#Sharesunshine with Mini Paper Pumpkin Boxes

I talked last week about sharing sunshine through the new Box of Sunshine Paper Pumpkin Kit, which is an exclusive kit currently available while supplies last.

There are many ways we can #sharesunshine and one is through the Mini Paper Pumpkin Boxes which are sized to fit our Notecards & Envelopes and ideal for little gifts. 

I wanted to thank my customers who had shown incredible commitment during lockdown to complete the 12 craft challenges I set them. They had from the start of lockdown until the end of June to complete the challenges and could do them in any order. One lady did them all in the first week, others tackled them methodically and went right up to the wire.

Somewhat conveniently, 10 ladies completed all 12 challenges, so I use one full pack of Mini Paper Pumpkin Boxes to hold their gifts of Rainbow Glimmer Paper, mini note cards and... I think there was some yellow ribbon in there, too. To be honest, these gifts went out a while ago, I just haven’t got round to posting them here.

I tried to stick with the sunshine theme and decorated the lids using Bumblebee cardstock, with some stamping and die-cutting from the Forever Fern Bundle from the Forever Greenery Suite and label made with the Tasteful Labels dies. They were all tied with different ribbons because I thought I had purchased some specially but couldn’t find it in the chaos of my craft room!

The greeting is from Rooted in Nature and felt perfect for the occasion. 

My ladies are now working on weekly challenges via my private Facebook group. This is open to my customers and class-goers so if you fit into this category, please let me know so I can add you. 

Pop up the label using Stampin’ Dimensionals, keeping the centre clear so the ribbon slides through freely. This will enable the recipient to untie the ribbon and open the box without destroying the décor.

Bonus tip: If you’re in the UK and plan to mail out these boxes, be warned that they’re just a little too deep to go as a Large Letter and will incur the Small Parcel rate.

Feels Like Frost? Not with these cheery colours

Silver Designer Series Paper is very hard to photograph, especially when you're wearing an orange T-shirt. Unfortunately, I didn't notice this until AFTER I'd sealed all the envelopes with these cheery cards.

They’re going out to my team members who achieved qualified status – they get a £30 voucher, too, so I’m sure they'll be pleased to receive them!

I used the new Feels Like Frost Designer Series paper, which has a photorealistic image on one side, and shiny silver designs on the other. To make it less Christmassy, I sponged the white areas in Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight and Granny Apple Green. 

The sentiment panel is die-cut with another new product: Beautiful Boughs dies, which is quite intricate but I wanted it to stand out more from the background. Using a journalling pen, I doodled a simple design around the edges. This can be daunting but is quick and easy really – I simply drew a dot at each “junction” then a line in between, without joining them up. Give it a go and see how it looks!

Masculine cards using Rooted in Nature

The WI group I craft with each month were saying how difficult it is to make cards for men, so this month I set out to prove them wrong.

Difficult as it may be to believe, men are people too, and they like many of the same things as us. What I don't approve of are cards made to look like shirts and ties, because I don't think I know any men who actually enjoy wearing a tie. And you wouldn't give a woman a card with a bra on it, would you?

So I made these projects using the Rooted in Nature bundle, in masculine colours, with linen thread instead of ribbon, and tasteful wooden elements instead of bling. It's not that difficult, is it?

Autumnal Floating Frame

This is another floating frame card - or cards, as you get two for one with this lovely technique, which makes all the effort worthwhile.

I've stamped various leaves from Rooted in Nature in Cajun Craze, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie... although in retrospect, I think using three colours makes it easier to space them out evenly.

Check out this post for my workaround if you don't have Press ’n’ Seal. 

 

Floating Frame with Rooted in Nature

Ever since I saw the Floating Frame card concept, I've wanted to give it a try... so you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered I needed a mystery product called Press ’n’ Seal. I’ve since discovered you can buy it on Amazon but a) I don’t need a whole roll and b) apparently it’s not a perfect solution after all.

But back to my workaround... I tried a few different things and eventually settled on lightly spraying some Craft Mount (spray mount) onto a piece of vellum. This was too sticky so I removed some of the tackiness by laying it, sticky side down, onto a microfibre cloth. Just once. Twice made it not sticky enough!

