Christmas Card Club

It's our first Christmas Card Club Challenge today. We've changed our running slightly in that if you don't have a stamp, die or punches for the theme then anything goes.  I've run with that as I don't have pixies, elves or gnomes at the moment and I've decided to share a handful of the beautiful handmade cards we received at Christmas.  These feature some current, retired and long term favourite stamps from Stampin' Up! notably the popular Lovely As A Tree in the card below with the fabulous single pine tree embossed in silver here by Sue W.   Robins are also popular and something that many UK demonstrators wish for every year in our winter catalogue, but our breed of Robin is apparently different to the USA.  Above Gina has used Christmas Pines still in the Stampin' Up! annual catalogue to great effect. I love the embossing under the die cut leaves. 

Roz has made a simple but very effective Christmas Wreath using Painted Harvest which appeared in the Winter Stampin' Up! catalogue of 2017 and I'm delighted to say is now a carryover stamp set so still available.  Below I really like how Judy layered the pretty two step holly from Good Tidings over the beautiful frame and Christmas Greetings stamp from Father Christmas set in the Stampin Up annual catalogue. 

I will share more of my customer cards when anymore challenges arise that I don't have the images for so you might see yours at some point. 

If you want to get organised, dare I say it so soon, for Christmas 2018 then why not have a go at our fortnightly challenge which is just for fun and to share inspiration and ideas for festive designs in slow time over the year then please do and take a look at the other ladies via the link at the top of my home page.  

Happy Sunday all and best wishes for the week ahead.

Hugs Zoe x

Moving Along with the Times - Trees

Stampin' Up! Lovely as a Tree

Today is the start of a new challenge at Moving Along With The Times. Our challenge theme is Trees.  Come and join in as I know many of you will have some kind of tree stamp, punch or other way of creating a tree for your project.

Stampin' Up! Lovely as a Tree is a timeless classic stamp set and I've used it here on a piece of watercolour paper that I had handy when I had excess ink on an aqua painter brush and didn't want to waste it so I did a very simple colour wash on the small square of paper about 3" square.  I let it dry after washing a couple of times and kept it in a safe place.  The 'safe place' is key as if you are anything like me you put things away so safe you can never find them!  

Onto the colour wash I stamped part of the longer border type stamp from the set using a post it note to mask off the part of the stamp I didn't want to use whilst I inked it, discarding it before I actually stamped.  I used a stamp-a-ma-jig to position the second layer of stamping in versa mark so that I could add some sadly retired heat and stick powder and then glitter.  You'll see I offset the glitter layer in order for the shadow layer in black to show.

I'ves layered with basic black, island indigo (the wash colour) and silver foil card off setting the final two layers.  A sentiment from Stampin' Up! Watercolour Christmas and some basic rhinestones and it makes an elegant but striking card.  Oh and I mustn't forget the black bakers twine bow attaching the gorgeous mistletoe sprig from the Stampin' Up! Year of Cheer Suite embellishments.

Join us HERE for our MAWTT challenge and do come visit me again.

You can buy most of the products I've used by visiting Zoe's Stampin Up Online Shop.

Thanks for stopping by 

Zoe x

Christmas Card Club

Happy Sunday everyone! The sun is out here and I hope it is with you.  Our Christmas Card Club challenge this fortnight is set by Rachel who has asked for magical, mystical cards which I've struggled with which is silly really as all of Christmas should be magical at the very least.  However I got an idea in my head and have run reasonably successfully with it, although I'm not entirely happy with it.  I wanted to create a circular scene and add watercolour and then a sparkly shadow of the trees.   It's almost there, but not quite.  Any tips gratefully received.

Stampin' Up! sets that I've included are Lovely as a Tree, Colourful Seasons and Watercolour Christmas for the sentiment.  I've stacked the image onto dapper denim circles for an on trend look although I know that the trend is really to stamp over the edges of die cut letters and shapes.  I've used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to add the shadow in very pale soft sky ink and then a fine tip glue pen to add dazzling diamonds glitter.  A litter embossing paste to give the effect of snow drifts at the bottom of the trees.

Please do visit the challenge members from the link at the top of my blog Christmas CC for more inspiration as this theme opens so man doors and I'm sure you'll be inspired.

You may not be aware but the Stampin' Up! Winter Catalogue launched on 1 September and you can see all the festive, autumn/winter and halloween goodies by clicking HERE.

