By the Tide Origami Shirt Card from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Good morning and a very Happy Bank Holiday Monday to you. I hope it is sunny wherever you are. It looks to be a lovely day outside here on the Isle of Wight.

We have had a busy weekend full of Birthday celebrations. Friday was my Dad's Birthday and we celebrated with a fun evening of family and chocolate & coffee cake (it was delightful!).

I wanted to share with you the origami shirt card I made for him. My Dad loves shirts with fish all over them so I decided to have a go at recreating one of his shirts using the By The Tide stamp set.

I used this Youtube video to make my base shirt shape (using Pistachio Pudding cardstock). I changed the measurements slightly by using a whole sheet of UK sized A4. I simply followed the same steps as shown in the video. Once I had the folds sorted I then stamped the By The Tide fish in Garden Green.

I hand cut the little pocket and daubered the edges to define the shape (I also added a bit of stitching detail by using my paper piercing tool to make little holes around the edge of the pocket). I finished with Neutrals Buttons (I had to use one extra to cover a slight stamping blip!).

The inside of the folded card looks like this. I used the Age Awareness birthday sentiment to stamp the inside.

To go with this card I created this stack of gift boxes using my Gift Box Punch Board. I created a large, medium and small box from Kraft cardstock which I then covered with Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper. Each box was filled with one of my Dads favourite treats. I tied the whole stack together with a length of ribbon from my stash.

And my Dad's main gift was this wood burnt chopping board. This was my first attempt at using my pyrography tool and I learned a lot about the type of wood that would work best for this kind of intricate design (this wood was very hard and the grain made it very difficult to get a smooth line). But I was still really pleased with it all the same ;0)

So a big thank you for popping by today. I hope you have had a fantastic bank holiday weekend. 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 get in touch directly and I can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. I'd also love to Demo for you and your friends at a crafty party. As the hostess you earn lots of lovely freebies and you all get to make a fun crafty project too (no crafting experience necessary!)

 -XXX-

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Serene Silhouettes Vintage Birthday Card

Good morning. I hope you've explored the fantastic Project Life Customer Sneak Peek over on my online store. This really is a hugely exciting new range of products and I cannot wait to start showing you projects made with all the new loveliness.

But for today I wanted to share this card we made at last month's card class. This was a CASE of a beautiful swap I received from my upline Michelle at Telford. It was simply stunning! I couldn't exactly deconstruct her card (and I also didn't have the beautiful swirly sentiment she used) so I did the best I could with the stamps I had.

I started with a Crumb Cake base and stamped the writing from By The Tide in Crumb Cake ink (it is pale enough that no one will realise the writing is about shells!). I inked the edges of the cardstock with Soft Suede ink and then layered the stamped floral image from Serene Silhouettes over the top (I coloured the stamp with Island Indigo, Pool Party & Old Olive Stampin' Write markers).

I then picked a swirly sentiment from a now retired stamp set for the greeting which was heat embossed with Silver Embossing Powder. We layered the Crumb Cake on to a Pool Party layer and then glued to an Early Espresso base.

And to finish we used our Two Way Glue Pen & Dazzling Diamonds to create glittered edges to our silhouette stamp. 

This was such a beautiful swap to receive (and it came with chocolate too! Who doesn't love a chocolatey treat?) and I'm glad I was able to reconstruct it. The colour scheme went down really well at my class.

Don't forget the current promotions at the moment using the links below:

• Check the Retiring List for all products about to leave the catalogue
• Find out more about the fantastic Starter Kit Offer. Join my Team for just £50

You can order all Stampin' Up! products through my online store by clicking here or by clicking on any of the product links above. I will also happily order any products for you. Just drop me a line on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249 and I'll happily assist.

Happy Crafting

-X-

By the Tide Birthday Bookmark

Good morning Stampers.

I hope you are enjoying the long weekend. What have you been up to this fine May Day? I squeezed in a little craftiness on Saturday making my Hostess Club welcome gifts. I will share those with you later in the week. But now my mini flurry of birthdays in briefly paused (to be resumed next weekend) I can share the second of the birthday cards I made for my Dad.

If you remember this project I made last year for Mother's Day (altered gift cards) well then you might recognise one of the elements of this birthday card. Mum wanted to create a bookmark as part of the card for my Dad. His books are often littered with old train tickets and receipts that he uses as page markers. So as this old gift card was about the same size Mum wanted to create a fishy themed glazed bookmark and then use it as a focal point for a card.

I covered the gift card in Modern Medley Designer Series Paper and inked the edges with my daubers and Soft Suede ink. I then stamped the seaweed image from By The Tide across the newsprint. I also stamped the fish from the same set twice in Black Stazon on to a scrap piece of Very Vanilla. I sponge daubered Garden Green ink over the fish images (and then inked Gold Encore ink over the top to give the fish a Ghost Koi feel). The seashell is from the By The Seashore stampset.

