Christmas Card Club

Stampin' Up! Christmas Card

 This fortnight's challenge for Christmas Card Club is from Sylvie, who lives in Gibraltar and I'm very envious of her sunshine, but she warms up us with her lovely projects photographed often on beautiful days with the sun shining.  She asked us this time to make a card for Christmas using red and white. 

Mine errs on the side of clean and simple with some of my new products.  The petals a plenty embossing folder is just gorgeous with it's pretty all over flower design.  I've just embossed half of my card base and then stamped using a post it note mask in real red using part of the Creative Elements Stampin' Up! set.  A little bit of silver glimmer paper goes a long way in adding sparkle to your card and a sentiment heat embossed onto an Apothecary Accents Framelit (try saying that three or more times quickly!!)  with some mini brads give the Christmas message. 

It also goes along with the Less is More challenge of use silver on your card and as it's a Christmas card it also suits the clean and simple Christmas Card challenge at St Luke's. 

Creative Elements from Stampin' Up!



Stampin' Up! Everyday Enchantment Papers make great patchwork

 Hi all this is just a quick post to show you a great way to use up scraps of papers, but make a really lovely card.  Just punch out squares with 13/8" punch and stick them onto a piece of card like a patchwork quilt.  Then run your card through the big shot with Stampin' Up! top note die, add a few faux stitches with a marvellous marker and you're away with a lovely starting point for a card. 
I'm really loving Stampin Up Creative Elements stamp set too at the minute and have used one of the stamps from it to make a tone on tone background on my base card and also my decorative label punch sentiment. 
If you'd like to learn how you can take this technique even further consider joining my next technique club starting in September.
All you need to do is spend a minimum of £25 or £15 a month for 6 or 10 months and you receive free annual catalogues and seasonal catalogues, a minimum £25 free hostess spend and a class on a different technique every month.  If you'd like to know more about it then please do contact me on zoetant@live.co.uk

Now off to chill for 10minutes before Charlie's friends arrive for a day of boy mayhem. Olivia is already hiding in her room!!!

Enjoy the opening of our Olympics tonight!
Zx

Stampin' Up! Creative Elements meets triple stamping layers

I've seen this style of card on my blog trails and thought I'd give it a go and was surprised to find it's much easier than you think to achieve this effect than you might think.  I also think it gives a really wow finish and  will look good in virtually any colour way.

It's also easy to carry your design through to the inside of the card.

My colour combo is concord crush, lucky limeade and very vanilla.  It's given me the chance to sneak in some of the gorgeously fine and pretty organza ribbon that I received free with my order this month and also an in colour brad. 
Stamps used include Creative Elements and my sentiment is from Tea Shoppe. 

For the layers you just need to reduce your stamped on cardstock by 2cm in each dimension and make  your matting layer just 0.5cm bigger than each stamped layer.  Layer the layers for stamping leaving the matt layers to one side.  Centre each layer as much as you can and adhere them very gently with repositionable glue or a little bit of snail that you've fluffed with a woolly. Stamp a back ground in a lighter colour and then you use a bolder colour to stamp your main image(s).  You'll find that the overlaps don't stamp that well but once you reinsert the matting layers the 'duff' bits don't show.  Add sentiment and accents to your taste and you're done!

SIMPLES!!!

Supplies all from Stampin' Up!

cardstock - very vanilla, concorde crush

inks - lucky limeade, concorde crush

stamp sets - creative elements, tea shoppe

accessories - organza ribbon Stampin' Up! July promotion, in colour brads, snail adhesive, paper trimmer



Stampin' Up! Paper Daisies

The sunshine has sporadically visited parts of Lincolnshire this past week and reminded me that we do have to Keep Calm and Get on with it!  I've brought the garden inside by making a card using Stampin' Up! paper daisies, which if you blink you can miss in our catalogue.  On arrival they are daisies made from cotton paper, in 4 sizes (10 of each) plain whisper white that can be adhered with tombow or glue dots.  However colour them with Stampin' Up! marker pens or dye them with water and some drops of reninker and they take on a whole new look. 

Stampin' Up! Paper Daisies, Curly Cute and Creative Elements

Dyed with calypso coral, spritzed with calypso coral marker pen and set upon a Creative Elements swirl embossed using versamark, heat gun and wild wasabi embossing powder, they are really pretty and most definitely bring your garden into your home!   They will also submit to and survive being slid into an envelope only to revive on receipt by your recipient.

Everyday Enchantment Promotion from Stampin' Up!

They also look great if you just stamp on them and team them with a free accessory.

Remember that during July every £45 order (excl. P&P) receives a free set of 30 designer brads and two rolls or delicate organza ribbon.  See more details about this Stampin' Up! promotion.

