Merry Patterns, special Hostess set

I just love this stamp set - unfortunately it was only available for hostess orders for the month of October. Just too soon for holiday crafts. I got mine, but didn't get to use it until December!!

I love the easy two step stamping with photopolymer stamps. And even if you are not 100% matching, it still looks pretty good!

So I made this one card with 3 different colour combos, using the special metallic snow flakes available from the Holiday Catalogue. The pack has 2 different colours of metallic snow flakes - gold and silver. The back of the snow flake is white, so I guess you could use them white also.



The first two colour combos where on Whisper White card stock, using Night of Navy card stock as a layer, Silver snowflake and on one the deer and the pattern sentiment has been stamped with Night of Navy, and on the other using in-colour 'Powder Pink'.





My favourite colour combo was the first one, which actually surprised me. I don't particularly like Very Vanilla, it's just a bit too yellow. I also don't care for the new in-colour 'tranquil tide'. But in this card, combined with the gold, it just looks 'trafidional'. The pattern stamp in the sentiment 'season' and the deer head has been stamped with Sahara Sand. The wood pattern paper (where the deer is stamped) is from Wood Textures Designer Series Paper Stack.

Then a very simple design. Just using single layer of Thick Whisper White Card Stock!. The stamp is from Merry Patterns special Hostess set. I stamped the outline deer with Archival Black Ink and then coloured the pattern version with Real Red marker (just the sweater part). Stamped the red sweater on the deer and then hand coloured using Sahara Sand Marker the head and the legs. I tried first colouring the stamp with two colours, but the image ended up smudged.

The border is hand drawn with Basic Black marker. The idea for this card came from Pinterest. I saw a german demonstrator doing this and thought it look very Scandinavian!

Using leftovers in card making!

This card came up from bits and bobs that I had left from the earlier scenery cards. I cut some folds on the card to create a 3D effect and glued the houses on the folded stubs. I did colour the houses before attaching them on the card base.

Here is an overhead close up view of the houses.

There are three pieces attached in front of the 3 tabs. One piece is actually tucked going under the middle tab and one piece is attached on the left tab.

Here is a side view of the tabs and the image placements. The colouring is done with ink and aqua painter and some are done with watercolour pencils and blender pens.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Here are four different takes on the same card. All using the snow flake embossing folder (from the Holiday Catalogue). The last card has the snow flake embossed 'reversed', which looks really cool too.

The other differences are just the colours and the sizes of the snow flakes set on top of the card. The last card has only one golden snow flake, the rest of them are white (cut from Shimmery White card stock). The snow flake dies are from Seasonal Layers Thinlits set. 

Santa's sleigh

I saw this idea on Pinterest and wanted to give it a try. I first heat embossed the 'snow swirls' (or are they stars....) with versa mark and clear embossing powder - YES, it is clear but because it is on white card stock and inked after, it shows white!

Once I had heat embossed the images, I started adding ink with sponge daubers. I used the darker blues at the 'tips' or centres of the swirls and lighter tones to the edges. I even used some Tempting Turquoise on this! Then I stamped the images from Hearts Come Home stamp set with Early Espresso and added some 'snow' on the house and trees with White craft ink and a paint brush.

Colourful Scenery

 I saw this idea on Pinterest, and wanted to try couple of versions of it. I loved the idea of fully coloured houses, but the execution of the third version is not the best, mainly because I used Shimmery White card stock for the cut out houses, on a Whisper White card base. Plus I think I would prefer colouring the houses with Watercolour Pencils and then add water to make it look painted, rather than using ink and aqua painters.

These two cards are similar. The second one is layered a little bit tighter, just because I cut the pieces a bit shorter. So if you want it not so tight, make sure you have enough white space below the houses to tuck behind the lower layer!

And here is a close up of the fully coloured houses!

Hearts Come Home

This is my favourite Thinlits set and matching stamp set!

This card looks impressive, but it's not really difficult to do. The worst part is to try to align the white and crumb cake images so, that the white layer is a little bit 'off'. On the first card you can see, how the white is not showing at the edges of the cut out images (on the ground), where as in the second card there is some 'snow' on the ground too

Pieces & Patterns cards

I fell in love with this stamp set and matching Designer Series Paper. I just never got to making any cards with them until about a month ago. Then forgot to post the pictures here :-)

I love how the black and white DSP looks like film strip! And love all the cameras on the paper! This card only has one stamped image - the greeting!

This card is using the same paper, but with more surface. Again, only one stamp used - the same greeting!

This third card has a bit more layers and elements.

I used the stitched framelits to make the Crushed Curry 'picture frame', the swirl is from Swirly Scribbles Thinlits and the leaf is from the Seasonal Layers Thinlits set. The only stamp used in this card is the greeting, which is from Pieces & Patterns stamp set.

ONLINE EXTRAVAGANZA

Stampin'Up! annual online extravaganza is here!

The first incredible offering of this promotion will be the 24-hour stamp sale. Select stamp sets will be 20% off for the first 24 hours of Online Extravaganza. Because of the limited time urgency of this sale, this is a great opportunity for you to stock up on awesome stamps! Stamp Sale starts November 20 12:00 AM and ends November 20 11:59 PM. 

To close out Online Extravaganza with a bang, Stampin'Up! is offering a special 24-hour flash sale on November 27th, after other Online Extravaganza deals end on the 26th. I will provide more information on this flash sale, later in the week. Make sure to check back here for the announcement and more details!

List of items on sale

My top 3 stamp sets on sale are these:

Stamparatus is coming!

Reservation opens Wednesday November 16th 2PM (MT).

