Crazy about... Crazy About You by Stampin' Up!

One thing I think really affects the result of a hand stamped card is the greeting. Fonts date - it's as simple as that! Today's card uses an tried and trusted technique but is kept fresh and modern with a greeting in an up-to-date font! Come and see:

In my usual topsy turvy way, I've used images from the fabulous new sentiment set called Crazy About You (the flower and leaves) but the ribbon-style greeting from the image-rich Butterfly Basics! These ribbon fonts are all the rage at the moment...

... but the clean, modern, upper case font of Crazy About You is SO versatile - perfect for male cards but fabulous for teaming with cursive fonts too! AND those flowers and leaves are gorgeous!

• To make the double time stamped card, cut a panel smaller than your card front and use a low tack adhesive like Snail to attach it temporarily. Stamp your design over the panel and the card front - it will be a bit blurry round the edges but don't worry about that! Cut a mat 1cm larger heightwise and widthwise than the panel. Remove the panel, mount it on the mat, then mount that onto the card front so that it conceals the blurry edges of the stamped design. That's it!

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS CARD NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!

Crazy About You Photopolymer Stamp Set £22.95	Butterfly Basics Photopolymer Stamp Set £21.95	Blackberry Bliss Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95
Wild Wasabi Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	Wild Wasabi A4 Card Stock £6.25	Gold Sequin Trim £4.50

My shop is open 24/7 so you can buy Stampin' Up products from me any time, day or night.

If you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

So, the UK bank holiday has drawn to a close with only one day a wash-out - and even that day had a window of sunshine. We've enjoyed plenty of walks with the golden doglet including one brilliant one dreamed up by my youngest son who suggested we put our wellies on and take her for a walk in a stream. She loved it! Edited to add: And I can also tell you that it's great exercise for humans - boy, can I feel it in my thighs today!

See you tomorrow,

Sale-a-bration 2015 is nearly over - get your free Stampin' Up products now!

I've never seen Stampin' Up offer quite so many amazing free products as during this year's Sale-a-bration! The promotion is drawing to a close now and must end on 31st March so please don't miss out - click here to find out how to claim your freebies!

One of my favourite of the stamp sets has been A Happy Thing. The lemons are such a lovely bright image and I adore the little bird (you know what I'm like about bird stamps!) Here are three very different looks using that little bird:

I liked the idea of the bird against a strong background so I stamped him in Stazon ink, once on the Crushed Curry off-set panel and then again on a piece of scrap card stock. I aquapainted the second one, cut him out with sharp paper snips and glued him over the one on the panel.

There's a whole change of mood in the next design. This time I created a background for the bird by sponging Soft Sky and Smoky Slate ink over the small panel and stamping the bird over the top and aquapainting him. I love that wonderful striped ribbon - and this card shows that you only need a snippet of it to create a touch of interest.

Finally, here's a card I've shown you before: the bird was stamped and coloured and cut out with a circle punch before mounting onto a background stamped with Painted Petals. I like the tropical feel of this card so I emphasised it with a Coastal Cabana card base. Roll on summer!

I hope you've enjoyed these three looks for the price of one! Did I say price? Er my mistake - this stamp set is FREE as part of the Sale-a-bration promotion! Click here for details.

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THESE CARDS NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!
Don't forget you'll get a free Sale-a-bration item for every £45 you spend

A Happy Thing Wood Stamp Set £0.00	Aqua Painters £12.95	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry £6.25	Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana £6.25
2-1/2" Circle Punch £15.50	Bermuda Bay 1-1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon £8.25	Painted Petals Photopolymer Stamp Set £21.95	Coastal Cabana Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95

My shop is open 24/7 so you can buy Stampin' Up products from me any time, day or night.

If you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Look who turned up yesterday:

My lovely daughter! I met her at the station and we had a big hug then she stepped back and said: "Hello maman, what a stripy lady!"

Are you ready for another dose of amazing artisan design team inspiration? Do come back tomorrow for the blog hop and see what we've all been up to!

Happy mothers day with Nature's Perfection from Stampin' Up

The Stampin' Up yellows come into their own at this time of year as crafters think about spring and Easter. Crushed Curry, Daffodil Delight, So Saffron... they're all such a lovely, positive shades and with this surprisingly warm, spring weather we're having, I'm embracing it too! Come and see:

The large flower from Nature's Perfection looks great in yellow and I've made a whole bunch of them for Mothers' Day by stamping several on the card panel and then adding another fussy cut one, popped up with dimensionals.

• You can choose Nature's Perfection free as part of the Sale-a-bration promotion! Find out more here.

The flowers look pretty watercoloured in shades of yellow. I stamped the outline with Crushed Curry, painted in the shadows with Daffodil Delight and finished off with a wash of So Saffron. The leaves are punched out with the Bird Builder punch - such a useful addition to your punch collection!

