Bundle of Love for my Secret Stork

 I'm not sure what happened with the colours in todays photos. This card is actually created using Pretty In Pink cardstock but in this photo it seems to have taken on an orange-y hue.

I am taking part in a Secret Stork with a Facebook group for ladies having babies in May. I wanted to create a baby themed card to go with my baby pressie. The lady I am sending to is expecting a girl and I have bought several pink items to go in the parcel. This card coordinates perfectly.

I created this card using the Bundle of Love stamp set paired with my various sized circle punches. I punched circles using Rose Red and Melon Manbo to make the most of Stampin' Up!'s coordinating pink shades. I coloured the details of the baby images with my Pretty in Pink Stampin' Write marker. I then used a paper ribbon from my stash (the Stampin' Up! crochet trim would work just as well) and embellished with the large size Basic Pearls.

This card looked like it was going to go very wrong as it was originally created as a 15cm x 15cm square card. I stamped the images across the whole card but it just didn't work properly. The layout was all wrong. So I cut the card in half and scored down the centre (creating a 7.5x15cm card instead).  I used the circle design for the front of the card and the pram and hearts are the reverse of the card. Dividing the card up like this worked so much better and I am much happier with the result.

Now all I have to do is pack up the parcel and pop the card in and its all set for posting.

Hope your Wednesday is going well. Hump day is nearly over ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

More customer thank yous

So another Stampin' Up! week begins. I took delivery of last weeks workshop order yesterday and needed to come up with a new 'thank you' design for my customers. This is the card I came up with. I needed it to be quick and simple as I needed to reproduce it 9 times over. As it happens, it was a touch more complicated than I would have liked (the colouring of the 'thanks' was the most time consuming). But I love the overall effect. And this years In Colours are just too lovely used all together like this.

The two stamp sets I used for this are both Sale-A-Bration sets, Outlined Occasions and Fresh Vintage. The colours are: Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade. The butterflies were cut with my Big Shot and the Beautiful Wings Embosslit Die. Each card is slightly different as I used the butterflies differently on each card (cut with Calypso Coral). To finish I embellished with super sparkly Stampin' Up! rhinestones.

Hope you are keeping well and I have three more cards to share this week so I hope you'll pop by again.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Another sour cream container

Just a quickie today as I'll be on my way to Make It as you read this. Mum and I are headed to the mainland for a late birthday treat. I do love a good craft show and the chance to browse all those lovely bits and bobs.

Above is the door prize for Wednesday's workshop. I am a little addicted to sour cream containers again. They are just so effective. And they look so lovely made with the gorgeous (and free) Sale-A-Bration Everyday Enchantment Designer Papers. I filled this one with some lovely SU goodies (to find out what is in there, please book a workshop with me and I'll share all ;0) and finished it with a Stampin' Write marker (Lucky Limeade) tied with Pool Party Ruffled Ribbon.

This design is my favourite paper from the set. I love the little butterfly in the print (so much so that I had to punch a tiny circle with the butterfly in the middle for the tab embellishment).

Right, thats all for today. Happy Friday all and hopefully I'll get time over the weekend to share a few more card projects with you that I have been working on.

-XX-

Workshop Makes

I seem to be getting a bit of my crafting mojo back at the minute. Or more likely I drag my bum upstairs and it is far more tempting to sit in my craft room with iPlayer on and crafting bits out than to face walking back downstairs again ;0) Well whatever the reason, I am enjoying being back in my craft room (and I'm loving catching up on Call The Midwife on iPlayer too).

I demonstrated for some lovely ladies last night. They are regular customers of mine and are very understanding of me keep dropping off in classes and leaving our craft evenings early (just kidding about the nodding off btw). I wanted to share with you the hostess gift I created with the Spice Cake Designer Series Papers.

The set together:

I created the card on a Chocolate Chip base with squares of Spice Cake DSP layered on to Very Vanilla and textured through the Big Shot with the Lattice Square Embossing Folder. I then created the embellished strip using More Mustard, Very Vanilla and Chocolate Chip Scallop Ribbon. The flower is cut from a sheet of the DSP (I have cut two flowers and layered them with dimensionals and finished with a Pearl).

 Here is the gorgeous 6 sided box I created for my Hostess (using the fabulous Milk Carton die). This is again a Chocolate Chip base embellished with Pool Party Ruffled Ribbon, Spice Cake DSP and the matching large Pear Pizzazz button.

