Watercolor Wings home decor artwork - Stampin' Up artisan blog hop

Hello and welcome to another blog hop brought to you by the official Stampin' Up Artisan Design Team. It's my last outing with the team but many of my team-mates will be continuing to inspire you each week so make sure you bookmark their blogs won't you!

BUTTERFLIES ON THE WALL
This week the whole team will be featuring the fabulous Watercolour Wings photopolymer stamp set so you really are in for a treat! My own project was inspired by those wonderful home decor pieces in the shops at the moment - no need to buy those when they're so simple to make at home! Come and see:

I used the smaller butterfly from Watercolor Wings to create this artwork. Forget two step stamping, you can layer these babies up in five steps, which makes them very detailed indeed :) You can even add extra detail with markers as I did here to truly customise your butterflies.

You'll need a frame with a recess, sometimes called a shadow frame. Mine was from Marks and Spencer, but I know Ikea do inexpensive similar frames. Colourwise, it's best to stick to a theme - for example, my butterflies all started with a Crushed Curry base and I've built them up with blues, greens and oranges.

In this close-up you can see how each butterfly is resting on a die-cut. I used the small, lacy butterfly from the Bold Butterfly framelits to cut these out of Typeset speciality designer paper.

SPECIAL OFFER

Buy the Watercolor Wings stamp set with the Bold Butterfly framelits and save 15%!

Watercolor Wings Photopolymer Bundle £32.50

So what do you think?! I hope I've inspired you to make your own piece of butterfly artwork for your home or to give as a gift. Now it's time to see what the rest of the team has been up to. Click the button below to carry on the blog hop with the fab Allison Okamitsu!

BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS HOME DECOR ARTWORK!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!

Watercolor Wings Photopolymer Stamp Set £23.00	Bold Butterfly Framelits Dies £15.50	Typeset Specialty Designer Series Paper £11.75	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad £6.00
Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pad £6.00	Cucumber Crush Classic Stampin' Pad £6.00	Tangelo Twist Classic Stampin' Pad £6.00	2014-2016 In Color Stampin' Write Markers £13.50

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.

BUTTERFLIES ON THE NOSE!
Before I go today, I just have to share this stunning photo by Candice Sedighan whose work has been inspired by her wonderful Golden Retriever, Champ.

How adorable is that?! No matter how many sit-stays we practise, I can't imagine Eva sitting still, gazing soulfully into the distance while I take a photo of her with a cheeky butterfly on her nose! See more of Candice's amazing photos and find out more about her here.

I'll be back tomorrow for the very last time so do pop in to say goodbye won't you.

Hugs,

Cute and trendy lace trimmed socks gift

When I saw Stampin' Up's new Dotted Lace Trim in the trendy new in-colours, I immediately thought how fabulous it would look on clothing. On a scale of 1-10 my sewing skills are about -5 but these cute trimmed socks are as easy as pie and really quick to make too! Come and see:

Aren't they the cutest thing ever?! Let's take a look at them in action!

These are the socks in cool Mint Macaron but I also made them in…

Delightful Dijon,

Watermelon Wonder

and Cucumber Crush. Phew! All that leaping about and I just don’t know which is my favourite!

Would you like to know how I made these? 

LACE TRIMMED SOCKS TUTORIAL
Here’s what you’ll need:

Stampin’ Up Dotted Lace Trim

Plain white socks

Needle and white thread

An empty 1 or 1.5 litre bottle

Here’s what to do:

First fit the sock over the bottle to stretch out the top.

Wrap Dotted Lace trim round the top of the sock, overlapping by 1cm (1/2”) and pin into place.

Simply hand sew into place along the centre of the ribbon, and along the join, using a tiny stitch at the top and a longer running stitch at the back of the sock. 

Pull the sock off the bottle and finish with a few stitches at the back. Repeat the steps above for the other sock.

TIP: Make sure the join is on the inner ankle of each sock for a neat finish.

What a bouquet of socklets!

BUY THE LACE TRIM TO MAKE THESE SOCKS NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!

Delightful Dijon 1" Dotted Lace Trim £5.50

Mint Macaron 1" Dotted Lace Trim £5.50

Watermelon Wonder 1" Dotted Lace Trim £5.50

Cucumber Crush 1" Dotted Lace Trim £5.50

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.

Life is a funny old business isn't it? I made these socks for my daughter, who would have been outraged if I'd suggested she wore something so girlie when she was an adorable little tot. Fast forward to 2015, and, as a student living in trendy Manchester, she was delighted with her gift!

See you tomorrow,

Get your Stampin' Up stash for less!

