Sale-a-Bration Week - Power of Hope

A Sale-a-Bration Celebration is long overdue! Every day this week I will be showcasing projects featuring at least one Sale-a-Bration product. I don't have them all so there will be some repeats, but hopefully they will give you some ideas for how to use your lovely free gifts.

Today I want to show you the much-overlooked Power of Hope. This is one of those items which you can earn with a £90 spend because you not only get the beautiful stamp set but the lovely Stone Embossing folder, too. I will be showcasing the folder on another project later in the week.

I hope you like this project because it was actually the LEAST popular at my Stampy Buffet at the weekend! Only ONE person chose to make it. Admittedly it's a bit of a fiddly project, with die-cutting, heat embossing and fussy cutting, but I really like it and thought the ladies would relish the opportunity to use the set without spending £90 to get it! You never can tell with my ladies...

You can use the tree stamp to create a pretty border by just stamping with the top of the branches. This makes the tree image so much more versatile. 

The Sale-a-Bration run-down

Sale-a-Bration runs until 31st March and has three strands:

Customers earn a free product with a minimum £45 order. Higher value products are available if you spend £90, or you can choose two of the standard free gifts.

Hosts get all their standard free gifts PLUS if their party reaches £275, they get the cute Little Ladybug stamp set, too!

New demonstrators get the best deal of all... a £99 Starter Kit containing £130 of craft supplies of their choice (as normal) PLUS a cute mini trimmer, a 6"x6" sampler pack of Designer Series Paper AND an additional stamp set of their choice. And once you’re a demonstrator, you get a discount on everything AND all the benefits that customers and hosts receive, too!

Happy Birthday to You - celebrate with a product-heavy card

Simple stamping? Not today! Heavily inspired by Stesha Bloodhart and Lauren Alarid, this is technique and product-heavy card featuring white embossing, dry embossing, paint splattering, two stamp sets, dies and a punch. Well if you've got it, why not use it?

I used Artisan Textures to stamp Balmy Blue splatters on my Whisper White cardstock before running it through the Tin Tile embossing folder (LOVE this folder!) and splattering with Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint.

The main image is from Happy Birthday to You from the Sale-a-Bration collection and the exciting news is that there will be dies to match this set available from 4th February, while supplies last.

My cake was stamped and embossed in white and coloured with Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue inks using Blender Pens. In the absence of dies (which as a demonstrator I can order now but haven't done yet), I fussy cut it, along with another couple of flowers which I popped up to add dimension.

The filigree die is from the Painted Labels dies from the Peaceful Poppies Suite and the punch is that old favourite, the Sprig Punch – not just for Christmas!

Embossing the image makes colouring it in really easy. You just colour in circles over the top, and the embossed areas will resist the ink. Just make sure you use a water-based colouring medium, rather than our alcohol-based Stampin’ Blends, as alcohol ink will stick to the shiny embossing and you’ll lose the white.

A patch of purple poppies

 

Who says poppies have to be red? They absolutely don't and I love the colourful Californian poppies which sometimes spring up unexpectedly in the garden.

Purple poppies are beautiful, too, and I've just this minute learned that they are symbol of remembrance for all those animals which served in wartime, such as the military working dogs, horses and ponies which didn’t ask to get involved in human conflicts.

On a brighter note, here are two cards I made along very similar lines, using the lovely and oft-neglected Purple Posy cardstock. 

I love the version with the bold flowers and on-trend white embossing on a black die-cut label but knew this wouldn't be practical in a home party situation so made the one with the flower border and Story Label punch, too. But which do you prefer?

We may not be able to order Purple Posy ink but we can get the look with Highland Heather by stamping off onto scrap paper first. You can also get the look with Versamark and, of course, our Stampin’ Write Marker and Stampin’ Blends Alcohol Marker.

Snow Globe Scenes dies green non-shaker card

A bonus Sunday project because time is running out for cards unless you're going to hand deliver them!

I made this project using the beautiful Snow Globe Scenes dies, although I didn't make a shaker card because I was sending this abroad so wanted to keep it as flat as possible.

