Sweet Summer Pastels

Hello!

The blog hop last week was fantastic wasnt it?  There were some incredible projects and I was itching to have a play after going through all the loops.  Dont forget, you only have until the end of February to get your free stamp sets!
  1) by ordering the starter kit - (free set from SU + an extra one from me!)
  2) by placing an order for £45 or more (not including delivery charge)
  3) by holding a workshop with sales over £300.

I havent used my Stampin' Pastels in at least 12 months, even after getting the update set with all the new colours in.  But I was in my element colouring this set, Sweet Summer is THE BEST set for for using pastels, markers, watercolour crayons or pencils!!!

The flower stems were stamped in Pear Pizzazz ink onto Whisper White card then the heads stamped (lining up with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig) in Cherry Cobbler.  The leaves and flower heads were coloured in using blender pens and my pastels.  A small rhinestone was added to the central flower. 

I do struggle for ideas with layouts for cards but as I was placing all the elements I wanted to use, I came up with this and I quite like it.  The Peach Parfait designer series paper was lined up with a mat of Wild Wasabi using my grid paper and then adhered in place.  Then I wrapped a length of Peach Parfait Stitched Poly Ribbon around the layers and attached it to the Cherry Cobbler card blank.  The stamped card with the flowers was raised up on dimensionals and attached to the Wild Wasabi cardstock.

The bee and the butterfly were left overs from the ones I used for last weeks Blog Hop project and were just raised on dimensionals before placing on the card. 

With a bit of luck, Sara, Joanne and myself will be having a mini blog hop next Sunday to show you some card candy each of us made with some of the current stamp sets including Natures Nest, Bundle of Love and Happiness Share.  They are gorgeous and I am sure they will give you some great ideas so make sure you bob back to look.

One more thing before I go, I we have our next Barnsley Crop next Saturday, 5th Feb at the Doghill Community Centre in Shafton. So if you want to come over and have a play, please do!  Our Technique Club is starting and will cover two different techniques you can do with plain stamps to get various effects.  We all want to get the most out of the stamps we already have, dont we?!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend? 
Jan
X

Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop!

Oooo, are you in for treat today!!!

Its the In Love With Stamping Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop.

So grab a cuppa and settle down for some serious chill out time and inspiration from SU Demos from all over the country.

With luck (and fingers crossed, technology) you should have arrived from Natalie's Blog. She has some amazing projects on her blog hasnt she?  Well she is a hard act to follow but, here goes...

The card is a CASE of one demonstrated at the European Convention in November last year and has a real wow factor when you see it done.  The swirly stem from Sweet Summer was randomly stamped in black Stazon ink onto Glossy White cardstock and then a white crayon was used to trace selected parts of the design. 

Baja Breeze ink was applied to the card using a brayer and where the crayon has been traced, the ink resists leaving the area white.  All you have to do then is just wipe over the card to get rid of any stray ink and the white card underneath 'pops' out.  The 3 flowers and tiny butterfly were done in the same way and cut out.

The glossy card was trimmed and then matted and layered onto So Saffron card and a strip of Peach Parfait 1/2" Stitched-Poly ribbon was wrapped around the layer before it was applied to the Peach Parfait card blank.

The sentiment is from the So Happy For You SAB set and was stamped onto Glossy White card and punched put with the 1 3/4" Oval Large punch.  It was then mounted on a punched 1 3/8" Oval Large piece of Baja Breeze cardstock and added to the card blank.

The flowers and butterfly were mounted on dimensionals and Basic Rhinestones added to the flowers before they were positioned on the finished card.

The stamped candle is something I have been thinking about for a while.  The candle has square sides so all I did was use my heat gun to gently heat the area I wanted to stamp on, to soften the wax (taking care not to melt it!).  The stamp was just pressed into the wax and left for a few seconds to cool before removing. 

I was a little worried about damaging the stamp with the heat, but it was fine as it was only in the wax for a few seconds.  The photo isnt too clever but I am really impressed with the result.  Heres another picture showing the candle just after I stamped it.

To finish it off I just used my Eyelett Border punch along a strip of Baja Breeze card and wrapped a lenth of Peach Parfait ribbon around the bottom of the candle.

Heres the other project I made - a last minute substitution - using the Bliss set.  This is my favourate SAB set and works great with the Vintage Vogue set and Very Vintage wheel.  I will apologise now for the poor quality of the picture, but it was quite late when I took the photo (if I get the chance I will try to replace with a better photo!)

I have had some canvas's in a cupboard for a few years and never really knew what to do with them so decided to make something different for a change. 

