More Hopeful Thoughts

Am living in a winter wonderland right now so really should have something snowy to show you but I don’t, I am staying with the sympathy theme.  I made this card recently for one of my team members who had suffered a loss within the family. I wanted to keep it pretty plain but, because she’s a stamper, thought I could risk a few pearls to add a touch of elegance. Of course, this design could be made for any occasion, and there are lots of greetings which could be substituted using Curly Cute. It's a gorgeous set and one of my favourites at the moment - can't believe I held off buying it for so long. 

If you invested in both of these stamp sets in wood-mount, it would come to £46.90, earning you a Sale-a-Bration stamp set or Designer Series Paper. If you chose the clear-mount version of Curly Cute (Hopeful Thoughts is only available in wood), you could add the Basic Pearls for a total of £47.40 to earn yourself a freebie. Click here for more details. 

Stamps: Hopeful Thoughts, Curly Cute

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy, Confetti White

Ink: Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy

Accessories: Basic Pearls

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Simple get well/sympathy card

Hopeful Thoughts again, this time used for its original purpose: a Get Well card. This design is probably more suited to a sympathy card, being pretty plain. I don’t like to go over the top for sympathy cards.

In fact, this is not quite finished as we actually added at tiny flower and a pearl to the tree. But if I decided to dig out the card and finish it off properly it would never ever make it to the blog.

And with that, I believe here endeth the Stamp-a-Stack projects at last! 

Stamps: Hopeful Thoughts

Cardstock: Old Olive, Baja Breeze, Crumb Cake, Whisper White

Ink: Old Olive, Baja Breeze

Accessories: Itty Bitty Punches and Basic Pearls (not shown)

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You're so square card

Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive is a tried and tested colour combo but here I’ve given it a bit of a twist with the subtle addition of Pumpkin Pie. This is a 5” square card to fit the new Whisper White square envelopes we now have in the main catty. To make best use of cardstock, for my Stamp-a-Stack I cut the card blanks from sheets of 12x12 - you get two from a sheet with a useful strip of cardstock left over. The Rich Razzleberry square has been cut with the Scallop Square die and then embossed with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder.

The main image is from Hopeful Thoughts – not just for get well cards and sympathy cards! It’s been coloured using Old Olive and Rich Razzleberry markers, then topped with a few tiny pearls. A Pumpkin Pie greeting completes the card, and picks up the very narrow Pumpkin Pie cardstock layer.

Stamps: Hopeful Thoughts, It’s Your Day

Cardstock: Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White

Ink: Pumpkin Pie

Accessories: Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive markers, basic pearls, Elegant Bouquet embossing folder, Scallop Square die, Big Shot

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What's this? Bling?!

Valentine’s Day looms and this card would work for that occasion or for a birthday. It uses the Perfect Postage stamp set from the Spring Mini, the co-ordinating punch (which, as you can see, fits on top of the existing Scallop Square Punch) and what’s that? A bit of bling? Yes, the new Glimmer Paper from the Spring Mini, too!

Now you know me and glitter – they do not go together and one of the reasons is that I always end up with it everywhere. The glimmer paper completely eliminates that problem. I saw a few people at the Stamp-a-Stack having a surreptitious rub of the paper, to see if the glitter would shed. They found, just as I did when I did the same, that it just doesn’t budge! Highly recommended at just £3.95 for two 12x12 sheets – unless you have a total bling-fest, the pack will last and last. Oh, and you can put it with just about any red and it looks fine – here it’s with Cherry Cobbler, but I’ve also used it with Poppy Parade and it looks great next to Real Red, too. Not tried Riding Hood yet but that’s probably not such a good match.

Stamps: Perfect Postage, It’s Your Day

Cardstock: Rose Red, Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler

Ink: Cherry Cobbler

Accessories: Ruffled Ribbon – Pool Party, Boho Blossoms Punch, Small Heart Punch, Itty Bitty Punch Pack, Postage Stamp Punch, Scallop Square Punch, Basic Pearls, Big Shot, Polka Dot Embossing Folder.

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Charming card 2

Here’s the second Charming card from the Stamp-a-Stack. This one uses a colour combo from the Color Coach: Daffodil Delight, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso. How to get those squares so perfect? Easy: use a punch!

Stamps: Charming, It’s Your Day

Cardstock: Daffodil Delight, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight

Accessories: Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch, Modern Label Punch, Word Window Punch, Basic Pearls, 1 3/8" square punch

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Charming card

This is probably my favourite card of the Stamp-a-Stack, as I love the colours so much, although I admit I do like them all. It uses the Charming stamp set and the gorgeous new velvet ribbon from the Mini catalogue.

Can’t say much more as there’s a  cat on my knee,  “helping” me to type! Biggest wrist wrest I’ve ever used!

Stamps: Charming, It’s Your Day.

Cardstock: River Rock, Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Very Vanilla

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, River Rock

Accessories: Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch, Modern Label punch, Word window punch, basic pearls, velvet ribbon

All products by Stampin’ Up!®

Spice Cake button card

Here’s the second Spice Cake card we made at my Stamp-a-Stack, although this one has almost no stamping on it at all. I totally copied this idea (but not the colours) from a card I saw at Convention, which is one that Shelli Gardner received from a demonstrator for her 50^th birthday. No idea who made it which is a shame  because how cool would it be to have your card shown at Convention by none other than Shelli herself?

It’s a great use of those huge buttons, which can seem a little daunting at first glance. And the papers are shown off beautifully, too, simply by punching them out with the 1¾” circle punch. The sentiment is from It’s Your Day – everyone at my Stamp-a-Stack received this set in their goodie bag. I hope they like it and find it useful.