This card has been partially embossed with the stripes Stampin' Up! exclusive embossing folder and stamped with the Artistic Etchings stamp set and Curly Cute for the sentiment. 

I hope the sun finds you too and brightens your day.  May it also shine on Andy Murray for his big match this afternoon. 
Enjoy your weekend!

Zx

Christmas Card Club

Tree Trimmings with Stampin' Up! Labels Framelits

It's time to share another Christmas Card Club Challenge with you. This time it's my challenge and I've set everyone the task of  'using and aperture'.  The reason for this is I wanted to make one of these box cards and use one of the Stampin' Up! new framelits labels collection dies.  These beautiful dies can be used with your big shot or similar die cutting machine.  There are 6 dies with the largest being 13.3 cm wide.  They come in a sturdy envelope for easy and safe storage.  You can layer them or use two to cut frames like the silver one on my lower sentiment.  I've used one also for my aperture. 

Tree trimings has been one of my favourite christmas stamp sets, not only because it's a really good price at £12.95 for 4 stamps, but also because it's really pretty and is easy to use for quick as well as elaborate cards.  I've made spinner ornaments by stamping two and sticking them back to back on some elastic cord.  The background image is from Creative Elements  which I've stamped in night of navy or versamark on the shimmery white or night of navy cardstock.  I wanted to emboss my sentiments so I inked my stamps first in versamark then the navy ink before stamping and then added clear embossing powder before heating.  I love rhinestones and you need a bit of sparkle for Christmas. 

You may be thinking how's she going to post that box card, well it just folds flat and goes in a normal envelope, but looks impressive when opened by the recipient. 

Don't forget to check out the other ladies' blogs in the Christmas Card Club for more inspiration.  You can find them listed in my sidebar, including Hazel's blog and she has a Christmas card challenge each week, which conveniently suits my card also.  She wants to see you use blue, so check out the challenge and have a go!

Happy stampin'

Zx

Challenges
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challage - a touch of blue

Less is More challenge

Stampin Up Creative Elements with large scallop circle punch

I've just had time before I head off to my cornet lesson to join in with the Less is More challenge this week.  The lovely ladies over there have a colour theme this week and you need to use neutrals.  I've used a template that my friendly team mate Ginny gave to me for my base card and created an aperture using Stampin Up large scallop circle punch.  I also made a mask to stamp inside the card using the Creative Elements stamp set like I did on this post in my blog.  To colour the flowers you can use Stampin Up Marvellous Markers to bring in different neutral shades and the butterfly features the rock and roll technique which I can share with you at your workshop if you choose.  The sentiment is also Stampin Up - Sincere Salutations. 

Have yourself a great weekend.
Hugs Zoë x

Less is more challenge - neutrals CAS card

Stampin' Up! Creative Elements

stampin up creative elements

At times do you ever think that your hobby is overtaking your life a little too much...........!  My children thought that I'd really lost it over half term when a lunchtime meal in a nice restaurant turned into Mum stealing their notebook to write down the colours and sketch the design of the wallpaper in the restaurant.  It was really lovely and here I've made my version of it with a few Stampin' Up! additions, having patiently waited for the cherry cobbler embossing powder to arrive last week.

It's a little bit of emboss resist with the swirls being stamped in versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder on river rock cardstock.  You can see other examples of emboss resist here and here . Using a brayer you can then cover the card with a different colour, here soft suede.  Emboss again with cherry cobbler embossing powder,  add yourself some stunning flowers from the creative elements stamp set and you've got wall paper from a restaurant on your card.  Of course you can also have lush cherry cobbler seam binding, rippled over soft suede designer series paper with a subtle, but rich early espresso scallop trim border backing.

And of course it's sale-a-bration time so you can use the free gift with purchase to add a perch for the beautiful butterfly from the creative elements set.

The swirl is part of the exclusive hostess stamp set Precious Butterflies and is also free if you host a party with qualifying sales.  Can you also spot the antique brad which adds more luxury to this very rich card.

Don't forget the inside of your card can be decorated too, but they didn't go this far in the restaurant!

Supplies

Stamp sets - Creative Elements, Precious Butterflies (hostess), Elementary Elegance (SAB)

Inks - versamark, cherry cobbler, soft suede, early espresso

cardstock - early espresso, river rock, neutrals designer series paper stack

accessories - cherry cobbler seam binding, scallop trim border punch, antique brads, paper piercer and mat pack, curly label punch, marker pens

Challenges

Creative Mondays - Anything goes

Make it Monday - anything goes

So Shelli Creative Challenge