I used the Very Vintage wheel and Bashful Blue ink to cover the whole of the canvas.  The edges of the canvas didnt cover very well, so I used the flourish stamp inked in Marina Mist and made borders for the top and bottom.

The letters for 'Love' are from On Board Alphabet Soup and I used Whisper White Craft ink on them as a base before sponging Marina Mist ink on the edges.  Then I inked the flourish stamp in Night of Navy and stamped directly over the top.

I have seen these large ribbon flowers quite alot lately and they were really easy to make.  I just did a running stitch along one edge of Bashful Blue 1 1/4" Grosgrain striped ribbon and pulled it tight to gather up.  The edges were stitched together to keep them tidy.  I just added buttons to the centre and stitched them in place.

The small flowers and butterflies were inked using the Rock and Roll technique in Marina Mist with Night of Navy and Rose Red with Pink Pirouette.  They were then cut out, had basic pearls adhered were and attached to the canvas along with the ribbon flowers.

Well, thats it from me for today (unless I manage to sneek a few hours in my craft room that is!).  Thanks for stopping by, I will now pass you over to Anthea who is the next blog on your tour.

Jan
X

Blog Hop 23rd January and Make & Take Church Group

Hope you have some spare time this coming weekend - were having another Blog Hop - and its a big one!!!

Its going to start on Sunday 23rd January at 10am.

There are about 40 of us from the In Love With Stamping website, split into 4 groups of 10 and we are all making projects using the stamps from the Sale-A-Bration promotion.  If you have seen the Blog Hops in the past they are amazing and give you dozens of ideas for colours and designs.  All you have to do is start at one blog, read the post and then click on the link to take you to the next one.

Make sure you put some time to one side on Sunday to have some proper relaxation and inspiration!!!

Anyway, back to reality, heres a picture of the make and take from last weeks church group workshop.

 I purposely kept it really simple as there were some there with mobility issues and lots of new crafters but I did take lots of stamps for those who fancied having a play.

The Bashful Blue A4 card was cut lenthways and scored at the centre point to give a C6 card blank.  We tied a knot in a strip of the beautiful 5/8 Organza Ribbon (this is so soft and sits perfectly on cards!) and then wrapped it around some Rose Red card.  This was just attached to one side of the front of the card blank.

The bird was punched out of Bashful Blue card using the Two Step Bird punch and the leaf / wing from Wild Wasabi card.  They were just mounted onto a square of Whisper White and mounted again on a slighly bigger square of Rose Red card.

As I took a few stamp sets for people to chose what they wanted to do, I used one of the litte stamps from the Tiny Tags set for the sentiment (here I used 'Friends'). 

To finish off, I punched out a scalloped square from So Saffron card, cut it in half and attached it to the back of the bird topper before adding it on to the card blank - simples!

The ladies loved it and seemed to really enjoy the afternoon.  Hope to see you all again soon!

Thanks for stopping by.  And dont forget to come back to look at the Blog Hop on Sunday!!!

Jan



Church Group Workshop!

Its been another busy week for me with work and also getting ready for a large workshop I did yesterday.

The workshop was so much fun.  There were 14 of is alltogether with only a few of the ladies who were into crafting.  So the look on some of the ladies faces when they had finished their make and take was brilliant and made it so worthwhile.

I did a couple of demonstrations.  The first one was making a little gift box Monica Gale showed us at a Stampin' Up! training day last year and its so easy to make!

For the demonstration, I decorated an A4 sheet of So Safforn card by stamping the flourish from Vintage vogue in So Safffron ink.

To make the box, place the landscape A4 sheet of card in front of you and score lines down at 7, 14, 21 and 28cm.  You will find that you have a narrow strip of card left at the end which will be the side flap to fasten the box.

Turn the card (to portrait) and score a line down 7cm from one edge (these will become the bottom flaps of the box).  Make cuts along each of the vertical 4 score lines (but only up to the 7cm scoreline!). 

Where you cut along the scoreline for the thin strip of card (side flap) cut vertically upto the 7cm scoreline and then diagonally across thin strip so you are removing of a small oblong piece of card.  This helps when you are folding the box into shape.  It also makes it easier to fold the box together if you make very narrow v shaped cuts when cutting upto the 7cm score line.

Fold and crease along all your scorelines, adding a strong adhesive to the side flap and then the bottom ones.

Use a small clip (I used one of the mini clips from the Clips Assortment) to hold the front an back of the box top together and fastened a strip of 1 1/4" Striped Grosgrain ribbon in Pumpkin Pie around the edges to secure the box.

