Christmas Card Club - North Star or Stars

Stampin' Up! Awesomely Artistic for Christmas

Maureen has given us the challenge of The North Star or stars for our Christmas card club this time.  You'd think it would be easy, but last night when I set to making this card I had an idea in mind, but just couldn't get it to work.  To say the 'mojo' had left me is an understatement and to add to it I think I was tired and not functioning well as everything I did to this card went wrong.  So eventually I stopped and I'm not entirely happy with this but have been busy with my lovely family today so unable to rethink.  It's kinda vintage now in its appearance and has the gorgeous copper heat embossing from Stampin' Up  that I love along with the copper foil paper.  The main star is stamped with a star like image from Awesomely Artistic and the mini stars are from the recently retired Forever Evergreen.  A little copper embossing with Gorgeous grunge for texture and a sentiment from Designer Tin of Tags.  

Back of now for more lovely family time, but check back later this week as I'm joining in with a couple of fantastic blog hops.  

Have a great week.

Hugs Zx

Stampin Up Thoughtful Branches for The Grand Vacation Blog Hop

How time is flying by when already I'm inviting you to join in with another Grand Vacation Mediterranean Achiever's Blog Hop.  This month we are all sharing inspiration with you for the incoming stamp and die bundle from Stampin' Up! called Thoughtful Branches.  It will be available to order on 2 August through 31 August only.  It is fabulous and as you will see from the lovely posts and my little selection of cards it is incredibly versatile. 

For every multiple of £45 you spend on Stampin' Up! product from my online Stampin' Up! shop or through me you'll receive a gift voucher worth £4.50 and you can use these vouchers during the same dates that the Thoughtful Branches bundle is available.  There's still time to order this month and spending this much also means there are freebies on offer from me too when you use this month's online host code. 

Now work your way through the list at the bottom of the post for more inspiration.  You're currently here with me, Zoe Tant in the UK.

Christmas, birthday cards, congratulations and sympathy cards are just a few of the cards you can make with Stampin' Up! Thoughtful Branches Stamps and Beautiful Branches dies.  Buy separately or as a bundle to save 10%.

Enjoy the hop!

Zx.

Christmas Card Club with Stampin Up Gorgeous Grunge

Stampin Up Gorgeous Grunge makes a fun Christmas Card Wreath

I promised this morning I'd be back with another quick post. I'm a little later than planned as I was late home from Onstage 2016 at Telford and was happy, but shattered and so slept in.  My earlier post was scheduled.
 Our day was so much fun yesterday.  I travelled over on Friday with some friends and we stayed once again in the most delightful B&B.  On arrival, we sat in the victorian sitting room with its roaring log fire, drank tea and ate homemade scones, strawberry cake and for those that liked walnut and coffee cake there was some of that too.  I was ready to curl up and snooze then, but headed out to the CentreStage event laid on by Stampin' Up! for senior managers.  We had a short presentation and then a delicious meal and we received a gorgeous back pack which is the same colour as a new colour coming in soon. I will share a pic tomorrow as I'm not allowed just yet.  I can share some of the fun at the event though.

Table I sat at were awarded some balloons as a bit of fun. So here is me before I took them back to our B&B for my friend Mikaela's little boy to find when he woke up the next morning.  He's only 5 and I'm sure he loved the outgoing in colour balloons!  

The tables were beautifully laid also and decorated with these stunning flowers. 

Yesterday at the actual Onstage Event we were given a copy of the new Stampin Up 2016 - 2017 catalogue and you can almost see it here as my bestie Emily received hers!  Sorry to tease, but we can't quite show it all just yet.

Now my card for  this fortnight's Christmas Card Challenge.  Our challenger this time is Valery who set the theme of Red Berries.  I've created a fun, modern wreath card and used real red candy dots for my berries.  I stamped around in a rough circle using one of the stamps from Gorgeous Grunge in garden green ink, added the berries and also cut a red foil card bow using a die from The Wonderful Wreath Framelits.  There is also the inevitable bling of some tiny rhinestones for added sparkle.