I sponged the globe shape with Granny Apple Green and Pretty Peacock then splashed it with some water to give it a snowy sky.

I die-cut the snow globe base but it didn’t quite cut through on the first rolling. Instead of die-cutting again and poking all those little pieces out, I left them in and attached them to the card with double-sided tape to keep them all secured. 

Garden Goodness birthday card

In the recent stamp sale, I treated myself to the Garden Goodness stamp set... mainly so I could make this card for my daughter’s birthday.

I CASEd the idea from German demonstrator Jasmine Schulze, which made life easier! I love this stamp set and can't wait to get more time to create with it.

I stamped the image onto sticky notes to create a simple mask for the overlapping avocado effect. The greeting is heat embossed in white and cut out freehand for the fun on-trend look. Don't believe it's on-trend? Wait till you see the new Spring/Summer catalogue and Sale-a-Bration brochure!

When embossing in white, I always double up; I stamp in Whisper White and then use white embossing powder on top. Don't forget to use the embossing buddy first, to prevent any stray powder from sticking to your cardstock. 

Rusty old cogs with Garage Gears dies

I've wanted to have a play with these cogs for a long time but couldn't justify getting the whole bundle - and this is one case where three of the dies just wouldn't work well without the co-ordinating stamps.

Downline to the rescue again! One of my team members, Ian, kindly die-cut some cogs for me so I could make this card for a cyclist friend's birthday.

I used a really fun technique which was demonstrated by Kim Fee at OnStage Birmingham last November; the technique stuck with me and I've been eager to try it.

You start with a cog - mine was made from Crumb Cake cardstock - and sponge in your chosen colours. I used Early Espresso, Copper and Cajun Craze. As you go along, you add some Versamark and clear embossing powder, then brush some off, randomly. Repeat and you get this lovely rusty effect.

The cogs can be cut apart if you’re careful. The small cog looked a little ropy when I detached it from the main die-cut, so I simply hid the ropey bits behind the greeting. Nobody will know unless you’re like me and tell them!

And I've said it before but don't feel bound to stick to Suites and products designed to co-ordinate with each other. For the background of this card I used an image from Countdown to Christmas – you wouldn't know it was a Christmas stamp set. 

 

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.

Non-traditional Christmas copper

Gotta love a bit of copper and I think it makes a great choice for a non-tradtional Christmas card.

I’ve embossed the big tree from Snow is Glistening onto some Wood Textures Designer Series Paper (Kelly's idea, of course!). Similar to Wednesday’s projects, I sponged around the edges again, this time in Cajun Craze and Early Espresso, before splashing with Frost White Shimmer Paint (love this stuff!).

I finished off with some copper accents using the Detailed Deer dies. I stamped the deer in black Stazon onto Copper Foil before die-cutting him out. He hasn't stamped fully but I quite like that as it shows off more of the copper and it gives him a slightly 'aged' effect.

Snow is glistening, snowflakes are glowing

Clean and Simple these cards ain’t! But sometimes it’s fun to get stuck in and enjoy some fun techniques. 

I made these projects using the new, limited edition Snow is Glistening stamp set, which is available for November only, and even then only while supplies last.

For all of these cards, I used Pacific Point cardstock and stamped and embossed in white; I find white ink AND white embossing powder gives you a stronger image.
I sponged around the image in Pacific Point ink, then around the edges of the cardstock in Blueberry Bushel to provide more depth. This seems to make the images ‘glow’. 

For the starry/snowy event, I flicked some Frost White Shimmer Paint over the cardstock; I love it! I used the same paint, mixed with this Real Red ink, to create the delicate red dots, but here I must issue a word of caution, as over a week later, they still haven’t fully dried and I need to get round to sealing them somehow. 

You can buy this beautiful stamp set, and some great accessories to go with it, by clicking here

Peaceful Place sympathy card

The problem with sympathy cards is that when you need them, you need them in a hurry. And I prefer to keep them simple rather than put the focus on the card. So I made this quickly from my UFO (unfinished objects) box, where I have a stash of these beautiful images already watercoloured. A bit of layering, a quick greeting and it was ready to go.

