Sneak peek: Cheers & Sips bundle... coming soon from Stampin’ Up!®

There are new Stampin’ Up!® products coming your way in May... and they are NOT all in the new Annual Catalogue!

For this latest Stampin’ Up!® release, many of my favourite products – like this Cheers & Sips bundle – are in the Online Exclusives. And so, for the first time ever, I will be using an Online Exclusives bundle and coordinating Designer Series Paper at my Summer Craft Day here in Derbyshire.

I was crafting with this gorgeous new stamp and die set at the weekend, and made three pretty projects to give you a sneak peek of what’s to come.

Faux two-step stamping with Wildflower Designs

 

I have a really fun two-step stamping technique to show you today, using the Stampin’ Up!® stamp set Wildflower Designs, some Petunia Pop ink and a water spritzer.

Using a spritz of water, I turned Wildflower Designs into a two-step stamp.

It was a lot of fun – and mess – and I love the results. Read on to find out how I did it.

Three card ideas using Wildflower Designs from Stampin’ Up!®

 

I am always drawn to Stampin’ Up!® stamp sets featuring wildflowers, seed heads and big allium-style flowers, so it was inevitable that I would add Wildflower Designs to my craft stash.

This beautiful stamp set is part of the Wildly Flowering Suite. I thought I could get away with just purchasing the stamp set but no, I have since ordered the dies to complete the bundle at least.

If you’re on the hunt for quick and easy Stampin’ Up!® ideas, then look away now. But if you’re up for a big ole messy craft session featuring lots of ink splashing, then I am here for you!

Two fun watercolouring techniques using Dragonfly Garden

 

Do you like creating your own watercoloured backgrounds for your Stampin' Up!® cards? It's one of my favourite things to do and I have some fall-back techniques I return to, time after time.

I used two of these techniques to make some cards using the Dragonfly Garden stamp set recently.

Four fun background techniques for Let's Set Sail from Stampin’ Up!®

 

I love using my Stampin’ Up!® supplies to branch out into other techniques so have been having lots of fun creating cool backgrounds to go with the Let’s Set Sail bundle.

I’ve always been a fan of nautical and seaside-themed products so this stamp set with matching punch really floats my boat. (See what I did there?)

Here are four cards I made with the Let’s Set Sail bundle, each showcasing a different background technique. Best of all, most of them don’t require any special equipment.

Watercolouring blog hop: Three cards using Stylish Sketches Sale-a-Bration stamp set

Did you know it’s World Watercolouring Month? Or #WorldWatercolorMonth to be more precise? So I am delighted to be taking part in a blog hop celebrating this fabulous technique. 

 

 

Please read on for some tips and tricks for watercolouring using Stampin’ Up!® supplies and some inspiration using the new Stylish Sketches stamp set from the Sale-a-Bration Brochure.

Three fun ink techniques with the Harvest Meadow Suite

Today I want to show you some fun effects you can create with ink. These cards are all created with the Harvest Meadow Suite and some simpe techniques.

The first card is heavily inspired by the one on page 54 of the current Stampin’ Up!® Mini Catalogue.

 

I love creating watercolour backgrounds and often get carried away, making more than I need. Sometimes they don’t look like I want them to so I store all of these extras for future craft sessions. It was in this stash that I found this colourful yellow piece with some lovely rich greens which I thought would be perfect for the project.

I mounted the flowers onto a border created with Stitched Rectangles Dies and the beautiful Cork Speciality Paper, which is absolutely gorgeous. It’s a little pricey at £7 for two 12x12 sheets but a little goes a long way – for instance, the piece I cut out of the centre here will give me accents for three or four more projects.

The background of the card is embossed using the Timeworn Type 3D embossing folder, then swiped with Whisper White Craft Ink to make the embossed areas stand out a little more. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and if you'll forgive me blowing my own trumpet for a moment, I think I prefer my version to the one in the catalogue!

The next two cards are really simple to create using our lovely Blending Brushes. All I did was swirl the ink with the brush in the centre of the card, in a circular motion, to create this soft oval of colour. The trick here is to keep going – most people give up too early and end up with wishy-washy, uneven colour.

 

Once I was happy with the colour saturation, I splashed a little water over the top. This is one of my favourite techniques and I love how it turns out. Bigger drops equals bigger splashes (I know, who knew, right?) so start small if you're not feeling confident. 

 
These blended backgrounds provide a stunning backdrop for the crisp white die-cut flowers and grasses. 

You can cut your die-cut shapes up further. There are only two stems on the grasses on these cards because I trimmed one off to provide more balance.

The final card combines some of the above techniques, with the addition of Nature’s Harvest stamps. I stamped and die-cut the flowers, colouring in using ink from ink pad lids, applied with a Blender Pen. The grasses are again created from a watercoloured piece; it had been coloured in Mint Macaron which goes perfectly with the Soft Succulent Ribbon.

The background here is again created with the Blending Brushes, with the addition of a circular mask to create a lovely moon effect. To do this, just die-cut (or draw round something if you don't have dies) a circle from thin paper. A sticky note is ideal but otherwise you can use some thin paper and some Tombow Multi-Purpose Glue; apply some tiny dots or a thin layer and allow it to dry clear to create a temporary adhesive. Then blend with your brushes as before, starting on the mask and working outwards. Avoid working towards the edges of the mask as you can disturb it and end up putting colour exactly where you don't want it.

Have you tried any of these techniques? Which is your favourite?

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Field of Flowers on a brick wall

The Field of Flowers bundle is new and beautiful and is a great way to use up all of those watercoloured backgrounds that I have a tendency to hoard.

Here I’ve used it with the Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder, embossing Whisper White cardstock to provide a stark contrast. A few flowers punched out with the Confetti Flowers Border Punch add splashes of random colour.