Don't forget to visit the others in our challenge who have some great inspiration for Red Berries.

More soon.
Zx

Stampin' Up! Mediterranean Cruise Achievers Blog Hop - Male Cards

 Hi there and welcome. This is my first time of joining the blog hop and I'm excited to be involved and to share  my offering for the Stampin' Up! Mediterranean Cruise Blog Hop with it's theme of 'One for the Guys'.  I'm also a little bit shy as there are some extremely talented Stampin' Up! demonstrators in this group and so I hope I'm up to the standard.

Last weekend I spent time with my dutch downline in Amsterdam and they showed me some great tricks with ink so I put a few into action for this card and was also inspired by a tutorial I found some time ago in Craft Stamper magazine.

I've used brights ( daffodil delight, real read and pacific point) ink and stamp sets Gorgeous Grunge and Timeless Textures to develop my back drop and then added the car from Beautiful Ride which I embossed in black and then added colour to with sponges and a couple of marker pens.  Final touch, was to add some candy dots and a sentiment from Guy Greetings.

Enjoy the hop! You can check the list below to see where you go next.  I'm Zoe Tant so carry on down the list for lots of inspiration for those male cards with which we all seem to struggle.

 See you again soon and thanks for stopping by.
Zx

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness Awaits for Male birthday cards

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness awaits great for male cards 

We have a handful of birthdays coming up and it's mainly the men in our family so I've been playing with Stampin' Up! 's set The Wilderness Awaits.  This first card is very simple, but quite effective with the Hardwood background stamp, stamped tone on tone in lost lagoon as a base card, followed by mint macaron as the top layer stamped again with a tone on tone effect using Gorgeous Grunge and the magnificent stag from The Wilderness Awaits.  

I'm rapidly moving my way through boxes of  the Expressions Natural Elements and you don't have to keep them with the natural wood look! You can colour them with a sharpie pen or Staz On black in  pad and make them the colour you want.  To add a little more interest to my card I've rolled back the corner of my matting layer, having first broken the card fibres with my bone folder and held it in place with some linen thread.  A bit of 'smudging' with tone on tone inks and a sponge dauber or two and you have a great card for one of the men in your life! 

So this one is a happy birthday for my brother-in-law.

More soon Zx

Challenges 

Pixie Snipets - must use snipets 

Stampin' Up! Butterfly Basics makes a great card by Stamping Scene

As well as Christmas Card Club, I'm also in a card swap group.  Each month the lovely Jane sets us a challenge and tells us who to send our card to.  It's fab as you receive a beautiful card every month and you get to know some really nice people as we all share a little about ourselves in the cards we send.  This is one I sent when the challenge was neutrals.

I've used Stampin' Up! stamp set Butterfly Basics, Crazy About You and Gorgeous Grunge.  The hello is a thin lit die from a set called Hello You which team up with the Crazy About You stamp set. It's one of those lovely bundles in the new Stampin' Up! catalogue that gives you 15% off the price when you buy the bundle.  I'm always up for a bargain so I was sold on it!

The stripes in the background are from the Typeset Specialty Designer Series paper which thankfully carried over from last year's catalogue as I love it.  It goes with any colour as well as a neutral theme like this.

More soon. Zx


Go bundle shopping now in my Stampin' Up!  online shop now.

Kinda Eclectic Team Treats!!

stampin' up! kinda eclectic

This shows one of the treats I gave to my team at Convention.  I decorated notebooks for everyone to jot down tips while there.  Again that Kinda Eclectic stamp set crept out and jumped into my hands to use.  I just love it and I hope you can understand why......  I've also added some spatters from Gorgeous Grunge both sets are in the annual Stampin' Up! catalogue.  You can also see some of the new lace trim and gorgeous satin ribbon in mossy meadow.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon! Zx

It's kinda eclectic!

Saturday was World Card Making Day and to celebrate it I organised a charity fundraiser! Folk came to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust whilst having fun making cards.

This is the first of 5 cards made with everyone making two of each design.  

