Last chance to get Simply Sketched by Stampin' Up

We're all so excited about sneak peeks from the upcoming new Stampin' Up annual catalogue (here and here) but I don't want you to miss out on items that won't be available after 30th June - like the hostess sets for example. Of all Stampin' Up's fabulous hostess sets this year, Simply Sketched is one of my favourites. I've had a bit of a watercolour moment on today's card. Come and see:

I chose Naturals Ivory as my card base with its soft suede-like texture and subtle flecked surface. The poppy image was stamped twice off the edge of the card front using black stazon ink and I added one of the sentiments from the set too.

To bring the image to life, I coloured it with an aquapainter and inks. This card stock isn't designed to take water (Stampin' Up's watercolour paper is brilliant for that) but I find that if I put the card under a pile of heavy books, it sorts out most of the warping! I finished the design with a little sponging and a frame of piercing.

I'll be linking this card up with Less is More where this week's challenge is a one layer, Off the Edge card; and also the One-Layer Simplicity challenge where the theme this month is I've been Framed.

• Simply Sketched is a hostess set, one of a group of specially-priced, exclusive Stampin' Up sets available to those placing orders of £150 or more. Group orders also apply so why not club together with friends and family?

• To see more Simply Sketched inspiration, click here

• Current hostess sets will no longer be available after June. You'll find them all on the Retirement Lists below - don't miss out on your favourites! Click here to buy retiring items in my online shop.

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

Stamps: Simply Sketched (hostess, retiring) wood or cling

Ink: So Saffron, Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizzazz classic ink, Stazon black ink
Card stock: Naturals Ivory

Other: Stamp-a-majig, Basic Black marker, aquapainter, Essentials piercing template, mat and tool

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.

The exams are dragging on here but even through all the hard slog my daughter remains an utter sweetheart. I had some unpleasant tasks to do this week and as I was reluctantly leaving the house one morning, my daughter gave me a hug. "Chin up!" she said. "Would you like me to send pictures of bunnies to your phone every hour?!"

See you tomorrow with one of those tricky cards for a young boy's birthday!

Make a Cake from the Stampin' Up Retirement list

I've been going through all my stamp sets and giving the retiring ones a little love. Today it's the turn of Make a Cake, a cute little set that I haven't used nearly enough! Come and see what I've made with it:

There are seven stamps in this set and you can mix and match them to make a whole variety of gorgeous cakes. Mine is a three-layer, melt-in-the-mouth lemon chiffon cake with a delicious tangy frosting... oh dear, I'd better stop right there!

I've arranged my cake on a platter, decorated it with flags and placed it in the spotlight created by a split panel front with an oval aperture. I backed the panel with Midnight Muse card stock and added So Saffron candy dots for a fun touch.

I'll be linking this card up with Addicted to Stamps and More where there's a Make Your Mark challenge.

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

Stamps: Make a Cake wood or cling, Simply Sketched (hostess retiring) wood or cling

Ink: Primrose Petals classic ink, In colour markers 2012-2013 (retiring)

Card stock: Whisper White smooth and core'dinations (retiring), Midnight Muse (retiring)

Other: Ovals framelits, Big Shot, candy dots in Subtles, aquapainter, 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 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 them here.

When we were walking past a bakery the other day my youngest son became quite pensive. "Do you ever feel the overwhelming temptation to go in and buy a custard cake just so that you can push it in someone's face?" he asked. Er, no, I don't actually. And oh my goodness, just think of the lucky escape I've had all these years of passing bakeries with him!

See you tomorrow,

Simply Sketched with sympathy

Sadly I needed a sympathy card this week. Simply Sketched was out on my desk from Monday - although the result couldn't be more of a contrast to this card I showed here on Monday. Come and see:

I thought a peaceful nature scene would be appropriate. The leaves and the bird were stamped off the edge of the notecard and I added the sentiment using Basic Grey ink.

I coloured everything in using markers, adding highlights with my white Signo gel pen.

I'll be linking this card up with Make My Monday where the theme is Nature.