If you prefer a paper copy then please do email me at zoetant@live.co.uk and I'll get one in the post to you.

Thanks for popping by and enjoy Sunday and have a great week.

Zx

Christmas Card Club - Trees with mixed media

It's Mary's turn to choose our challenge this fortnight and it had two parts trees and mixed media.  My card has colour washing with Stampin' Up! re-inkers, glitter added with the fine tip glue pen and heat embossing.  I've also added an embossed sentiment with a staple and created a spotlight effect with the centre trees.

I've used the timeless stamp set Lovely as a Tree which has been in the Stampin' Up! catalogue for many, many years now and it seems to appeal to everyone.  It is a trusty set that you can rely on with various trees that suit Christmas cards to the more challenging masculine cards.

Sadly today the weather has not been on my side for taking photos so I've tried a few times with lights and I hope you can see the colours and texture involved.

Please do go visit all the other lovely ladies in our Christmas Card Club Challenge. You can find their blogs in my sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by and have a good week. Zx

Supplies

stamps : Stampin' Up! Lovely as a Tree, Greetings from Santa

inks : versa mark, dapper denim & night of navy re-inkers from Stampin' Up!

Miscellaneous: copper embossing powder, 2"circle punch, layering circles thinlit dies, paint brushes, paint palette

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Christmas Card Club - Snowy Trees

It really does seem odd that I'm posting a Christmas card today when the sky is beautifully blue, the birds are singing and the spring flowers are bobbing gently in the breeze.  It's also my 50th birthday and so it's been a slow relaxing start. However it is Christmas card challenge and the theme of Snowy Trees was set by Christine who is also my teamie over at MAWTT.

I've case'd a card today from Tamara Bertram, but added a couple of my own touches including some of the new Stampin' Up! copper embossing powder which is just divine. I absolutely love it and you can see from my previous Stampin' Sneak Peek post that it is going to feature in the new Stampin' Up! catalogue more than once.

I've also used the large pine tree from Lovely as a Tree stamp set, the timeless classic set that so many of you adore, along with splatters from Timeless Textures.  I made a mask using a piece of copier paper and cut a rectangle from the centre using my Stampin' Trimmer.  Sponges work really well to add colour in gentle layers to build up a background in tip top taupe and the spatters and other texturing stamping was added in sahara sand ink.  I love the that the sentiment says 'Happy' and doesn't it look great in copper. It's a stamp from Oh What Fun which has carried over from the last AW catalogue.

You might have also noticed the gorgeous shade of blue card and ink.  It's called Dapper Denim and is one of the new 5 in colours arriving soon.  It's going to be great for masculine cards.

Wishing you a happy Sunday and week ahead and please wear a smile for the week to help me celebrate my half century.

More soon. Zx

Happy Birthday to my fabulous hubby

Stampin' Up! UK The Wilderness Awaits, Lovely as a Tree, Wetlands

It's happy half century day to my husband today.  We've celebrated at home with presents and gifts and now he's having fun sorting out the fish tank! Excitement has nothing on this household.

We've also had afternoon tea with chocolate chip Victoria sponge made by Charlie and some quality family time.

I made him a card without the big '50' on it, but I have to confess I partially cased the idea from a super start made by the customer of one of my team. You can see her card here on lovely Mandy's blog.  I did add the tree she threatened,  Wetlands grasses  and some extra trim with a birthday sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes.

I used some of the retired laser cut embellies which came as two pieces, but they fit together like a glove and I coloured the rim with early espresso marker pen and then married them together again.

We have a crazy border collie, but this rather fine dog is from Stampin' Up! set The Wilderness Awaits.  It is great for masculine cards and you can revisit one I made using the fox in the set on my earlier Stampin' post.

Off now to finish the rest of the day.  Best wishes to all for a great week ahead.

Zx
Challenges
Sweet Stampin' Challenge - create a scene

You can purchase many of the products used for this card now in my Stampin' Up! UK Online Shop right now and remember if you add the stampin' rewards code in the top right of my sidebar and spend £25 or more up to £150 (excl.  P&P) you will be sent a gift in early September by me after I have closed the code and ordered some rewards for everyone who has a qualifying shop on this code.

Christmas Card Club - Lovely as a Tree from Stampin' Up!

