In The Pines meets Pinewood Planks for Christmas

 
I promised you more In The Pines bundle projects and here they are... this time with a Crumb Cake and Pinewood Planks vibe.

The stars of the show here are the Pine Woods Dies; in fact, the only stamps I've used from the In The Pines stamp set are the very handy Season’s Greetings and the tiny snow stamp.

For the landscape card, I die-cut some “hills” and three trees using the Pine Woods Dies. The small pine cones come from the Winter Woods stamp set. Unfortunately, I don’t have the coordinating In The Woods dies so had to fussy-cut them out. My fussy-cutting isn’t the most precise, as you can see!

The two Crumb Cake trees were sponged lightly with Crumb Cake ink to make them stand out a little more from the background.

For the portrait card, I slipped some In Good Taste Designer Series Paper behind the tree. It’s a little lost in the photo but I like the effect so plan to return to this design using a stronger contrast. I didn’t have any of those lovely Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels, but I am a crafter so I compromised... I used our standard Rhinestones and coloured them using a Poppy Parade Stampin’ Blend alcohol marker.

If you want to cut an aperture and emboss your cardstock, make sure you do the cutting first. If you do it the other way round, the act of cutting will squash your embossing.

That’s all for today but please come back on Saturday at 4pm for a World Card Making Day blog hop!

Nature's Beauty deer in the silver birches

Third Monday of the month is Make-It Monday with the local WI ladies. They have very particular requirements and are not afraid to tell me about them! I know they enjoy masculine cards so this is one of today's projects. I hope they like it!

For this sample, I stamped the deer onto Crumb Cake cardstock before colouring with watercolour pencils and Blender Pens. It gives the image much more depth and allows it to stand out from the background.

Autumnal card with Snow Front

I do hope you like trees as much as I do because there are going to be many more woodland-themed projects coming from me! I think every stamp set I have ordered from the new Autumn/Winter catalogue has at least one tree image.

For this project, I used the new Snow Front stamp set to make a small card with autumn trees. The 'snow' stamp is perfect to make autumn leaves for these little trees and, thanks to my tree obsession, I had a choice of products to put with it, eventually settling on the Pinewood Planks embossing folder for my background.

Stamp your greeting before embossing the white cardstock for a really professional look. I love techniques like this, which may the recipient go "how...?"
 

Dog on a log... mog on a log

With all the promotion of Simple Stamping projects, I somehow failed miserably and went completely the other way with this one! It uses not one but FIVE different stamp sets! I can only plead guilty and say I was trying to get some use out of stamp sets before the excitement of the new catalogue kicks in.

It’s a simple masked project, using a mask across the tree stump (Foxy Friends) to enable the tree trunks (Winter Woods) to be stamped and the ground to be created using Waterfront.

The cat and dog are stamped on separate cardstock and punched out. And as for the words, they are created using the Labeler Alphabet stamp set... but I didn’t ask the ladies at my Cats & Dogs class to replicate this, they could simply choose their own greeting.

Accented Blooms meets Pinewood Planks

Accented Blooms is one of those sets that illustrates what Stampin’ Up!® does so well - co-ordination. It goes with the Tailored Tag punch, which was launched in the spring along with a masculine set. Now the Tailored Tag punch is back for the new catalogue with a floral stamp set. I love the panel for the greeting and the big blowsy flowers.

I must admit I did think at first that this set might be a bit of a one-trick pony, but I intend to prove that theory incorrect.

For this project, I painted the image using ink pad lids and an old-fashioned paintbrush - you do have to work quickly when using Whisper White. Then I fussy-cut around the whole image - that was a decision I regretted before I was even a quarter of the way around - and mounted it onto some Whisper White cardstock embossed with one of my favourite folders; Pinewood Planks. Some of those fab new self-adhesives sequins finish it off nicely.

Rooted in Nature gift bag of cards

I LOVE the new Rooted in Nature stamp set and, for a recent crafty weekend, wanted to make a set of cards on a mixed metallics theme.

This is how I discovered that stampin the trees and leaves onto foil cardstock in Stazon looks absolutely gorgeous... I particularly love the look on the Champagne Foil, above.

These, plus two other cards, will form the basis of an upcoming workshop, so if you like the look of them and want to make them, please watch this space. I reserve the right to change them slightly, of course; you know I can’t help myself!

Waterfront beach scene

Dreary February is brightened up with a cheery beach scene create with the gorgeous Waterfront stamp set. The greeting comes from the Lots of Happy Card Kit and the Pinewood Planks embossing folder is reminiscent of a beach hut. Love it... yes, even the colours!

Best Birds gift and card combo

A gift for one of my club members – she has two slots in the club, so gets a double present, which meant I could give her a stamp set from her wish list. Love how the In Colors go together beautifully for this project, which gave the Best Birds bundle a rare outing.

Forest scene with Card Front Builder Dies

This card was inspired by our summer holiday in Scotland, so features:

• Wooden boards - made with the Pinewood Planks embossing folder)
• A little red house in the woods - made with the Hometown Greetings Edgelits 
• Lots of Scots pine trees - Card Front Builder Dies, with each tree hand trimmed to expose the long trunks
• A shy deer - Cart Front Builder dies again.

Two of the main products I used are from the Autumn/Winter catalogue and are actually Christmas products... but don’t let that stop you; as I’ve shown here, they are suitable for year-round use, especially when trying to recreate the Abernethy Forest in paper form!

Mix It Up Monday: sparkly dragonflies

It’s time for another colour combination from my In Color charts and another Mix It Up Monday project… or two projects in this case. 

My club members always get a gift of SU product in their birthday month and September is Mandy’s birthday. Here’s her card and present, made to co-ordinate and also to fit this week’s colour challenge. 

It’s hard to see from the photo but the dragonflies are cut from Marina Mist cardstock and then painted all over with Wink of Stella to give them some sparkle to go with the silver foil and the rhinestones. Behind the dragonfly the white cardstock is embossed with the Pinewood Planks Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder… a little hint as to what was inside!

I made the gift package using the Envelope Punch Board, just adding an extra crease all round, a half inch further along to give the envelope more depth. 

Sneak peek: Hometown Greetings Edgelits

What I would like to know is this: how come, when a German demonstrator (any German demo – they all seem to have this talent) creates a project using Sahara Sand (or Crumb Cake) and one other colour, it looks fabulous and stylish and gorgeous... but when I try it, I never seem to be able to pull it off?

But while the cards may not overwhelm, I think the products will. I LOVE the Pinewood Planks embossing folder, which I have only just purchased, and I LOVE these new Hometown Greetings dies.

I made a batch of these for this month’s club ladies, to thank them for their orders. I wanted to showcase some of the new Autumn/Winter products but in all honesty, I’m not quite ready for Christmas just yet. I know if I start on the Christmas cards this early, I’ll be sick to the back teeth of it by November.

But these little die-cut houses are good for lots of occasions. They are part of a border, so I had to cut off another house, and they are one of my favourite products in the upcoming catalogue. I have lots of ideas for these, and a trip to Ikea may be in order.