For inspiration, ideas, tutorials, techniques and classes on paper crafting, card making, scrapbooking and more using quality Stampin' Up!® products. gerlach@iinet.net.au 0421 482 578
For a limited time, August 2-31st you can purchase the exclusive Thoughtful Branches bundle, if you have Bonus Days coupons from shopping in July you can use those to go towards the purchase of it. It is a super versatile bundle that would suit many, many occasions all year round.
The bundle features a fabulous thinlits set
Plus the co-ordinating stamp set (hint you can also cut the apple image out with your Tree Builder punch if you don’t want to use the thinlit).
Don’t forget if you purchase them as a bundle you will save 10% and supplies are whilst stocks last, available form August 2nd.
Have you ever made a card and then couldn’t decide whether to add a certain embellishment or not? Normally the result of the addition is a clear yes or no as to if it improves the final card or not……but in this instance the final verdict is still out!
I was making some thank you cards which means that they would either have a Crumb Cake or Whisper White base as I do tend to favour the notecards for this type of thing and I just used Basic Black ink so as not to overcomplicate things using the new Flourishing Phrases.
I liked the clean look of the card, but then decided to add some contrast to the card with the Chalk Maker pen (because well it was on my desk at the time) and then I couldn’t decide if the card looked better with or without the Chalk Marker – what do you think?
I do have an aversion to naked envelopes, so I added some flowers to the front and my new favourite little stamp for Better Than Email to the back – how true is that sentiment!
Did you get everything you want from the new annual catalogue yet? Since it only came out a month ago, you probably still have some items on your wish list, and
we have some great news for you! For every $90 you spend in between 7 July and 31 July (before shipping and handling), you’ll get a $9 Bonus Days coupon that you can use 2–31 August. This is a great opportunity to shop from your wish list, whether you buy your favourite products now or later in August with your coupons!
DETAILS
Promotion Period: 7–31 July 2016
Redemption Period: 2–31 August 2016
An email address is required to participate in this promotion; Bonus Days coupon codes can only be delivered via email.
It is strongly recommended that participants both save emails containing their Bonus Days coupon codes AND write down the coupon codes in a safe place. Codes cannot be resent if the email is lost, and lost codes cannot be recovered.
Bonus Days coupon codes can be redeemed for any product, excluding Starter Kits.
So I might have a backlog of a few posts – I realised last night when I was having an insomniac moment that I am a couple of years behind with my blogging! I do 40 weeks of Crafternoon Tea classes a year which involves 4 projects each week and have between 5-18 people attending (averages 10), plus team meetings, private classes, fundraiser projects, stamp-a-stack, swaps for convention, custom work, thank you cards…………..so you can see I’m pretty much creating around 2000 items a year and I’m lucky if I’m blogging 50 of the projects a year……so I’m open to how to resolve this dilemna if you have any suggestions!
Anyway this was a project from like 3 years ago, but I found the punch art card when I was cleaning up last week so thought I’d share it with you now.
Even though the sentiments on the card have long retired, I’m sure you could replace it with something similar.
Opps so I had a heap of blog posts from the last annual catalogue that I forgot to schedule amidst the melee that has been my life for April/May – good news is that things are settling down and our senior instructor is now out of hospital so I’m not working 7 days a week at the moment (three and a half weeks of that was sufficient thanks) & hoping to get some more craft done & maybe even blogged!
I was thrilled to see in the new annual catalogue that the Sprinkles of Life stamp set is carrying over, not at the Ronald McDonald House Charity set again, but just as a normal part of the catalogue. Here are a few of the items I made with it last year, that I didn’t blog, some are CASEd and some are original .
I can’t wait to order the new Ronald McDonald House Charity set, My Hero, it looks amazingly versatile and great value at $37 for clear mount or $50 for wood mount!
Come along for a wonderful afternoon/evening full of fun and creativity on Saturday June 11th. Get a copy of the new 2016-2017 Annual Stampin’ Up! Catalogue, be inspired by displays, participate in 3 make ‘n takes, see new products being demonstrated, enjoy refreshments, go in the draw for door prizes, have lots of fun & more!