 I love that I have suddenly rediscovered linen thread and my Tiny Tags set. Together they perfectly finish this little thank you box (filled with lovely SU goodies for my hostess).

Please excuse the upside down labels. It looked OK till I tied the bow and then the tags refused to lie correctly. But you get the idea ;0)

Hope you're all having a lovely week and looking forward to the weekend as much as me (baby's nursery is beginning to take shape- the desire to clean is overwhelming- so I'll probably be found up to my ears in antibacterial wipes and Dettol).

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

Quick Customer Thank Yous

I recently demonstrated for a new group of crafting ladies. They were familiar with Stampin' Up! from the crafting publications but had never actually crafted with our stamps before. Their order arrived late in the afternoon and my partner had offered to deliver their box on his way to work in the evening. Which only left me a few minutes (in between cooking dinner and unpacking the order) to create some quick and easy stamped thank yous. I always like to give a handstamped thank you with every order as I appreciate each and every order from all of my customers.

Seeking inspiration I went up to my craft room and spotted a pile of pre cut Very Vanilla Top notes and the brand new unmounted Charming stamp set. I've seen this flower image stamped over the backing words stamp on several blogs recently and really love the effect. So I picked up my Pool Party (told you it was my favourite colour of the moment) and Elegant Eggplant and set about creating these quick thank you cards. I stamped a thank you on the inside with Wisteria Wonder and finished by embellishing the flowers with some tiny basic pearls.

Not the most complex of notelets but I managed to stamp them and write them just in the nick of time for my partner to deliver the order ;0)

Hope your week is treating you well so far.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-xXx-

Hostess Thank You

Here is a gift I made for my lovely new Hostess last week. I haven't made a sour cream container for a little while so thought it would be perfect to combine with the Everyday Enchantment Sale-A-Bration Designer Series Papers. I used the same papers to match the thank you card we made at last months card class. The small tag is punched using Tiny Tags and finished with a metallic brad. I filled the sour cream container with a mini Stampin' Up! starter collection (Dimensionals, buttons, ribbon, brads) as I wanted to showcase a lot of our lovely coordinating embellishments for a new group of crafting ladies.

And hoorah for some good light finally. So pleased I managed to get some realistic colour shots of these beautiful papers. They compliment the current In Colours so nicely (and Pool Party is my new favourite colour to craft with).

Happy Crafting ;0)
-XXX- 

Here are two versions of the make and take for tonights workshop.  This was inspired by this card over on Julie's blog. I loved her colour combo of Lucky Limeade and Elegant Eggplant but had to substitute for cardstock I actually had in. So for mine I used Old Olive and Rich Razzleberry.

I love the contrast of the Razzleberry stamped over the top of the Olive. Such an effective but simple stamping technique. I also liked Julie's idea of adding extra embellishment to another sample to show how you can bling the card up a little (simply through adding a bit of ribbon and rhinestones). The stamp set used for this card is exclusively available in the Stampin' Up! Spring Mini Catalogue which is only available until April 30th. With Sale-A-Bration running until the end of March, now is the perfect time to get hold of limited items available in the Mini. Just get in touch if you'd like any further information (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

Happy crafting ;0)

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Second scrapbook layout

Here is the second of this month's scrapbook class layouts:

Again this is centred around the gorgeous Spice Cake Designer Series Paper.  I used a sketch I found online to create this page using 2 inch squares taken from each of the DSP designs. I added a rosette made from Chocolate Chip and More Mustard cardstock with a giant More Mustard button to finish. The photo is appropriately of a table full of cakes at my friends wedding (all her family cooked a cake instead of one big wedding cake). I loved that the cakes matched the colours of the DSP.

This is a very simple but effective page which utilises all of the designs from the Spice Cake papers. It could easily be adapted to match any of the paper sets in the catalogue.

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope you'll pop back later in the week to see a lovely card I designed for a workshop I'm demo-ing for on Wednesday.

Happy crafting ;0)
-X-

February Scrapbook Class

I have just returned home from a creative weekend of scrapbooking at the Wight Craft Circle Retreat. I managed to tick off a lot of my crafting 'to dos' off the list. Although the list is still as long as my arm. But I did manage to create a few layouts that I've been wanting to spend some time on and have officially started my baby scrapbook with three layouts using scan pictures. I keep looking at the pages and they make me smile. I've done my usual trick of putting them all in my album with page protectors before photographing them though. Hopefully I'll get the chance to take pictures later in teh weekend.