Our Christmas card club challenge was set by Margaret all the way down under in Sydney for this fortnight. She asked us to use the theme of Christmas trees.  Often being Mrs last minute.com I didn't read this challenge before I read the last so you can see Christmas trees also on my last club challenge using Festival of Trees , but this time I've used an old Stampin' Up! favourite Lovely as a Tree which has been in the Stampin' Up! catalogue for over a decade.

I embossed the lone fir tree top in silver and punched it out with the 2"circle punch and then 'smudged' the edge gently with smoky slate ink.  I matted it onto a scallop circle of silver foil card which I texture embossed with the decorative dots folder.  Everyday Chic washi tape made a simple background and I also added some of my lifetime supply (I ordered 5 rolls thinking it only had 4.5m per roll which in fact it has 45m per roll!) of silver thread on which I threaded sequins from the metallic assortment.

You can create all sorts of sentiments with the Alphabet rotary stamp just by rolling the letter bands to create the words you require.

A great new addition to the Stampin' Up! card stock range is the new Whisper White Thick A4 card stock in 270gsm so you can now make white card bases that stand up!

Do please pop by the other ladies in our challenge group and see their challenge offerings for this week.  You can find them all in my sidebar.

Enjoy what's left of the weekend.
Zx
Challenges
Sweet Stampin' Challenges - Christmas in July

Shop Stampin' Up! now in my Stampin' Up! UK online shop 

Christmas Card Club - Stampin' Up! Lovely as a Tree

Don't you find that time flies even quicker in the early months of the year!  I can't believe that already we are half way through February and it also is time for another Christmas Card Club challenge this time from Mary .  Snow covered trees is what she challenged us with and of course I instantly reached for my trusty Lovely as a Tree stamp set.  On kraft card stock I stamped the tall pine in black Staz On ink and then set an aperture over it.  A little 'smudging' and some defined snow flake stamps from Holiday Home set (AW 2014 catalogue) and some snow made with the white gel pen finished off the pine.

I've embossed in clear a few trees from the long winter scene tree stamp and again added snow with the gel pen.  My sentiment is stamped in Staz On too, onto vellum card stock and adhered to the matting layer with 3 mini brads.  I also softened the edges of the base and matting layers and very gently around the oval aperture using a sponge dauber and crumb cake ink. I wasn't really sure if I liked it, but it's growing on me.

Time this week will whizz with Olivia & Charlie on half term.  O's prom dress shopping with a girlfriend and me and C will be watching movies, eating popcorn and the inevitable spring clean of his room! Oh joy.

Have a great Sunday.
Zx

Christmas Card Club - Lovely as a Tree

Lovely as a Tree is a very popular stamp set and has been in the Stampin' Up!  catalogue for some years now.  I've used it here to reproduce a card very similar to one made by my downline Yeeting who is a very talented young lady.  The card is my contribution for this fortnight's Christmas Card Club challenge.  Our theme, set by yours truly, is to make a clean and simple card with just one layer.  I thought it was a good idea at the time when I added it to our list of challenges back in January.  This is also in Crafty Hazelnut's Anything Goes Christmas Challenge.

Quite simply I've stamped the trees in early espresso and then partially inked my stamp with craft whisper white ink and used the stamp-a-ma-jig to position directly onto the original image.  I've used a sponge to add some 'snow' again with the craft ink and then stamped in real red a simple sentiment which is underlined with some simple paper piercing.  Some doodle lines especially for my friends at scrapbook crop and something that you sadly can't see is the shimmer over the whole card which is achieved with shimmer paint mixed with rubbing alcohol and water in a spritzer bottle.  I also added some more snow to branches with a gel pen. 

At least it will be cheap to post!

Enjoy your long weekend.

Zx

Yes I am going to UTAH with Stampin' Up!

Yesterday I hosted the first all day training event for my team The Tantalizing Stampers.  It was a fun and busy day and as usual had lots of chatter and the sharing of inspiration. 

However the day started with lots of celebration as several of my team have promoted over the past Stampin' Up! year.  With the help of my fabulous team and my lovely loyal customers I also celebrated the fact that I have achieved all that is needed to go on the 2013 Stampin' Up! Incentive Trip to Utah, USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so grateful to the team for their support and hard work and also to my customers for all their support and their love of all things Stampin' Up!.  Thank you all for helping me achieve this exciting milestone.

