Great deal!

For 5 days only! 20% off selected stamp sets. Visit my online store www.karengilchrist.stampinup.net for details and to purchase. Don't miss out!

What sort of crafter are you?

Do you prefer to craft by yourself, with family or with your friends? At home, at a class?
Find out what sort of crafter you are ...
https://www.facebook.com/stampinupuk/posts/764566230280195

Happy New Year

It's another new year and time to turn over a new leaf!
I have promised myself that I will be a better blogger this year. I would love some feedback from you guys when you visit so please leave me a comment or a link to share your craftiness.
See you soon!

Stampin' Up! UK Regional May 2014

Ever wondered what we get up to at the large Stampin Up events? This is what happened at our regional training day in May.

If you would like to come to our next event, get in touch and we can have a chat.

Introducing Blendabilities

Blendabilities are a brand new product, a beautiful colouring system using all your favourite colours from the Stampin up range.
I used them on one of my projects for the blog hop last week but Teri shows you how to use them so much better than I did.
Watch the video to learn more.

Inspiring Inkin' 2014/2015 Annual Catalogue Blog Hop

Morning! Are you all as excited to see all the creations along the blog hop as I am? I shall spend the morning browsing all the posts and getting inspired, all the girls make such beautiful things.

I have a couple of new projects to share with you.

Firstly, Project Life has landed at Stampin Up, Woohoo!!! It is a very straightforward, quick and easy way of scrapbooking your memories and life events. There are various designs of divided pages which have pockets for you to pop your photos and journalling inside.  
For my page I chose to record the time that my daughters uni friends came to camp with us so that they could make their latest film.  I found all the equipment and procedures totally fascinating so I snuck a few photos of them looking very professional. You can see a couple of the new In-Colours, I backed my photos onto Lost Lagoon card and used Hello Honey for my title blocks, the lettering is from one of the new Photopolymer alphabet stamp sets. Now, I am a fan of the 12x12 scrapbooking style with lots of layers and embellishments so I felt I needed to add a little more to my page.  I used the On Film framelits to cut out a film slide and a little camera and also added a couple of pieces of Hello Honey stitched satin ribbon to complete it.

Want to see some more?

I am going to get a lot of use out of this new stamp set!  In This Together is just perfect for all your girlfriends.  I used the wonderful new blendabilities pens to colour the images, I need some practise but oh my they are going to be great for adding shade and depth to my colouring.  I used cherry cobbler for my card base and added some more of the gorgeous new ribbon in hello honey and mellow moss.

OK, one last project...

I just wanted to show you a sample of one of the new designer series papers.  This is from Lullaby and I used the papers to cover a basic shoppers notepad and turn it into a lovely gift. 

Here is the list of blog hoppers, enjoy hopping.

 Victoria McLafferty www.veryvictoriastamps.wordpress.com/
Helen Marland www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/shinysparklystamping
Elaine Harding blog.stampwithelaine.com
Karen Gilchrist www.kazzasworld.blogspot.com
Jess Brown www.jessiebcrafts.blogspot.com
 Petra Sameri www.petrascraftinkplace.blogspot.co.uk/
 Helen Cook www.craftingbydesign.blogspot.com
 Amanda Fowler www.inspiringinkin.com
 Lydia Tarry www.mylittlecrafthaven.blogspot.co.uk
 Sarah Wood www.paperstampsandstickythings.blogspot.com
Kerry Timms www.kerrysstampinspiration.blogspot.com
 Caroline Barker www.caroonstampin.blogspot.co.uk
Liz Shannon www.elizabethscraftroom.blogspot.com
Tracy Lipscombe www.lovefromthefairies.blogspot.com
Linda Davies www.lindasstampingandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/
 Nikki Raine www.nikkisfreetime.blogspot.com
Rhoda MacPherson www.rhodamacpherson.typepad.com

New Years Resolution

Oh my goodness! How long since I last blogged?!

Well, lots has happened since then and there are lots of exciting things on the horizon too!  

The new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue launches next week and as as demonstrator I have been able to try out some of the new products ahead of the launch day.

To celebrate, the team I am part of have decided to have a blog hop so that we can share with you lots of new products and ideas of how you might use them.

The hop is taking place tomorrow after 9am.  It's not complicated, visit me here and my post will link to the next person and so on until you come round in a big circle.

I can't wait to see all the lovely things my fellow demonstrators have made. Hope you can find time to join me tomorrow and I promise that with the new year of the catalogue there will be a new me blogging much more often

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.