Now on to matters at hand. This week sees both my card class and scrapbooking classes. I spent some time over the weekend working on our two scrapbook pages. This is the first of our February layouts:

This page is inspired by the Spice Cake Designer Series Paper and matching Spiced Paisley stamp set. I used the DSP colour scheme (More Mustard, Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Pool Party and Pear Pizzazz) to theme the page and tie in the embellishments.  The giant button is exclusive to the current Spring Mini Catalogue (Spice Cake Designer Buttons, Page 11 of the Mini) and the ribbons are Pear Pizzazz Seam Binding and Pool Party Ruffled. The tree is unfortunately not a stamp available in this country. I wanted to create a complimentary embellishment and this tree was perfect, but is not available in our UK Stampin' Up! catalogue at this present time.

I'm looking forward to teaching this layout as I love the unusual colour combinations and the paisley stamp set (which stamps beautifully). I also hope you all enjoy me sharing this delightful picture of me and my cousin as littl'uns (especially the snail horns that seem to be growing from my head in the photo). 

If you'd like any further information on Stampin' Up or the lovely craft products available exclusively in our main and mini catalogues, please get in touch on 01983 609249 or poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk. I'm happy to chat about workshops, Sale-A-Bration (free SU goodies!!), or just craftiness generally ;0)

Happy crafting ;0)

-XX-

Card class part two

Welcome back and thanks for visiting again today ;0)

Here is the first of my shares for today. This is the card that didn't make it into last months card class. I loved it and had started to prep it when I realised it was near identical to a card we had made before. I might have a go at designing a centre step card like this using different papers for February's class as I love this style. This card features Nature Walk and the matching retired papers from last years Mini Catalogue. This beautiful set is still available in the Main Ideas Book and Catalogue and remains one of my favourites to stamp with. The bird is one of my favourite images to stamp in Early Espresso and then colour with watercolour crayons.

 I always like to finish each  class with a quick and easy card (we're usually flagging after a 3D project and two more intricate cards). This was inspired by a lovely card I'd seen my upline Michelle make. I used different papers but kept the striking contrast between the black and bright colours. The DSP is Flirtacious from the main catalogue and the flourish and butterfly are from Creative Elements. I created the greeting to fit the circle using the Happy Birthday from Party This Way. I only coloured half the sentiment and stamped and then cleaned and coloured the other half and stamped.

If you'd like to find out more about any of Stampin' Up!'s products or would like to book a workshop to make the most of Sale-A-Bration and all its lovely freebies please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249.

Happy Weekend & Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

Last month's card class makes

Apologies for my slack blogging recently ;0) I have been making lots of lovely things for classes and future workshops but seem to have run out of energy for sitting on the computer to update my blog. To make up for it I am sharing two cards today that I taught at January's card class (and i'll hopefully blog the other two tomorrow via the wonder of post scheduling!).

Here is the first of the cards we made (and my favourite of all my makes recently). I saw this card on the talented Jenny Moor's blog last week and knew my class ladies would love it. This was a last minute substitution for a card I had made but wasn't 100% happy with. This card is a Sale-a-Bration inspired wonder. It uses the exclusive (and free!) SAB set, Fresh Vintage and the strip of DSP is from the lovely free SAB papers Everyday Enchantment. The colour scheme is Peach Parfait, Calypso Coral, Pear Pizzazz, Very Vanilla and Pool Party. We used the fantastically versatile Stampin' Write markers to colour the stamp before stamping which gives this lovely detailed multicoloured effect.

 The second card I wanted to share with you today is another inspired by Peg. We have a whole series of family weddings this year and my Mum had seen this card and asked me to recreate it for the class. I created two versions of it, the second of which I was a lot happier with (my first attempt fell foul to an accident with a bottle of Tombow so I had to trim it to an odd shape and dimension).

I love this layered Whisper White look and the effect of using lots of different textures to create the layers. I used lots of different embossing folders, punches and Embosslits to create the textured layers and the stamping was done using a retired stamp set sadly (it was the only set I currently have featuring hearts). This will make a perfect wedding celebration card. And my class ladies were very keen to change it to an anniversary card by changing the tag greetings. It was finished perfectly with a glitter brad and three rhinestones.

 Here is my first version (the tombow spilt one) which I created from Peg's original, with a winter wedding in mind (hence the Serene Snowflakes).

Right, thats all from me today. Hope you enjoyed todays projects. Like i've said before, roll on lighter evenings so i can get some better quality photos again. I'll write another post now to share the other projects tomorrow.

Happy crafting ;0)

-X-