Watercolour wash technique

Posted on June 20, 2013 by admin

If you are ever looking for a super fast yet fabulous card technique – look no further than a watercolour wash. It is so simple it’s almost embarrassing to teach it, basically you use the fatter of the two Aqua painter brushes and using classic inks scribble it across some white shimmer card stock (the shimmer coating of this paper allows you time to spread the ink and give it that nice water colour effect that a non-coated card stock would not). You then add the next colour and the next until you are happy with the colours – I would recommend no more than 3 colours as more than that gets a bit busy. Then allow the coloured card stock to dry for a few minutes before stamping the image over the top in black StazOn ink. You could of course stamp it in Versamark and use black embossing powder for a more dimensional appearance. I am going to miss the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder when it retires in 10 days time!!

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Stamps: Serene Silhouettes

Card stock: Baja Breeze, Shimmer white, basic black

Ink: Black StazOn, Baja Breeze, Marina Mist & Daffodil Delight

Accessories: Vintage Wallpaper textured embossing folder, Aqua painter

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Dinoroar Birthday

Posted on June 14, 2013 by admin

I love Dinoroar it’s perfect for children’s birthday cards and I particularly love how lovely it is to watercolour, but alas it is one of the stamp sets that is retiring at the end of this month *sigh* so much room is required for all the exciting new things that will be coming our way very soon!

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Stamps: Dinoroar, Itty Bitty Banners

Ink: Black Stazon

Card stock: Whisper white, Lucky Limeade, Pumpkin Pie & Daffofil Delight

Accessories: Bitty Banner framelits, Chevron embossing folder, 1 3/4″ circle punch, Dimensionals, Aqua painter, water colour crayons, Brights Brads, 1/16″ handheld punch.

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Final days of digital sale & sent with love promotion

Posted on June 13, 2013 by admin

There is just 48 hours left to take advantage of the 25% off selected My Digital Studio products you can order online right now here or see here for more details.

The other promotion finishing on the 15th of June is the Sent With Love stamp set and matching designer series paper.

Of course if you are ordering online, don’t forget to use the current hostess code PSM472ZW.

Here are two more cards we made with the set recently in class – I love the co-ordinated simplicity of the cards, add some Bakers twine and a die cut letter and it looks awesome!

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The second one was even more clean and simple, with some layering of strips of designer series paper, two punch outs and the hardest part a fussy cut arrow image – see how easy it is to create nice cards when you have such great co-ordinating products!

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Stamps: Sent With Love

Ink: Crumb Cake, Real Red, Pool Party & Island Indigo

Card Stock: Sent With Love DSP, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Pool Party, Real Red.

Accessories: Postage stamp punch, 1 3/8″ circle punch, square punch, Calypso Coral Bakers twine, Dimensionals, Typeset Alphabet Bigz, stamping sponge, 1/16″ handheld punch, Tombow glue.

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Word Play Wedding

Posted on June 10, 2013 by admin

We had the pleasure of going to a lovely friends wedding last weekend (I loved the fact we are friends with both the bride and groom – so much nicer than just knowing one of them!). I had helped design the invitations which did involve a retired stamp set as their theme was Australian wildflowers. The only stamp set I knew would suit was Bloom Away (the two central images are from that set, the two flower images either side are non-SU! stamp images). The invites were made using the lovely naturals ivory card stock, Cherry Cobbler and brushed gold card stock so I wanted the wedding card to be similar in colour.

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I chose a more subtle flower feature for the card using the Flower Garden textured impressions embossing folder and the scalloped heart of hearts embosslit (retiring). The entire card got sprayed with shimmer spray (mix  approximately 20 drops champagne paint with 100ml isocol alcohol in a spritz bottle and spray). Anyway the wedding was absolutely lovely, the weather co-operated and it was a fantastic day of friends, food and fun.

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Stamps: Word Play (retiring)

Card stock: Soft Suede, Naturals Ivory, Cherry Cobbler

Ink: Cherry Cobbler

Accessories: Full heart punch, Flower Garden embossing folder, scalloped heart of hearts embosslit, Cherry Cobbler seam binding, antique brads, basic rhinestones, 1/16″ handheld punch (retiring), champagne shimmer paint.

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Sent With Love

Posted on June 9, 2013 by admin

I am loving the simple quirkiness of the limited edition stamp set Sent With Love and having matching Designer Series Paper always makes life easier! The limited stamp set & papers are only available until the 15th of June, so if you like them, you’d better get in quick!

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The scallop envelope is on the retirement list as is the lovely cloud embossing folder – there must be lots of fantastic things coming in the new catalogue on July 2nd as they needed to make lots of room for new items! The below card was a modified tag like I used on the gift box last week…….tags are so versatile don’t you think?

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Stamps: Loving Thoughts & Sent With Love

Ink: Island Indigo, Pool Party & Real Red

Card Stock: Sent With Love DSP, Real Red, Whisper White, Pool Party, Polka Dot Parade DSP

Accessories: 1/2″ circle punch, white Bakers twine, Dimensionals, Cloudy Day Embossing Folder, Scallop Envelope die, Pool Party Bakers twine.

