Painted Petals Birthday Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning lovelies.

And how are you all this fine morning? I am up and ready early again today as I had to get the girls ready before work. No better time to enjoy a cuppa and a bit of blogging (and I'm catching up with Call the Midwife on tv too).

This card was inspired by a beautiful creation I saw on Sarah-Jane's blog. I love this double stamping shadow effect. You stamp your images first with White Craft Ink and leave to dry thoroughly (or in the case of my class ladies we heat blasted it with a heat tool to speed along the process). You then slightly offset the image and stamp again in your chosen colour. I used Elegant Eggplant and Old Olive.

Stamping over the top of the white ink is made easier with photopolymer. By being able to see through the stamp you are able to get a good idea of where you are stamping before putting ink to your cardstock.

The greeting is taken from the free Sale-A-Bration set, Big Day (still one month to take advantage of Sale-A-Bration- receive a chosen freebie with a £45+ spend). I stamped the sentiment in Elegant Eggplant and coloured the inside of the letters with my White Chalk Marker.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (click on the links below to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-X-

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Saleabration Big Day Chalkboard Birthday Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and a very Happy Monday to you all.

Did you have a lovely weekend? What terrible weather we had yesterday! It poured down with rain on the Isle of Wight all day. Looks a bit better out there today. Might try and brave a trip to playgroup while its not raining. Although I did hear a mention of thunder snow on the news this morning. I would LOVE to see that ;0)

Today's crafty make was one of our class projects from Saturday. This card was inspired by a creation over on Nancy's blog. I love this multicoloured chalkboard style technique and the use of bright colours for a fun birthday card.

I started with a 10.5cm x 29.6cm base (scored at 14.8cm). I then cut a piece of the fabulous Stampin' Up! Irresistibly Yours Sale-A-Bration Paper sized 14.3cm x 10cm. I used a Stampin' Sponge to cover the paper in Daffodil Delight ink giving these fab bright stripes as a background.

To create the multicoloured chalkboard I wiped my small piece of Basic Black cardstock with my Embossing Buddy. I then heat embossed the sentiment and cake using White Stampin' Emboss powder. Once cooled you simply colour over your white embossing with whichever Blendabilities markers you would like. I used Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight and Calypso Coral.

I finished the card with two lengths of ribbon from the Sale-A-Bration Best Year Ever Accessory Pack and a Mini Metallic Clothespin. A lot less complicated than it looks.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (click on the links below to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-X-

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

From The Herd Yo Yo Spinner Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and welcome to the weekend. As I only work part time my weekend with the girls starts on a Thursday evening. And to celebrate I got 5 minutes in my craft room last night to have a go at creating one of these fab 3d Yo Yo Spinner Cards using the From The Herd stamp set in the Spring Summer catalogue.

I absolutely adore these little farm animals and they are perfect for practising your Blendabilities colouring with.  I deliberately went for a scribbly feel to my colouring with this card. I felt it added to the fun childlike quality. And also scribbly fur for the bison/cow gives a bit of texture too.

I won't go in to the minute details of how to recreate the yo yo spinner as I found this fantastic tutorial over on Splitcoast Stampers that gives you detailed instructions.

All you have to do is pull the thread on the card to make your 3d element (in this case the pigs head) spin around. It is a fun little extra on your card perfect for children or loved ones. The possibilities are endless as to which elements you could make spin from flower heads to sunshine to absolutely anything.

I thought I would include a close up of the colours of the animals. I used a mix of Skin Tone, Melon Mambo, Crumb Cake, Smoky Slate, Daffodil Deligh, Wild Wasabi and Night of Navy Blendabilities Markers to create my card. It took a little time to colour but I love the childlike scribbly effect. And don't forget if you spend £45 during Sale-A-Bration (ending March 31st) you can pick a set of Blendabilities pens for free!

I hope you have a lovely weekend planned. It  is my monthly card class tomorrow and I am looking forward to seeing all my lovely ladies again for another fun afternoon session of crafting.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Weekly Deals and Chalkboard Easel Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning crafters. It is Wednesday so that means new Weekly Deals. What a fantastic selection of products this week. I have been using a lot of Gold and Silver Foil Sheets recently so I'll definitely be stocking up. You can click over to my Online Store or drop me a line on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk to order any products direct with me.

I have another Chalkboard Easel Card to share with you today. I created this for a card class last year using the gorgeous All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack to make the mini banner. 

To create the chalkboard effect I used Basic Black cardstock rubbed with the Embossing Buddy (the more chalk you get on the black to look like smudges the better the effect). I then stamped the images from Sketched Birthday with Versamark and heat embossed with White Embossing Powder.