The topper was made by stamping the F image in So Saffron ink onto Whisper White cardstock and cutting the 'F' out as close to the ink as possible (so I cut off the 'Friends').  Then I stamped the image again in Chocolate Chip ink onto Whisper White cardstock, mounted the trimmed So Saffron 'F' on dimentionals and positioned it directly over the Chocolate Chip image (leaving the 'Friends' part clear).  This was just mounted onto a mat of Chocolate Chip card and adhered to the front of the box.

I put a couple of little things inside to thank the hostess and gave it to her as a thank you gift for arranging the workshop.  But I am not telling you what they are - its our little secret...

The other demonstration I did was to decorate a small food bag using the Beware Pirates stamp set.  I had already made a card, but wanted to show how easy it would be to make coordinated items for childrens parties.

I love distressing card & paper - the texture you get is fab and this stamp set is perfect for distressing.

The Neutrals Ivory card was stamped in Soft Suede with all the images in the set.  The shape of each image was then torn and the edges distressed.  Then I used sponge daubers in Soft Suede ink and the Spritzer Tool to age the card even more.. 

Once I was happy with the effect I tore Soft Suede cardstock mats, making each shape slightly bigger than the main image so they would show on the card/bag.  The mats were then screwed up and flattened out to adhere the main image on top. 

The card blank was Sahara Sand and is just A6 in size.  I stamped the Arrrrr! randomly onto the card and bag (bought from a local homeware shop) and just mounted the images onto them.  Heres the inside of the card.

As this is such a long post I will post the make & take card everyone made another day.  Well, I say what everyone made quite loosely - everyone wanted to make theirs different!!!  It was brilliant to see how each one looked and considering that not many were crafters, they all had some fab design ideas!!!

Bob back soon to see the make and take card.

Thanks for coming to visit.  Enjoy your weekend!!

Jan
x

First Crop!

We held out first crop on Saturday and it was brilliant!!!  A lovely, relaxed morning with amazing crafters - we had an absolute ball. 

As much as I love holding classes, it was so nice to just sit and spend time with everyone and just craft. 

I will be starting a Technique Club for the February Barnsley Crop, so I had a bit of a play last week doing techniques I havent done in ages.  Its strange how quickly we forget some fabulous ways of crafting and get into a rut doing the same sort of thing. Heres a card I made to show one of the techniques we will be covering later on in the year.

The tecnhique is called Faux Silk and was included in our recent SU Impressions publication (a monthly brochure SU Demonstrators receive).  I have seen the technique before but it is so nice when its done (and so easy too!).

The next Barnsley Crop is planned for February 5th at the Doghill Community Centre Shafton and marks the start of the Technique Club.  The Club costs £5.00 - is totally optional - and we will be doing two techniques (Kissing and Water Spot Stamping) so bob the date in your diary and come and have a play!

Recipe
Stamp Set - Just Believe
Cardstock - Pretty in Pink, Concord Crush and Whisper White
Ink - Concord Crush
Designer Series Paper - Concord Crush
Accessories - Curly Lable Extra Large
Non-SU - Tissue Paper.

Jan
X

Oh - its here SALE - A - BRATION

I have been itching to show the free stamps available through this years Sale-A-Bration ever since we saw them at Convention in November!

The sets this year are stunning, but this one is DEFINITELY my favourite.  How gorgeous is this stamp set?

I think the next one is a very close second. How cute is the owl? 

Each of these images has been designed to fit into current SU punches (or ones which are coming really soon!!!!)  

This is the extra set all demonstrators present at the end of Novembers Convention received.

And here is the sweetest sentiment set.

As you can see there's a little bit of everything in this years Sale-A-Bration.  The hardest thing will be for you to decide which one you want first (tee hee!).

Here's how you can get your free sets.

1) Get one free Sale-A-Bration stamp set for each £45 you spend with me on Stampin' Up! goodies (before shipping and handling). For every £45 you spend, you choose another FREE set!

2) Get an extra free Sale-A-Bration stamp set when you host a workshop with least £300 in product sales(before handling and shipping) - in addition to all of the regular hostess benefits!

3) Join as a SU Demonstrator during Sale-A-Bration and you can choose any stamp set (a value of up to £44.95) from our current Idea Book and Catalogue! This is in addition to the other benefits you get by joining me. You can join (for just £119, getting over £230 of products) and either run a business or be simply a hobby demo, getting discount on your own purchases - and we ALL love discounts dont we?!

You can come and see the new stamp sets in the flesh at my Barnsely Crop - details here.

Contact me today to get your hands on these scrummy free stamp sets!

Jan
X