Make It Monday - Delicate Petals

Well, we are all now well and truly into the New Year and I hope that you all had a lovely break over the Christmas and New Year holidays? Cary has made some gorgeous fun projects once again to start the year off for us all. I hope that she has inspired you to do some lovely projects based on her cards.

Anyway back to this week, I will be aiming to show you some projects using one of the new stamp sets called Delicate Petals. It's not one of the sets that I would normally jump at but I am so please that I did! It really is quite delicate (just as it says). I have made a very simple card by stamping the main floral image once and adding a few of the little flower sprays and a few little dots here and there. I used one of my favourite colours Poppy Parade and Whisper White cardstock. I edged the mat that I stamped on with the Ink Pad to make the mat pop off the page. I hope it pops for you too? I'm really pleased with the simplicity of this card that I love it!

As Cary explained, January sees the start of another Seasonal Catalogue. The just released seasonal catalogue from Stampin' Up! is soon to be followed by the New Annual Catalogue in a few months too.  Until then and in conjunction with the seasonal catalogue we have our annual Saleabration season. This is usually for 3 whole months but this year we will be getting 2 lots of Saleabration. One in January and February and the other in July and August. Every Saleabration, we always have a special offer for you to join our team of demonstrators. This month it is a kit of your choice for only £99 which you get to choose to the value of £130. In addition to that, you get 5 packs of Designer Series Papers too! What an absolute Bargain! 

If you are interested in joining our amazing team of wonderful demonstrators please just drop us a line or message us here and we will get back to you. Being a demonstrator with all of the amazing products, demonstrator benefits and most importantly, working for the very best company ever! You just cannot go wrong. Start your new year off the right way, loving what we do and sharing what we love.

Gill xxx😍😍

Fun fold Friday Darling Donkeys

 For my last card with the Darling Donkeys...for this week! Coz they sure are going to be getting used a lot more by me!! I have made an easy, non slushy fun fold Valentine card.

The fold is a simple easle card made by taking a piece of card measuring 10.5cm x 29.7cm scored at 14.85cm. ( 4 1/4" x 11" scored at 5") Next fold from one end to the scoreline, I find it easier to do by hand and use a bone folder to get a good crisp fold rather than scoring .

Next I created mats using the gorgeous Oh So Ombre pattern paper from Stampin Up Sale-A-Bration promotion.  The colour way I chose was the bright bluey green called Bermuda Bay , it sounds soooo good and looks great too 😉

I then took some heart dies and made a frame for my Darling Donkey . I coloured my donkey grey to coordinate but coloured the rose bright red as a pop of colour in the overall project. 

Now when the products are this good you just don’t want to leave any surface naked! So I decorated the back panel, where a message would be written, and the envelope and decorated them with die cuts. 

If you have liked my projects this week and would like to have a copy of the January to June mini catalogue and Sale-A-Bration catalogue from Stampin' Up! We would love to send you a copy if you live in the UK just comment below and we'll get them sent asap. 

Have a great weekend and please join me next week when Gill will be sharing the inspiration. 

Have fun 

Cary xx

Throwback Thursday Darling Donkeys

 Today's card is an updated version of a card I made a few years back . It's a super easy pocket card. I have used the Darling Donkeys and another Sale-A-Bration item called Flower and Field pattern paper.

This 12" x 12" paper is an exclusive Pack of 12 double sided sheets that can only be obtained with a qualifying purchase during the Sale-A-Bration period of January till the end of February.  

Today's card show cases the papers really well. 

The card is a simple pocket card thats really useful as a gift card holder. 

Watercolour Wednesday Darling Donkeys

 Watercolour doesn't always have to include lots of ink ....in fact for today's Darling Donkeys card I've used no wet ink at all!!

I started by applying two colours of ink, blue and green, with blending brushes to the middle of my cardstock.  You don't have to use blending brushes you could use sponges or sponge daubers I chose to use the brushes as they are now available from Stampin' Up! So as a demo I just had to try them out didn't I? 😉 lol

If you'd like to give these fantastic brushes a go you can purchase them from HERE

Once I'm happy with my blended piece I took out my water spritzer and gently misted water over it. I then unscrewed the spritzer and used the straw part of the spritzer and gently tapped it to spread some larger spots of water over it. Now it just time to sit back an wait for the magic to happen. As the water hits the ink on the cardstock it repels the ink and leaves a pale spot. It is a really easy technique and great fun.

Finally all I needed was to stamp, colour and fussy cut out this adorable Darling Donkey 😍 

A clean and simple card that was fun to make and will bring a smile to the recipients day when they receive it. 

Make it simple Monday Darling Donkeys

How would you like a sneek peek at a gorgeous stamp set from an upcoming Stampin Up promotion? And the best thing is that it's  a free set!! Yes you read that right !! Free product! But more about that later lets start with the fun stuff. Let me introduce you to the Darling Donkeys .

Aren't they the cutest?? These fun images are sure to make the recipients smile 😃 

For today's #simplestamping card I've used a really simple way to add colour to an image. I  was inspired to use the technique from a fellow demo but sadly didn't save her post so don't have her name 😢 if you do know please comment below so I can edit the post to give due credit.

