Monday 29 September 2014

A Trio of Birthday Celebration Makes

Good morning and welcome to a new crafty week. What a beautiful weekend we have had. The weather has been sunbathing warm (not that I have time for anything as luxurious as sunbathing with two littlies) and it still feels like the tail end of summer (despite what the shops may have us believe- they'd have you thinking Christmas was next week!)

This weekend we celebrated my sister's birthday with a fantastic lunch spread at my Mums house. It was such a lovely afternoon. And the celebrations continue today with a shopping trip over the water to Southampton. I am hoping to get a little sneaky Ikea trip in (although that place always manages to suck up 3 hours rather than the quick 20 minutes you expect).

My first crafty share this morning is the Birthday card I made for Natalie. After last weekend's Handmade Fair papercutting class I was inspired to give it a go at home. I bought a starter kit from Paper Panda and this was one of the designs in the kit. I hand cut the heart and then layered the design over Strawberry Slush cardstock and mounted on to a Bermuda Bay base.


I finished the design with some matching Strawberry Slush and Bermuda Bay hand drawn doodles around the outside of the white layer. I used my Stampin' Write markers for this. 

I find papercutting quite relaxing. I love cutting out all the intricate details. This is only my second attempt so I am pretty happy with how it turned out. And I always love mixing my crafts with Stampin' Up! to show just how versatile our products are.


The next make I created was this little decorative gift tag to accompany this lovely little jar of gorgeous Waitrose jelly cat sweets (if you haven't tried these I thoroughly recommend them, especially the Eton Mess flavour!). I used an offcut of Under the Tree Speciality DSP and stamped the greeting from the Age Awareness stamp set (stamped in Pumpkin Pie and Bermuda Bay). I finished with Brights Candy Dots and a length of Island Indigo Cotton Ribbon.


My final birhday creation is this gift box made with my favourite tool of the moment, the Gift Box Punch Board. I needed a box to hold 4 tubes of my sister's favourite sweets, Love Hearts. This box is the 2.5"x 2.5" x 4" box. It wasn't quite tall enough so I domed the top of the closure and secured with a length of Blackberry Bliss Satin Stitched Ribbon. I created the tag with the Scallop Tag Topper Punch and stamped with Island Indigo and Rich Razzleberry ink (using the Age Awareness stamp again). The body of the box uses the fantastic Under the Tree Speciality Papers (strong and lovely to stamp on).


Thank you for popping by today. If you have any questions about today's project or the products I have used, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. You can order online direct through my store by clicking the product links above or the pictures below. I also have availability in the next few months for your very own crafty party. Click on the Promotions tab above to see the exclusive hostess promotion running until October 31st.

Happy Crafting
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Friday 26 September 2014

Fun with Nature's Peace and Stampin' Up!'s Petite Cafe Gift Bags


Good morning and welcome to the official start of the weekend. I am all packed and ready for a Stampin' Up! party tonight with a group of new crafters. So excited to meet them all and share Stampin' Up! and our fantastic Autumn Winter catalogue (filled with festive inspiration).

Today's crafty make is inspired by a project I found in the catalogue. I love the simplicity of this stamped Petite Cafe Gift Bag.


I stamped the Nature's Peace stamp straight on to the Petite Cafe Gift Bag in Chocolate Chip ink. It is a little challenging to get a complete image due to the folded ridge in the bag. However, with a firm press down on your stamp it is possible to get a good image. I covered a slight break in the image with my star embellishments which are punched with my Itty Bitty Accents punch from Cherry Cobbler and then finished with a Gold Sequin taken from a length of trim.


For the tag I stamped the 'Merry' from Seasonally Scattered on to a piece of Cherry Cobbler card and punched with my Decorative Label Punch. I secured to a length of tied Gold Baker's Twine with a Mini Metallic Clothespin.

These little gift bags are perfect for presenting your Christmas gifts or making as table place markers filled with chocolates. My ladies at my card class all had lots of ideas for what they would put inside from jewellery to smellies to handmade sweets. I gave them some choccie coins to put inside as I cannot bear to make something Christmas-y without a little chocolatey treat.

I'd love to see your festive creations or ideas for Stampin' Up! products. So if you are reading and have a blog, please leave a comment to point me in your direction. I'd love to come and say hello and see what you've been making too.

Thank you for popping by today. If you have any questions about today's project or the products I have used, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. You can order online direct through my store by clicking the product links above or the pictures below. I also have availability in the next few months for your very own crafty party. Click on the Promotions tab above to see the exclusive hostess promotion running until October 31st.

