Exciting News!

Hello all!




Told you I'd be back today with a special announcement! And here it is: I've been invited to join Stacey's Curtain Call Crew Design Team! Stacey Schafer is a Stampin' Up demo with an awesome blog (you can check it out in my blog roll or click the Curtain Call pic on the right). She posts weekly colour challenges for anyone to participate in and they are FAB! As anyone who knows me is aware, I LOVE colour - it is probably my favourite thing about designing cards, and one of the many reasons I love SU cos I can easily mix and match colours together.



So as of next week, I will be posting my sample for Stacey's Curtain Call colour challenge every Sunday - do join in if you can - it's gonna be lots of fun!!



In honour of this great news - I've made a card for last week's challenge: Night of Nazy, Ballet Blue, Old Olive, Kraft and Whisper White. Here's what I whipped up:

I faced an initial problem with this colour challenge as I don't have either of the blue inkpads - shocking! So I used my markers to ink up the flowers from Live Your Dream. I cut them out and layered on some Whisper White card. The sentiment is from Fresh Cuts and I selectively inked each word and stamped one under the other as that suited my design a little better. The ribbon is Ballet Blue satin - I dyed some white satin ribbon using my reinkers - such fun! I added an old olive button with some linen thread. The DSP is from the hostess paper pack in the current catty.

Thanks for stopping by today!

x Amy x

SAB card set...

Hiya!

I thought I'd share with you a project I made using the Sale-a-Bration stamps from Stampin Up. These are only available in January and Feb so only two days to go before they're gone!

This is a folder of cards using a Timeless Template from PTI.

I use the colours Bravo Burguny, Sahara Sand, Old Olive, Really Rust and Very Vanilla for the whole thing. It started with me making my own DSP using some Sahara sand papers from the hostess DSP set in this year's catalogue. I stamped the trees on the paper in BB, OO and RR repeatedly then I embossed the swirl from Baroque Motifs in clear EP over the stamped paper and finally sponged around the edges with Creamy Caramel ink.

Here's a pic of the folder open:

This card uses my favourite SAB set - Good Neighbors - I just love those cute little houses with all the different possibilites for colours and designs. I made some 'grass' by snipping very thin cuts along a piece of OO card using my paper snips.

This card uses the presents from Happy Moments - such a great set for beginners as it as simple images to colour (I used a blender pen and inkpads on the top and bottom presents) and the presents can also be paper pieced (as I did using Sahara sand card for the middle one).

This card uses Whimsical Words - gotta love the font of these sentiments! I pulled out a die-cut flower in OO (from the die-cut blooms set in the catty) and stuck the sentiment in the middle of that. To add a bit of extra fanciness I used vintage brads on the petals.

The final card is the simplest - using Vintage Labels. This would be perfect for a man - even with the ribbon!! (My hubby insists that cards for men can't have ribbon on them, but I disagree... and I win!)

Thanks for stopping by today - I'll be back tomorrow (yes tomorrow - shock horror, two posts in consecutive days!) with an exciting announcement...!

x Amy x

Greenhouse frenzy!

Hello!

Instead of apologizing once again for my blogging absence I thought I'd treat you with a whole bunch of stuff on one day!

Yesterday, Nichole Heady issued a challenge on her blog to create some flower embellishments that you could present as a gift to a fellow crafter. She had several cool examples and I had seen some of Dawn McVey's awesome embellies done in this way so I thought I'd have a go myself! The wonders of being on half-term meant that I didn't have to rush to do just one before getting on with work stuff - I could play blissfully all day! So I ended up making three sheets of embellishments in three different colourways. I used the lovely Greenhouse Garden stamp set, which at the moment you can purchase with part of the price going to the Haiti earthquake appeal - Stampin Up are donating £1 from the sale of each set to this appeal so now is an excellent time to buy this one!

The first one I did was in soft colours of plum and saffron. Here's the card I made using some of my embellishments:

And here are the embellishements attached to a sheet of window plastic. I folded a strip of coordinating DSP over the top of the clear sheet which really adds to the presentation - thanks Nichole for this tip!

The large flowers were stamped with Pale Plum and Perfect Plum. I added a little flower in the centre of these that I stamped with Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant. I also added a pearl in the centre of these flowers (from the Pretties Kit). I threaded some cotton through the hole in the pearl then threaded it through the centre of the flower and tied in a knot at the back. I added a glue dot underneath the pearl to fix it to the little flower securely.

The medium-sized flowers were stamped with So Saffron and More Mustard and I added a Pumpkin Pie brad in the centre. I also added some glitter with a 2-way glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

I then decided to go in a completely different direction and dip into my Bold Brights stampin spots - eek! This one turned out very tropical!

I scored two lines around the edges of the whisper white panel after stamping the stems to add a bit of interest. The sentiment is from Bella's Bloom.

These are the bold brights version of my flower embellishments.

As you can see I used the same stamps and format for my flowers - just changed the colours and embellishments.

I stamped the large flower using Tempting Turqouise and Brilliant Blue, the medium-sized flowers were stamped with Pixie Pink and Pink Passion. The small flowers were stamped with Yoyo Yellow and Only Orange.

To embellish the flowers I added turquoise gem brads through the centre of the blue flowers and added glass beads (from the Pretties Kit) to the centre of the pink flowers with a glue dot.

To attach the flowers to the clear sheet I used some Tombow (I put a small amount on the back of the flowers and left to dry before attaching to the sheet - this makes it repositionable).

This is my favourite version of my flower embellishments, and my favourite card out of the three - what a surprise that it uses Earth Elements colours lol!

I dipped into my non-SU stash for a few parts of this one - I used a curved border punch for the Very Vanilla strip on the bottom of the card and I used some stamps from Papertrey for the background and sentiment. The buttons in the centre of the red flowers are also from Papertrey.

For my earthy flowers I stamped the larger flower using Ruby Red and Chocolate Chip and added a chocolate button with linen thread through the centre.

The medium-sized flowers were stamped with More Mustard and Really Rust and I added a vanilla flat-back pearl in the centre. The small flowers were stamped with Really Rust and Chocolate Chip.

I love these flowers so much I don't think I'm going to be able to give them away - but hey they make really quick embellishments for your cards and they help a card come together super fast!

I hope you've enjoyed all my creativity yesterday - try having a go at this yourself - it's a lot of fun!!

Thanks for stopping by!

x Amy x

Blokey Valentine...

Hello all!

I made this card for our Stampin Up team challenge - this week it was a colour challenge: Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Basic Grey and Very Vanilla. I wanted to make a valentine card for my hubby and I thought this truck from Loads of Love would work well as we have been watching Top Gear a lot recently! I stamped the truck onto Nouveau Chic DSP (what a surprise that I'm using this paper AGAIN!) and cut out. I then stamped it again on Very Vanilla and paper pieced the truck onto that image. I added some crystal effects to the windows to make them shiny and some silver embossing powder to the door handle and bumpers with a versamarker pen.

This card is called a 'joy fold' card, which is held closed by the greeting circle. I grunged-up the edges of a lot of the panels using a distressing tool and a sponge dauber.

Here's the recipe:
Stamps: Loads of Love, Love You Much, Spot on wheel
Ink: Basic Grey
Paper: Basic Grey, Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla, Naturals Ivory
Accessories: Crystal effects, jumbo eyelets, silver EP, versamarker, sponge dauber, cutter kit, scallop circle punch, circle punches, mini hole punch

Thanks for stopping by!

x Amy x