Then you die-cut the frame and add Stampin’ Dimensionals to every separate piece before gently prising the vellum away. I won’t go into huge detail as plenty of demonstrators have already made a better job of it with video tutorials. 

Suffice to say it’s a time-intensive, fiddly project but on the plus side, you do get two for the price of one. 

  

Faux Watercolouring is still #simplestamping

This week was my Cuppa & Card session where Simple Stamping is the order of the day. All month at my events I am focussing on masculine cards using Rooted in Nature and I showed the ladies how to create a fun faux watercolour background by inking up a clear block, spritzing it with water and using it as a stamp. It's so simple but really effective.

By the Bay Sale-a-Bration stamp set

This was my joint first choice out of the Sale-a-Bration brochure... luckily my order meant I could earn more than one freebie.

Every £45 you spend during SAB (Jan-Mar) earns you a freebie from the brochure. I highly recommend By the Way, used here on a product-heavy card which we made at Crafty Friday.

Look out for two carryover items; the Sprig Punch and Braided Trim, both still available from the Autumn/Winter catalogue.

Frosted Floral card, three ways

I needed three cards to contain garden centre vouchers, so this Frosted Floral Designer Series Paper proved perfect once again. I wanted to make them all different, so picked a colour from each piece of pattern to highlight.

I think the Blackberry Bliss one is my favourite, although my favourite design of paper is the one below...

Centre Stage and team notebooks with Tin Tile and copper

Over the weekend it was the BIG event of the Stampin’ Up!® year... OnStage! We hold these twice a year, exclusively for demonstrators, but this was the BIG one because it’s the 30th anniversary of Stampin’ Up!®

I was there, with a group of team members, and I have some more news about the event below. 

But first I would like to share with you the gifts I made for my team... a monogrammed notebook with on-trend copper accents.

I used the Tin Tile embossing folder (because I love it), which I swiped with copper shimmer paint for a verdigris look. They are finished off with a copper monogram, some leaves from Rooted in Nature, a flower from Best Birds, some Rich Razzleberry velvet trim, copper thread and a wooden heart, sponged in copper shimmer paint. Oh yes, I used circle dies and the Artisan Textures stamp set, too.

Yes, they are product heavy – but there’s no need to hold back when creating for fellow demonstrators!

This one is a little different, as I have a man in my team, so I created a more masculine look for his notebook. I also used both initials as the “I” on its own looked a little lost.

The main event was held on Saturday, but on Friday evening there is an even more exclusive event, for demonstrators who reach certain sales and recruiting levels. This is called Centre Stage and they really treat us well at these events. We had an incredible four-course meal, some sneak peeks about the coming announcements and some great gifts. Take a look...

If you’d like to find out how you can enjoy exclusive demonstrator events, I’d love to talk to you about joining my growing team. The best thing about being a demonstrator is being able to do it YOUR way... whether that means holding classes and events, or running an online business, or simply stamping with friends. There's room for all of us!

Please click here if you’d like to arrange a no-obligation chat or, if you already know you’re ready to take the plunge, you can join my friendly team here.

Copper and navy themed Tin Tile card

I promised you more on Crafty Friday and here it is; the first of two projects we made. As I designed my projects for this event, I realised they bore no relation to each other whatsoever. Then I realised that this was an advantage... Crafty Friday has become so popular lately that we need two tables, and having two entirely different projects using different products makes that so much easier... and is easier on my legs!

This was one of the projects, using the Tin Tile embossing folder. We embossed it onto Night of Navy cardstock and then very gently swiped across it using a sponge dauber dipped in Copper Shimmer Paint.

The copper theme is continued with a copper embossed leaf, and some copper thread behind the greeting. And the little scalloped feature is from the Delightfully Detailed Laser-cut DSP.

I love this colour scheme; it was inspired by a visit to Trowell Garden Centre, where there was a beautiful display of navy and copper Christmas decorations. I took a photo as I planned to make all my Christmas cards with this theme, but it hasn’t happened of course. But the seed was planted for this card, so it wasn’t wasted!

Deck the Halls with this tiny woodland dome

What do you think of this? Something a bit different?

This is an early prototype of one of the projects from my upcoming Deck the Halls event, where we will make festive decorations to adorn our Christmas trees. There’s a bit of work required to make this a little easier to create, but we’ll get there.

