An English Garden Scrapbook Celebration from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Morning crafty friends. I thought I would take a little break from festive makes this morning and share a scrapbook page I made a couple of months back. I came across it over the weekend and thought I'd take a couple of pictures to share.

This page uses the lovely English Garden Designer Series Paper paired with the three step stamping set Garden in Bloom (photopolymer- so super easy to line up).

I started with a Whisper White 12"x12" base and then punched patterned circles using my 2" Circle Punch to create the patterned background.

I stamped the butterflies using colours taken from the English Garden DSP- Hello Honey, Night of Navy and Mint Macaron.

I added Metallics Sequins and Tiny Pearls for a little shimmer and texture.

I cut my title using the super useful Little Letters Thinlits in coordinating DSP. 

I love creating scrapbook pages with lots of DSP and this was a perfect design for using up lots of little bits of English Garden paper that I had accumulated. I love the simplicity of adding a little bit of stamping detail too.

I hope you've had a lovely weekend. What beautiful weather we have been having. We ventured out for some fun in our campervan as well as visiting the Wolverton Garden Show. It is the last big event of the summer here on the Isle of Wight and we had a lovely time playing on games seeing all the beautiful hand made fair. It inspired me to create a lot of lovely bits and pieces that I look forward to sharing with you over the week. I've been having some festive fun and also creating with some of the lovely Stampin' Up! kits.

Thank you for popping by today. 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-

Card in a Box Birthday Celebration

 Good morning crafters and a big welcome to a new crafty week.

A HUGE thank you to all the visitors to my blog over the weekend for Pinkies Sale-A-Bration blog hop. I can see from my statistics that I had a lot of new visitors to Stampin' Sarah. I hope you liked my little Sale-A-Bration Owl. If you pop back tomorrow I will give you a break down of how I created the little chap.

Now on to the order of the day, a big Happy Birthday to my Mum! I spent several hours tucked away in my craft room this weekend while Summer was entertained downstairs with Daddy (I found them tucked up together eating blueberries and watching cartoons when I'd finished!) creating two birthday cards for Mum.

The first is this card in a box creation.

I've seen so many different versions of this style of card across the blogosphere and decided to give one a go. It took a bit of time to get my colour scheme sorted. But I'm really happy with the result. I found this fab tutorial over on The Serene Stamper's blog which explained how to go about creating one of these cards in a box. I used the video to gain my card base and I then decorated with my own floral theme using the Sale-A-Bration Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Paper and matching coloured cardstock (Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Summer Starfruit and Pool Party).

I created this Happy Birthday using the gorgeous Four Frames stamp set (and coordinating Decorative Label Punch) matched with the Sketched Birthday banner stamp. I finished with my favourite Basic Pearls.

Here is a closer view of the pop up element of the card using the Pansy Punch and the Petite Petal Punch which is launching Tuesday as part of the Spring Summer catalogue. I also created the rock n' roll butterfly using Papillon Potpourri and the matching Elegant Butterfly punch.

This is how the card folds down to fit in a standard C6 envelope.

The second card I created I designed specifically for Summer to give to Nana. I  had stitched the wooden heart keyring and wanted to create a Stampin' Up! card to match this piece of cross stitch (and also feature the gift). I chose the beautifully bright Gingham Garden Designer Series Papers to highlight my floral heart.

Here is a close up of my stitched keyring.

I have to confess to being a little addicted to creating these sunshine cards and scrapbook pages. I had seen so many and been so in awe of the technique. I never realised how quick and easy (and simple) it is to create this effect. All you need to create your own sunshine card or page is to measure the space you want to sunshine to fill and then cut a piece of scrap card to those measurements. All you then have to do is create a template for your pieces and use these to trace around and cut your Designer Series Papers. 

This is the template I created for the card above (a standard 14.8cm x 10.5cm card base). This measured 14.3cm x 10cm and I randomly cut the lines from my centre sunshine point to the edges. I marked each piece A-H to ensure I didn't mix up my pieces (the ticks were to remind me that I had already cut that piece from DSP).

Thank you for stopping by today. Today is the last day to order any of the exclusive Valentines products I have previously showcased. Please pop by my online store if you'd like to order any of these before they are gone for good.

And just another quick reminder that Sale-A-Bration and the Spring Summer catalogue launch tomorrow!! I am so excited to share all the fabulous products with you. Please pop back all week as I have a whole series of cards and projects to share, starting with instructions for my blog hop owl tomorrow.

Please get in touch with any questions or to find out more about placing an order, joining my team, or hosting a party: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

Stampin' Up! UK December Days with My Digital Studio

Good morning crafters. Where is January disappearing to? January 10th already?! I really must start prepping for arrival number 2. Does it count as preparation to have bought several boxes of nappies? Roll on maternity leave so I can start all the baby washing and getting the moses basket ready for bubbas return home.

