Flowery Season's Greetings

So it is that time of the year again. The time when crafters minds skip forward a few months and we start to plan for Christmas. For this month's card class we created this aperture 'Showstopper' (any Great British Bake Off fans will understand the idea of a showstopper ;0). I'd seen a very similar card over on Julie Kettlewell's blog and wanted to have a go with my fab framelits and Apothecary Art stamp set (another set due to return in the new Annual Catalogue).

 The colours we used were Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green (such a classic Christmas colour combination). 

 We embellished the stamped wreath with swirly paper flowers and flowers punched with the Boho Blossoms punch (and leaves from the Bird Punch). Each flower was accessorized with a Basic Pearl.

Here is a quick close up of the swirly curled paper flowers.

 

I loved creating this card. It would be perfect for that extra special someone at Christmas (or adapted for a birthday or special occasion). It is so effective yet deceptively simple to create.

 

I am so enjoying Christmas crafting again. This is my favourite time in the crafting calendar and I love designing my festive workshops and classes (please get in touch to book a party or a space in a festive class- poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249). I have just had a fantastic delivery of new seasonal products and stamp sets from the Autumn Winter Catalogue. I am itching to get started with my festive crafting.

 

Please pop back on Saturday to join in with the Pinkie's blog hop. I have a project to share using the lovely Orchard Harvest Suite and Autumn Accents Die.

 

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

Elegant Eggplant Birthday

 Here is a card we made at last month's card class. This was inspired by a card I had seen on Pinterest by a talented Canadian Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.  It uses the Flirtacious papers (Wisteria Wonder compliments the Elegant Eggplant card base perfectly) and the Creative Elements stamp set. To create the butterfly we used the rock n roll technique using Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant ink pads.

You'll notice the reappearance of my favourite mini flowers punched with the Itty Bitty Punch Pack and embellished with the tiny pearls. This card also uses my newest purchase, the Designer Frames Textured Impressions Embossing Set (for the Big Shot). I love this aged vintage look around the frame (I sponge daubered with Elegant Eggplant).

The ribbon is Very Vanilla Satin and the Elegant Eggplant sentiment (from Curly Cute) is stamped onto a Crumb Cake panel.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend planned. I'll be catching up with old friends and hopefully working on the baby's room a bit more ;0)

Happy Friday Crafting

-X-

Hostess Thank You

Thank you for all the lovely congratulatory messages. They are very much appreciated ;0)

Now on to some Christmas crafting. I must again apologise for the poor lighting of these two photos. I was taking these late last night so that I had something to post today and the result is slightly 'off colour'. Bring on the Spring and some nicer lighting conditions (although I must confess to actually really loving these damp days and dark nights- a good excuse to cosy up under the duvet with a good film or a book).

I demonstrated at my friend Hayley's annual birthday workshop last night. I designed two little make and takes for all the ladies to have a go at which didnt leave much time for a demonstration. So instead I made this little hostess thank you set in advance and just showed the ladies instead. I picked Pool Party & Night of Navy as my colour scheme to give an icy winter feel to the two projects.

The card was made using my favourite technique again. I created a Post It note mask with the Curly Label punch and then sponged Pool Party and Marina Mist onto Shimmery White cardstock (I love this C/S as it gives a nice icy feel to Christmas-y cards). I then stamped the largest snowflake from Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy over the top. I then stamped the 3 smaller snowflakes as a background. The Thank You sentiment is taken from Curly Cute.

 The hostess gift element of the set was this luminaria. I followed an online template for the basic shape and then customised this to use my own colour scheme and stamps. I had previously bought two packs of the battery operated 'flickering candles' from Ebay but not gotten around to using them. Now I have seen the result I will most definitely be investing in some more I think.

I did try and get the luminaria lit up but I just couldnt get the lighting and settings on the camera quite right. I created it using Night of Navy as the base. I punched the holes using my largest circle punch. I then cut 4 pieces of vellum to fit and stamped with Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy. For the trees around the bottom I used Not Quite Navy as the base card stock then stamped the multiple tree stamp from Lovely As A Tree along a strip of card (using Versamark). I then covered this strip (on which I stamped the image three times) with silver heat embossing powder and embossed for the icy finish. The last touch was to sponge dauber white craft ink along the base of the trees to give it a snowy look.

And just one final quick bit of info. Stampin' Up! have launched a Hostess incentive which runs through till December 15th. If you host a qualifying workshop (£300+ sales) anytime within this period you will receive extra product for free. The product bonus is the lovely Paisley Petals stampset and coordinating Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper. What a great way to celebrate hosting your own Christmas workshop!

If you have any questions on Stampin' Up! please let me know and I'll try to help as best I can (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

In the mean time, happy crafting ;0)

-X-

Serene Snowflakes Christmas

Here is the first in my week of Christmas cards series. This is a card we made at a recent Christmas themed workshop. I wanted to teach the sponging and masking technique and illustrate how quick and easy this effect was in creating a one layer card (simple and easy to post as a straight first class letter).