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.

Wonderful pillow boxes

These pillow boxes have been so useful for making quick gifts for my team members and customers. These were created for my All-Day Craftathon to thank the ladies for spending the day with me.

I used the Dashing Along Designer Series Paper which was available to hosts for September only, but any festive DSP would do the job nicely. The sprigs finished it off and the sentiments came from Rooted in Nature.

Inside are some scented wardrobe sachets which I assured the ladies are perfectly nice in isolation, but completely overwhelming when you have 12 of them in one room, so they were banished to a sealed box in the porch (the gifts, not the ladies).

Detailed Deer pillow boxes

At first glance, a relatively simple project, but there are a couple of things worth pointing out. The first is that I have only just spotted these gorgeous pillow boxes in the Annual Catalogue - how did I miss them?

They make gift-giving really easy, as they're already fabulous, so you don’t need to do much to them to make your little gifts look amazing.

Secondly, have you noticed the lovely burnished oval? This is created with the amazing new Tin Tile Embossing Folder which I've used on Early Espresso cardstock and then swiped over with our new Bright Copper Shimmer Paint. 

We had shimmer paint in the catalogue before, back in the day when this blog was all fields, and I’m so happy to see it return. I was even happier to see we now have it in on-trend copper! 

I’ve filled these pillow boxes with little treats for some of my team members. Hope they like them!

Sneak peek: Winter Woods

Who’s ready to start on their Christmas cards? The Autumn/Winter catalogue will soon be open for business, but as demonstrators, we get to order early so we can prepare some lovely samples to show you.

This gorgeous Winter Woods stamp set works great on its own but even better when combined with the Rooted in Nature set, which has smaller trees. And the dies are fabulous, too - look how gorgeous they look with the branches popped out.

Tutorial: Rooted in Nature teabag holder

Every month I like to honour and reward my team members who have gone above and beyond. for my first level team members, there are rewards for promotions, achievements and for simply selling more than they did in the previous month.

For my extended team, I also send out three “random rewards” which are little handmade gifts to three people chosen at random (the only qualification is that they have placed an order during the month).

This month I sent out these cute teabag holders, inspired by a gift from my downline Stampy Sue and shown on Monday in this post. Inside are three little envelopes, each containing an individually wrapped teabag - plastic-free of course!

But before I show you how to make these, here’s a close-up of the front. For the circle panel, I embossed using the clever leaf embossing dies from the Rooted in Nature bundle. Then I stamped on top using the Artisan Textures stamp set, for a rustic look. 

Here are the measurements... you should be able to see a larger image if you click on it.

Once you’ve made the outer, as shown above, you simply make three little envelopes using the Envelope Punch Board. I’m turning to inches for these as it’s easier... 

They are made from 5.5" squares

The first score line is at 2 3/4"

Then simply proceed as normal, turning the DSP 90º anticlockwise to make the envelope.

These are then stuck inside - onto the green M shape in the diagram above. 

Finally, decorate the front, making sure you leave the top section of your decorative panel without adhesive, so the front flap can slide in and out easily. 

Hope you like it - and have fun!

Retro colour combo for Rooted in Nature

It’s weird but whenever a new catalogue comes along and I have loads of lovely new products to play with, for some reason I always lose my mojo. You’d think the opposite would apply but I suspect I am overwhelmed by too much choice!

Pinterest came to the rescue; specifically this project by Aussie demo Kate Morgan, which was sent to me by my friend Donna.

I modified it by laying the leaves (from Rooted in Nature) on the diagonal, and used a retro and slightly autumnal colour combination.

Some copper trim and a copper leaf finishes it off nicely, I think. But more importantly, what do YOU think?

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!

Sneak Peek: Sympathy, masculine, birthday... Rooted In Nature does it all

To me, this card really evokes a woodland glade on a summer day, with rays of sunshine filtering through the tree canopy. A bit fanciful, perhaps, it IS just a card, after all.

In fact, it is one of the first cards I made for my display at OnStage Telford, when I received my box of goodies back in February. I really love this Rooted in Nature stamp set, and the wooden elements which continue the leafy theme. The ribbon is Granny Apple Green, one of my favourite new colours – it’s so vibrant and happy and, here, adds a touch of zing to an otherwise relatively subdued project.