A Three Minute Happy Hello

Today I'm using the Happy Hello Simply Sent kit which is free as part of Stampin' Up's Sale-a-bration promotion, but in fact it's more like a sad goodbye as Sale-a-bration ends tomorrow. If you have your eye on any of the Sale-a-bration free gifts, please do email me your order as soon as possible!

It's easy and fun to make cards with kits like this one and the Simply Scrappin' kits (on 167 and 168 of the annual catalogue). Come and see what I've been up to:

The Sale-a-bration Happy Hello kit contains 8 die-cut cards, printed with a trendy chevron design, and these wonderful contrasting envelopes. You also get Basic Grey bakers twine, stickers in a gorgeous combination of Basic Grey and Daffodil Yellow, and sparkly rhinestones to embellish with. The set would make a lovely gift for someone who doesn't craft because you can keep it very simple, as I have in the card above...

... or you can go off piste and do your own thing as we crafters love to do! I made this quick card using one envelope, one die-cut card, a sheet of Whisper White card stock and few of the embellishments as well as the following two cards. In this one, I trimmed the shaped card stock and envelope for my background and added the stickers and a sentiment in a jiffy!

Here's a card for someone who has achieved a goal or passed an exam or driving test. I found that it was easy to cut stars out of the larger flower stickers using my Merry Minis star punch, and gave them a  celebratory look with rhinestones.

Here's another card to celebrate an achievement. This time I've used the offcuts of the grey sticker and the patterned card stock to create banners which I've ribbon-tailed with a square punch. I used markers to isolate the words on the sentiment, making a 'here's to' ticket to place on the banners and stamping the 'you' directly onto the card base. I embellished with a row of rhinestones - Stampin' Up's rhinestones come with two chains of these to make lines easy.

There's heaps of the kit left and I've got plans to make it into a mini scrap book to house this year's Easter photos - those colours will be perfect!

Here's what you'll need to make these cards
Stamps: Friendly Phrases 
Ink: Daffodil Delight, Basic Grey and Baja Breeze markers
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Happy Hello Simply Sent kit (Sale-a-bration freebie), Basic Rhinestones (for the small ones), Square punch, Merry Mini punch set, stamp-a-majig
I'D BE DELIGHTED TO ORDER STAMPIN' UP ITEMS FOR YOU AND HAVE THEM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR ADDRESS IN THE UK. I'M COMMITTED TO PROVIDING EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE AND AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO OFFER HELP AND ADVICE. TO PLACE YOUR ORDER, JUST SEND ME AN EMAIL OR GIVE ME A CALL ON 01280 820593.
• Add a free Sale-a-bration item from this list for every £45 you spend! Offer ends tomorrow so don't miss out!

My son is getting better now and so boredom has set in. Yesterday, feeling that I could do with some help with my blog, he suggested a featured post for each day of the week: Two Minute Tuesday for example (I told him that might be stretching the concept of fast just a tad!) Six Minute Saturday, Seven Minute Sunday... He also came up with Faffing About Friday (no change there then!) and Make What You Want Monday (Hmm!) before I decided he could do with a more constructive activity!

See you tomorrow for a bit of the usual Friday faffing!

Easy Events Christmas tag card

The brilliant 52 Christmas Card Throwdown site is continuing its mission to get us prepared for the festive season in good time and this week the challenge is to use Pearls on a Christmas card. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: there were some tags left over from my Snowflake Season Simply Scrappin' kit and I'd had the idea of stamping festive foliage on them. Come and have a look:

I used the Christmas branch from Easy Events to stamp my mistletoe on the tag and embellished with Basic Pearls - I love the lustre on these! The leaves were coloured in with a Gumball Green marker

The tag was tied up with Cherry Cobbler seam binding, before mounting with dimensionals onto a panel embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots folder.

The eight diverse images in this set come with sentiments attached but I cut mine apart and mounted them on the edge of the block so that they're even more versatile. On this card though, I opted to use my current favourite sentiment from Happy Hour.