Sessions are 12-2pm, 3-5pm & 6-8pm
Cost is $10 and payment prior to the event is essential – numbers for each session are strictly limited. Payments can be done in person, direct debit or PayPal
I made a birthday card for my talent sister-in-law in March and as she is a mixed media artist (you can check out her website here) I thought I’d make her a card in basic black and real red ink featuring the hostess set Love You Sew, only available until the end of March.
Then I made a second one in multi colours just for fun!
So a huge favourite at Pizza & Papercrafting evenings and Catalogue Launch parties is this gluten free chocolate cherry ripe slice. It’s made by my wonderful friend Sue, who has generously shared the recipe with others and gave me permission to share it here as well.
180g dark chocolate
3 eggs, lightly whisked at room temperature
2 cups desiccated coconut
1 cup castor sugar
100g packet glace cherries, finely chopped
icing sugar to dust
Preheat oven to 18o’C (160’C fan-forced)
Grease and line a 30x20cm slice tin with baking paper
Place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high in 30s bursts, stirring until melted and smooth.
Spread the melted chocolate evenly over the base of the pre-prepared pan & chill for 10 minutes or until set.
Combine egg, coconut and sugar in a bowl. Store in cherries. Pour over chocolate in pan, level surface. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Cool completely in pan (slice will firm)
Dust with icing sugar to serve.
I do tend to just add the entire packet of cherries which is more than the 100g, so mine contains a bit more fruit than the original recipe, although this does vary depending upon assistance rendered by my young chef assistant!
Check out the next dates for events here and you might get lucky and get to taste this in person!
Earlier this month I got to be one of the display stampers at the Stampin’ Up! OnStage Local event in Sydney, the brief was to create 20 samples featuring the 2015-2017 in-colors (4 of each colour) for both card fronts, Project Life and 3D items. In addition I was sent 2 new hostess stamp sets and a couple of ribbon samples to incorporate that will be released on June 1st.
This is a hugely long post – so you might need a cup of tea to get through it all!
Featuring Timeless Textures & Grateful Bunch with a snippet of beautiful new Gold Natural Trim
Sadly this berry basket die is retiring soon (so get it whilst you still can)! The wheel of the wheelbarrow is the centre of a ribbon roll & the flowers from the Botanical Builder framelits are hot glued onto half a styrofoam ball (it looks a lot worse for wear now after 2 x 5 hour flights and a day of being handled on display, but you get the idea of what it looks like).
This one was made using the wonderful Number of Years stamp set & Framelits (so very happy that these will be carrying over!) and the numbers were highlighted simply by offsetting the die cuts.
Watermelon Wonder:
Love Timeless Textures & a tad sad that the A Nice Cuppa & Cups & Kettle framelits won’t be making an appearance after June 1st, as they’d be perfect for my Cancer morning teas – but I think I will use them even though they are retired as they are perfect for the occasion!
This one is using the simple little daisy from the new hostess set Basket For You, with interest being added via the Project Life corner rounder punch, the extra little flowers on the sentiment banner (don’t you love the new banner shape?) are from Grateful Bunch.
Another using the new hostess set Basket for You and a crazy amount of fussy cutting, but I confess to loving the final result as it enabled me to add lots of dimension.
Another little bit of the new Gold Natural Trim – it is so soft and ties beautifully. The centre of the flowers were highlighted with the now retired Crystal Effects to also add to the dimension of the card.
I was doing my girlfriend proud with the amount of up cycling I have incorporated in my display projects (personal mission) this is an embellishment container that I have simply added a circle to the top and bottom of that has been dry embossed with Decorative Dots (retiring soon) and sponged the edges and then finished with some of the new mini striped ribbon held in place with an antique brad (also retired).
Apologies for using so many items that are retiring soon, but we were not privy to the retirement list at the time of creating, however if you like the items you can still get several of them until the end of May.
Cucumber Crush:
After all the talk above about retiring items, you can breathe easy knowing that the awesome owl builder, tree builder punches & the woodgrain embossing folder will be carrying over to the next catalogue!
In terms of retiring products this project really featured them *sigh* the Tag a Bag gift box (retiring) was dry embossed with Softly Falling, lightly packed with some shredded cucumber crush card stock and then wrapped in a belly band of hand dyed Whisper White seam binding (retiring) with the Cucumber Crush re-inker. A 1″ circle of card stock was used to create a faux metal tag that has been stamped with one of the new hostess stamps Time of Year.
