Mail-friendly Monday - Valentine, using Schoolbook Serif alphabet

Hold on to your hats this morning folks! I'm having a raunchy moment - well, as raunchy as it gets on Crafting Clare's Paper Moments anyway! This week is all about valentines and anniversaries, and while this is not the Valentine's card I'll be giving my husband, (in case you were wondering!) life's not all about me after all!

I made this card for the DYSU challenge number 5. The theme this week is Red Hot, perfect for a Valentine, and of course I've made it mail-friendly - there are plenty of layers but nothing bulky to warrant anything but a standard postage stamp.

The Schoolbook Serif alphabet stamp set I've used is brilliant for personalising cards with a name (like this one) as well as making scrapbook titles. I coloured my letters with markers, graduating the colour up from red to yellow to make them look on fire, and I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.

I took the other words from a couple of my sentiment sets. I've been building up a collection of sentiments and I love playing with them to make new phrases using my stamp-a-majig.

Do you like my new border punch? No! Of course it's not! I've just made a border using Stampin' Up's tiny heart punch. It's so easy to position this that punching a row of them is a doddle and I just cut round the points of the hearts with paper snips to finish.

Here's how to make this card:

• Punch eight little hearts along the edge of a piece of Cherry Cobbler card stock, reserving two of the solid hearts for later. TIP: Butt the punch up against the edge of the paper each time to make sure they're straight and line the left-hand side of the punch up with the centre of the right-hand heart lobe each time you punch to get regular spacing.
• Trim the card stock to 14cm x 10cm. Cut around the bottom of the hearts to create a border.
• Cut a 13.25cm x 7.5cm piece of heart patterned paper from the Play Date designer paper range. Stick 5/8" Pumpkin Pie ribbon and 1/4" Real Red ribbon to it, wrapping the ends round the back of the paper for a neat finish.
• Punch a large heart out of Cherry Cobbler card stock and stick to the left-hand side of the Pumpkin Pie ribbon.
• Take the H, the O and the T from the Schoolbook Serif stamp set. Colour them with markers to create a flaming effect - I used Cherry Cobbler, Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight. Stamp the letters onto Whisper White card stock and cut them out with paper snips and/or a craft knife. Glue them to the DP panel, making the H overlap the large heart and using the Real Red ribbon to ground them.
• Glue the two hearts you reserved earlier to the right of the T.
• Use Cherry Cobbler ink to stamp 'You're' and 'Baby' onto Pumpkin Pie card stock and cut them out with the word window punch. TIP: You can make the word fit by feeding the end of your punched shape down into the punching mechanism and trimming the end. Glue the words onto the panel and give the hearts 'shine' with a white gel pen.
• Cut an A5 piece of Tangerine Tango card stock. Score and fold in half to make a card base. Glue the panel to the card front.

Supplies
Stamps: Schoolbook Serif alphabet, Sincere Salutations (for You're), Basic Phrases (for Baby)
Card stock: Tangerine

Other: Cherry Cobbler, Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight markers, word window and heart punches, 5/8" Pumpkin Pie and 1/4" Real Red grosgrain ribbon, Play Date DP

I hope you've had good weekends. I spent mine in my favourite way: crafting, with my family around me (in between parties!) and I'm very excited about some of the projects I have to show you this week! You may not send valentines or anniversary cards but all my cards can be adapted for other occasions. Today's card for instance would make a great birthday card by using a different designer paper, spelling out a name with the alphabet and perhaps swapping the hearts for flowers, leaves, butterflies, birds, animals... I think you get the idea with this!

Thank you for visiting me here today and I hope you'll pop back tomorrow.
Happy crafting!

Inspiration from convention

Good morning! Yes - even Monday mornings are good when you're a Stampin' Up demonstrator!

If you are a regular reader of this blog you'll know that I've been away at the Stampin' Up European convention. This event brings demonstrators from the UK, France and Germany together and was held at the beautiful Addington Palace in Surrey.

My goodness did I learn a lot there! I can't wait to show you some of the tricks and techniques I've learned - so now is a great time to get your stamping parties booked!

When demonstrators get together, we like to swap the things we've been making - a wonderful idea as we then have a huge library of styles and ideas to inspire us and our customers. Here are some of the things I made.

This is a tag made from Notably Ornate with a touch of Vintage Vogue, and personalised using my Schoolbook Serif and Just Perfect alphabet sets. I used More Mustard to stamp that fabulous frame and I love the contrast with the Rich Razzleberry of the flowers and the touches of Old Olive. You can't see very well in the photo but I decorated the centres of the flowers with basic rhinestones for a touch of sparkle.

And here's my swap:

There's more than a touch of the US about this card isn't there? I must have been thinking of my American crafting friends when I came up with this design and wishing they could join us at Addington Palace! I used Seeing Stars and Solid Stripes for this card along with the incredibly useful Thank You Kindly sentiment set of four.

I have had the most wonderful few days, sharing what I love doing with so many other ladies who are as passionate about crafting as I am. It was lovely to meet up with friends from around the UK and Europe and I've made new friends too. When I joined Stampin' Up as a demonstrator earlier in the year I had no idea that it would become such a special and fulfilling part of my life - I really cannot recommend it highly enough.

If you've been wondering about joining Stampin' Up, whether to enjoy your hobby at a discount or to turn your hobby into a business, I would love you to join my team. I'm not interested in pressurising you but I can give lots of information, share my own experiences with you and give you the time and space you need to make an informed decision. It only costs £119 to buy the starter kit and you get an astonishing £230 worth of products! Click here to email me.

I'm closing this post with a picture of me (on the right) with my very special upline and friend Michelle Last who walked away from convention with the top prize - UK demonstrator of the year. I am so thrilled for her and she truly deserves her title - she is the loveliest person and it's a pleasure to work with her.

Thank you for dropping in today.

I'll be back tomorrow for a little Christmas gift inspiration.

Hope to see you then.