While Summer and I had a quiet few minutes this morning I decided to have a look at the new downloads in My Digital Studio. I found the fantastic Retro Fresh Designer Series Papers, Embellishments and stamps available for download. I received these papers as a sneak peak from the new Spring Summer Catalogue at Convention and I have used the whole pack already on lots of lovely pressies and projects over Christmas. When I saw them available in digital form I had to give crafting a go with them.

I decided to create a project from scratch using only the photo template option. I had this series of pictures from before Christmas and thought they'd fit perfectly with the 5 photo layout. I just love these papers and the retro feel of the arrows and colour scheme. I also loved matching the embellishment set with the papers. I had to restrain myself as there were a lot more embellishments I wanted to add. But they will have to wait for another project on another day.

I just love the simplicity of My Digital Studio, whether starting a page or card from scratch, or whether using one of the predesigned templates for a quick and easy crafty make. I am always left feeling very inspired after I've browsed through all the lovely embellishments, stamps and digital papers within the software. I cannot recommend MDS highly enough. 

If you visit the MDS page through my online store (click here) you can find the full version available for download (a bargain at £13.95) or you can download the free trial version for 30 days. The trial version is perfect for having a go at creating digital cards and scrapbook pages and getting to know all the features of the software.

Please get in touch if you have any questions about todays project or My Digital Studio, about placing an order or about Stampin' Up! in general. You can contact me on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Crafting

-X-

Stampin' Up! UK Gold Glittery Joyful Christmas

Good morning all.

Today's crafty make is a card inspired by one I saw on the Convention inspiration boards, I just loved the Gold Stampin' Glitter, a product I had previously overlooked in the Autumn Winter catalogue. It is super sparkly (and so is my craft room and living room after the class).

I loved creating the layers for this card using Brushed Gold cardstock, Whisper White and Vellum. The Whisper White layer is stamped with Crumb Cake using the En Francais background stamp (a firm favourite in my household). The flowers from the Joyful Christmas stamp set were first stamped with Versamark (after thoroughly brushing the Vellum with my Embossing Buddy) and then covered with Heat and Stick Powder. I then blasted the powder with my heat tool and then poured the lovely sparkly glitter over the sticky outlines. I then gave a quick final blast to heat set the glitter. 

With a new seasonal catalogue just around the corner and Christmas less than a week away I might have to pack away my beloved Joyful Christmas stamp set. This must be one of my all time favourite stamp sets and I'm actually missing crafting with it already. But I am sure once I get my hands on the new seasonal products, festive crafting will be long forgotten ;0)

And look what just arrived through my post box. My beautiful cross stitched card from my partner in the Isle of Wight cross stitched card exchange. I shared my card here, U was delighted when this arrived. I loved that the cross stitch element can be detached and hung from the tree and kept as a keepsake (I love collecting Christmas tree decorations with a story and a bit of history).

And one last thing, look who is enjoying the festivities so far. Here is my (very grown up) little girl enjoying a day out at my grandparents house on the mainland. She definitely mastered the art of Christmas Crackers (and she is also a big fan of mince pie eating too- well the mincemeat at least!).

Please get in touch if you have any questions or queries about Stampin' Up!, I'd be only too happy to help: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Festive Crafting ;0)
-X-

Stampin' Up! UK Zoo Review Christmas

Morning all and a very Happy Monday to you ;0) I am sharing a whole week of festive makings with you this week on the lead up to our big annual Stampin' Up! Convention. I have a lot of lovely Christmas creations to share so please pop back each morning and say hello.

How was your weekend? How are your festive preparations going? I have been busy finalising my Christmas shopping. Just the wrapping to go now. Oh and the Christmas card writing too. But that is a job for December......

I thought I would share a card with you today using the fab Circle Card Thinlits Die coupled with the penguin from the Zoo Review stamp set. This penguin image was inspired by a beautiful card I saw over on Vicky's blog. I loved her beautifully coloured penguin image and decided to give it my own take using the Thinlits dies and the lovely Winter Frost Designer Series Paper. I created a mask using a post it note.  After stamping the penguin in black Staz-On I laid the mask over the top and then sponged the sky in Pool Party ink over the top. I created the snowflakes with a white gel pen and also used my two way glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds to give a bit of festive shimmer. I coloured the penguin using my Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker and I also blended inks using my blender pen for the penguin's chest. The sentiment was stamped from the lovely More Merry Messages stamp set.

The Circle Card Thinlits Die set I have used for this card comes with 9 matching dies to create greetings and embellishments for your fab flip cards. The set costs £29.95 (133480) and you can find more info by clicking the image below which will link you directly through to my online store.

