Having a Festive Flurry with the new Stampin' Up blendabilities

Did you see my sneak peek yesterday of the new Stampin' Up blendibilities? I'm obsessed now of course so if anything around here stays still for long enough it's getting coloured in with alcohol markers! My children and the cat are too fast for me (!) so I found a stamped image to colour instead - come and see:

Blendabilities are not just for complicated images! It only takes a few minutes to blend the colours on this large snowflake from Stampin' Up's Festive Flurry set (available only until Monday! Edited to add: Stampin' Up has just announced it will be extending availability until 27th August.) and it gives it a nice shimmery effect.

I added a bit more shine with one of the reduced large gems from the Retirement List.

I'll be linking this card up with Merry Monday, where the theme is Sparkle Shimmer or Shine, and Rudolph Day where, as usual, the idea is to make two Christmas cards for your stash - like this:

• Click here to see more inspiration using Festive Flurry

• Click here to see a PDF file of all the Christmas items available from Stampin' Up until 27th August. To buy them from my online shop, click here and key the product code into the 'search the store' box.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Festive Flurry wood or cling, Wishing You (retired)

Ink: Lost Lagoon classic ink (new in-colour, available 1st July 2014)
Bermuda Bay, Real Red from the Brights pack of Stampin' Write markers
Coastal Cabana assortment Blendibilities (new, available 1st July 2014)

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Large rhinestones, Stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

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

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

Some of the items in the annual Stampin' Up catalogue are retiring to make way for new products. Don't miss out on your favourites! Some of these items have been discounted too - check the lists by clicking on the banners below:

There aren't many snowflakes to be seen in balmy Buckingham at the moment but that's bound to change in the next couple of days. How do I know? Well the Glastonbury Festival is on and mud is traditional! My daughter and her friends have set off for the festival, armed with (or should that be legged with?!) wellies and raincoats. A hot bath and a mug of cocoa will be waiting on her return!

 See you tomorrow.

A quick Festive Flurry

If you're anything like me, you're sure to run out of cards and need to produce a load more at the drop of a hat! Well, it's Three Minute Thursday today and I thought it would be a good idea to show you another quick Christmas card:

I'm always very attracted to cards with a single snowflake on them, especially if they have a special feature - like the layering on this one. I used the smallest stamp in Stampin' Up's Festive Flurry set which has defined shapes that work really well for layers.

I stamped the image three times, once on the Soft Sky panel and twice more on spare Soft Sky card stock. Using my  sharp paper snips, I cut out the star shape from one of the spares and the central hexagon from the other, layering them on top of the first stamped snowflake using dimensionals. You may think that cutting things out with scissors is hardly the quickest technique, but these are very simple shapes with straight lines so it really is remarkably fast!

The edges of the card stock were I distressed with my finger nail for a bit of definition and I added a gem to the centre of the snowflake.

I'll link this card up with CASology where the cue word is Snowflake. I always love playing along there although time has been an issue just lately!

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Remembering Christmas (sentiment)

Ink: Midnight Muse

Card stock: Soft Sky, Whisper White (for the insert)

Other: Basic rhinestones, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

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

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

I don't know about you, but there's not even been a hint of snow here in Buckingham so far this winter and not much frost either thank goodness. I've never been much of a snow fan but when the children were smaller, I dutifully got excited when it snowed. I have an abiding memory of getting my daughter all togged up in snow clothes and letting her go out to play in the snow while I got my eldest son dressed up warmly too - only to find that when he was ready, the novelty had worn off for my daughter and she wanted to come back inside!

I have a tutorial to show you tomorrow so do come back and join me then!

Hugs,

Gift wrapping with my Stampin' Up stash

Some of my Christmas presents needed to be wrapped and sent off last week and I thought you might like to see them.

Don't they look exciting?! I didn't have long to prepare them but my Stampin' Up stash is perfect for prettying up parcels - come and take a closer look:

This is my favourite! I wrapped the gift in Season of Style designer paper which instantly gives a luxurious look, adding a tag (which is actually a Season of Style journaling tag) and finishing with Cherry Cobbler stitched edge grosgrain ribbon tied in a neat flat knot.

This large parcel is wrapped in recycled wrapping paper but is given a special touch with Burlap ribbon tied up in a great big bow.  The tag is made with Crumb Cake card stock and stamped with Festive Flurry snowflakes in Real Red ink.

I showed you this tag the other day - I'd made lots of them! It's stamped with an image from the Tag It stamp set and cut out with the coordinating framelit. I re-used some striped gift wrap and tied it up with white stitched grosgrain ribbon. By the way, the Tag it set is not only a great purchase for your creativity but also to help others: for every set sold, SU donates £2 to RMHC, a charity which provides accommodation to enable families to stay together when a sick child has to travel to get medical treatment.

This is a great tag for children's parcels and is very quick to make using your circle punches. I stamped the fabulous hat image from Embellished Events in Real Red ink on Whisper White card stock, cut it out with the 1 3/4" circle punch and mounted it on a larger red circle cut out with the 2 1/2" circle punch. The pom pom is a 1/2" circle.

This paper had been around for a very long time but it's come into it's own with a Wild Wasabi tag stamped with an image from the Four Frames set and cut out with the coordinating Decorative Label punch. I added some lush stitched satin ribbon in Gumball Green to finish.

