New Thinlet dies

These are just gorgeous. Make some very clever flip cards with these new dies from Stampin Up! We will be using these at next months card club on November 7th.  

Father's Shoes

Sadly we lost this stamp set, Dapper Dad, when it went out with the last catalogue but I know many of you have the set so I thought you might like to see this card. The "Father" greeting is from Amazing Family which does appear in the current catalogue. 
I made it at a team training run by Amanda Fowler, we used rich razzleberry and an embossing folder for the background and cut out the marina mist shoes.

Embossed Vellum

This has to be one of my favouritest ever cards, we made it recently at Make, Do and Send Card club.  It's not my own design, I confess I CAS'ed it completely. 
Take a sheet of vellum cardstock and run it, together with an embossing folder, through the Big Shot. Attach the vellum along one edge to your base card, you can cover the glue with ribbon.  Then we added some butterflies made from Designer series paper using the Beautiful Wings embosslits and finished off with a touch of bling by adding a rhinestone.

Calypso Flower

Just a quick post from me today and it's back to the flowers! This image was coloured with marker pens so that I could get more than one colour on the image. Then the flower was stamped again and 3d mounted to give some dimension.

Collage Curios

Something a little less bright and flowery today and a card that could maybe be sent to one of the men in your life.  It could certainly be brightened up just by using a different colour but here I have used the combination of Crumb Cake and Early Espresso with Very Vanilla as a base.
I used the circle punch to highlight images from Collage Curios which were them 3d mounted onto panels of designer series paper, a wood grain embossed panel and panels of contrasting colour.  A bow of seam binding ribbon and a Happy Birthday sentiment and away you go!

Swallowtail Butterfly with Emboss resist technique

You will find a lot of cards using the Swallowtail stamp and the emboss resist technique, the stamp was just made for it!
The butterfly was stamped with versamark ink and then heat embossed with white embossing powder. The clever bit comes when you add the ink, the colours are added using a sponge and blended together.  The ink will not colour over the top of the embossing so you end up with  a beautiful colourful background and a white butterfly.

Wildfower Meadow again

I'm loving this new stamp set with it's matching embossing folder, Wildflower Meadow is just great.  Here it is with another new colour Soft Sky, this time teamed with Coastal Cabana.  The sentiment is another new set called Label Love and has it's own coordinating punch, the artisan label punch. Me thinks I'm going to be using that one a lot too :)

Mosaic Madness

Here is another from the card folder and this one is just bursting with new products! 
Again it shows off two new colours, Bermuda Bay and Coastal Cabana, I think this combination will become a new favourite of mine.  The stamp set is Mosaic Madness, it has a coordinating Modern Mosaic embossing folder and a matching mosaic Punch.  There is also a new designer series paper pack called Quatrefancy which works wonderfully well with the suite of products. 

Morning Meadow

As promised here is one of the cards that we made at team training to go inside the card holder.  It showcases one of the lovely new stamp sets from the new catalogue, Morning Meadow, however, it is only available to hostesses so if you would like to own these beautiful stamps then please call me to arrange your workshop.
It aso shows off two of our new colours, Brown sugar and Crisp Canteloupe

Card Holder

Isn't this pretty? We made this at a team training event recently, it was designed by Amanda Fowler. It is so simple to make and of course the images could be altered to suit any occasion. 

This is the inside showing the pocket which holds the cards.  Would you like to see the cards we made to go inside? I'll show them tomorrow :)

Grab Your Greetings

Wow! Stampin' Up! are really spoiling us this month.  We have the new Annual Catalogue and the second in the series of "Best Of" stamp sets and now we have the Grab Your Greetings Promotion too! 
You can find all the details of the promotion here but in essence we have three greetings stamps sets on sale for 25% off until July 31. Our stamp sets don't go on sale very often so please be sure to take advantage of this special offer.  You'll be all set with greetings for every holiday and special occasion so, go Grab Your Greetings!

Here’s what you can get:

Sale Price	Catalogue Price	Description	Item
21,71 €/£15.71	28,95 €/£20.95	Sassy Salutations Wood-Mount Stamp Set	132070
17,21 €/£12.71	22,95 €/£16.95	Sassy Salutations Clear-Mount Stamp Set	126707
17,96 €/£13.46	23,95 €/£17.95	Sweet Essentials Wood-Mount Stamp Set	132085
14,21 €/£10.46	18,95 €/£13.95	Sweet Essentials Clear-Mount Stamp Set	126457
14,21 €/£10.46	18,95 €/£13.95	Tendres basiques Clear-Mount Stamp Set	128225
14,21 €/£10.46	18,95 €/£13.95	Kleiner Wort-Schatz Clear-Mount Stamp Set	128315
26,21 €/£19.46	34,95 €/£25.95	Petite Pairs Wood-Mount Stamp Set	128706
20,96 €/£15.71	27,95 €/£20.95	Petite Pairs Clear-Mount Stamp Set	122497
20,96 €/£15.71	27,95 €/£20.95	Quelques lignes Clear-Mount Stamp Set	125682
20,96 €/£15.71	27,95 €/£20.95	Perfekte Pärchen Clear-Mount Stamp Set	125307

The New Annual Catalogue is here!

