Nailed It - a fun card with Labeler Alphabet

What a fun stamp set this is. It’s called Nailed It and I probably wouldn’t have bought it but I won it at the OnStage event for demonstrators and am so glad I did. It’s ideal for Father’s Day, but also for so much more. And not just masculine cards; here I’ve teamed it with Labeler Alphabet and Window Shopping to create a fun card for a friend.

I’m sure we all have a friend who fits this description. If not, you should get one, as they’re the most fun.

Honeycomb and bees with Hexagons Dynamic Embossing Folder

Just another reason to love this Hexagons Dynamic Embossing Folder: honeycomb! Turn it “upside down” and you get the perfect honeycomb effect, to co-ordinate perfectly with Dragonfly Dreams, which just happens to feature this cute bee stamp. I did cut each of the bees out by hand because the co-ordinating die cuts away the middle of the bee, which I didn’t want in this case as I wanted to show the blue of the wings and the yellow of the body. Love this set, love this folder!

Mix It Up Monday: Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits gift bag

It’s Mix It Up Monday again I’m getting to the end of the Peekaboo Peach colour combinations from my In Color charts, which is quite exciting for me, as it’s no secret that it’s not my favourite colour. 

But it’s ideal for creating prototype projects, which is what I did here; this is a ‘first draft’ of a project for my upcoming All-Day Craftathon. I combined a few products – Marquee Messages for the greeting, Awesomely Artistic for the foliage, along with the ever-popular Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits and, of course, the Gift Bag Punch Board. 

The Metallic Ribbon is a Sale-a-Bration item – you get 6.4m each of white with silver, and vanilla with gold, and it’s beautiful. Definitely worth getting if, like me, you’re running low on ribbon, as it will go with everything. 

(Spot the) Cat-urday: Hamish

A bit fuzzy, but I had to zoom in as far as I could to capture this image of Hamish, a neighbour cat, sitting in the field at the bottom of our garden. Since Tutheran took up residence by our back door, we haven’t seen as much of Hamish as we used to, because the two of them fight like cat and... cat. No sitting around staring for these two, they just get straight in there and fur flies.

If only I could find a home for Tutheran. He really is a lovely cat now – just can’t be homed with other cats.

Marquee Messages birthday duo

Marquee Messages is such a great set for creating cheery birthday greetings. Here I’ve used just a hint of the Carried Away Designer Series Paper, which is FREE with a £45 order during Sale-a-Bration (which runs until 31st March).

I created a card and matching box for one of my club members, Angela, who celebrated her birthday this week. Club members commit to spending £15 a month for 10 months, each taking it in turns to be the host. As a thank you for their commitment, club members get a card and gift in their birthday month. Angy loves bright colours, so I ran with that!

Celebrations Duo embossing folder with Blooms & Wishes

I was delighted to see that some of my team members had promoted to Silver, so created these pretty cards - with a hint of silver glimmer paper - to mark the occasion. I used Blooms & Wishes combined with the fab new debossing folders, Celebrations Duo (p40, Spring/Summer catalogue). These are really fun as they work in the opposite way to our usual embossing folders, which allows you to stamp on top and around the image.

For the perfect sentiment, ”so proud of you”, I used Marquee Messages. Finally, a touch of bling!

And for one of my new recruits, a similar version using Color Enamel Shapes...

Mix It Up Monday: Dragonfly Dreams with Inside the Lines DSP

Another Mix It Up Monday outing for the Sale-a-Bration freebie, Inside the Lines Designer Series Paper. This time I’ve used a fruity colour combination from my In Color charts in a CASE of a design by LeeAnn Greff. 

I really liked the way she’d coloured the designer paper, although I chose sponging as my method, which achieved a similar result. I love the idea of adding colour to the whole piece rather than attempting to colour those tiny flowers, as I did last week.

I did decide to make the flowers pop a little by adding a dot of white with the Chalk Marker to the centre of each one. And, to make a change, I used a greeting from Balloon Adventures, which was a little narrower than the ones in Dragonfly Dreams, so was a better fit for my square of cardstock. 

The large dragonfly is stamped in Night of Navy on Whisper White, and sponged with Flirty Flamingo. 

Caturday Mr Winky kicks back

Mr Winky is feeling relaxed and a little bit sexy on his favourite chair. Wasn’t so relaxed when I took him to the vet this week for a medication review. He has some sort of allergy – probably cat fur (I made that bit up) – so takes a very low dose of steroids every few days in a ball of cheese. It’s VERY exciting when I rattle the pill bottle!

Hey, Chick! It's Friday!

We couldn’t head into the weekend without another chicken card, could we? This was the Make & Take from my team meeting recently; I wanted to show the team the amazing versatility of the new Dynamic Hexagons embossing folder.

Yes, the chicken wire is made with the embossing folder - simply ink it up and press directly onto your cardstock. I love this embossing folder – it goes with everything! Masculine, feminine, chicken wire, honeycomb... if you don’t have it yet, it would be a valuable addition to your next order! Bump it up to £45 and you could choose this fabulous chicken stamp set as your free gift!

And if you fancy joining the fun and becoming a demonstrator, I’d love to welcome you into my team. There are so many advantages to being a demonstrator that I won’t even try to go into them here, but if you have any questions, please do drop me a line. And if you’re ready to take the plunge, just click the image below!

Celebrations Duo embossing folders

This is a fun product which won’t break the bank: Celebrations Duo Textured Impressions Embossing Folders. They’re on p40 of the Spring/Summer catalogue, tucked away at the top. Two folders, one spells “Happy” (as you can see) and one spells “celebrate”.

I’ve combined it with Marquee Messages to create a simple and bright card for my teenage nephew (not an easy audience, I’m sure you’ll agree!).

What’s particularly fun about these folders is that they deboss rather than emboss, which makes a change and also allows for some fun techniques, such as stamping around the image to create an outlined word, just as the Stampin’ Up!® designers have done for this project shown on p41...