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

Stamps: Simply Sketched (hostess set) wood or cling

Ink: Basic Grey classic ink, plus markers

Card stock: Whisper White notecards with matching envelopes

Other: 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.

CHOOSE ONE OF THESE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SETS WITH EVERY £60 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Our cat Tuppence has been behaving quite strangely (nothing new there!) She has abandoned her usual haunts in the back garden and the house and has taken up permanent patrol duty in our tiny front garden, refusing even to come in at night! She pops in for meals, which she orders loudly and bossily, and then demands to leave the house again. One side effect of this is that our back garden has become heavily populated with birds of all sorts. It's such a pleasure to see them out there although I fear if she knew what was going on Tuppence would be apoplectic with rage!

See you tomorrow,

The bird in the Strawberry Slush

It will soon be time to say goodbye to the exclusive hostess stamp sets in the Stampin' Up annual catalogue 2013-2014 and there are some real beauties. These are specially priced sets that are only available to those placing orders of £150 or more - so it's well worth saving up your orders or clubbing together with friends. Simply Sketched is one of my favourite hostess sets and lends itself perfectly to interesting inky backgrounds. Come and see:

I stamped the Hardwood stamp onto Crumb Cake card stock and attached strips of it to a card base to form a background for my sponged panel.

Strawberry Slush and Crumb Cake inks were sponged all over my square panel and the bird image and some extra grasses stamped over the top in Early Espresso. I stamped the bird again on scrap card stock so I could colour him in and pop him up over the original. Since I was already quite inky, I smeared the Strawberry Slush ink pad all over a piece of scrap card stock and punched flowers out of it with my favourite little flower from the Itty Bitty punch set.

It was this fabulous inspiration photo over at Addicted to Stamps and More that sent me scuttling for my sponges and inks:

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

Stamps: Simply Sketched (hostess set) wood or cling, Love and Sympathy wood or cling,
Hardwood wood or cling, Peaceful Petals (sentiment) wood or cling

Ink: Crumb Cake, Strawberry Slush, Early Espresso

Card stock: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla

Other: Itty Bitty punch pack, Basic pearls, Stampin' sponges, 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.

CHOOSE ONE OF THESE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SETS WITH EVERY £60 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Strawberry Slush is a gorgeous colour pink - and it also sounds like the perfect pudding for the tropical weather we're having in Buckingham! Just off to check... (and I may be some time!)

See you tomorrow,

A special birthday

One of my girlfriends celebrated her birthday recently and so we all went out for a meal and showered her with gifts! I found a pretty scarf for her which provided all the inspiration for the gift presentation. Come and see:

How's this for a burst of tropical colour?! Those fabulous flowers are from Stampin' Up's Secret Garden stamp set - and there are coordinating framelits for those that don't enjoy fussy-cutting.

The background was made using my acrylic block kissing technique (as seen in this video tutorial.)
I had a bag in the same Crushed Curry colour as I used for the card base but it had a shop logo on it...

... so I made a panel for the front and back to cover it using one of the papers from the Regals Designer Paper stack - it is SO useful to have designer paper in every single Stampin' Up colour!

Have you spotted the matching tag?

I stamped it using the same technique as the card and cut it down to 2" wide, carefully cutting around the sticking out flower. Then I was able to use the angled tag topper punch to turn it into a tag, and tied it to the bag with sumptuous stitched satin ribbon in Midnight Muse.

Would you like to see the scarf that gave me the inspiration?

LOVE it! (In fact it was quite hard to give away!)

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

Stamps: Secret Garden wood or cling, Simply Sketched (hostess set) wood or cling

Ink: Melon Mambo, Crushed Curry, Midnight Muse

Card stock: Whisper White, Crushed Curry

Other: Secret Garden framelits, Big Shot, Designer Paper Stack in Regals, Acrylic block E, aquapainter, Angled tag topper punch, stitched satin ribbon in Midnight Muse, 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.