Happy Crafting
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Wednesday 24 September 2014

A quick Stampin' Up! Under the Tree Shaker Card


Good morning and welcome to another festive crafty Wednesday here at Stampin' Sarah! Autumn may have officially started yesterday but it is still beautifully sun shiney bright here on the Isle of Wight. Today's adventure is about to take me and the girls on a mooch around Osborne House. The House has stunning gardens and there are lots of red squirrels to spot too. Summer loves being set free to run around.

Today's crafty make is a quick shaker card inspired by this make on Pinterest. I love the simplicity of the layering of the gorgeous (and thick!) Under the Tree Speciality Designer Papers. I used the Circle Collection Framelits to cut my two circles and punched the tree using the Tree Punch. I also cut a circle from a Window Sheet to layer behind the tree circle to stop my sequins escaping.

At my class we used the edges of a sheet of Dimensionals to create the shaker frame around the tree shape (the edge long sections on the Dimensionals sheets are perfect for creating shakers or for stabilising larger layers on a card).


For the shaker elements I used some our fantastically sparkly Frosted Sequins (although not too many as I had to take my shaker apart to remove some originally as I'd packed it too much and they wouldn't move).

I stamped the Merry Christmas from the exclusive Hostess Set (available free with a party order over £200- check out the 'Promotions' tab above for more info) Good Greetings using my Encore Gold ink pad.  I hand cut the banner to fit around my sentiment. I then finished with two stars punched from Gold Glimmer Paper and two Candy Dots.

Today sees the launch of another week of fab deals over on the Stampin' Up! website. This weeks deals feature Framelits & Paper Piercing Packs. What a bargain! These can be ordered online or get in touch direct and I'll place an order for you. Click on the picture below to find out more.


Thank you for popping by today. If you have any questions about today's project or the products I have used, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. You can order online direct through my store by clicking the product links above or the pictures below. I also have availability in the next few months for your very own crafty party. Click on the Promotions tab above to see the exclusive hostess promotion running until October 31st.

Happy Crafting
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Monday 22 September 2014

3D Night of Navy, Dazzling Diamonds and Silver 'White Christmas' Decorative Card using Stampin' Up! products


Well it is official. I am addicted to crafting!!! (like this is news!) This weekend my crafty Mum, sister and I popped up to Hampton Court Palace for Kirstie Allsop's Handmade Fair. It was fantastic!! So inspiring and hands on with opportunities to try lots of different crafts with classes and make and take sessions. I said before I went that I must NOT pick up any new crafts while I was there. I was only to enjoy the inspiration and not fall in love with anything new. Well do you think I stuck to that? No I did not!! I came home with two quilting kits, a pom pom maker and a new addiction to paper cutting having done an introductory class. On top of that I tried these artisan marshmallows and fell in love with the Rose and Cardamon flavour. This could prove pretty deadly for my Slimming World diet *lol*

So amid my pile of wool and pom poms I also managed to teach my monthly card class on Saturday too. It was a small but fun class this month. As I knew we were a smaller group I made this quite detailed card for us all to complete. I don't really know what to call it- a 3D window card is the best I could come up with. But the beauty of it is that it folds flat to fit in to a standard envelope.


I started with a half of A4 Whisper White card base. I then cut a piece of All is Calm DSP (10cm by 14.8cm) for the snowy background and a piece of Whisper White (10cm x 7cm). We stamped the tree image from the White Christmas stamp set on to the background piece, and then just the bottom of the image on to the white piece. I then cut around the hill contour of the image on the white piece and matched it to the base image and glued. I then stamped the bird and coloured the image. On a separate scrap of Whisper White I stamped the polar bear and then cut him out and added him to the main image. I used Dazzling Details to add glittery snow detail to the image (I set this aside to dry while I finished the rest of the card).

I used another half sheet of A4 cardstock, this time in Night of Navy, to create the top layer of the card.  I scored the card at 5.25cm, 10.5cm and 15.75cm. I then used my Circle Collection Framelits to cut the circle window centrally in the middle panel (with the score line through the centre). I decorated this panel with stamped silver snowflakes and a greeting taken from the Endless Wishes stamp set.  I embellished with Frosted Sequins.


The final detail were the sparkly star strips down each side of the card. I used my gorgeous new Confetti Stars Punch to create the border which I then layered over a 3cm strip of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper.

So all in all it has been a very busy (and super crafty!) weekend- just the way I like it. I will definitely keep you up to date on the progress of my new crafty efforts. But quite where I'll find the time remains to be seen.

Thank you for popping by today and for sharing in my Autumn creating excitement. If you have any questions about today's project or the products I have used, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. You can order online direct through my store by clicking the product links above or the pictures below. I also have availability in the next few months for your very own crafty party. Click on the Promotions tab above to see the exclusive hostess promotion running until October 31st.

And don't forget to check out this weeks Weekly Deals by clicking on the image below.



Happy Crafting
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