We first created a mask with a post it note and the Curly Label punch and then sponged the three Curly Label shapes with Baja Breeze and Marina Mist ink. Tbe various snowflakes were stamped in Pacific Point ink. The lighter colour small snowflakes are stamped on the background with Baja Breeze. The Curly Cute greeting was stamped with Night of Navy. We finished with several of the smallest Basic Pearls to embellish the snowflakes.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll have the second of my Christmas cards tomorrow. So please come back then ;0)

Happy crafting ;0)

A final wedding card

Good morning all. Not sure whats got me up so early this morning. But as I am awake I thought I would share a new project with you. This Saturday is the final of my three summer weddings this year. I am safe to put this on my blog a bit early as I am sure the Bride and Groom have much more pressing matters to deal with than surf my blog ;0)

I made this card with the left overs from the wedding invites. If you see this post you can see that I have themed the wedding card with both the acceptance and invites that I made for them. They were so pleased with their invites that I wanted to tie in the additional cards I made for them (I also have one final project themed in the Cajun Craze, So Saffron, More Mustard, Early Espresson colour scheme to share. But that will have to wait until next week....)

To create this card I used a base of More Mustard and added Cajun Craze and stamped layers to this.  The leaf stamp is unfortunately from a retired Hostess Set from 2009-2010. I stamped the 'Congratulations' from Curly Cute in Chocolate Chip and added a length of Early Espresso ribbon. The hearts were punched with the Heart to Heart punch (the tiny Kraft letters are not SU but from my scrapbooking stash. They were the smallest letters I could find to add a tiny monogram). And finally I embellished with a length of linen thread and two tags stamped with 'Mr & Mrs' and 'Love' from Tiny Tags.

Really pleased with the result. I think the tiny tags finished the card off perfectly ;0)

And one more thing while I am blogging on this fine Thursday morning. This Saturday is the In Love With Stamping Last Chance List blog hop. So please pop by at 10am (*fingers crossed* the technology doesnt fail me as I will be at the wedding on the mainland!) and see all the lovely projects created by Stampin' Up! Demonstrators with stamp sets and products that are about to retire from the catalogue.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

A quick thank you

My apologies for the long blogging absence. I've had new beginnings and big changes here which has meant no time for crafting or blogging. Hopefully things will settle down and I'll get some crafting time over the weekend.

I have however got one quick project to share with you. I had a few customer orders to deliver this week so I put together this quick and simple Thank You note using my Just Believe stamp set (and Curly Cute sentiment). I inked the flower stamp with Pear Pizzazz then coloured over bits randomly with Old Olive to give a bit of dimension. To create the flowers I punched Rose Red cardstock and Blushing Bride Designer Series Papers with my Boho Blossoms punch. I layered the two smaller flowers with a Basic Pearl. The sentiment is stamped with Rich Razzleberry.

Please note that this was my first attempt card and I stamped the sentiment a bit wobbly. But I'd sent the other cards out before i took pictures of the non wonky efforts ;0)

I hope you are all having a lovely summer (summer? A loose term considering the weather). Happy summer crafting to you all ;0)
-XX-

Cottage Garden Summer Birthday

Here is a birthday card I made for my partner's Mum. I love the summer feel to this card. This colour combo works so well for this time of year and a summer birthday. I used: Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait, Tangerine Tango, Wild Wasabi.

This card uses:

C/S: Whisper White, Tangerine Tango

DSP: Sunny Garden

Stamp sets: Curly Cute, Cottage Garden, Just Believe

Embellishments: Basic Pearls



Happy Friday to you all. Here is to a lovely weekend ;0)

-XX-

Wimbledon Inspiration

I saw this card a few months ago over on Mary Fish's blog. It is such an ingenious use of the Scalloped Heart of Hearts Embosslit. This inspired me to purchase the embosslit and have a go. I loved the result so much that I taught this in this months card classes.

It is such a summery card, perfect for any Wimbledon fan.

Uses:

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Whisper White & Real Red
Embosslit: Scalloped Heart of Hearts
Punches: Boho Blossoms, XL Bird Punch
Stamps: Curly Cute
Accessories: Subtles Brads, Ribbon (Non- SU)

Happy Crafting ;0)

In Colour Thank Yous....

My Stampin' Up! order arrived today bearing lots of lovely new bits and bobs. Cannot wait to get started playing with the sparkly paper. I can see my Christmas journal and Christmas cards having a lovely bit of Stampin' Up! bling to them this year ;0)

It also contained the items I ordered for the lovely ladies I met at my Open House at the weekend. So I sat down and made two In Colour inspired thank you notes as I'm really falling in love with these 5 colours (I am working on my In Colour swaps for convention at the moment and absolutely love these Designer Series Papers and Poly Ribbons).

For this little 3"x3" notelet I used Poppy Parade cardstock and Concorde Crush DSP accessorised with the C/C stitched poly ribbon and the Curly Cute Thank You sentiment. I cannot get enough of the new Scallop Trim Border Punch. I use this with all my projects at the moments.

I have so many ideas of things I want to make and do and try out. Hopefully this will mean a busy time blogging everything in the not too distant future. The lead up to Christmas is my favourite crafting time of year. I love putting together all my Christmas cards together and making items to give as gifts. This year, with Stampin' Up! now a firm part of my life, I have the added fun of being able to share Christmas crafting with friends and fellow crafters. I am so looking forward to completing the latest 'Me In 2010' Wight Craft Circle scrap challenge as this year has been full of challenges but overall I have met many new friends and I am now sharing crafting and doing something I really love and enjoy.

If you'd like to host a workshop or place a Stampin' Up! order or even just have a crafty chat, please do not hesitate to get in touch: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249.