A spoon from the Op Shop was bent to create a hanging ornament for the Christmas Tree.
I stamped the snowman from Snow Place onto tissue paper, coloured the nose and then applied to the spoon using Crystal Effects and a transdermal applicator (finger) to smooth out the wrinkles. I hand cut the leaves from the holly that I had stamped in Cucumber Crush and added some rhinestones. The edge of the spoon I rolled in Dazzling Diamonds to add sparkle. The handle of the ornament was embellished with silver thread, more hand dyed seam binding ribbon and an antique brad.
For display on the day, the spoon was removed from the box and placed on scrunched up tissue paper to support it, that I had stamped with the holly for Embellished Ornaments.
The next card featured the sentiment from Time of Year, Hardwood and Wild About Flowers, you can’t see from the photograph, but it was done with faux linen technique so in real life feels amazing.
This was my least favourite of everything that I created and I am sharing it show you we all have seriously off days. The simple ombre effect was done using the strips from Basket for You and the sentiment from Time of Year with simple star punches from the retiring Itty Bitty Accents punch pack.
Mint Macaron:
Here’s a basic butterfly card just done in Mint Macaron, love the layering effect from the framelits, thinlits and punch – Stampin’ Up! seriously excel at co-ordination.
A card and matching tag made using the A Nice Cuppa and the framelits Cups & Kettle, the teabag tag I hand cut as I wanted a thin border than the framelit gave me.
The ribbon on both the tag and card is the new stitched satin in very vanilla.
I love the sentiment on the Acorny Thank You set combined with Awesomely Artistic, both carrying over!
The bottom layer of this card was stamped with a border of the daisy from Basket For You tone on tone, the butterflies on the Fluttering embossing folder were sponged to make them stand out a bit more and the sentiment was from Time of Year
Delightful Dijon:
I saw this technique done and really anted to try it myself, four hours later I had a final result (I might have been interrupted a few times during that time, but you get the idea that this isn’t a quick card). It is a simple technique that just needs patience as it’s recolouring the image with Delightful Dijon and Craft White re-inker and water to give it a vintage dimensional look from a flat image.
My Project Life page featured my new hobby – bees! Some of the cards I made using the hexagon hive thinlit, Crystal Effects and the bees are from Garden in Bloom and the flowers from Grateful Bunch.
A floral card using the Petite Petals and Time of Year sets and the sadly retiring bird builder punch & ovals framelits.
My last card featuring the Timeless Textures dots, Wild About Flowers and the partial sentiment from Basket for You.
Congratulations for getting through that super long post! If you would like to order any of the retiring products please check the list here and use the current hostess code K3TNV6J2 and stay turned for the new catalogue launch party date announced next week, there are some seriously nice products coming out!
I got to spend the weekend in Sydney attending the demonstrator only OnStage event, it was so much fun! I got to help set up for the event, have lunch with the corporate team, have dinner with fellow managers and then have a full day of stamping fun. My head is bursting with ideas so I’ll be taking some time out for a few days and going offline to settle things down.
The five hour flight home went really fast as I had my new catalogue to keep me company – it is 212 pages of awesome! However to make room for the 377 new products including 58 new stamp sets and 175 new stamp tools some items will not be carrying over from our current catalogue.
The retirement lists are here – click the graphics for the online store with pictures of the items, or here for a PDF list of everything – some items are up to 50% off!
The retiring items are whilst stocks last – once they are gone, they are well GONE, I cannot do anything about that, I do not have secret stashes or powers to make them appear for you……….also I am away for the next week, so if you want anything from the retiring list please go online and order from my website here using the hostess code K3TNV6J2
A couple of things to check the lists for:
1. re-inkers for the retiring 2014-2016 in colours
2. punches – some shapes are retiring for good
3. brads – all are retiring, including the beautiful antique ones!
4. kits – these make terrific gifts
The new catalogue goes live to customers on June 1st (demonstrators get access to the catalogue a month beforehand) I will be having a catalogue launch party and will confirm the date in the next couple of weeks, but it will be early in June. If you would like a copy of the catalogue sent to you and can’t make the launch party, please let me know.
I will be sharing lots of things from the OnStage event, including my display samples (yes I was privileged to be one of the stampers chosen to create samples with a couple of the new stamp sets!) very soon.