 

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Super Fast Spiderman

Posted on June 8, 2013 by admin

There are a myriad of Spirderman type cards on the internet, this was one we made last week class to highlight yet another use for the Spider Web Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (on the retirement list for just $6.98 = bargain!) a really effective card don’t you think & no stamping in sight – perfect for the last minute card!

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Card stock: Pacific Point, Whisper White & Real Red

Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: Spiderweb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Ovals Framelits.

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Best of Flowers Team Card – sneak peek!

Posted on June 7, 2013 by admin

We had a terrific team meeting on Friday night, so much excitement to share with 4 of us coming back from Convention and all the stories and swaps to share; a new catalogue to see and discuss (one of the many perks of being a demonstrator is that we get new catalogues and product access a month before customers!). We also had to get inky and make a card – the meetings wouldn’t be the same without some creative content now would they!

To celebrate the new Best of 25 Years stamp set releases we made a flower card – there were two versions I made for inspiration, but my team members true to form added their own unique variations on a theme. I loved how the daisy style flower could be punched out perfectly with the 1 1/4″ scallop circle punch – Stampin’ Up! do co-ordinating products so well. We added highlights with silver sparkle dazzling details (another freebie from Convention – did I mention they spoiled us?)

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Can you spot all the new product in this card? Check out the ink colours of the flowers and bees (ask me why there are bees embellishing my flowers……..yep to cover up an ink smudge!). There is of course the lovely striped stamp behind the flowers which is also coming in the new catalogue – want to join us for a FREE fun evening out where you too can play with new product and take home the new catalogue – check out details here.

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Stamps: Best of Flowers, Gorgeous Grunge, Collage Curios

Ink: Black Stazon, Crumb Cake, Pistachio Pudding, Strawberry Slush, Crisp Cantaloupe

Card Stock: Summer Starfruit, Crumb Cake & Whisper White

Accessories: Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Window Frames Collection Framelits, Festive paper piercing pack, paper piercer, Silver Sparkle Dazzling Details, stamping sponge, Dimensionals, Stampin’ pierce mat, 1 1/4 scallop circle punch.

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Sent With Love tag

Posted on June 6, 2013 by admin

At Convention recently I bought some lovely cookie press stamps as a present for a friend who is an amazing baker. I also happen to love wrapping things nicely when time allows (being a chronic time anaemia sufferer hinders this somewhat) and I also love up cycling – below is the resulting package.

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The brown paper comes from the reams that fill our shipping boxes from Stampin’ Up! to prevent any damage to their contents. I tied a length of Real Red striped grosgrain ribbon around the box (retired sorry) and then added the gift tag.

The tag was made using the limited edition Sent With Love stamp set (order before June 15th if you want the stamps or DSP for more details you can click here). I coloured the stamps with Real Red and Island Indigo markers and attached it to the box with white Bakers Twine.

 

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Best of 25 Years Stamps – Flowers

Posted on June 2, 2013 by admin

As part of Stampin’ Up! 25-year anniversary celebrations, they bringing back some of the favourite stamp images from the last quarter century and combining them into five sets!! They will release-one set per month from now until October 2013, however all sets will be available until April 2014 (unless sold out earlier). Even better, along with some great classic images, each “Best of” set will also include a never-before-seen image!

Some things to remember:

  • All Best of stamp sets will include 3-5 images, including a never-before seen image, and will be priced at $25.95.
  • While we are releasing just one Best of stamp set per month for the next 11 months  (with a new theme each month), all of the Best of sets will be available until April 2014.
  • All Best of stamp sets are available in Clear-Mount only.
  • The stamp images may be sized differently from the original stamp sets.

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The first set is the beautiful flower set (which I got FREE at Convention last week as part of a prize patrol – how lucky was I). The images are smaller than they originally came out as – perfect for tags & ATCs. You can order the set online here or via email/phone direct with me – of course you could host a party and get them for free as part of your hostess rewards!

 

 

 

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Single Stamps Now Available!

Posted on June 1, 2013 by admin

How exciting not only did we get the retirement lists yesterday, but today we get a host of other exciting offers! The first is a limited edition release on single stamps, so if you just want one stamp these will be perfect! They are little bit different to the normal Stampin’ Up! offering though as:

1. These are only available until August 31st 2013 (unless sold out prior to this)

2. They are only available in clear mount

3. They will be packaged in cello bags not in clear mount cases (if you want clear mount cases, they come 4 to a pack for $9.95 & you can order them here)

4. You will need a clear mount block to use them with – all of them fit nicely onto block size E 

5. You can purchase as many of these stamps as you wish – there are no limits.

6. The images in the picture are not shown full size, they are approximately 75% of their size.

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You can order online here, or contact me via phone or email to order any or all of these stamps now!

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