I'll be linking this card up with Less is More where the challenge is to make a card using yellow and green.

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS CARD NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!
Don't forget you'll get a free Sale-a-bration item for every £45 you spend

Nature's Perfection Wood Stamp Set FREE with SAB	Crazy About You Photopolymer Stamp Set £22.95	Old Olive A4 Card Stock £6.25	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95
Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	So Saffron Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	Aqua Painters £12.95	Paper Snips Scissors £8.95

My shop is open 24/7 so you can buy Stampin' Up products from me any time, day or night.

If you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

It's Mothers Day this Sunday in the UK but never mind mothers for the minute - today is all about sons! It's my youngest son's birthday today and although he's doing all the usual sleep overs and what not at the weekend, this day after school is reserved for family feasting and games - so I'd better get on with the preparations then! If you'd like a peek at how I wrapped his presents and made his card, do join me again tomorrow when it will be another fabulous Stampin' Up Artisan blog hop day! Hope to see you then,

The new Stampin' Up vellum? Sheer Perfection!

There's nothing like an exciting new product to set me off and the new Sheer Perfection vellum has done exactly that! Come and see what I've been making with it:

For this card I used three designs of the beautiful vellum, choosing two to layering as a background and cutting a butterfly from the third to top it. The back of the butterfly was coloured with Stampin' Write markers - keeping the background to cool grey and white allows it to really pop!

This is my favourite way to add a sentiment at the moment. Stamp with a beautiful greeting from Crazy About You, punch out with the Ticket punch, attach with the hand held stapler! It's quick, easy and clean-looking which ticks all of my boxes!

So, what could be better than a new, exciting product? A FREE new, exciting product of course! Spend £45 on Stampin' Up stash and this vellum is yours absolutely free as part of the Sale-a-bration promotion!

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS CARD NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!
Don't forget you'll get a free Sale-a-bration item for every £45 you spend

Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate £6.25	Crazy About You Photopolymer Stamp Set £22.95	Handheld Stapler [EU, UK, AU] £8.95
Silver Mini Staples £3.75	Ticket Duo Builder Punch £15.50	Regals Stampin' Write Markers £23.95

My shop is open 24/7 so you can buy Stampin' Up products from me any time, day or night.

If you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

It's been so warm over the weekend and it's been such a pleasure walking my lovely pup with NO COAT! In March! The blue skies and warm sunshine brought out some early butterflies too - ones I'd never seen before.

I think they were these, the Clouded Yellow - and they definitely inspired me. Watch this space for some more butterfly cards with a zing of yellow!

See you tomorrow,

NEW Stampin' Up Sale-a-bration freebies available now!

Have you seen the new Sale-a-bration goodies that you can earn for free? Stamp sets, papers, accessories... check them out here. Aren't they gorgeous?! Nature's Perfection is my favourite of the stamp sets and as soon as I had a spare minute I did one of my favourite things with it... come and see:

This is the thing that made me happy when I started stamping six years ago - creating a garden with stamps and inks! For this card, I combined a beautiful image from Nature's Perfection with other stamps from Butterfly Basics and Painted Petals. A girl can never have too many leaves or flowers in my opinion!

This is also one of my favourite ways to add a sentiment. Stamp it onto a piece of card stock, punch it out and staple it to the card front. You can see other examples of that here and here. That's the beautiful Wild Wasabi cotton twine behind the sentiment - I drew a couple of lines with a Mossy Meadow Stampin' Write marker and tied the twine around it. TIP: To reduce bulk, snip an indent on both sides of the panel with a pointy punch such as the Mosaic Punch.

Puppies and gardening don't really go very well together so until Eva has become a grown up lady dog I think I might have to stick to gardens of the inky variety!

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS CARD NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!
Don't forget you'll get a free Sale-a-bration item for every £45 you spend

Painted Petals Photopolymer Stamp Set £21.95	Butterfly Basics Photopolymer Stamp Set £21.95	Ticket Duo Builder Punch £15.50
Handheld Stapler [EU, UK, AU] £8.95	Painted Blooms Cotton Twine £6.25	2014-2016 In Color Stampin' Write Markers £11.75

My shop is open 24/7 so you can buy Stampin' Up products from me any time, day or night.

If you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Our garden is looking dreadful at the moment. Here's a photo of its latest feature...

... a 'twig' that my youngest son helped Eva to bring home from a walk. It looks like the Loch Ness Monster for goodness sake! Puppies and gardening don't really go very well together so until Eva has become a grown up lady dog I think I might have to stick to gardens of the inky variety :)

I've been working on a fab project for this week's Stampin' Up Artisan Design Team blog hop! All will be revealed tomorrow, so do come back then and let me know what you think!