Simple Christmas? Or stepped up?

The card on the left is a three-minute Christmas card, proving without a doubt that you DO have time to make your own cards this year. Time is saved by using the pre-folded Notecards and Envelopes, and the fabulous Suite Season Washi Tape.

Please visit my Facebook page to see how I made this card in super-fast time

The fiddliest thing about this card is the linen thread bow, but you could skip that and replace with a jewel... just be aware that the faceted gems will bump up your postage in the UK to a “large letter”, and we don’t want that!

For the stepped up version, I dispensed with the Sprig Punch and used the fabulous new Blizzard Thinlits die instead, as well as some basic rhinestones to add a mixed metallics theme.

You can also see a hint of a scalloped Cherry Cobbler edge. This is a piece of the Delightfully Detailed Laser-cut Designer Series Paper, brayered in Cherry Cobbler ink. So, on the whole, a more time-consuming project, but nice if you want to send something a bit more “special” to a close friend or family member. Or, if we’re being honest here, a fellow cardmaker. We know we all save our “best” cards for crafters, don’t we?

Keeping it simple for Christmas

I have a Stampin’ Up!® party tonight for a lady who prefers her projects to be quick and easy. This is the perfect time of year for quick and easy cards, especially if you’re planning to make all your own Christmass cards. So my challenge has been to produce a Make & Take which could be used as a really simple Christmas card design, perfect for making in bulk.

No spoilers, though... this isn’t it. This is one of the ones that got away. I decided I could possibly scale things back even further. Come back next week to see the finished design...

Love You Lots birthday card with Birthday Bright sneak peek

For all those of you who have birthdays at the “wrong” time of year... you know, the time of year when birthday cards are shoved to one corner in the shop, when everyone “forgets” it’s your birthday because they’re too busy with Christmas or, worse, gives you a “joint Christmas and birthday present”.

This is for my big brother who, inexplicably, really likes ladybirds. It’s a bit of a mish-mash of past, present and future... with some retired washi tape I bought from the Clearance Rack, a current hostess set and a future greeting set which we were all given at OnStage and which I know you’re going to love.

Love You Lots Clear-Mount Stamp Set [141801] £8.00	Dapper Denim A4 Cardstock [141419] £7.25	Watercolor Paper [122959] £4.50	Jet Black Stazon Ink Pad [101406] £8.25
Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad [126949] £6.00	Dapper Denim Classic Stampin' Pad [141394] £6.00	Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad [131181] £6.00	Season Of Cheer Designer Washi Tape [139611] £7.25

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15 Stampin' Up!® products you can used for Mixed Media projects

Yes you CAN use SU products for mixed media, as I’ve been enjoying finding out lately. I decided to make a list of some of the items you can use. I bet you already have loads of these, so what are you waiting for? Get messy!

Hello Life project hack

Happy Easter! I hope you have a pleasant and restful day.

This project is something completely different for me. I made it at our homemade crafty retreat last weekend.

In the later planning stages, I mentioned that I fancied having a go at the Hello Life Project Kit on page 6 of the Spring/Summer catalogue, but unfortunately we’d left it a bit late to order in time for our event.

But we are crafty ladies, remember, and will always find a way. So, using the powers of next-day delivery, we ordered some black cooling racks and decided to see what we could come up with.

After removing the legs with pliers, and with only the photo in the catalogue to go on, we set to work.

It turns out that the Project Life Accessory Packs are PERFECT for a Hello Life project hack. (It also turns out that I NEED a lot more Project Life Accessory Packs - they are exactly what lots of us are looking for… a wide variety of embellishments in small numbers. And you can use them for lots of projects, not just scrapbooking!)

With the contents of several craft rooms on hand (lots of us had over-packed!), we had not problem creating our own take on this fabulous project. The only thing I couldn’t lay my hands on were window sheets for the shaker element, but we compromised with a cello bag.

My top tip for creating this project comes from my friend, Ann. After noticing how tricky it was to peg your elements onto the frame, she decided that glueing them on was the way forward, using the pegs merely for show. However, my glue dots weren’t co-operating, which is why my striped heart shaker is at such a rakish angle! Sticky Strip would be better. You could still peel them off later to change the display. 

My second tip would be to ditch the pompoms, as they are very time-consuming to create!

The frame with the white background is for a photo, which can be slid in the side. The banners are made from a combination of cardstock and Project Life cards. 

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Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com

Life in the Forest thank you cards with Birthday Bash washi sheets

Time is running out to enjoy the benefits of Sale-a-Bration! You have until 10pm tomorrow (Tuesday) to order, so the best way for you do this is to order online, via my online store. You could order by contacting me, but I’ll need the order by 5pm please. Shipping is £4.95 and it will come directly to a UK address of your choice.

It‘s also your last chance to sign up during Sale-a-Bration. If you do this before 10pm Tuesday, you’ll get a choice of freebies, as outlined in this post.  You can sign up in minutes, by clicking here... and it will only cost you £99!

Now, a little puzzle for you... apart from the sentiment, can you spot where I used a SAB stamp set on this card? You’ll find the answer if you scroll down.

While you ’re thinking, let me tell you about the washi sheets. They’re quite exciting. They are literally what they say on the packet... big (about 6"x12" but don’t quote me on that) sheets of washi “tape’. You get two each of four designs, so eight sheets in total, and they work just like washi tape, because that’s what they are! You can punch it, cut it, tear it or die-cut it, as I’ve done here. It’s cool to see what happens to the patterns when you overlay them.

I made these little cards for my Virtual Hostess Club members, to thank them for their latest orders. The mouse is coloured with blender pens and a smidge of Coastal Cabana ink. The speech bubble for the Thank You is flipped over, so that it faces the right way (well, the right way to me!).

Finally, the answer to the puzzle... the mouse is standing on some “grass” I made using the stem from Lotus Blossom. But, as it’s a photopolymer stamp set and very long and thin, it was easy to manipulate it on the block so that the ground became a wavy line, instead of a relatively straight one. I stamped it repeatedly, stamping off to get various shades, too.

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Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com

A Happy Thing Sale-a-Bration stamp set

I didn’t look twice at this stamp set when I first flicked through the Sale-a-Bration brochure but now it’s one of my favourites. It’s particularly great with our Blendabilities, and very easy to colour, as I discovered when I made a big batch of thank you cards last week for a huge workshop order. 

I made two different designs. The main batch used Chalk Lines to create a fun background. To do this, after stamping the lemon and greeting on my Whisper White cardstock, I stamped them again on a sticky note and cut it out, leaving a few millimetres around the edge. I used this to mask the image and stamp the rows of hearts to create the background. 

For the hostess, I created a card with two lemons, cutting a second one out and popping it up.

Colouring the images was easy with Blendabilities. My top tip is: work fast. You have to colour each section in full before moving onto the next one. So each leaf needs all three pens using on it before you can move on, otherwise the ink will dry and it won’t blend as easily. 

The washi tape is retired - it’s from the Autumn/Winter catalogue, but I had it in my drawer and there’s a similar design available now; you’ll find the link to that in the table below. 

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Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com