The technique is called pointilism. Vincent Van Gogh used it so it must be good 😉. But the real reason I'm using it for my card today is that it's super simple and can be done using any colouring tool such as felt tip markers, colouring pencils , alcohol marker....even just a pencil! 

Stamp your image then take your pens or pencils and dot around the image. I used 3 tones of 1 colour,  pink. A light, mid and dark tone. I started with the light and dotted closely together all around the donkey. I allowed a few stray dots to extend out. Then I took the mid tone pen and did the same but putting the dots a bit further apart but still starting close to the stamped lines. Next I took the dark pen and added fewer dots but making sure that some extended out. Then I went back to my light pen and added dots where I tought I needed them.

Whilst I had my pens out I also did a small strip of dots to decorate the inside of my card. Just for that finishing touch 🙂

So here it is my #simplestamping card for my first post of 2021.

Make it simple Monday Vine Design

 Monday's are all about keeping it simple. And today's card shows how a stamp set such as this one called Vine Design can keep it simple easily! 

 #simplestamping is something we try to do to show that not every card must use lots of products or have shed loads of skills and techniques to make it beautiful. It is also about making sure that stamping and card making is acheveivable by any one whether new to paper crafting or not. It's also great to get back to basics sometimes for those of us who have been stamping a while. 

The first card uses just ink , stamp and card. I like to show how stamping doesn't have to be complicated and is easily achieved.  

Now #simplestamping can also be the starting point for other cards. The card below is what I call a stepped up version. It uses the same stamps and inks but includes coloured cardstock and something that everu crafter needs regardless of experience... bling!!!!

For this card I used minimal suplies. A small circle punch was used  to create the  notched corners. And I embellished it with some self adhesive sequins to add a little something.

Now I have a question for you. What would you advise someone to get who is just starting their stamping journey? Me I'd  tell them a good pair of scissors, a good trimmer, 3d foam and double sided tape, and some bling because it was invented to cover those little mistakes 😉 

Happy New Year and Fun Fold Friday - My favourite sets and cards

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all.

 It's my last day for this week and as it's fun fold Friday, I just have to show you some of the fun folds that I love and have made. Now obviously these can be made using any sentiment of images that you have but I'm going to show mine here. My favourite type of card is something that has an extra WOW to it so I guess that's why I love the fun fold cards so much. I hope you do too.

Some of them you may have seen on the blog this year but many you haven't. Here are just a few. 

This first one I have used the lovely stamp set called Beauty Abounds. It has some lovely images and the most amazing phrases too. This card looks like a standard C6 card but it slides open as you can see from the picture below.

Here is another the same style.

This is another simple looking C6 card and although it isn't a fun fold, it can be adapted to be one too. Just by hinging the piece of card on the front, it can be a double or even triple fold card. Once again I have used the gorgeous Celebrate Sunflowers stamp set.

 

The favourite of many of our team members this year has been the scrappy card. One of our team members, Danielle Ehren has made many of this style and shown eveyone on the team how simple they actually are. Just by using the odd bits of card or paper hanging around on the desk, you can make this or many cards like this very quickly and of course very economically! I used the Dinoroar papers for this one. I have used different coloured strips of card, different papers and absolutely all sorts to make cards like this. The cards are all well received too which makes it even more worth while doing.

 

 

This one below was a challenge card by another team member, Elizabeth Bennett. This one can be made into a gift card holder, or just an additional message on the little tab or even attach tickets or all sorts to it. I used Inspiring Iris stamp set for the images and messages. 

The paper of course is Seaside Spray and the Plush Poinsettia Speciality papers. I just love them!

The card below is obviously using the Poppy Papers and Peaceful Moments stamps but the style of the card was shown to us all in another team challenge by Tina Smith. I love the way you can add different pieces of paper, another mat and messages or images to the front of the card. I really do love this fold.

Here is another peak at my special poppies card this year. This is the card I made for my son and daughter in law for their wedding anniversary this year. It's a simple easel card but this time the front of the easel is a shaker card! A little bit extra on this one. I used the Peaceful Moments stamp set. 

The card below is made using the Scalloped Tag Topper punch. Now, I love the dies from Stampin' Up! but I truly love the punches they make too. This was made using a piece of card that had been folded equally into 4, then each section was wriggled into the punch and the top was made. The image inside was all stamped onto one piece of A5 white card, coloured and decorated then cut into 4 equal pieces for the mats. Much easier than it looks too thankfully!

This one has to be my most favourite fold ever. I made this style of card a few years ago as a swap for one of our annual get-togethers here in the UK. I used the gorgeous Gingham Gala papers for that and it went down down extremely well. It still gets made regularly I am really pleased to say too. This one was made for our demonstration with the DDM of Stampin' Up! in the UK as a special. I like to dispel the myths that fun fold cards are difficult and thought this would be the ideal time and it was! PHEW!!! Fortunately, the gasps and comments as that's going to be too difficult were soon dispelled and many of those who watched or took part were able to make it and shocked at how simple it actually was.

Well, that's it from me for this week. Again, I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and my wishes to everyone to stay safe, keep well but keep on crafting will never change.

Take care everyone and thank you all for your support over the last few years too. Should you be interested in looking at our shop for any of the amazing products I have mentioned over this week, please click HERE and it will take you there via another page so that you don't loose this one!

😍😍😍 Lots of Love Gill xxx 😍😍😍