I finished with a little added doodling created with my Chalk Marker.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

A Big Sketched Birthday Bash Scrapbook Page from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and a very Happy Monday to yoiu. What a beautiful weekend we had here on the Isle of Wight. I took the girls for a walk yesterday in the beautiful sunshine. With a smattering of bulbs pushing through the soggy ground and sun blazing down it feels like Spring is just around the corner.

I have another scrapbook page to share with you today. I wanted to create a simple birthday layout with the gorgeous gold foiled Birthday Bash Speciality Designer Series Papers in the Spring Summer catalogue. I knew they would be a perfect match with the Sketched Birthday stamp set. 

I used a Whisper White 12"x12" base and then created a Daffodil Delight strip (12"x4") which I stamped with the images from Sketched Birthday. I used the colours from the DSP as my theme: Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Crushed Curry and Tangelo Twist.

I then created my banner using the Banner Framelit Dies and offcuts of the Birthday Bash DSP. I arranged my photos first (layered over a 4.25"x6.25" piece of DSP) then positioned my banners before glueing. I added small embellishments to my banners including Brights Buttons, glimmer paper stars punched with my Itty Bitty Accents Star Punch and Candy Dots.

To finish I added my title. I cut the 'Happy' using my Hello You Thinlits and the 'Birthday' was cut from Gold Foil card using my Little Letters Thinlits.

I hope you enjoyed my crafty make today. The pictures are from Summer's 2nd birthday last year. She loves balloons of all shapes and sizes so I knew the lovely gold foiled Speciality Papers with the ballooon design would be a perfect accent for my scrapbook page. Birthday season is nearly upon my again. I am in the process of starting my planning for Sylvie next month and Summer in May. Where does the time go?

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

Happy Valentines Day from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and a very Happy St Valentines Day to you.

I have a little bonus crafty make for you this morning. Summer and I spent hours yesterday hand crafting lots of lovely heart shaped choccies for all the family. We used a silicone heart shaped mould and filled the bottoms with lots of lovely pink treats from mini marshmallows to Eton Mess cake topping to freeze dried raspberries. We then melted white and milk chocolate and poured in to each mould and left in the fridge to harden. We were inspired by this Pin.

I should have taken a picture before we packaged them as they were beautiful (and very clearly heart shaped). The pictures don't do them justice.

Anyways, what would lovely handmade chocs be without handmade Stampin' Up! packaging. I set Summer to work with a Real Red ink pad and some Whisper White card and she expertly stamped the little bird from the Hey, Valentine stamp set. I cut round each bird and we mounted on to a tag with a little punched heart. We then popped our choccies in to a little Cello bag and tied with Bakers Twine.

It was as simple as that! Perfect little Valentines gifts for all the family.

And here are my two hard at work making the choccies. Well Summer was making and as you can tell from Sylvie's face she was busy eating our makes ;0)

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

An All Abloom Scrapbook Page from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Happy Friday Crafters.

Today's project proved impossible to photograph. So please be assured this scrapbook page was squared and centred. But in photographing and cropping the layout went a bit awry.

I had seen a page on Pinterest that was laid out in a similar manner and knew it would be perfect for using up little scraps of the gorgeous All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack from Stampin' Up!.

I chose my two pictures and decided to create a smaller 10"x 8" rectangle within my 12"x12" Very Vanilla base. I trimmed my pictures to the size I wanted (4"x6" and 3.75" x 4") and then created my squares and rectangles from varying floral patterned papers in measurements to create my 10" x 8" rectangle.

I then doodled my dashed line around the edge of my DSP rectangle using a Strawberry Slush marker and a ruler. I then went through my stash and added floral focal points on each of my DSP pieces. Now sadly a lot of these are either retired Stampin' Up! or generic floral embellishment from my scrapping stash. However, the embellishments in the above picture are taken from the gorgeous Spring Summer Catalogue Artisan Embellishment Kit. I used the pink tinted floral trim and the gorgeous deeper pink Crochet Trim too. This is such a gorgeous kit for creating beautiful vintage cards and scrapbook pages.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

A Lotus Blossom Saleabration Thank You from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good evening all. I hope you've had a lovely and creative week so far. It has been a busy one here on the Isle of Wight as I had some crafty friends round on Monday and did some card class prep. So this belated blog post comes with an apology. Today is the first opportunity I have had to photograph my projects in good light.

My first project of the week is the thank you note I made to enclose with all my recent party orders. I always like to include a little hand stamped note to show my appreciation. And I was recently told by one of my regular hostesses that she keeps all my cards as a little library of ideas and techniques. This made me smile as I can never throw away a handmade card so I loved to hear mine were being kept.