Stamps: It’s Your Day

Cardstock: Pear Pizzazz, More Mustard

Paper: Spice Cake

Ink: Soft Suede

Accessories: Mini brads, velvet ribbon, linen thread, Corner Rounder, Spice Cake buttons

All products by Stampin’ Up!®

Spiced Paisley Stamp-a-Stack project 1

I know you want to see them, so it’s back to the Stamp-a-Stack projects today. This one uses the new Spice Cake Designer Series Paper and just a hint of the Spiced Paisley stamp set. The larger images are stamped on the card base in Versamark, to create a subtle background, and the smaller images are stamped and stamped off in More Mustard on the Very Vanilla tab.

The main panel is the Spice Cake Designer Series Paper, which is just lovely. It’s finished off with some of those cute tiny brads and some gorgeous ruffled ribbon. If you changed the ribbon to linen thread or denim jean ribbon, you could make this less feminine. In fact, Angela T turned her paper over to reveal the green stripes and left the ribbon off completely, for a perfect masculine card.  

Out of interest, if you purchased the Spiced Paisley stamp set (clear-mount), any standard Designer Series Paper, the ruffled ribbon, some mini brads and a corner rounder to make this card using your own ink pads and cardstock, it would come to £45.05... a magical figure which would earn you a free Sale-A-Bration item!

Stamps: Spiced Paisley, Happiest of Birthdays (hostess)

Cardstock: Pool Party, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla

Paper: Spice Cake

Ink: Soft Suede, More Mustard, Versamark

Accessories: Mini brads, ruffled ribbon – Pool Party, Corner Rounder

All products by Stampin’ Up!®

Sale-A-Bration starts today!

Today’s the day! Sale-A-Bration has begun – click here to see the fabulous brochure! There are five items in it – four stamp sets (all available in wood-mount or clear-mount) and a pack of Designer Series Paper. They’re all beautiful and suited to very different styles. I’m particularly loving the Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Papers, and the Fresh Vintage stamp set, which co-ordinates with the new Postage Stamp punch.

This card shows off quite a few of the designs in the Everyday Enchantment paper pack and is an idea shamlessly copied from Michelle Last. I punched the pieces of Designer Series Paper using the new Postage Stamp punch and then lined them up (badly) on a Sahara Sand card base. One of my favourite stamp sets at the moment is Curly Cute, so I used that to stamp Thank You at the bottom (I figured I’d made enough birthday cards recently, I ought to switch to a different theme). The flower is die-cut using the new Blossom Party die from the Spring Mini and Poppy Parade cardstock. The centre of the flower is a Designer Printed Brad in Calypso Coral. Simples! Actually, the hardest part was lining up the little squares – in the end I gave up on aiming for perfection and went for “charmingly handmade”.

Stamps: Curly Cute

Cardstock: Sahara Sand, Poppy Parade

Paper: Everyday Enchantment (SAB)

Ink: Soft Suede

Accessories: Big Shot, Blossom Party flower die, Designer Printed Brads – In Color

All products by Stampin’ Up!®

Join the Sale-A-Bration!!!!

Taking a break from my Stamp-a-Stack projects for a moment, I must remind you that tomorrow is the start of something fabulous: Sale-A-Bration!!!!!

Those of you who have been Stampin’ Up!® fans for a while, will know just how exciting Sale-A-Bration is, because there are freebies for everyone!

Here’s how it works

There are five exclusive Sale-A-Bration (SAB) items this year; four fabulous stamp sets and a pack of absolutely gorgeous 12x12 Designer Series Paper.

Customers get a free SAB item for every £45 they spend. So, spend £90 and get two, and so on. There are no limits to the number of items you can earn.

Hostesses get an additional SAB item if their party reaches £300. This is on top of the generous year-round hostess benefits.

New recruits can choose an additional catalogue stamp set from the main Idea Book or the Spring Mini to add to their Starter Kit. The Starter Kit costs £119 and contains products worth over £250, so this deal makes it an even bigger bargain! Why not get in touch to ask me some questions; I won’t pressurise you and you really have nothing to lose.

I will post a link to the SAB brochure tomorrow but, meanwhile, here is my first SAB project, made using a SAB stamp set and some Mini catty products.  The stamp set is called French Vintage and it’s a set of five really elegant stamps, one of which co-ordinates with the new Postage Stamp punch from the Mini. The set also co-ordinates with the SAB Designer Series Papers, which are called Everyday Enchantment – but more of those another time.

This little bag is made from Designer Series Paper – I used Spice Cake because I love this Pool Party pattern. I got the idea for the cute little bag from US demonstrator Angie Juda over at http://www.chicnscratchlive.com.

I don’t have the In Color markers (won’t make that mistake again – getting them next time!) so, to colour the image, I inked it up in Pool Party and then cleaned off the stems and flowers using a cotton bud. Then I reinked those bits using a Chocolate Chip marker. Sounds harder than it really was.

SAB runs from tomorrow until 31^st March, so there are plenty are opportunities for you to earn free products. To maximise your freebies, why not book a party? I still have some dates available and can’t wait to show you and your friends just how exciting creating with Stampin’ Up!® products can be!

Stamps: Fresh Vintage (SAB)

Cardstock: Chocolate Chip textured, Very Vanilla

Paper: Spice Cake

Ink: Pool Party

Accessories: Chocolate Chip marker, 1 ¾” circle punch, large scallop circle punch, ruffled ribbon – Pool Party, eyelet border punch

All products by Stampin’ Up!®