Celebrate gift envelopes with Tropical Chic

These envelopes contain a little gift for some of my team members who took part in a challenge recently. I used the Calligraphy Essential stamp set combined with the Celebrate You dies in the cheery colours of Grapefruit Grove, Bermuda Bay and Pineapple Punch.

The focal point are these lovely flowers from Tropical Chic, sponged and stamped to give them a slight two-tone effect. Simple, and effective.

A celebration in Bermuda Bay

This card was heavily inspired by Yana Smakula and I just knew the Bermuda Bay would be perfect for my friend and downline Kelly.

I brayered the whole piece from top to bottom using Coastal Cabana and Bermuda Bay (Kelly’s favourite SU colour), then embossed in copper using the spots from Dragonfly Dreams. I couldn’t find any word stamps in my collection which were big enough to stand out in the centre of the project, so die-cut the “celebrate” from copper foil instead. 

Some of the leaves are cut from the Delightfully Detailed laser-cut DSP, while others are die-cut using the Tropical Thinlits.  Hope she liked it!

Tropical Chic celebration card

I’m quite chuffed with how this card turned out, which is a relief as it’s for a very special occasion. It’s not every day that one of your team reaches such a major milestone as their 10th anniversary! Congratulations go to Kellie for sticking around – here’s to many more years!

To create the background I stamped repeatedly using Granny Apple Green, stamping over and over again without reinking to get various shades of green. I added some Petal Pink speckles to give a lift and to link to the die-cut Petal Pink flowers. These Basic Adhesive-Backed Sequins give it the perfect finishing touch. 

Tropical leaves, cool colours

Here’s an example of just using the dies without the stamps. You can create a lovely layered effect with the squre die in different shades; I’ve used cool colours to show you don’t have to keep it tropical all the time. And can you spot the Subtle Embossing Folder again? I do love this folder; you’ll be seeing a lot of it!

Tropical Chic week!

It’s time for another themed week, this time – in honour of our tropical weather – I am focussing on Tropical Chic.

This is a really fun and on-trend bundle of products. There’s a stamp set and dies, but you could easily work with one or the other. 

I had just the dies to work with for my OnStage display projects and had lots of fun. But the stamps went on my first catalogue order, to increase the project possibilities. 

This week I will be showcasing five projects using these products – but the possibilities don’t end there, far from it. My head is teeming with more ideas that I just haven’t had time to make just yet. I will be revisiting this bundle in the future, I promise. 

This project uses a totally tropical colour combo and involved splashing ink onto wet watercolour paper to create a pretty random effect. When it was dry, I cut it out using the square die you see in the photo above. And can you spot the Subtle Embossing Folder? It’s very well named but I promise you’ll love it. Lots of my customers have ordered this after seeing it on my sample projects – a photograph really can’t do it justice. Just trust me and buy it – you won’t regret it!

Tropical Chic in super bright colours

I held a Stampin’ Up!® party on Friday for the first time in years. This is a shameful admission when you think I am very keen for other people to hold them. And it also made me wonder I haven’t been doing it more often as I had a great time... didn’t have to pack the car or drive anywhere, and thoroughly enjoyed choosing my free products!

A BIG thank you is in order to everyone who came along and ordered products, and generally made the evening a fun one.

I demoed the Tropical Chic bundle, which I’m delighted to play with at last. I’ve had the dies since February, for my Display Team projects, but have only just taken delivery of the stamps.

Above is the Make & Take, which I CASEd from the latest edition of Stampin’ Success (the magazine for demonstrators) but changed to even brighter colours. I’m a big fan of the new, revamped Brights collection!

This was the prize for the evening which, in the absence of Karen, inevitably went to Sharon. This seems to be how it works at EVERY party. Karen nearly always wins (although she denies it!) and, if she’s not there, Sharon will win.

This was my 3D demonstration... a fun little teabag holder. I used the ‘smoosh technique’ on the watercolour paper before cutting out with this fun die.

As for the teabag holder, I have another version of this to show you on Wednesday so please do pop back, and I may even have some instructions for you.

What do you think of the colour combo? Too bright? Not bright enough? I’d love to hear your thoughts...

Citrus zing gifts for my crafty buddies

Today I’m returning from a weekend away in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales, where I spent several days crafting with some of my stamping friends. With one exception, these are all ladies I would not have known, if it wasn’t for Stampin’ Up!® Yes, SU really does Make a Difference. 

