Painted Poppies Week: Simple to Stepped-up

I haven't posted a #simplestamping project for a while, so here you are... with a stepped-up calendar version thrown in for good measure.

This calendar card was one of my Cuppa & Card projects in January. It was a rash decision to make something so time-consuming within our one-hour session, but I had some calendar tabs to use up.

However, just in case I had more people turn up than calendar tabs, I had the second #simplestamping card ready to go. Same design as the calendar, just stuck onto a notecard instead. Cunning, eh?

Get the trendy white-on-black look of embossing without the tools, the faff and the time by using the new Label Me Bold stamp set. I love it!

Co-ordination Products are released today!

More new products? Yes indeedy! These are all designed to help you get more out of some favourite current stamp sets. But be warned... they're only available while supplies last!

Take a look at what you can purchase, then check out the video at the bottom of this post. My favourite is the Sending Flowers Dies set, because you can use it with so many different stamp sets.

See the products in action in this video

Painted Poppies Week... starring Blackberry Bliss

I hope you enjoyed Sale-a-Bration week last week. This week it's Painted Poppies Week! In celebration of this beautiful stamp set which is on page 26 of the Spring/Summer catalogue and part of the stunning Peaceful Poppies Suite.

To kick things off, here is one of my Stampy Buffet projects, which uses Blackberry Bliss and Poppy Parade: who would have thought this would be a match made in heaven? But I love how it makes the poppies really pop. 

Colour the poppies using ink pads and blender pens, then stamp some splatters around the heads, making sure to stamp off onto some scrap paper first, so that they are not swamped by bright colour. 

Sale-a-Bration Week: Do The Impossible

Which one would you send? I made three versions of this card for my Stampy Buffet last weekend, so I could showcase all three main image designs in the Do The Impossible stamp set. It was well received and some people made more than one design to send to friends.

To turn it into a birthday card, I added a greeting with Itty Bitty Birthdays, which I knew would be of more use to the ladies attending.

Where's the Sale-a-Bration product? That's the Stone Embossing Folder which is half of a bundle you can earn free during Sale-a-Bration. It gives the card a lovely texture.

 

Create an especially neat flag by using the Tailored Tag punch. Simply poke one end of your cardstock strip into the punch to get the flagged end. 

Sale-a-Bration Week - The Gang's All Meer (again)

 

Another day, another meerkat project... this time from my Stampy Buffet and inspired by Amy O’Neill. It's a quick and simple project in cheery Daffodil Delight, with some Night of Navy thrown in so I could justify using the Baker’s Twine. Always thinking, you see!

They’re coloured with ink pad lids (Soft Suede, Sahara Sand and Crumb Cake) and blender pens. Nothing fancy!

Don't try to tie the twine around the little flags – just tie a bow and stick it on with a glue dot. Simples (see what I did there? No? Perhaps you’re not from the UK? In which case just Google “meerkat simples”)

Sale-a-Bration Week: The Gang's All Meer

How cute are these little meerkats? So far it has been the most popular Sale-a-Bration stamp set with my customers. Is it on your Sale-a-Bration wish list?

I teamed it with a strip of Country Club Designer Series paper - you get a few small sheets of this in the mini DSP sampler you get free when you sign up as a demonstrator during Sale-a-Bration.

The background is pretty old-school - just a cactus stamped in Sahara Sand on the same coloured cardstock. If an idea works, why not recycle it?

The greeting is from Label Me Bold – a must-have stamp set in my opinion!

For this project, I dug out my Stampin' Blends alcohol markers; shades of Crumb Cake, Ivory and Bronze give you lots of variety to make each meerkat an individual.

Sale-a-Bration Week: Happy Birthday to You

My customers are nothing if not honest – and excellent at bursting your pride. A few weeks ago I showed this to a flower-loving customer, fully expecting her to love it. She quickly cast it aside and said “it’s a bit old ladyish”.

Well call me an old lady but I quite like it – and so did several of the guests at my Stampy Buffet on Saturday! It just shows how everyone has different tastes and how you just can’t predict what people will like.

It uses the Happy Birthday to You Sale-a-Bration stamp set, which is simply coloured with Watercolour Pencils and – less simply – fussy cut with scissors. Wait until 3rd Feb and you will be able to order dies which will do all the hard work for you!

Stamp your greeting before running the white layer through the Subtle Embossing Folder. I always think this gives your cards a really professional edge. Bonus tip: the border is simply a  line doodled with a marker. Don’t worry about accuracy – the wobblier the better!

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!

Peaceful Poppies desk calendar

 

We all love a no-waste project, don't we? And this pretty desk calendar gives you two projects in one.

Inspired by Susan Itell, who has detailed instructions here, (https://simplestampin.com/2017/12/super-practical-oh-easy.html), I made this for my purple-loving host, using Peaceful Poppies Designer Series Paper. It's hard to cover the gorgeous flower images but this Blackberry Bliss side is beautiful, too.

Because the project is made from half a sheet of 12"x12' cardstock, from which you cut a 3"x6" piece, you get to make a sweet little 3"x3" card with the leftovers. Very easy, very cute and a great January project.

Colour your leaves from Peaceful Poppies simply by stamping on top with the large splatter stamp from the same set. No faff, and you can do two or more at a time!

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.