Candles from the least expected place!

Hello friends I hope you are all keeping safe and well in this crazy world.  It's been somewhat different with lockdown here in the UK, but we are adapting and watching our crazy puppy I'm beginning to think that life would right now be fun to be a dog, blissfully unaware of the dangers your humans face and you get to look this cute.

Rita chose our Christmas Card Club challenge today and it is for us to use Candles.  I currently don't have any candle stamps so decided to create candles using the most unlikely set from Stampin' Up! called A Big Thank You.  

It is a set with borders and petals that lend themselves to being a candle and a flame so there's the history in a nutshell of my candles.  I decided then to add them to a bauble and so it went on.  

I created a stencil using circle punches then sponged and masked each bauble into place.  I made sure the ink was dry before masking again to first add the gold heat embossed candles and then the top bauble i 'clapped' some water drops onto it and left them just long enough to lift some colour before patting dry with a paper towel.  This gave some detail to the rear bauble.  

I added some black sequins and rhinestones along with a gold foil card border or two and some fussy cut bows that I stamped with a sweet little stamp from the set Nine Lives which you guessed it is all about cats their bows and balls of wool toys.  The strings I drew in with a black marker and ruler and a simple sentiment. 

I went for a fairly traditional colour scheme and used Pear Pizzazz and Shaded Spruce for the greens and a blend of the two for the smallest bauble.  I just might do this technique for another CC Club challenge coming up as it makes for some simple but effective baubles.  

Keep well everyone and have a good week. 

Crafty hugs Zoe x

Christmas Wreath Card Tutorial

I love the idea of using products and stash that aren't specifically Christmas themed for Christmas projects.  Today Lorraine set the challenge of creating a wreath or garland card.  I decided to go with traditional colours, although my green is very bold ie Granny Apple Green and the red comes from the Peaceful Poppies sequins that are light and dark Poppy Parade.  I've added my usual bling as gold sequins with some gold foil card and a few pearls too. 

To make the card I sponged Granny Apple Green ink with a dauber onto a 5" X 5" square of white card.  I then used 3rd generation ink to stamp the holly sprigs from Christmas Gleaming  (it's back in the autumn if you missed it in the winter mini 2019) in the same colour ink.  I used a blender pen to add some light colouring to the berries and when completely dry I highlighted the berries with Clear Wink of Stella.  It just adds a shimmer that is subtle.  It's not easy to photograph, but in your hands it sparkles on cards as it catches the light.  I also added some 3rd, 4th, 5th generation stamping using the small splatter stamp from Stampin Up Christmas Gleaming set to add some delicate detail and definition to the sponging. 

I used a die from the Painted Labels die set to cut a wreath shape again in Granny Apple Green.  This I decorated with some of the sequins I mentioned above and gold metallic pearls or red rhinestones depending upon the sequin from our Annual Catalogue.  I used a sentiment from another set that will be available again in this years Winter Mini, Most Wonderful Time product medley.  I stamped with Versamark ink onto black card and added white embossing powder before heating.  I matted this onto an off cut of gold foil card.  

The design layer I matted onto a card blank 5 3/4" square when folded and then used my Granny Apple Green marker to add freehand doodling.

I hope your Sunday is relaxing and you are able to maintain a calm, sensible approach to the terrible blight we are all facing right now.  Keep smiling as although not the excuse you would want you can now legitimately stay home and craft.

Do visit the other ladies in a Christmas Card Club Challenge group to gain more ideas and inspiration.

In the meantime don't forget that Saleabration is on until the end of this month if you like a free gift with your purchase shop in my Stampin' Up! online shop or if you prefer a 20% discount on all your Stampin' Up! shopping from now until the end of March please shop HERE and nominate me as your demonstrator if you don't already have one.

Thanks for popping by.

Zoe x

Flowering Foils Speciality Papers - WOW

Ooh I'm so excited about these papers which are one of this months new Stampin' Up! Saleabration free gifts with qualifying purchase.

The Flowering Foils Specialty Designer Series papers are single sided with foil designs in copper and silver. You can brayer, stamp, sponge, splatter and colour with markers onto the sheets and the foiling shines through, just as it has on this card which we made at a recent stampin' party I did for one of my customers.

I showed the ladies how to use a sponge dauber to add ink to the paper banner before sticking it to a base white card which I stamped poppies from the Painted Poppies stamp set onto with the same ink and also I added a die cut border from the Painted Labels dies again in the same colour.

I then showed them how they can make a more subtle outline image using Grey Granite ink for the poppy and using Rococo Rose ink for the splatter stamp to add fill in colour.  I did the same with the leaves and those along with the flower were die cut.

My favourite go to sentiment set is Label Me Bold, which my downline Carrie Bates brought to my attention.  All you need is an ink pad and scissors for the bold, block simple sentiments.

The ladies loved the champagne rhinestones that I added and you will too! They come in a pack of 140 with 3 sizes included.

I think we forget that poppies aren't just red and I think this one looks great in the dusky pink of Rococo Rose.

If you'd like to see more of the Flowering Foils papers here a video from Stampin' Up! showing them all.






All you need to do is order from my Stampin' Up! Online shop and spend £45 to choose these papers as a free gift with your order.

Thanks for visiting please do come back soon to see what I did to use up the small pieces I cut from the strips of this pretty foiled paper to make them the right size for all the ladies at the party.

Happy weekend all.  Please keep safe and sensible, but enjoy the perfect excuse to stay home and craft.

Hugs Zoe x

Save the bees and we'll save the flowers

Did you see my Peaceful Poppies flower vase?  Well pop back to the post and you'll see the inspiration for my card today.  Like many of you I'm loving the Painted Poppies and Honey Bee stamp sets from the Stampin' Up! Spring mini.

We really need to support the bees as they are so important to our ecosystems and ultimately life as we know it.  Did you know in the UK alone we have over 270 species of bee.

I like improving my colouring skills with our Stampin' Blends too and this is a great design for blending shades together and also mixing some lighter colours with a darker one over the top.  Be sure with blends to take into account that they are alcohol markers and therefore bleed through your paper and so it is best to use something like the Stampin' Up! thick white card stock and also to consider having a matt layer behind them and not colouring directly onto the front of your card or you will be disappointed with the inside of the card.

You need to stamp in Memento ink as this is perfect for alcohol markers and for this design I also used a tiny little stamp from the Happy Birthday to You stamp set from the saleabration offering to blend ink pad colours for the area above the flowers and around the bee.  I used Mint Macaron and Pool party second and third generation ink to create a type of sky background.

I created thin paper masks of the poppy shapes so that I could overlap the flowers and also stamped a couple to colour and fussy cut to add dimension to my design.  Pop them on with stampin dimensional to add some depth.

My bee was stamped directly onto the card and also coloured with the Daffodil Delight blends and I added a set of vellum wings this time stamped with StazOn ink and then fussy cut also.  If you stamp on vellum be careful not to move your stamp at all once on the vellum, until you lift it off to avoid smudging the ink until it dries.  You can speed up the drying with careful heating using a heat tool.

Although not visible in my photo i also used some clear Wink of Stella to further develop the light spots on my flowers and leaves.

The sentiment is from the Honey Bee set and is a curved stamp which means you can loop it around images like I have here.

Here's hoping that spring will bring us more sunshine and flowers soon.

Happy crafting

Zoe x