Fragrant Forest and Grassy Grove in a gorgeous autumnal colour combination

 I have a colour combination for you today, and a card which blends the brand new Fragrant Forest background stamp with a Stampin’ Up!® old favourite, Grassy Grove.

October Mood Board card ideas using Christmas Classics and Inked & Tiled from Stampin’ Up!®

Happy October! It’s a new month of new ideas from me, with the latest in my Mood Board series of Stampin’ Up!® projects. Please keep reading to see two projects I made using this board as my starting point.

I created this October Mood Board to inspire myself, my Stampin’ Up!® UK customers and team. But crafters everywhere can be inspired by the colours and/or images on the mood board – what will you make?

The colours on the mood board are Daffodil Delight, Shaded Spruce, Pretty Peacock, Calypso Coral and Real Red but, as always, use the nearest you have, or some, all or none of these colours. It really is just a jumping-off point.

Using two very different Stampin’ Up!® stamp sets – Christmas Classics and Inked & Tiled – I created two projects; one for Christmas and one for every day, to illustrate the broad range of projects which could be inspired by the mood board. 

Let’s Go Shopping card inspired by my Stampin’ Up! Mood Board

The month is nearly over and I haven’t shown you my June Mood Board project!

Each month I create a Mood Board to inspire my Stampin’ Up!® customers and team. The mood board can be used in various ways; as a colour challenge, as an inspiration challenge or as a bit of both. The main thing is that it kickstarts their creativity.

Starburst Christmas card with Pine Woods Dies

Crafty Friday finally happened! We had to postpone for a week because some of the kits took SO LONG to arrive. In fact we gave up on one of them and my husband drove another one over to the lady's house; inevitably, the first kit arrived in the post the next day! It had taken nine days to arrive.

I’ll only show you one of the cards we made here as the other one was a direct copy of this. 

Yes, we were sponging again and I thought it was a good opportunity to have a go at the Starburst technique. We all began by making our templates. I always take a pretty rough and ready approach to crafting, winging it as I go. One lady, however, measured all her angles using a protractor! It was to be expected, I suppose, as she is a retired maths teacher.

These are the three stages of template making. Others have suggested making these out of window sheets or other acetate but I’m not convinced; I think that would allow ink to pool and make it more likely to smudge and blob.

We sponged on to the Pretty Peacock cardstock in whatever colour ink we had to hand. I had Pretty Peacock, of course (to me, ink pads are like Pokemon; gotta catch ’em all!)  but others achieved good results with Just Jade and the now retired Island Indigo. I really like this colour combination; Pretty Peacock, Just Jade and just a splash of red. 

 

The greeting panel is from the same die set as the sprigs of evergreen; the Beautiful Boughs dies, which was released last year but never goes out of style. 

I ran out of the red ribbon from the All The Trimmings Ribbon Combo Pack which I’d used for the samples as I’d had to donate my prepared kit due to the postal issues. Therefore, during the actual session, I used this gorgeous Just Jade gingham from the Flowers For Every Season Ribbon Combo Pack instead.

These Pine Woods Dies are one of my favourite products ever. Both of these trees have open foliage which pops out but, as you can see, the back one, in Mint Macaron, has retained these pieces. That’s because I was lazy and didn’t clean out the die. But you know what? I like the effect!

 

To get the greeting, from In The Pines, onto two separate lines, you have severa; options. The stamp set is photopolymer, so cutting it up is really easy. But that felt a bit drastic for one card. Another option is to mask each section off using tape or a sticky note, but that is fraught with danger. Instead, I inked and stamped each word separately using a Stampin’ Write Marker, cleaning the stamp very thoroughly in between. 

 

If you’d like to order anything you see here, please visit my store and, if shopping in November 2020, please use the host code RMK743TS. The host code allows me to earn Stampin’ Rewards which I use to order thank you gifts for my online customers.

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. 

