneath the greeting. 

 

On this version of the card, I coloured some silver Simply Elegant Trim using a dark Calypso Coral Stampin’ Blend. To be honest, while this works well, I don’t think it did my marker much good so I would only use this technique in small doses – and be very gentle if you do try it.

This version of the card uses linen thread because I didn’t want to go down the colouring route again and, frankly, linen thread goes with everything.

The final poll I held with my party guests was to choose the embellishments and unsurprisingly they chose these new Brushed Brass Butterflies to finish off the card.

I love this In The Moment stamp set from Stampin’ Up!® and think it’s going to be one of our biggest sellers in the first half of this year. I hope you love it, too!

If you are in the UK and would like to order, please visit my store and, if you use the current host code RNU3JCR9, I’ll send you a thank you gift in the following month.

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