To finish the card I used a Tempting Turquoise base with Island Indigo and Soft Suede layers.  For the inked main layer I used Naturals White Cardstock (slightly textured like sand) and stamped the seaweed again and then used a stamping sponge to spread Pool Party ink over the background. I then ripped two pieces of cardstock (Crumb Cake and Soft Suede) to give the sandy feel to the base of the image. I then used a length of Linen Thread and a Neutrals Button to finish the embellishment.

The base of the card was inspired by this creation I found on Pinterest. I thought it made a perfect base to highlight the fishy bookmark (which i glazed with Mod Podge to make it last longer).

Thank you for popping by today. You can order all Stampin' Up! products through my online store by click here or by clicking on any of the product links above. I will also happily order any products for you. Just drop me a line on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249 and I'll happily assist.

And don't forget to check out this weeks Weekly Deals to see what fab items are discounted for a limited time only (until tomorrow!).

Happy Crafting

-XXX-

New Photopolymer Stamps & A By The Tide Birthday

Good morning and a Happy May 1st to everyone. And also a very Happy Birthday to my Dad too.

The new month has brought some exciting news from Stampin' Up! The new catalogue will include an exciting new range of photopolymer stamps (completely clear stamps so you can see exactly where you are stamping). To celebrate these new stamps, throughout May Stampin' Up! are offering a free photopolymer stamp set with a purchase of £60+. These sets are exclusive and will not be carrying over in to the new catalogue. So this is your only chance to get your hands on them. You can find out more my clicking on my 'Promotions' tab above or by clicking on the photo above to be connected to my online store.

So with the start of May begins my little run of family birthdays. Today's birthday is my Dads and today's crafty share is the card I made for his birthday. This card is a case of a lovely project I saw over on Monica Gale's blog. My Dad loves his fish so when I saw this card made with the By The Tide stamp set I knew it would be perfect for him.

I love the layered stamping and the detail of using the Chevron Ribbon, Designer Button and Linen Thread to give that nautical feel. The fish was stamped with Black Stazon and then daubered with So Saffron and Marina Mist to give this two tone feel.

I also made another card for Dad using this set which was from Mum. It is a lovely little card/gift. I will be sharing that next week as I have another birthday project to share tomorrow. I have been trying out some new doodling arty techniques and I made my sisters birthday card using all the lovely bright Stampin' Write markers. Pop back tomorrow to see what I created for my littlest sister.

Thank you for popping by today. You can order all Stampin' Up! products through my online store by click here or by clicking on any of the product links above. I will also happily order any products for you. Just drop me a line on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249 and I'll happily assist.

Happy Crafting

-XXX-

Happy Father's Day

I thought I would share the card I made to celebrate Father's Day today. I'm off to spend the afternoon with my Dad at the Isle of Wight Festival watching The Script and Bon Jovi (hoping the sun makes an appearance at some point, or at least that it stops raining for the headliners!).

The card I made for my Dad uses some special sneak peak papers to be seen in a new catalogue near you very soon (the fab New York inspired Soho Subway Designer Series Papers). The stamp set I used to create the fish is By The Tide and I embellished with the fab This and That Washi Tape, linen thread and a retired button.

Wishing you all a lovely & crafty Sunday and thanks for popping by today. Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there.

-XXX-

Thursday Technique Tip- Stamping Block Backgrounds

Lots to share with you today. 

Its such an exciting time of the year to be a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator as we get our sneak peak at the new 2013-2014 catalogue tomorrow ready for the launch on July 2nd. It is going to be a late night for me tonight waiting for the sneak peaks to go live on the Demonstrator website. If you'd like to get sneaky peak access to new products as well as a fab discount on all crafty products in the catalogues, have you thought about signing up as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. You can find out more using the 'Join My Team' tab above. And today is the last day for signing up and getting an extra £25 in your Starter Kit (thats £155 for the bargain price of £99). I'd love to welcome you to the Wight Stampers.

Now, for a bit of craftiness. The card above is one of the technique based cards I taught at this month's crafty card class. It uses a technique I learned from a very talented Demo friend, Lynne, at our recent Stampin' Up! traning event in Telford.

You can create these lovely blended backgrounds using your acrylic stamping block, inks (pens, ink pads, ink refills) and a water spritzer. It is such a fab technique and it never looks the same twice ;0)  I created three blended blocks of colour and then stamped over using The Open Sea and By The Tide stamp sets.

Lynne has posted a technique video over on Youtube explaining this technique. You can find it here:

And while I am sharing videos. Here is another for you. This direct from Stampin' Up! UK showing what we all get up to at our Regional Events. Watch closely and you might even spot a familiar face ;0)

Thanks for stopping by today. Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-