I have included links to the products used for today's project either by clicking on the photos or the direct links above. If you place an online order for any Stampin' Up! products through my online store remember to add the code below and I will add your name to the draw to win the hostess benefits for the month's combined orders (with a minimum of £25 in hostess freebies):

V99TUSS2

Please get in touch if you have any questions about today's project or about placing an order or about Stampin' Up! in general. You can contact me on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Crafting

-X-

Stampin' Up! UK Joyful Christmas Tidings

Evening all!

A bit of a late one today. Its been a week of disturbed sleep and 6am starts so blogging has been a little challenging. Sam is off giving Summer a bath so I thought I would sneak 5 minutes to share a couple of crafty projects with you.

The card below was inspired by this Pinterest beauty. I absolutely adore the white embossing on vellum contrasted with Crumb Cake. And I just love stamping this poinsettia image from Stampin' Up!'s Joyful Christmas stamp set.

And I know the card isn't perfectly stamped. I decided to share it with you today as a reminder to always check the edges of your stamps before stamping (or alternatively don't press too hard  with your stamp like i did!). Unfortunately this card was blighted by the Versamark edge marks. But I love it all the same.

There is still plenty of time to order your Christmas crafting goodies in order to create your own gifts, cards and wrapping. You can order direct with me or through my online store direct to your door.

 And don't forget to add the hostess code below for your chance to win the combined hostess freebies for the month:

ZACT2S6B

My second crafty share I wanted to show you is a collection of Hostess Club thank yous I created to put in with the club orders last month.

I am usually a more colourful crafter leaning heavily towards the brights family. But I decided to use a Whisper White envelope and my Basic Black ink pad only to create this monochrome Flower Shop stamp set inspired collection.. It was finished with a flower punched with the Blossom punch from Modern Medley Designer Series Paper and the Thank You is from A Round Array. Inside I cut some Modern Medley paper samples and Basic Pearls for all my lovely hostesses. I will be starting a new virtual Hostess Club very soon so if you would like to join please get in touch to find out more on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk.

And one last thing, there are only 4 more days to join my Stampin' Up! team for the bargain price of £25. I would love to welcome you to the Island Inkers and I have a fresh batch of notebooks and paper samplers waiting to welcome you on board to the Stampin' Up! family. Please see this post for more info on joining up, or get in touch directly and I'd be only too happy to chat you through what is involved.

Thank you for popping by today. I really appreciate you visiting my blog and love sharing my crafty projects with you.

Happy Crafting

-x-

Postcard Scrapbooking

Good morning crafters. Hope you've all had a lovely week and only a few hours to the weekend now.

I thought I would share a recent scrapbook page I completed. The theme for last month's scrapbooking class was cruising. I am helping my class ladies get started with their cruise holiday album. I needed a page that would work as a general holiday page but suited a cruise theme too.

I decided that Stampin' Up!'s Postcard stamp made a perfect centre piece for a page. We used the postcard to both create a title focus and a pocket for mementos and hidden journalling.

The colour scheme for this page is Marina Mist and Summer Starfruit with accents in Midnight Muse. The 6x6 Designer Series Paper square is from the Epic Day This and That paper pack. The edging stamping uses the compass and globe from Stampin' Up!'s The Open Sea stamp set.

We used the Chevron Border Punch to create a mask and inked the Midnight Muse chevron accents. To finish we added Candy Dots to add a bit of dimension and colour.

And just a quick reminder, if you are placing an online order through my online store during October, don't forget to add the hostess code below for your chance to win the combined hostess freebies for the month:

ZACT2S6B

Thanks for popping by today, please get in touch with any questions about Stampin' Up! and their products or to find out about booking a party or joining my team: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Crafting

-X-

Stampin' Up! Clearance Rack is live

Good morning! Hope you've had a lovely weekend. It has been a super busy crafty one here on the Isle of Wight. I hosted my monthly card class, attended my lovely downline Lorraine's card class, made a mug for my sisters birthday at a local pottery, had my monthly scrapbook class and tonight I'll finish my crafty run with a team shoebox swap get together. I'll need a good long sleep to recover I think!

I have some exciting news to share with you today, the Stampin' Up! Clearance Rack is now live. 

If you visit my online store you will find lots of lovely items that are discontinued and discounted. They are available only through the Clearance Rack until stocks run out. This is a brilliant opportunity to get your hands on discounted crafty stash.

For an extra chance to win freebies, add the Hostess Code below to your order through my online store and at the end of the month I will be totaling the month's freebies and offering them to one lucky winner. 

QN7Y7WBX

Thank you for popping by today. I'll be back later today with some crafty makes from this weekend.

Please get in touch with any questions or queries: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

-X-