Waterfront #simplestamping thank you card

We demonstrators have been challenged to go back to basics with some #simplestamping. The challenge was to make a thank you card using just notecards, one stamp set and ink. I used the Stamparatus to get perfect positioning for all 12 of my cards, which were heavily inspired by my recent week in the Lake District. Just one reason that Waterfront is one of my favourite stamp sets!

Petal Palette candle and pocket card

This week I will be showing you the projects from my All-Day Craftathon at the weekend. There were three classes throughout the day, in no particular order. This one was ideal for Mother’s Day, or could be used for other occasions, to. There’s a candle in a box, and a pocket card. Guests could choose their colours as they each had all of the 2017-19 In Colors at their disposal...

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:

Waterfront box frame

When I stamped some scenes using Waterfront (favourite stamp set), I thought they looked a little like watercolour paintings, so here I've framed one in a small (3"sq) box frame. 

The image is stamped first, then scored and cut to fit inside the frame perfectly, as below. 

They’re quite addictive, as you have probably guessed!

Mix It Up Monday: Waterfront (yes, again!)

Yep, it’s Waterfront again! Sorry! Not really sorry, as it’s a fabulous stamp set and I wanted to show you one of our projects from last Friday’s Hygge Night. 

Inspired by Lydia Fiedler’s Waterfront projects using Brusho, I wanted to see if I could make something similar using just inks (as I haven’t caved in and bought the Brushos yet).

Last Monday’s Mix It Up Monday project used an all-purple combination from my In Color charts. This week it’s almost an all-green combo. It’s fun to play with these “close harmony” combinations, I think. 

To get the effect, we inked our stamps with at least two colours each, then spritzed them with water before stamping onto dry watercolour paper. It really is as simple as that. It’s messy but a lot of fun. 

Come back later in the week to see the framed images we made using the same stamp set. 

Peeping Panda

I CASED this project from a similar one by a lady called Nichol Spoor, whose creation was made with non-Stampin’ Up!® stamps. It seems pandas are a trend so are cropping up all over the craft world.

I teamed the Party Pandas (Sale-a-Bration stamp set) with the leaves from Pop of Paradise to give him a tropical hideaway. I inked the leaf stamps in a pale green, then sponged some darker green around the edges. Lemon Lime Twist with Emerald Envy, then Emerald Envy with Tranquil Tide.

Some sparkly black ribbon finishes it off.

Panda photo opp

How cute are these pandas? These are going to be the Big Hit of Sale-a-Bration this year. Yes, they are part of a FREE stamp set you can earn with a £45 order before 31st March.

I gave them a wood-effect background and a Polaroid photo-style frame and backed it with some zingy Lemon Lime Twist, my favourite In Color, possibly of all time! Fun projects are so easy with these cute pandas.

Mix It Up Monday: Sponged Year of Cheer DSP

Happy Monday everyone! Tranquil Tide is the star of the show again this Mix It Up Monday – I must be a fan because I’ve nearly used all the Tranquil Tides colour combinations from my In Color charts.

This weekend, inspired by Natalie Lapakko, I was playing with the Year of Cheer Designer Series Paper and experimenting with adding colour. It looks GORGEOUS with a dark colour sponged onto the background; the ink is resisted in the metallic embossed areas. The trick is to ink up your sponge then remove the excess on some scrap paper; this avoids creating blotches. 

Here I’ve created a two-tone background using Tranquil Tide and Lemon Lime Twist. I prefer the darker colours but you have to try new things. Some scrunched up Crinked Seam Binding and a Night of Navy border sets it off nicely, and it’s finished off with a Year of Cheer gold embellishment… and that is finished off with a Pearl, which I coloured ‘gold’ with the Bronze Stampin’ Blends marker. 

Mix it Up Monday: Pretty Pines with Tree Rings

It’s Mix It Up Monday again and time for a Tranquil Tide combination that’s subtle, to say the least. It comes from my In Color charts and I thought it was perfect to use with Tree Rings and the Pretty Pines dies.  I coloured the pine cones with some Wink of Stella to give it a bit of festive glitz. 

Don’t forget the Online Extravaganza runs all week. Please visit helenread.stampinup.net for details and, if you order through me, please use the hostess code: CNVMKKYM

Mix It Up Monday: Color Me Happy with Stampin' Blends

It’s Mix It Up Monday again after a short break. Sorry about last week – I was I’d been away for the weekend and just didn’t get time to make a project. 

For this one, I turned to my In Color charts to find a colour combo that uses shades which match my growing collection of Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. Daffodil Delight and Pool Party; I have those so stamped myself a load of flowers from the new Color Me Happy stamp set, masking as I went so the flowers wouldn’t overlap.

Something else you can use your Blends for is to colour embellishments, such as the Pearls, which I’ve coloured here with Daffodil Delight, opening up a whole new world of possibility!

Mix It Up Monday: Hearts Come Home

Feeling festive? I hope so, as today’s project uses the Hearts Come Home bundle and some shiny copper embossing. 

I rose to the Mix It Up Monday challenge by die-cutting the image twice - once in Tranquil Tide and once in Cherry Cobbler - then pieced the trees together. There’s also some Copper Foil behind the house windows and some lovely copper embossing. For more colour combos, please see my In Color charts.

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.

Painted Harvest in rich purple shades

The first Friday of each month is Crafty Friday – a relaxing class suitable for all abilities. There is often an element of freestyle, where we all begin from the same starting point and then go our own way, if we wish. 

So we all made the card on the left, then moved onto a simple easel card. The Painted Harvest stamp set proved really popular, especially in these gorgeous rich colours of Berry Burst, Fresh Fig, Soft Suede, Tranquil Tide and Lemon Lime Twist. Yum!