See detailed schedule below

With the launch of this tool, Stampin'Up! is trying something different: testing a new reservation system. It acts like a true preorder: you reserve your spot and we guarantee shipment as soon as the product arrives in our warehouse. This system will allow them to get the product to market as soon as possible while avoiding backorders and efficiently managing inventory. 

The global launch will feature three reservation windows. For each window, please note the following:

• Reservation quantities are while supplies last.
• Limit is 1 tool per customer per reservation window. 
• You may participate in multiple reservation windows.
• In order to reserve your Stamparatus, you are required to provide your credit card information.
• Credit cards will not be charged until the Stamparatus ships from our facility. When you close your order, be sure to verify that your credit card and shipping information is correct.

Embossing Paste

3D Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folders

Diving into art

So, instead of doing cards on my vacation, my sister-in-law organized a 'diving into art' session for my birthday.

We had 5 adults and 2 children in our group, and we had a blast!

This project is part of Finland's 100 year celebration. The artist, Paula Julia Rusokallio from Creatimagia, is assembling an art collage in December 2017 from all the portraits painted in the workshops during this year.

It was a very interesting concept!

We started by drawing our own faces - EYES CLOSED!! by following our features with a brush while drawing the image. Then we did a second drawing, again eyes closed!!, with 2 different coloured markers! One drawing the left side of the face and the other drawing the right side.

Then we traced the lines from those two images (choosing, which features to use from each drawing) on a transparency sheet with a black permanent marker.

After this, we squeezed paint on the lines, and pressed the mirror image on our final project base.

Then we ripped pieces of paper from magazines and decoupaged them around our images. Wrote a poem, using letters from words we chose, and wrote that around our image. 

My poem went something like this:

Again the running sun is flooding the evening. 

A car is floating by beneath the window. 

The city senses - a new youth. 

A person arrives. 

Outside of the corner world speaks. 

A daring joy babbles. 

Forward drives the light.

Finally we added some paint on our image. What a great creative day!

Coffee Café Bundle

I just love the idea of this new bundle.... haven't ordered it yet... maybe in the fall

Love Today Planner Kit

Happy Easter to all you good eggs!!

With this card I want to wish all you 'good eggs' happy Easter!

 The background is embossed with the Hexagons Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (I do wish that Stampin'Up! would use a 'little' shorter item names....)

The best way to use these deep embossing folders is to sprits your card stock with water before embossing. It softens the fibres on the paper, so it won't wrinkle and you get a deeper impression.

The colours on this card are Whisper White, Pool Party and Bermuda Bay. And the stamp set is a Sale-a-bration 'Hey Chick', which is no longer available.

Happy Easter!!!!!!!!

Retiring list is out!

So if there are any items that you just HAVE TO HAVE, better order them before they are gone!

Here is a link to a  Retiring list (listed by page nr).

Pretty in pink

The three following cards are very soft and delicate, using various soft colours and delicate stamps.

inspired by Tami White

The first is using Beautiful You stamp set, the new watercolour pencils and Falling in Love designer Series paper (all available from the new Occasions catalogue). The card base is Blushing Bride and the edge of the white card stock is stamped using a Sale-a-Bration stamp set 'Delicate Details' (no longer available).

The second card is using Sale-a-Bration stamp sets (no longer available - sorry....) The greeting is from 'So Very Much' and the lace is from 'Delicate Details'. The colours are Calypso Coral, Blushing Bride and Sahara Sand. If you would do all lace in same colour, you could mount them all on the same block and stamp once.

The third card is very simple, but requires a steady hand to get the glue (Fine Tip Glue Pen) neatly behind the cut out balloon. The die is 'Up and Away' thinlit and the greeting is from the coordinating 'lift me up' stamp set. The card base is Blushing Bride and the sentiment is stamped with Sahara Sand and cut out using the 'Stitched Shapes' framelits.

waiting for the spring... while it's still snowing outside

Last weekend I did a Stampin'Up! party in my husbands hometown Sudbury. It's always makes me nervous to pack for this event. Just trying to make sure that I have all the supplies and also trying to fit all my materials into one bag, rather than hauling the whole craft room with me.

Since I knew there are card makers of different experience level, I decided to keep things simple for the first card. Just using stamps, no Big Shot needed. This is a great way to get people interested in Stampin'Up! I find if you bring all the bells and whistles, people may find it too complex and expensive to get started, but if you only need one stamp set and few ink pads and white card stock... what's to stop you from getting started.

The card uses 'Swirly Birds' stamp set. Just use two different tones of blues for the bird, kite and sentiment. The orange is Tangerine Tango and the yellow is So Saffron. The sentiment is from 'Sunshine sayings' stamp set. I did the 'sunshine' on a separate banner just because the original word wasn't stamped straight, so I had to cover it somehow :-)

Here is an other card made with the same 'swirly bird' stamp set. This stamp set is SO versatile!!

The  colours on this card are Peekaboo Peach, Dapper Denim, Watermelon Wonder and Mint Macaron. The pattern paper is from the Up&Away Sale-a-Bration designers paper. 

Lift me up.... with hot air balloons!!

as promised, here are more cards with hot air balloons

The cards are made using the 'lift me up' stamp set and the matching framelits 'up and away' die.


The colours on the first card are: Pool Party, Peekaboo Peach, Tip Top Taupe, Watermelon Wonder and Mint Macaroon.

The white base layer was glued directly on the Soft Sky card base and the balloons and clouds were popped up using dimensionals. The clouds were embossed using 'softly falling' embossing folder.

The second card uses Soft Sky, Flirty Flamingo