We spent our day in my new craft room above and sampled a little bubbly to get the day going with a swing!

We shared lots of tips and crafting and I particularly want to thank Bridgette who shared this lovely card with us which she took from the new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue which is now live for you to browse.

Special thanks also to Mandy who shared two different cards using the timeless stamp set Lovely as a Tree. Here's a picture of one of them.

Thanks also to my gorgeous family who help me so much with my Stampin' Up! business.  Martin made cookies with the new sweet pressed cookie stamp

Olivia did all the washing up and Charlie, well he stayed out of the way which believe me was a great help!!!!

A fabulous way to celebrate the success of a fun and friendly team.

THANK YOU ALL!

Zx



Stamping on candles & gift boxes

During the summer Olivia went to drama summer school and had the most amazing time doing workshops in circus skills, music, Morris dancing, mime, stage management and lots more. To say thank you to the folk that organise the classes we made some handbags with notelets for the ladies, but it's always more difficult to cater for the chaps and so we decorated a candle put it in a gift box and made a book mark for David. I'd forgotten that I'd not posted these and thought you would like to see them. Box was just big enough but I needed a lid and so made an origami box from designer series choc chip paper and added some ribbon to gently pull it off. Jumbo eyelets allowed me to put a handle on the box and I hope David found the bookmark useful.

Next summer Charlie hopes to have got a space in the local Red Lion Theatre group so that he can go to summer school too! Secretly so does Mummy!!!!!!

Don't forget to check out my forthcoming classes and offers which can be found at the top of the page.

Hugs Zx

Christmas Themes for Techniques Club

At a recent techniques club my hostess Angie asked if we could look at Christmas card inspiration. I put together various cards to try and offer that inspiration. I'll show you some over the next week. These are created using the fab and ever popular set Lovely as a Tree.

For the above I stamped my tree in garden green and then tweaked the trunk and brances with chocolate chip marker. Cover the whole image card with Versamark ink and then add Heat'n'Stick powder. Heat very gently and then cover with dazzling diamonds glitter. Heat again to set the glitter. The rest of the card is very simple matting and the corners were punched out with the 1/2 inch punch. Silver brads attach the greeting which is from Perfect Presents. This one incorporates the fir tree by using the masking technique. Details of this can be found in the Stampin'UP! techniques brochure which you will receive if you place an order. The window, girl, cat and little robin are from the Level 3 hostess set Window Dressing. The greeting is from Occasional Greetings. The whole scene has been coloured with markers and matted onto gable green cardstock. Real red ribbon and a silver hodgepodge ribbon slider add the final touches.

At least I now have some of my Christmas cards made!!

Check back soon to see cards made using Season of Joy.

Bye for now.

Hugs

Zoë x

Black and White Strikes!

I love the effects you can create with black and white and occasionally a splash of colour. These are all cards showing that. I've embossed the images using versamark and white embossing powder and my SU heat gun. On some I've addes some ribbon for colour or compliment and on some I've used brads or mirror card.

Stamp sets used include Lovely as a Tree, Forest Friends, Fresh Cutes and one of my favourites Pocket Silhouettes. These cards are all eye catching, but ever so simple to achieve. If you don't know how just mail me for a class.

The sun is shining here today and it's very warm. It's the start of a really busy week. Well really it began on Friday night when we went to a summer ball at the Petwood Hotel, famous for its Dambuster connections. The evening was fabulous with dancing outside to the songs of The Kommitments, a great band, and rides on a ferris wheel. The food, company, pimms and champagne were all wonderful!!!!!!!!! Although my body wouldn't have agreed yesterday.

That was a long day, but fun day. We did a pub lunch at the Red Lion in Raithby by Spilsby and returned to take our children to their swimming gala. I'm delighted to say that Olivia and her friend Danielle won the synchronised pairs and she achieved personal best times in all her strokes. Charlie has suddenly got to grips with swimming too and was at the end of the pool before I could catch him in a photo in the 'through the hoop' race! Two very proud parents as you can imagine. Today we are back to taxi service for parties, more swimming and play rehearsals. The remainder of the week includes music concerts, more swimming, more rehearsals and actual productions and ooo I forgot school! I may just find a minute or two to craft some bits and pieces for a school fayre I'm having a stall towards the weekend. I will return to blogging at some point, maybe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hugs and back soon.

Zoë