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

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

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

A beautifully dressed parcel really can make a impact and the same is true of clothes it seems! My husband came back from a weekend away and noticed my outfit immediately. "You look nice!" he said. And then spoilt the effect a bit by adding "You look like a Caramel bar!"

See you tomorrow,

A Flurry of festive crafting!

Well perhaps the flurry of festive crafting of this post title is overstating it just a little, but I made one card! After catching up with all the chores yesterday, I had a look at all the challenges online and found several that worked well together - 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown with an intriguing sketch from Louise, Dynamic Duos and Merry Mondays both with aqua and red colours schemes and Addicted to CAS and More with a CAS theme. Come and see:

I pasted strips of card stock onto my front panel, trimmed them with my sharp paper snips then cut an aperture into the panel using my circle framelits and magnetic board. I cut a frame from another piece of card stock and glued that over the top before adding a pierced border.

The smallest snowflake from Festive Flurry was stamped into the aperture and the centre decorated with a gem.

I inked up this wonderful Christmas sentiment from Delightful Dozen using markers before stamping so that I could highlight the word Christmas in red. Once I'd positioned it using my stamp-a-majig, the panel was attached to the card base with dimensionals.

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Delightful Dozen

Ink: Bermuda Bay, Real Red

Card stock: Whisper White, Bermuda Bay, Real Red

Other: Circles framelits, Big Shot, markers, Essentials piercing templates, Basic Rhinestones, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

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

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

It's going to be another really busy week this week as I'm expecting guests on Thursday so never mind a flurry of crafting, there's more likely to be a flurry of cleaning, list-making and cooking! There will continue to be a project here each day though - so I'll hope to see you tomorrow.

Enjoy Bonfire night if you're in the UK!

Hugs,

A twiney bit of Festive Flurry!

I meant to get this card posted yesterday but by the time I got round to finishing the chores and settling in at the Crafting Square Metre, it was already dark! Oh well, dark evenings are something we're going to have to get used to for a while now that the clocks have gone back and dark evenings make me think of Christmas: cinnamon smells coming from the kitchen, roaring fires, cosy throws and cushions - and definitely a kraft and red colour scheme. Twine is the natural partner to that and since Less is More's challenge this week is to use twine, and a christmas card is required for Sandra's Rudolph Day, I was off! Come and see:

I used Crumb Cake card stock (that's the tempting name Stampin' Up have come up with for kraft!) for my card base and panel. The edges of the panel were swiped with a Whisper White craft ink pad and then I stamped the centre with a folksy snowflake from Festive Flurry in Real Red.

Now for the twine: using my piercing tool, I poked some holes in the snowflake and threaded some linen thread through them. It makes for a rustic, textured effect and some twinkling gems provide a nice contrast.

The card is finished with  and a sentiment from Remembering Christmas which I heat embossed with white embossing powder.

There are framelits which coordinate with the snowflakes in Festive Flurry but if you're not fussed about cutting them out why not have a look at the Snowflake Soirée set? It's one of 25 beautiful stamp sets that have been discounted by 25% as part of Stampin' Up's anniversary celebrations, and at only £16.46 for the cling mount set it's a bit of a bargain! But that's not all - if you use my special code FWRY 6ZXV in my online shop, you could be in with a chance of winning at least £25 of freebies when the promotion ends tomorrow!

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Remembering Christmas (sentiment)

Ink: Real Red

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla

Other: Linen thread, piercing tool and mat, Basic Rhinestones, stamp-a-majig, versamark, white embossing powder, heat tool

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

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

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

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

While I've been typing this I've been listening to my youngest son playing on his xbox. You never know what you might be getting with him - last week it was "Oh my goodness - there's a sheep in the enchanting room!", this week it's "No! Don't give Joseph a flame thrower!" Do I worry about the impact of gaming on his personality? Er no!

I'll be back tomorrow - hope to see you then.

Hugs,

A bit of a Festive Flurry

Christmas may seem a very long way off... but time spent preparing now means more time available for fun in December! You could easily make a stack of today's card design. Come and see:

You can buy framelits to go with the wonderful Festive Flurry stamp set which enables you to make all sorts of wonderful projects, but sometimes I like to pare things right back to a bit of simple stamping.

I used just two of the snowflake images to create this design, adding a simple strip sentiment. The stamping carries over onto the inside of the card too for a little extra detail.

Using matt grey ink instead of silver and candy dots in the same colour as the ink gives the snowflakes a contemporary feel. Have I mentioned how much I adore these candy dots? Yes, I thought I probably had!

This card would look great with one of these fancy tags from p.13 of the seasonal catalogue. They're made with the Festive Flurry set too but these stamped snowflakes are cut out quickly and easily with the coordinating framelits dies.

They make great decorations too. Now that would be a great project for December when everything's been done and you're looking for a little creative fun!

Today's card design popped into my head when I saw the inspiration picture at Merry Monday and the challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown to use any colour other than Red or Green.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Remembering Christmas

Ink: Smoky Slate, Pool Party, Night of Navy

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Corner rounder, candy dots, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

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

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

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

I'm still suffering from car lag after all my driving about the country at the weekend. The journey was enlivened by my daughter's chit chat though and her amusing comments on the place names. My favourite was when we were passing Loughborough (pronounced luff-bruh). "Oh look Mummy," said my daughter. "It's Fluffborough! Home of kittens!"

See you tomorrow,