To see the projects made by the six ladies who came to the class, please visit my Facebook page. 

Pieces and Patterns gift wrap

I LOVE these dinosaurs and I LOVE Lemon Lime Twist, too... so I made my friend and helper Kelly this cute gift bag to carry her birthday present. Yes it’s a stamp set and no, I don’t have measurements, sorry, I just winged it. I do remember that I needed to use 12x12 for the base, if that’s any help. (No, it isn’t really, is it?)

Mix It Up Monday: sneak peek Cat Punch

As you may have gathered, the product I am most excited about in the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue is the cat punch. And, as I have no reason to celebrate Halloween, I’ve been looking for ways to use it for other occasions. 

Not sure what occasion would warrant this particular Mix It Up Monday project but it kept me amused for half an hour. And I’m proud to say that I stamped the words in one go. 

Here’s my three-step method for stamping with the Labeler Alphabet stamp set (or any alphabet set):

1. Draw a fine pencil line along a ruler and mark the centre point.
2. Have the word or phrase written on scrap paper so you can copy it (it’s so easy to stamp the wrong letter otherwise), then count the characters – including spaces and any punctuation – to work out the centre point.
3. Stamp from the centre point outwards; this is when having the phrase written down will help as you will be stamping half of it in reverse. 

I scoured my In Color charts for a combo with a cat shade in it (I’m not quite ready for fantasy cats in crazy colours but I’ll get there) and found this one… and a mistake which slipped through not one, not two but THREE proofreaders! Yes, the chart says Tangelo Twist, which is a retired In Color, when actually I meant to say Tangerine Tango. I always get those two mixed up. 

Mix It Up Monday: Tranquil Tide with Vintage Leaves

Tranquil Tide goes brilliantly with copper, so I placed some Copper Foil behind this die-cut piece to create a contrasting border for this Mix It Up Monday project. 

The dies are in the new Card Front Builder set, which is an Autumn/Winter catalogue product available a month early. It’s part of the festive Carols of Christmas bundle but there’s not reason you can’t use it all year round. 

What I like about the border stamps is that it only die-cuts one end, so you cut one end and then run it through the Big Shot again to cut the other. This means it fits our card sizes in the UK as well as those in the US, which are proportioned slightly differently. 

For autumn (which I’m afraid to say is looming large), there’s no finer stamp set than Vintage Leaves and this is a pretty good colour combo, too, if I say so myself. It comes from my In Color charts, which feature 50 colour combos using the latest In Colors. 

I sponged the top image in Cajun Craze and Early Espresso onto Very Vanilla, with leaves die-cut from the two colours of cardstock in the background. That’s it, quite a simple card, topped off with a greeting from Better Together (a must-have, in my opinion). 

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)

Mix It Up Monday: Carols of Christmas sneak peek

Hello Monday… and goodbye July. Today is the last day to take advantage of the best sign-up offer I’ve ever seen. Join today and you’ll get this stamp set free, as well as a fabulous pack of vital craft tools to add to you stash. 

It’s also the last day to earn a Bonus Days coupon to spend in August – spend £45 today and get a £4.50 voucher to spend next month. 

But most of all, it’s Monday, and time for another project using a colour combination from my In Color charts. Today’s Mix It Up Monday project is a CASE of this gorgeous project by Holly Stene. Unfortunately I didn’t have any suitable ribbon so my version is a little plainer. 

It uses the new Carols of Christmas stamp set and co-ordinating Card Front Builder dies, which will be in the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue (goes live in September) but you can purchase from tomorrow. There are lots of possibilities with this set and I look forward to showing you more projects… when I get time to make some!

The colour combination uses a splash of Lemon Lime Twist, which is a favourite of mine but even I had to admit that it probably wasn’t appropriate on this particular Christmas card, so I kept it as subtle as possible. 

For the trees, I stamped them lightly in Whisper White using Timeless Textures, then embossed with white embossing powder to create a frosted look. I don’t know what’s got into my lately... I don’t usually emboss anything and now I can’t seem to stop!

Bookmark card challenge with Pieces & Patterns and Pop of Paradise

At my last meeting for my team of Stampin’ Up!® demonstrators, we held an informal shoebox swap. I always make it “informal” because so many of my team are very busy people, holding down full-time jobs and volunteering commitments, as well as having families. So the deal is, if you have time, you bring a project for everyone to make. If you don’t... you just come along and enjoy it. It all balances out in the end.

One of my team, Ian (yes, men can be demonstrators, too!) had a brilliant idea to bring us all a half-finished project. We all received the basis of this card – with a diagonal pocket on the front and a plain bookmark inside. The challenge was to decorate it and post it to our team Facebook page.

I was a bit slow to complete mine but this mean I could see what everyone else had done – naturally, people leaned towards the floral and pretty, so I thought I’d go for something completely different... with a dinosaur. The leaves from Pop of Paradise are just what this little dino needs to hide in – and three three shades of green (Old Olive, Tranquil Tide, Lemon Lime Twist) co-ordinate and contrast perfectly.  Hope you like it!

Clean and simple Pieces & Patterns

So you think you don’t have time to make your own cards? Think again. I turned out 20+ of these note cards – with stamped envelopes – in about half an hour. That’s just over a minute per card.

And if you’re wondering why the photo doesn’t show the pure Whisper White of the note cards, it’s because they’re not white. We now sell these handy little fellas in Very Vanilla, which is just perfect to co-ordinate with the Cajun Craze bear, Lemon Lime Twist pencil and Tranquil Tide greeting.