CHOOSE AN EXCLUSIVE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET FREE WITH EVERY £60 YOU SPEND

We're gearing up for a bank holiday weekend here in the UK so fingers crossed for some sunshine. I'll be back on Tuesday with the first in a series of projects made with a fabulous, summery stamp set. Have a lovely weekend and hope to see you then,

Beautiful birthday butterflies

I've been going birthday-tastic just lately so you'll be seeing a crop of birthday projects over the next few weeks! This card, using Stampin' Up's Serene Silhouettes set, was inspired by the displays of beautiful spring flowers around at the moment - come and see:

I've used Marina Mist for the card base. The more turquoisey blues are stealing the limelight at the moment but Marina Mist is such a pretty blue and looks wonderful with Old Olive. I've added a pop of Crushed Curry in the form of the die cut butterflies too - at least I thought it was Crushed Curry until something weird happened...

Aaaargh! I can only apologise for this photo! These butterflies are yellow in real life but after a lot of frustrating research I've discovered that Google has introduced an auto-enhance feature that wrecks some photos and you can only turn it off if you switch to Google+.  (Perhaps I should go ahead with that... Have you made the switch? I'd be interested to hear about your experience.)

Here's a close up of the embossed frame detail. Framelits are great for embossing with and this scalloped one from the Squares collection gives the card an extra large postage stamp look!

I shall be linking this card up with The Card Concept where the theme is Butterflies, Mrs A's Butterfly challenge where yellow is required this week (my butterflies ARE yellow I promise Mrs A!), and Seize the Birthday where they're all about birthdays!

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

Stamps: Serene Silhouettes wood or cling, Simply Sketched wood or cling (hostess set)

Ink: Midnight Muse, Old Olive classic inks plus Marina Mist and Old Olive markers

Card stock: Whisper White, Marina Mist

Other: Squares framelits, Big Shot, Beautiful Wings embosslits die, 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.

I don't think I'm a complete slouch on the technology front but there's always an element of sighing and eye rolling if I ask my children for help. In retaliation, I behave like a decrepit old lady, asking them to ring me on the telephonic instrument or asking them whether they've downloaded the latest gramophone record onto their ipods.

See you tomorrow,

Hardwood and Hellebores

There's been a return to cold gloomy weather here in the heart of England so I decided to get some winter woollies on and make some Christmas cards! I had plenty of inspiration from Merry Mondays with a fabulous Grey, Red and White colour palette, 52 {CCT} with a theme of Paper Flowers and of course Rudolph Day where two Christmas cards are required! Come and see:

Like everyone else, I am potty about the new Hardwood stamp and the Petite Petals set! (These just keep going out of stock as everyone wants them!) I inked only two thirds of my panel with Hardwood and stamped a leaf and berry image over the top, colouring in the leaves with an aquapainter and adding berries with markers.

This delicate hellebore-style flower looks so beautiful stamped in any colour but I stamped mine in versamark and heat embossed with white embossing powder. You can't really see here but I added a sprinkle of superfine silver glitter before it dried so it has a subtle glimmer in real life, and I added extra shine with gems.

The sentiment is from Petite Pairs and has a lovely second part to stamp inside the card: 'and a happy, joyful, bright new year!'

Now, the question is, did I really make two of these?

Yes of course I did!

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

Stamps: Hardwood wood or cling, Petite Petals wood or cling
Simply Sketched (hostess set, conditions apply)

Ink: Smoky Slate, Real Red classic inks, plus Neutrals markers and Real Red marker

Card stock: Whisper White, Real Red

Other: Petite Petals punch, Basic rhinestones, versamark, white embossing powder, heat tool, 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.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Does it really have to rain ALL day?! You know when you get ready in the morning and you want your hair to look like this:

And then at the end of the day, you catch a glimpse of it in the mirror looking more like this:

See you tomorrow,

Birdies bearing gifts

I was delighted to see that the challenge at Make My Monday this week is birds. Stampin' Up have lots of gorgeous ones, but I'm show-casing the gorgeous Love You More stamp set this week and there's a fabulous bird in that set. Come and see what I've done with him:

There's something a bit cheeky about this little retro-style bird! He normally wears his heart on his beak but I took that off him and gave him a flower to hold instead - using markers to ink up an image makes it easy to leave parts of the stamp out.