Team rewards slider pen boxes

There’s a big Stampin' Up!® event in Germany this weekend called OnStage Live... but unfortunately none of my team members, including me, were in a position to make the trip. 

Instead, we held our own event – OffStage Derby – with demonstrations, Make & Takes and even our own awards ceremony. I decided to award certain team members with these lovely Stampin’ Up!® pens in a handmade box. It’s simply a tray with a piece of DSP wrapped around it but the black foil cardstock adds a touch of glamour and the sentiment on top is sincerely meant! 

Rewards were not for top sales or recruiting but for making an extra effort – for example, one team member has worked tirelessly to create videos and blog posts and has finally been rewarded with two customers. Effort pays off in the end!

Make any sized box, to suit your gift, by drawing a plan around your gift on some grid paper. 

Read my 10-year-old tutorial here!

Snow Front one-layer thank you cards

I actually really like Simple Stamping, although it can be a challenge at times, when you're just itching to use your shiny new products.

Thankfully, the shiny new product in this case was Snow Front, one of the most versatile stamp sets in the Autumn/Winter catalogue. It’s what I call “a stamper’s stamp set” which I know sounds a little silly because, well, aren’t they all? But there are those of us who love colouring, those who love assembling projects and those who love the art of stamping to create a scene. Or maybe it just depends on your mood at the time!

You can see from the stack of cards that they’re virtually identical. And if I tell you that I made all of these and more in half an hour, I think you’ll guess that I used the Stamparatus. It’s a real boon for bulk crafting!

You don't always have to place your card in the corner of the Stamparatus. Because my images were overlapping the edge of the project, I marked a place on my grid paper and placed my card within the lines each time. This wouldn't work for super-precise stamping (eg if you were embossing and needed to stamp exactly in the same spot) but it's ideal for a project like this, where "near enough" is good enough!
 

Snow globe Christmas ornament and shaker card

It was my autumn All-Day Craft Event at the weekend, with a distinctly festive theme, and we spent the morning creating these snow globe-themed projects.

I had completely overlooked the Snow Globe Scenes dies but was blown away by a project in Stampin’ Success, the magazine for Stampin' Up!® demonstrators. The ornament is created by sticking two shaker domes together with a miniature scene inside. The card is made to match, and I used the Noble Peacock Foil Sheets to provide the shimmer.

Please click here to download the instructions

 

 

Take great care when adhering your shaker domes, whether on the card or when joining two together, as the adhesive is very strong. Once it’s stuck, it’s stuck!
 

Seaside Notions - and even simpler stamping

I do love this Seaside Notions stamp set, but then I’ve always been a sucker for a seaside theme. It’s perfect for creating a simple one-layer card like this. Just one pack of Notecards & Envelopes, one stamp set and four ink pads – done!

Use the “sand” stamp in this stamp set to create a lovely soft border around the bottom of the card. Just keep stamping without re-inking to get several shades of the same colour, then re-ink the stamp and repeat until you’re satisfied with the results. This is called “stamping off” and I’ve done the same with the weed stamp in Pool Party to get some paler weeds which don’t dominate the project. 

The addition of some Terracotta Tile sand in the bottom right corner provides balance to the seahorse, which is stamped in the same colour.

Seaside Notions and simple stamping

It’s Cuppa & Card today in Borrowash and this is one of the projects we’ll be making. It’s a very simple Seaside Notions project with some extra simple colouring. I love the colour combo of Pretty Peacock, Terracotta Tile, Pool Party and So Saffron – what do you think?

You can add depth to your colouring simply by doing what we always strive NOT to do: go over the edges! I’ve coloured these shells with blender pens combined with Terracotta Tile and Pool Party ink pads, deliberately adding a shadow all around the edge of each image in the same colour. I think it really adds depth to the images. 

Beautiful Friendship swap cards

I’m going to spend this week celebrating Beautiful Friendship, an oft-missed stamp set hiding on page 123 of the catalogue.  I've been using this gorgeous stamp set in all my events this month, so it was the obvious choice to use for a swap, too.