I do love this image from Peaceful Place; it’s very soothing to colour in and I think it looks fab. You can make it easier to colour, as I’ve done here but you can’t see from the photo, by embossing in black.

Accented Blooms meets Pinewood Planks

Accented Blooms is one of those sets that illustrates what Stampin’ Up!® does so well - co-ordination. It goes with the Tailored Tag punch, which was launched in the spring along with a masculine set. Now the Tailored Tag punch is back for the new catalogue with a floral stamp set. I love the panel for the greeting and the big blowsy flowers.

I must admit I did think at first that this set might be a bit of a one-trick pony, but I intend to prove that theory incorrect.

For this project, I painted the image using ink pad lids and an old-fashioned paintbrush - you do have to work quickly when using Whisper White. Then I fussy-cut around the whole image - that was a decision I regretted before I was even a quarter of the way around - and mounted it onto some Whisper White cardstock embossed with one of my favourite folders; Pinewood Planks. Some of those fab new self-adhesives sequins finish it off nicely.

Dragonfly Dreams, rubber band technique and embossing with the Stamparatus

Here’s what we got up to at Crafty Friday last week; the rubber band technique. I think the effect is quite watery, so we used the beautiful stamp set, Dragonfly Dreams.

It’s a very simple and satisfying technique. We began by masking off the area you want to stamp, using sticky notes.

For the technique itself, you wrap elastic bands around a clear block, or even a block of wood would do the same job. But let’s face it, we’re stampers... so more likely to be able to lay our hands on a clear stamping block!

You use the banded block like a stamp, inking it up as normal; for this watery effect, you spritz the bands lightly with water before stamping. In our case, we also kept stamping without re-inking, to get a variety of shades.

We stamped in three colours: Crumb Cake, Granny Apple Green and Mint Macaron. When this was dry, we sponged the same area in Pool Party. You could sponge first, it really doesn’t matter. It’s so hot here at the moment that the wet ink dried almost instantly.

Next we stamped our Dragonfly using the Stamparatus, so we could emboss it in Bermuda Bay. These are the simple steps to follow:

1. Position cardstock into the Stamparatus and hold down with a magnet
2. Stamp the dragonfly in Bermuda Bay
3. Clean off the stamp, without removing it from the Stamparatus
4. Stamp on top in Versamark
5. Sprinkle on clear embossing powder and heat. 

What do you think? Do you love the rubber band technique? If so, come back on Wednesday for another example, this time to represent a grassy meadow.

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!

Dandelion Wishes and Northern Lights

Do children still use dandelion clocks to tell the time? Do they still use buttercups to find out if you like butter? And daisies to find out if he “loves you, loves you not”? Or have these innocent pastimes gone the way of scrumping and fishing for tiddlers?

Here’s another fun background technique to show off the Dandelion Wishes stamp set. This time it’s the Northern Lights technique - which is simply sponging in dark blue in with some streaks of Lemon Lime Twist thrown in. You finish it off simply by dotting with the Chalk Marker, freehand.

This background has been sitting in my UFOs (unfinished objects) box for some time, so this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

I stamped the image in Whisper White Craft Ink and then embossed in white embossing powder on top. I find this doubling up gives the crispest images.

Very little else was needed so I finished off with my last remaining pearls (must order some more!) and some white Baker's Twine. Hope you like!

It's Dandelion Wishes Week at All Things Stampy

I have a little treat for fans of the Dandelion Wishes stamp set. This week I will be posting a Dandelion Wishes project every day, from Monday to Friday.

We begin with this intensely coloured card with a bright watercoloured background, with a bit of salt technique thrown in.

On top of this we have the dandelions and greeting, embossed in Blackberry Bliss, using that oh so clever Stamparatus technique. This is where you stamp with the Stamparatus - in fact, I did this twice as it can be quite tricky to stamp onto watercolour paper, so stamping again gives you a sharper image.

Then, with the stamped cleaned off and the paper in the same position, you stamp on top with Versamark so you can add the clear embossing powder and heat it up for these stunning results.

And that’s just about all you have to do – with a background like this and such a beautiful image stamped on top, all you need is a piece of ribbon to finish things off.