I’d like to say this was a pre-planned card with sound design principles at its heart but really I just cobbled it together with some leftover pieces. Turned out okay, though, didn’t it?

Creating watercoloured backgrounds is fun, but they don't always turn out how you want. However they turn out, my tip is to save them for another day. They always look different when you’ve had a sleep, and they may just go perfectly with another project, another time.

Silhouette stamping with Field of Flowers

Field of Flowers: have you seen this new stamp set yet? I think it’s absolutely gorgeous and will be running a class with it next month. Here I’ve stamped onto beautiful watercoloured backgrounds, which really shows off the rich silhouettes.

The best way to stamp onto watercolour paper is to use the Stamparatus so you can stamp in the same spot multiple times to get the richest, darkest image.

Snow Front: with lovely lilacs

 
I have a confession: when I get a stash of new stamps, I tend to freak out a little and my mojo goes walkabout. I have no idea why – I’m brimming with ideas until the moment I open the box. This is why my first efforts with new products are invariably simple, CASEd or involved UFOs (unfinished object). This is the latter... with a leftover watercoloured background from this project.

I used the new Snow Front stamps which I know you're going to love as they are in the same vein as Waterfront... in fact you could use them together if you enjoy stamping scenes. They're available to customers from 4th September or to demonstrators now (you could always sign up, you know).

Get the dark black look of Stazon even when using Memento Tuxedo Black (which tends to come out slightly greyer) by stamping with the Stamparatus. Position your cardstock into the corner and stamp, inking and repeating until you're happy with the depth of colour. This works especially well on watercolour paper, which has a texture, and when your ink pads are drying out, too.

Smooth Sailing Dies - the lighthouse that nearly got away

I found the Come Sail Away Suite so inspiring because it appealed to my love of all things nautical and I could see watercoloured backgrounds coming into play, too.

Unfortunately, my first attempt to create lovely, rich watercoloured backgrounds didn't go to plan and all I ended up with were rejects. A few days later, however, and I was idly fiddling with a template left behind after die-cutting yet another lighthouse when I fortuitously placed it over one of my watercoloured rejects. Suddenly a new card idea was born!

I stamped my greeting then embossed the white cardstock using the Subtle Embossing Folder, then added a couple of extra elements to complete my card. And, as is so often the case, it's turned out to be one of my favourite Come Sail Away projects so far. 

Keep your rejects as you never know how you will be able to use them in the future. I keep all my in my UFO (unfinished objects) box.

Wedding card? It's a Piece of Cake

Pretty cards are a challenge for me so I struggled with this wedding card for my brother, who finally married his childhood sweetheart at the weekend, 40 years after they first met!

Eventually, I settled on the Piece of Cake Bundle, which has a lovely wedding cake image.

I used a watercoloured background, in Blushing Bride with a hint of Pool Party, then popped up the cut-out cake, which I'd stamped in Blushing Bride, Pool Party and the new colour, Rococo Rose. The greeting (Better Together - retiring) is stamped in Rococo Rose and embossed using clear embossing powder (the Stamparatus is invaluable for this technique).

It's all framed with a stitched rectangle frame, which I embossed using the Country Floral 3D embossing folder, a Sale-a-Bration item which is carrying over to the new catalogue.

Some self-adhesive sequins finish it all off.

Sneak peek: Come Sail Away Suite

 

Here's your first sneak peek (from me) from the new catalogue - from the gorgeous Come Sail Away Suite. I loved this suite so much that I think I bought the whole lot!

Something you will want to stock up on now are the Happiness Blooms Memories & More Notecards and Envelopes as these are retiring but go fantastically well with the new Memories & More cards. 

 
I asked the audience on Facebook and Instagram which watercolour backgrounds I should use out of my latest batch and they chose these. I'm still not sure about the lighthouse one but I love the one with the seaweeds and can't wait to add even more stamps to my seaside/nautical collection. 

 

Blueberry dandelions

Let’s start the week with another Dandelion Wishes project - and why not? It’s proving to be the most popular stamp set from the 2018 Annual Catalogue so far!

I used the Stamparatus to stamp the image in Blueberry Bushel, then stamp again on top in Versamark so it could be embossed. Clearly some of the embossing missed the mark as the blue ink has spread when I watercoloured in Lovely Lipstick, but I don’t mind as the result is quite effective.

I know some people are resistant to the new In Colors, because they’re rather bright, but I think they are a great addition to our collection, and can be quite tasteful when separated from the crowd!

Peaceful Place... viewed through the round window

I absolutely love this image from Peaceful Place and I’m determined to make time to use this stamp set more, if only to prove to one of my doubting customers that it IS versatile!

For this card I began by watercolouring the image on watercolour paper. I stamped with Stazon and – top tip – if you do this using the Stamparatus, you can ensure you get a totally crisp image, which doesn’t always happen when stamping on watercolour paper. How? You stamp once and then if you’ve missed a bit, or it’s simply not crisp enough, you ink up the stamp again and stamp again... in exactly the same place. 

I needed an accent to go on the card and suddenly remembered I have these lovely wooden elements which I’d almost forgotten about. They're called Frames Elements and I received them way back in February when I received my box of goodies for my OnStage display projects. I used loads of them at the time, so was surprised to see that I still have loads left. 

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!

Dandelion Wishes - embossed on a watercoloured background

Another day, another Dandelion Wishes project for your delectation. This time I have another watercoloured background, with the dandelions embossed on top using Granny Apple Green and clear embossing powder.

The Granny Apple Green came out a lot darker than I expected - this is probably because I stamped two or three times in the same position to get a full image on the watercolour paper. Stamping like this is really easy with the Stamparatus - I am now a complete convert to this amazing piece of kit!