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

Card stock: Whisper White

Stamps: Easy Events, Happy Hour

Ink: Real Red, Always Artichoke classic inks and a Gumball Green marker

Other: Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Big Shot, Basic Pearls, Snowflake Season Simply Scrappin' kit, Cherry Cobbler seam binding

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

I was curious about the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe so I looked it up.  Did you know that when a couple kiss they should take one of the berries off the bunch and that when all the berries have gone it's supposed to be bad luck to do any more kissing?! We've never used mistletoe as a decoration as I've never seen it growing wild around here; we stick to holly and ivy instead, and we certainly don't need a bunch of leaves as an excuse for a kiss!

See you tomorrow!

Clean and simple layering

After my senior moment yesterday I'm back to making Christmas cards. The colour challenge at 52CCT this week intrigued me - Cream, Brown and Pink, so here's my take on that using this gorgeous sketch at Case this Sketch:

This is about as layered as I can bring myself to do! I used ribbon, card stock and designer paper to create a background with punched circles for my scallops. A sentiment banner was laid over the top and finished with a fabulous snowflake embellishment.

Here's a close up of that snowflake. It came from the Snowflake Season scrapping kit in the autumn/winter seasonal catalogue which I bought for another project and found there are heaps of fun items left over to use for cards! The centre is decorated with button dies cuts - the Sweet Buttons embosslits die gets a lot of use in my Crafting Square Metre and I do like to stack the buttons and stitch them together with bakers twine.

The sentiment was stamped onto a card strip and embossed, and ribbon tails punched into the end with a square punch. I rather like the dotty Melon Mambo ribbon and Early Espresso combination and I think it does look quite jolly with a bit of extra glitz!

Here's the sketch I've been working from today:

My blogging friend Val has just mentioned that this card will work for Crafty Cardmakers where the challenge is to use more than one punch or die - thanks Val!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: For My Family
Ink: Early Espresso
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Melon Mambo, Primrose Petals
Other: Melon Mambo dotty grosgrain ribbon, scrap of Floral District designer paper, Snowflake Season scrapping kit, Sweet Buttons embosslits die, Big Shot, Early Espresso bakers twine, 3/4" circle punch
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

What a damp, dark, murky Monday it was yesterday - just the sort of day when your spirits need lifting. Luckily there is my daughter! When she came down to breakfast yesterday she said: "Getting out of bed - three out of ten. Not recommended!" which cheered me up no end. 

See you tomorrow,

Three Minute Thursday - using Simply Scrappin' kits

Hello! It seems only two minutes ago that it was last Thursday but unless I've discovered a way of time travelling I'm sure it has only been a week! Life is pretty hectic for many of us and that's why I devised Three Minute Thursday - it's for people who love making beautiful cards but who don't have the time or inclination to spend hours doing it.

Today I'm showing you the ultimate in speed card-making - the Simply Scrappin' kit. These kits are intended for scrapbooking and contain card stock, patterned paper and seld-adhesive die cuts - all perfectly colour and style coordinated. Take a look at these three note cards:

These little cards took well under three minutes. Once I'd cut the 9cm card blanks using one of the beautiful textured sheets of card stock provided in the kit, it was just a matter of having fun layering the self-adhesive images onto the card fronts. I decided to use dimensionals for some of them and added a few rhinestones from my stash.

It was such fun that I got a bit carried away! Here are a couple of other cards I made with the kit:

This one had a few more layers but still took only a little over three minutes. Then I got to thinking that the cards were pretty girlie and there was no reason for the guys to miss out...

Just look at this owl! Isn't he just the cutest little chap?!

Today I've been having all this fun with the Petal Party Simply Scrappin' kit, which is on the Last Chance List at 25% off. It's now only £11.63 and you get heaps in the kit - the cards I made today barely made a dent in mine! The Simply Scrappin' kits make great presents too and are perfect for making party invitations - in fact, children would love to make their own! Do check the Last Chance List here for some last-minute bargains and email me if I can help in any way.

Thank you for joining me here today. I really appreciate your visits and your comments - I read each and every one of them and I'm always interested in what you have to say.
I'll be back tomorrow with another creation (I'm not quite sure what yet!) and hope to see you here again soon.