I masked and sponged a 'ground' for him to hop about on, added the sentiment and finished with a candy dot in the centre of the flower.

It occurred to me that you might want to see the original bird: This young lady is dressed in Rich Razzleberry and Melon Mambo plumage with Daffodil Delight tights and matching beak-stick; she carries this season's must-have accessory in Real Red!

Here's what you'll need to make these cards

Stamps: Love You More, sentiments from Teeny Tiny Wishes and Simply Sketched

Ink: Markers in Pacific Point, Garden Green, Early Espresso, Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight

Card stock: Naturals White, Very Vanilla

Other: 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.

The description of the second bird brought back a vivid childhood memory for me of a visit to the Bath and West agricultural show which takes place in Somerset where I grew up. In the 70s, these shows were all livestock and tractors and, to be honest, there wasn't much going on there for a little girl whose passions were drawing and reading. There were stalls selling dog leads and horse blankets as well as the odd novelty stall but amongst all of this I remember discovering a fashion show! For a giddy half hour, I sat wide-eyed in a stuffy tent smelling of manure mesmerised by glamorous ladies floating about in the very latest 70s fashions while a lady with clipped BBC accents described the ensembles over a microphone. What a very long time ago that seems!

I'll be back tomorrow when it'll be Three Minute Thursday here and I'll have some quick cards to show you. Hope to see you then,

A Simply Sketched Christmas

What with 18th birthdays and Stampin' Up conventions I've been a bit distracted lately but I woke up yesterday morning with a sudden realisation that it'll be Christmas very soon! I do have quite a pile of Christmas cards but not nearly enough... and anyway, the 'Make a Christmas card featuring a bird' challenge at Less is More was calling to me and I needed a card for Sarn's Rudolph Day challenge too. Here's what I've come up with:

There are loads of gorgeous birds in the Stampin' Up catalogue and I've chosen this one from the Simply Sketched hostess set.  I stamped him and coloured him in like a robin before cutting him out popping him up with a dimensional.

 I've sat him on this branch from the same set which can look very Christmassy or not depending on which colours you use. I used markers to colour everything on this card - including...

... the sentiment - a real favourite of mine from Delightful Dozen. Do you like the way I've made the robin look up at it?!

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

Stamps: Simply Sketched, Delightful Dozen

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso, Baked Brown Sugar, Crumb Cake, Crisp Cantaloupe, Raspberry Ripple, Sahara Sand - all in markers

Card stock: Raspberry Ripple, Whisper White

Other: Essentials piercing template, mat and tool, 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.

Yesterday I mentioned a bit about my trip to Stampin' Up's annual convention - well here's some more if you're interested. And if you're not, do scroll down to the bottom for news of a give away - YAY!

I was staying in the beautiful Midland Hotel along with lots of other demonstrators so, after doing full justice to a full English breakfast, we were able to pop across the road to the convention centre where things were already buzzing. Everyone was carrying their convention bags...

... which were beautifully designed and very practical. They contained free stamp sets and other goodies and became very full as Prize Patrol kept handing out more and more freebies throughout the day!

There were the most stunning displays everywhere of cards and other projects - you really had to be there to get the full impact of these. There were also stations where you could play with some of the new products like the amazing new Undefined kit seen in this short video:



Do you think it looks hard to do? Well it's not I promise you and just think of all the special things you could make! The kit costs £17.95 and I think it would make a unusual Christmas present for almost anyone!

Anyway, back to convention! All through Friday and Saturday there were technique and product demonstrations, as well as business talks, and you could dip in and out and choose whether to go to these. There were some brilliant presentations, some funny, some quite emotional but all incredibly inspiring.

On Friday evening we dressed up in frocks and heels and gathered to cheer ourselves silly while those that had won awards went up on stage. The night ended with a 25th anniversary party with food, music and dancing!

Thank you for reading my ramblings! It's difficult to describe how much fun convention was and how spoilt I felt with all the freebies and wonderful gifts but I'd love to share a bit of that feeling with my customers: I have wrapped up three different gifts which three lucky winners will receive in the post in time for Christmas! I'll have all the details tomorrow so do check back to see!

See you tomorrow,