You can easily overlook the stamp set Kinda Eclectic in the Stampin' Up! annual catalogue, but test drive it and you find just like Gorgeous Grunge you can't live without it! It provides a fab circular star is there is such a thing that is fab on almost any card.  Here you just need to stamp it as a back drop to the rest of the images.  There's also the leaves and butterfly included and if you look at the card below you'll see that the 'dotty' line, mini butterfly and sentiment complete the set.  This one shows all the new in colours for 2014-2016.

Here are some of the ladies that came to the Fundraiser making their cards.  Thank you to everyone who supported this worthwhile cause.  

I'll share more of the cards soon so please do pop back. 

Hugs Zx

Stampin' Up! UK Wedding Ideas

 It's been rather too long since I blogged, but I've been suffering with my health for a long time and like most Mums I've soldiered on and put it down to motherhood, but recently discovered it was a little more than that and so slowly I'm on the mend. Nothing serious, but it's left me unable to keep up with life.  

That said Martin and I recently went to a friend's wedding. I knew the colour scheme as I was involved with the design and supply of materials.  I made her and her new hubby a card to match and wrapped the Project Life Album I made for them in similar colours, but used Stampin' Up! 's new Festive Designer Kraft paper rolls to wrap it in.  The flowers are made using the Spiral Flower Originals die on page 233 of the annual catalogue and the leaves are the retired Little Leaves sizzlit. 

Colours on the day were basic grey, smoky slate, blushing bride (how appropriate!!) and whisper white.  My card also features Teeny Tiny Sentiments and Gorgeous Grunge stamp sets along with a stencil made using the Hexagon Hive frame lit and Beautiful Wings embosslit for the butterflies.  

Please bare with me as I get more organised and back in control but do keep popping by to see my posts.  Thanks for your patience. 

Hugs Zx

Stampin' Up! UK Retiring Products Selling Fast!

By now you're realising I'm a bit of a fan of Gorgeous Grunge.  It's such a useful set for adding texture, background and depth to your projects and is just the ticket if you don't like too much 'white' space.

I've teamed it with Label Love and used more retiring colours midnight muse and gumball green with gold.  Rather bold, but by it's softened with the watercolour wonder washi tape which I love as it's so easy to use and it suits those with OCD as you can 'cut' the ends neatly, but is also great for anyone in a hurry or who doesn't worry about straight edges as it tears for a more vintage look.

As you know I love a bit of bling and so sequins feature here along with a wee metallic clothespin/ peg.  The tea lace paper doilies are a very cost efficient embellishment at just £2.75 for 24 when you only use a half like me here they go along way for the money.

The finishing embellie is a retiring in colour dahlia adhered simply with a mini glue dot!

A simple quick and easy card!  You may also recognise the layout which I used on previous cards and then enlarged for an 8 x 8 scrapbook layout. You can see them in this stamping scene post.

Go check out the bargains in my Stampin' Up! UK online shop!

Back soon.
Zx

Stampin Up UK - Cards for Keeps

Stampin' Up! UK Cards for Keeps

The Stampin' Up! UK Cards for Keeps auction is up and running.  This is your chance to bid on cards made by celebrities in aid of the charity Coram, which is the oldest children's charity in the UK.

Stampin' Up! UK demonstrators were also asked to submit cards of which one lucky person has been chosen to have their card listed on ebay for this very worthy cause.  The winner is Helen and her beautiful card can be seen on her blog.  This is the card I sent in.  It's very different and I really like how it turned out and was really unsure about ever giving it away, but I hope along with Helen's that it and all the other cards sent in by Stampin' Up! UK demonstrators are put to good use to raise funds for Coram. 

Please visit the Stampin' Up! UK Cards for keeps pinterest page to take a look at the celebrities cards and consider bidding on one or two of the fun, eccentric, one off amazing pieces of artwork.


