Vivid Vases Paper Piecing

Good morning and I hope your crafty week is going well so far. I am completely cream crackered after a busy weekend with my card class and family fun. Sam treated me to a lovely evening out for Valentines over in the West Wight at one of my new favourite places, The Freshwater Bay House. We had an absolutely lovely 3 course meal and a fun night out to boot.

 I have since been chilling with some cross stitch and lots of cups of tea to recover (my belly is now of such huge proportions that moving from the sofa is proving more challenging each day!). I haven't cross stitched in a long time so I am finding it very therapeutic. I am working on a blanket for my new little arrival (3 weeks today and counting!!). I'll try to get pictures to share in my next post.

Back to craftiness, today I wanted to share two of the projects we made at this month's card class. I absolutely love the Vivid Vases single stamp in the Spring Summer and had seen this fabulous card by Maria Theresa. I decided to give this a go for my class and teach how to use the fantastic Stamp-A-Ma-Jig for stamp positioning. As you can see from our version of the card we used just the Vases image from the stamp and repeated the stamped image (using Stazon Black ink) in rows, being sure to line up the images carefully with the Stamp A Ma Jig. The colours are taken from the Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack (Real Red and Coastal Cabana).

We used the Fresh Prints papers to paper piece the vases together (stamping the image directly on to patterned papers and cutting the vases from the patterns and attaching to our stamped base). We then coloured with ink directly from the ink pad using blender pens to give detail to the flowers. The frame was cut using the fab On Film Framelits Dies. The little banner was stamped and punched using the brilliant Banner Blast and Punch from our current Sale-A-Bration promotion (choose one item for free with a purchase of £45).

Now, you may, like me, love a stamp but have less use for the attached sentiment. Just as a quick tip I will show you how I have mounted the Vivid Vases single stamp to show that you can separate the image from the sentiment. When it came to mount the rubber I simply snipped off the 'You're A Whole Lot of Wonderful' and mounted on the end of the wooden block. I then mounted the main image as usual. I also snipped the sentiment from the mounting sticker and mounted this at the opposite end of the wooden block. A quick and easy way to give you more uses from your stamps.

At Saturday's class we also created a matching Sweet Dispenser using Real Red, Coastal Cabana and the Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack.

Here is the matching set together.

Thank you so much for popping by today and sharing in my crafty creations. Please get in touch directly if you have any questions about Stampin' Up!, placing an order, joining my team or hosting a party: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. 

I am taking a short break from my classes till April to celebrate my new arrival next month (and recover from my Op). But if you'd like to find out more about joining a card class I will happily let you know when I have a date booked in for Easter craftiness. Just get in touch and let me know your contact details and I'll be in touch once a date is in the diary.

Happy Crafting 

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