As we are crafty ladies, we like to celebrate each other by swapping handmade gifts. I put together these little pouches with a mix of old and new products. The bags are long retired but needed using up, the sequins and Tutti Frutti paper is going at the end of the month but I’m sure you’ve realised my obsession with this paper by now... and the rest of the produts are coming soon.

Look out for these gorgeous Tropical Thinlits – don’t they look great in acid colours? And don’t miss this Lined Alphabet stamp set; it’s so clear and clean and I love it.

I’ve given the leaves some texture by stamping with Artisan Textures; another new stamp set which I was lucky enough to win at OnStage Telford last month. It’s one of those sets you could be forgiving for overlooking in the catalogue, but it’s going to be so useful especially if, like me, you like a touch of grunge adding to your projects.

Sneak Peek: Tropical Thinlits meets the macramé trend

Remember those push-the-boat-out tropical plants I showed you last week? These are the same dies but used to make a bang-on-trend macramé-themed card.

It’s worrying to think that macramé is now back in fashion, as I remember it the last time round. If that’s not a sign of getting old, I don’t know what is.

I made a basket using the Layering Ovals Framelits (just slice an oval in half!) and the Basket Weave embossing folder, then painted some die-cut leaves with watered down inks. You could paint the watercolour paper first and then die-cut; it really doesn’t matter.

I knotted some linen thread at the top to create the hanging element of the basket, splashed some ink around and finished it off with this beautiful ribbon, which I now know to be Gorgeous Grape, although at the time of making this card, all I had was a roll of unlabelled ribbon to play with and the excitement of knowing that a Colour Revamp was on its way but being unable to tell anyone about it!
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Sneak Peek: Tropical Thinlits mini house plants tutorial

Time for another Sneak Peek! This was one of the projects I made for my display at OnStage Telford at the beginning of the month and it was probably the one I was most proud of... mainly because it’s so far out of my comfort zone.

I was sent a pack of Tropical Thinlits – some fabulous new tropical leaf dies from the upcoming catalogue. However, I was not sent the co-ordinating stamps (not complaining, I received LOADS of products!) so was left wondering about how to use them. It’s actually interesting trying to work without the catalogue as you have NO pre-conceived ideas about using the set and I got it into my head that they were intended to make a 3D plant. Now of course I have the catalogue... and it features precisely zero 3D projects made with these dies!

I was confused by a die that I haven’t used here, but it turned out that it works with a flower stamp which I fully intend to order when I can!

Anyway, lots of people were asking how I made these, so here’s how. Sorry there are no images but seriously I can NEVER make these again!

1. Die-cut LOADS of leaves in various shades of green cardstock

2. Sponge those leaves in same or slightly darker ink

3. Curl using bone folder

4. Cut very narrow strips (5mm, ish) of green cardstock for stems, then break down the fibres using a bone folder. Eventually, the cardstock will split into two layers which can be separated. This makes it thinner and easier to work with.

5. Wrap these thin layers of cardstock around some florists’ wire, spiral-fashion, and secure with Tombow or similar wet glue. I think I actually applied PVA with a paintbrush. Allow to dry then assemble the leaves.

Make the boxes. These are simple 5cm square boxes, at different heights. If you cut and score first, then emboss, you can line up one of the edges to the edge of the embossing folder so you can get it all done. Does that make sense?

There’s a narrow strip of cardstock around the top edge of each planter, and the edges are all sponged in Crumb Cake.

Ok, the science bit... getting the plants to stand up in the planters.

1. Make a platform the same size as the box (ie with a 5cm square top) but about 1cm smaller in height. This will look like a simple drawing of a stool or table. So that would be a piece of cardstock measuring about 5cm x 13cm, scored at 4cm from either end.

2. Punch holes in the top of the platform - ie the centre square, then poke the leaves through, taping underneath. From the side it might look like this...

3. Don’t worry about arranging the leaves just yet as they’ll only move. 

4. When all the leaves are taped in, you can apply glue to the sides of the platform and then slide it into the box.

5. Next I took some Early Espresso cardstock, which I tore into small pieces and rolled into tiny balls. This was very, very boring to do but was really worth it as everyone was asking about them because they did look like soil. 

6. I applied a thick layer of Tombow onto the top of the platform, in between the leaf stems, and filled it with the balls of cardstock. 

Finally, it’s time to arrange the leaves to look nice. A lot of effort but was it worth it? I think so, yes. Would I do it again? Definitely not!