I'm so excited to finally be able to share the new Annual Catalogue with you. As a demonstrator I get to see it a whole month before you and I can assure you that there are lots of lovely new things in it.  Here is the link for you to look at the catalogue online.
If you would like to place an order then please get in touch or I hope to see you at the next Make, Do and Send card club on August 8th.

Best of Butterflies

For our 25-year anniversary, Stampin' Up are bringing back some of our favourite stamp images from the last quarter century and combining them into 5 sets, which will release one set per month—until October 2013. Even better, along with some great classic images, each “Best of” set will also include a never-before-seen image!
You can order it now and until March 2014!

Sneek Peek

Items on the Retirement List are going fast and the new Annual catalogue is almost upon us. 
I thought I would share with you some cards that I have made using new products and also show you some of the new In colours too.
Here's a closer look

For My Dad

I made this card for my Dad on Father's Day.  I coloured the image using ink and blender pens, layered it up using the oval framelits (my latest favourites) and added some designer series paper and a button and twine.
That's the last of my "Dad" cards for the moment I have some sneak peeks from the new catalogue to share with you over the next couple of days!

Good Luck Spotlight!

It's here at last, opening night for Little Shop of Horrors by Spotlight.  The company have been rehearsing for months although I have  only been involved for the last couple.  It's going to be a great show, I hope those of you living locally have got your tickets, the show is on at The Compass Theatre in Ickenham until Saturday.
I wanted to share the good luck card I made for them and to thank them all for allowing me the privilege of joining them once again.  

Embossed vellum

Another one for the men!  I first saw this technique demonstrated at a team training day by Jane Cutting and knew I had to share it with my card club ladies.  The ship is stamped onto vellum cardstock and then "coloured in" on the reverse side using an embossing tool. Easy peasy! but oh so effective.  

Bottle Tops!

I'm loving the new soda pop tops from Stampin up!  You can use them as they are or "squash" them as I have done here using the Big Shot. The larger ones are perfect for a 1" punched circle to fit inside so I utilised an image from Collage curios for this card. The colours are River Rock and Baja Breeze.

Dinner Jacket card

Here's one for the smart dad! This Dinner Jacket card is so easy to make.  The shirt is made from a pennant shape, I scored some lines down the edges to look like pleats in the shirt and added some punched circles for buttons.  The Bow Tie is from Dapper Dad, I added a second tie on top for dimension.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all dads everywhere.  This is the card I made for my hubby, I thought the Bow Tie from the Dapper Dad stamp set was ideal for making a penny spinner card and it works beautifully!
My base card is Bashful blue which is a colour that is retiring shortly, I will miss it but there are some wonderful new colours coming soon instead. My sentiment and spinning bow tie are Midnight Muse.  There are lots of tutorials available online for making a penny spinner card so I won't go into detail here but I used the window word punch to cut the slot for my pennies which makes it really easy.
I have some more Father's Day cards to share in the next few days that we made at Make, Do and Send card cub recently.  All of the designs could be used as birthday or thankyou cards instead.

Butterflies and scallops

The Spring and Summer seasonal catalogue also comes to an end this month so if you still have things on your wish list then now is the time to order them.  
One product that was introduced in this catalogue and will continue in the new annual catalogue is the Simply Scored Borders Plate.  The designs coordinate with many of the die cut shapes and stamps.
On this card there is an embossed border along the bottom, a scalloped edge which echoes the scallop circle sitting behind the central butterfly.

Boutique Boxes

How cute are these little gift boxes?!  Boutique boxes come in a pack of 8 with all the coordinating embellishments that you could ever need, in fact I have several left over after making my boxes. They are just perfect for small gifts of jewellery and are also just the right size for one of those gift cards.

Pop up Dress Up

This gorgeous pop up card was designed by Amanda Fowler and we made it at one of her recent classes.  The dress form is perfect for this pop up design which is all cut out easily using the Big Shot.  A touch of designer paper makes a beautiful dress and some silver glimmer paper a perfect mirror.

Here is a better look at the inside of the card and aso ofthe lovely two-tone ribbon used as a closure.