Every Wednesday, Stampin' Up announces seven or eight products that are reduced in price FOR ONE WEEK ONLY! (You'll find them each week under the Special Offers tab at the top of my blog - scroll down to make sure you see ALL the offers.) This week's deals are all about embossing folders, ribbon and the lovely, zingy colour Crushed Curry!

There's nothing like the addition of an eye-catching ribbon to up the excitement factor of your gifts and Stampin' Up's brilliant coordination means you don't have to waste precious crafting time searching for matching ribbon! Here the gorgeous Crushed Curry striped grosgrain ribbon has been used as a belly band to contrast with the fabulous sunshine pattern from the Sweet Dreams designer paper pack.

Shades of yellow look wonderful but Crushed Curry works brilliantly as an accent colour too...

... as you can see in this card I made last year, using the fab hexagon outline and sentiment from Geometrical - an under-used stamp set in my opinion!

Embossing adds lots of lovely texture to your projects and it's worth making a collection of folders - particularly at these amazing prices!

This elegant card and favour box were embossed with the reduced Mosaic folder and decorated with Old Olive and gold accents.

And did you spot the little bee tag on the gift I showed you first?

I used the Baby Bumblebee single stamp on p.39 of the spring/summer catalogue and of course it cried out for a Crushed Curry background embossed with the reduced Honeycomb folder!

I hope you've enjoyed these projects and have been inspired to add some of these bargains to your stash!

• Prefer to get your goodies for free? Choose free stamp sets and accessories as part of the Sale-a-bration promotion. Click here for details

GO SHOPPING FOR WEEKLY DEALS NOW!
Click on any item to be transported to my online shop!
Don't forget, until 31st March, you'll get a free Sale-a-bration item for every £45 you spend

Argyle Textured Impressions Embossing Folder £7.50 £5.63	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry £6.25 £4.69	Chocolate Chip 3/4" Chevron Ribbon £8.25 £6.19	Crushed Curry 1-1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon £8.25 £6.19
Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder £7.50 £5.63	Modern Mosaic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder £7.50 £5.63	Very Vanilla 5/8" Satin Ribbon £6.25 £4.69

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 funny how we see colour in different ways. This, for example, is Eva.

I call her my beautiful Champagne Princess or my Golden Treasure! Yesterday, I overheard my eldest son (who loves her to bits) call her 'The Beige Beast'!

Have a lovely weekend won't you. I'll be back on Tuesday when I'll be thinking of spring colours! Hope to see you then,

A Sheltering tree with sympathy - Stampin' Up artisan blog hop

Hello and welcome to another Stampin' Up artisan blog hop. As usual, the team has loads of ideas to inspire you - so let's get started!

SENDING SYMPATHY WITH SHELTERING TREE
Cards and gifts are not always celebratory and this week I want to show you a little card and gift I sent to a friend when she was knocked for six after the death of her little cat.

I used the beautiful Sheltering Tree stamp set for a sombre card and took it round to my friend with a gift of snowdrops, which I thought she might want to plant as a memorial.

The pot of flowers was wrapped in white tissue paper and fit perfectly in one of the 9 x 9 x 6.4 cm kraft gift boxes. I kept the decoration very simple, adding just a pretty seam binding bow and a garden marker cut with the Handpicked framelits dies.

The card uses just stamps and ink, my favourite kind of card! I layered the images to create the scene, using the leafy image to create a vaguely bokeh effect. The trees were stamped in a variety of neutrals giving a misty look.

There are lots of useful sentiments in the Sheltering Tree set but again, I wanted to keep it simple so I used the 'thinking of you' greeting. With this kind of card, the stamped image takes centre stage so I simply scored and sponged ink over the edges of the panel and pasted it onto my card front.

The loss of a pet can be devastating but I hope this project brought my friend a little comfort.

Now, I know my talented friend Allison Okamitsu has something fab to show you and she's next on the blog hop! Just click the button below.

YOU CAN BUY THE SUPPLIES TO MAKE THIS PROJECT 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

Sheltering Tree Photopolymer Stamp Set £22.95	Wild Wasabi 1/2" Seam Binding Ribbon £6.25	Handpicked Framelits Dies £20.95	Kraft Gift Box £2.75
Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	Wild Wasabi Classic Stampin' Pad £4.95	Smoky Slate 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.

Forgive me if I'm a little bleary today. We enjoyed a heady evening of drama and dancing at my youngest son's school last night and watched him and his friends lift the cup for Best Performance. Off I went to Mumland! Honestly, who needs the Oscars?!

See you tomorrow when I'll have a round up of the week's Stampin' Up special offers :)