This is a super simple and easy three step stamping card. I made a stack of 18 cards in 15 minutes.

I cut three card bases from one sheet of Naturals Ivory Cardstock (each card base measures 9.9cm x 21cm scored at 10.5cm). I simply stamped the Lotus Blossom image from the Sale-A-Bration exclusive stamp set in Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral and Rose Red.

I then stamped the stem in Old Olive and the coordinating greeting in Rose Red. I finished with 3 Basic Pearls to add a small amount of embellishment.

And don't forget that as it is Wednesday we have a new range of Weekly Deals launching today. There are some great products this week including the Magnetic Big Shot platform and several dies at fantastic prices!

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

Sheltered Tree Bookmark Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Happy Friday!

What do you have planned for the weekend? Crafty fun I hope. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a couple of hours to work on my Project Life album. I have all my January pictures printed and ready and I am just chomping at the bit to get my pages designed. I love how quickly an album can come to life with the Project Life system (you can find out more about Project life and Stampin' Up! here).

I have the final project from my January card class to share with you today. This was inspired by a gorgeous bookmark card creation I found on Debbie's Design's blog in the USA. I'd never thought of creating a fancy fold card with a detachable bookmark. What a lovely little extra for the recipient. And with the Perforating Cutting Blade (part of the Rotary Addition for the Stampin' Trimmer) it couldn't be easier to create an easily detachable bookmark.

I wanted to capture Debbie's fun summer-y feel to the card so I used Old Olive and Real Red as my colour scheme. I coloured Basic Pearls with my Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities markers to add to the stamped Sheltering Tree to create apples.

To give added dimension to the leaves on the tree I simply stamped the 'leaf' stamp freshly inked with Old Olive and then stamped immediately again without reinking. This gives added colour dimension to your tree with both lighter and darker leaves. I used the same effect for the grass too.

I just love stamping with this stamp set. I love all the little extras you can add to your image from the rake and swing to snowflakes and the bicycle. And with our new photopolymer stamps it is super easy to line everything up.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

A Happy Thing Blendabilities Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning crafty friends. And a very Happy Wednesday to you. We're on to the happy downward slide to another fantastic weekend.

We saw a small smattering of snow here yesterday. Not enough to build a snowman. But enough for Summer to throw a couple of snow balls at her Dad. I enjoyed watching the snow fall from my office window periodically through the day.

I have another of our class cards to share today. I featured previously a pair of cards I made with the lemon stamp from the A Happy Thing Sale-A-Bration stamp set so I wanted to give a bit of focus to the beautiful bird stamp from the same set.

I had seen this card on Pinterest made by the talented Fran Sabad (thank you for the inspiration) and decided to grab my Blendabilities and give it a go. I love the natural tone to this card and knew it would be a perfect Father's Day or male birthday card (I left the card without a sentiment so my ladies could personalise it themselves).

I used the following products for this card:

1. Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive and Crumb Cake Blendabilities Markers
2. Crumb Cake Cardstock
3. Tuxedo Black Memento Ink
4. Hardwood Background Stamp
5. Soft Suede and Early Espresso Ink
6. Sponge Daubers
7. Naturals Candy Dots

I so love using my Blendabilities now and love finding the perfect blend of colours for my stamps. I love the development of colouring stamped images. Stampin' Up! have really innovated with their new ranges and I love trying new techniques and stamping ideas.

And don't forget that as it is Wednesday we have a new range of Weekly Deals launching today. There are some great products this week including Blendabilities and Silver Foil cardstock at fantastic prices!

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-

Another Thank You meets Work of Art from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and a Happy New Crafty Week to you!

How was your weekend? It was so cold here on the Isle of Wight. A lot of my plans with the girls were scuppered by the cold so instead we just stayed in the warm and did a bit of crafting instead. I got my new wood burning tool out of the box (a Christmas pressie) and had a practice at burning some scraps of wood. It wasn't perfect but very enjoyable.

So today's quick crafty make is a Thank You card I made for one of my party hostesses this month. Jan absolutely loves all things purple. So I designed her thank you note with that in mind.

The colour scheme is Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant. I combined the Another Thank You stamp set with the paint splash from Work of Art. The butterfly embellishments are from the fantastically versatile Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set. And it was all finished with 3 of the largest Basic Jewels.

Thank you for popping by today. You can find out more about the new Spring Summer Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking here or by using the navigation menu on the left. This really is the most exciting time of the year to shop. New products and fantastic freebie rewards too. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop (or click on the links above to find out more about specific products) or get in touch directly and I  can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. 

-XXX-