Swapping isn't usually for me but I thought I'd give it a go so I could show my customers a greater variety of project. The brief was to use at least two new In Colors, so I turned once again to Rococo Rose, Seaside Spray and Pretty Peacock and the Beautiful Friendship stamp set. 

When you need to make several of the same card, the Stamparatus really comes into its own. I set it up to stamp the background and the greeting on the stitched ovals, but stamped the foliage on the ovals freehand. 

Beautiful Friendship with muted Pretty Peacock

The muted, vintage shades of Rococo Rose and Seaside Spray, from our new In Color collection, are perfect for this new stamp set, Beautiful Friendship. Here I've fussy cut flowers stamped in these new colours and overlaid them onto some of our new Pretty Peacock Designer Series Paper. 

Look at that ribbon! Isn’t it gorgeous?

The Pretty Peacock Designer Series Paper was the colour I had in mind but was a bit overpowering in this context, so I muted it by adding a layer of vellum. This is just one of many ways you can use vellum in your projects – and I avoided the potential issue of glue showing through by applying it where I knew the flowers would hide it. 
 

You Always Deliver thank you cards

You Always Deliver was one of the first stamp sets on my wish list because it's so much fun! I appreciate that you may think it’s aimed largely at the Stampin’ Up!® demonstrator but I think there’s a lot of mileage to be had from it for everyone else, too.

These are the cards I made for my customers this month, to go with their orders.

I used the Delightful Tag Topper punch to make these fun decorative elements. Punch once from a piece of cardstock cut to 5cm (2") wide, then angle it carefully to show the scalloped detail but not the punched hole.

Beautiful Friendship with the new In Colors

I don't know why I’m not so keen on flower stamps. I love flowers in real life and I love receiving cards with flowers on. But floral stamp sets generally leave me pretty cold.

And then came Beautiful Friendship with one magical ingredient: a hydrangea stamp. I love hydrangeas... both in bloom and when they've gone past the first flush of youth to become faded and papery.

But still, I struggle with flower sets so began my travels with this stamp set by taking inspiration from the catalogue. That's what it's there for, after all!

Naturally, once I got started I went quite off-piste, but I think you can still see the resemblance.

Although hydrangeas come in many colours, Seaside Spray is the perfect place to start as it has that beautiful faded quality you're looking for.

If you position your main Whisper White layer carefully, you get a fun "dotted" border from the gingham checked Designer Series Paper in the new In Color packs.

Come Sail Away with brayered border

It’s time we had another sneak peek as I’ve been a little behind in this department and all of a sudden it's nearly June!

So far, I only have one stamp set from the upcoming catalogue (gasp!) and that set is Come Sail Away, a gorgeous nautical set of images including this lovely lighthouse.

You know what it's like when you have new products - you want to use it all at once so I merrily grabbed my new Pretty Peacock ink pad... and then realised there was no Designer Series Paper to match in the Come Sail Away pack. No problem: I just brayered it.

I say "just"; I actually used four colours - starting at the top with the lightest and working my way down to the bottom with the darkest. The colours are Pool Party, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay and, of course, Pretty Peacock. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out - what do you think?

2019-2010 Stampin’ Up!® In Color™ combinations are here!

New In Color™ combinations are here!

Please click the link to be taken to my Facebook post (you don’t need to be a member) to see this year’s colour charts. If you are a Facebook member, please like and share the post so that as many people as possible can enjoy the colour combinations. And if you enjoy the colour charts, please leave me a recommendation. Thank you!

In Color™ Comparisons

Lots of people ask how the new colours compare to existing and past colours, so I have made these comparison images to show you. The slightest change in shade can make all the difference to a project; for example, I think Calypso Coral is fresh and clean, but Terracotta Tile is a shade or two darker and would look more vintage. See what you think...