You can see and bid in the auction at on ebay here


The auction includes cards from

Actors

Benedict Cumberbatch - Sherlock Holmes

Tom Hiddleston - Loki
Joseph Fiennes - Shakespeare
Phyllis Logan - Mrs Hughes Downton Abbey
Arthur Darvill
Alison Steadman

Presenters
Esther Rantzen
Rachel Riley
Fern Britton
Lisa Tarbuck


Models/Fashionistas
Twiggy

Artists and illustrators
Axel Scheffler
Tina Morgan
Rebecca Cobb
Pete Fowler
Nick Sharratt - Tracy Beaker
Ben Jennings
The Telegraph Cartoonist - Matt Pritchett
Anita Klein

Musicians
Dame Evelyn Glennie

Authors
E L James - 50 Shades of Grey
Philippa Gregory - The Other Boleyn Girl
Joanne Harris - Chocolat
Helen Craig - Angelina Ballerina
Andy Stanton - Mr Gum
Marian Keys

Comedians
Jo Brand

Comedy Writers
John Finnemore - Radio 4 Cabin Pressure
Doon Mackichan - Smack the Pony

TV & Radio Personality
Karl Pilkington

There are likely to be more, but you can view all the current cards on pinterest at CardsforKeeps

Please if you can't bid then share the auction details with all of your friends.

Thanks for your help!

Zx
 

 

Peachy Keen to say hello to you!

Is Gorgeous Grunge  high on your  list of favourite stamp sets because it is on mine as it  just gives enough detail to a card without being overpowering.  Imagine this card as a scrap book page and it would work just as well with Gorgeous Grunge making your background more interesting than just a plain piece of card stock, but not so detailed it detracts from your focus of your picture and journaling. 

Here you can see just how well it does work and if you’re not a scrap booker you can see how easy it is to size up your base card and turn it into a scrapbook page.  It doesn’t have to be as scary as you might think and you can turn photographs into special memory savers! 
Do you like this Retro Fresh paper and colour scheme too?  I’ve only just got into it and am loving the fact that it suite the girls and the boys!  See here how you can make the same card or scrap book page for the girls or the boys by adding different embellishments. Aren’t the doilies fab for a girls card and inexpensive too!
 
With these projects I’ve also used Retro Fresh washi tape, candy dots and essentials wooden elements along with stamp sets Peachy Keen and Gorgeous Grunge and the colours include So Saffron, Coastal Cabana, Baked Brown Sugar and Tangerine Tango.  The circles framelit dies worked well to add my open and closed circles ensuring that little of my cardstock is wasted. 
If you’re a card maker usually I challenge you to try a scrapbook page (mine is only 8” x 8”) and if you usually ‘scrap’ your challenge is to downsize and make a card.  Find a template or layout that you like and run with it!  You never know you might find another use for your stash!
Have fun whatever you try!
Zx

Stampin' Up! Happy Watercolour and more!

At card club recently I shared a type of emboss resist technique with my lovely ladies.  We used the spring catalogue stamp set Happy Watercolour to stamp in versamark on watercolour paper and then heat emboss it with clear powder.  You can then add colour washes with your aqua painters and ink pools created in the lid of your ink pads and a little more stamping using other stamps from the set along with stamps from Summer Silhouettes, Wetlands, Simply Sketched ( hostess set) and Gorgeous Grunge. 

 

You can then mount your finished artwork on basic black card stock and onto naturals ivory card stock for the base card.  A sentiment from the ever useful and popular stamp set Perfectly Penned provides you with a striking card. 

 

Now I'm not a colourer inner or a watercolourist, but this technique allows you to get the satisfaction of looking like you might be one day!!  I've done a similar one in different colours which once mounted and finished I will share. 

 

Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

Hugs Zx

Christmas Card Club - Oh Christmas Tree Card

The lovely Dawn set our Christmas Card Club challenge this week and I think my post title says it all.  I've used a combination of inspiration from the recent Stampin' Up! convention and a card I saw in the supermarket. 

 

Doesn't Gorgeous Grunge make a fabulous back drop to my Christmas Tree made with rolls of designer series paper from the Winter Frost pack!  

 

I love adding texture with embossing folders too to give more depth.  This one won't be easy to post, but it will make a special card for hand delivery. 

 

I'm now getting ready for more Christmas fayres and my own family Christmas.  I hope you are more organised than me.  Onwards and upwards is the plan!!

 

Zx