Whoever heard of pink snow in September

Another card ready for the craft market on Sunday. For this one I played along with the sketch challenge on Stamps and Smiles:

Still in my pink phase, I created this:

Recipe

Stamp sets: Scandinavian Season, A Tree for all Seasons, Seasonal Wishes

Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Rose Red

Ink: Versamark, Regal Rose

Punches: Scallop Circle, 1-3/8" Circle

Taffeta Ribbon: Whisper White

Other: White EP, Heat and Stick Powder, Dazzling Diamonds, Soft Subtle Brads

Non-SU: Acetate

The winter tree was stamped with Versamark and then heat embossed with white EP. Faint sparkly snowflakes are stamped with Versamark, covered with Heat and Stick powder, heat embossed, covered with Dazzling Diamonds and then heated again to set. Pink snowflakes are done as the faint sparkly snowflakes but Regal Rose was added to the stamp after the Versamark. White snowflakes were stamped with Versamark on acetate and heat embossed with white powder. The white snowflakes were attached with Pretty in Pink brads.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sara xx

Cards that I made for a timed SWU challenge

Happy holidays everyone. Hope you're enjoying the long bank holiday weekend as much as I am.

Many thanks for all your messages of congratulations on making the Stamp With Us Design Team. I now need to start making my samples ready for the challenges.

Been a busy weekend so far. Yesterday I spent the morning with my downline Jan at her first Open House. The ladies who came along (we didn't get any gents, still waiting for the first to turn up) made a couple of great make and take cards and we demonstrated a variety of techniques. It was lovely to hear how the catalogue items "came alive" for the ladies. There were quite a few eureka type moments along the lines of "oh so that's how you use that" and "ooh that looks so much nicer in real life". Great fun and perhaps time  arranged another one as my last one was back in December.

DH and I then went over to visit my Mum and Dad and then onto the piccies to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Got to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Not in Hugh Jackman, who looked very fit (in all ways), but it seemed more of a boy's flick than the others had been.

Anyway, back to the crafting. Friday night was launch night of the Stamp With Us on-line class and we had chat (fast and furious with about 40 people typing messages at once) and timed challenges. If you'd still like to join up then the only thing you'll have missed out on is the chat from Friday night, you'll still be able to access all the tutorials and the next chat session is scheduled for Tuesday. Details are on the Stamp With Us site.

These are the cards I made on the night (I've rephotographed them in daylight):

Recipe

Stamp Sets: Soft Summer, Oval All

Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, Certainly Celery, Old Olive

Ink: Markers, Versamark

Ribbon: Bashful Blue taffeta, Certainly Celery narrow grosgrain

Other: Dazzling Diamonds, White embossing powder

Punches: Large Oval, Scallop Oval, Scallop Edge

I paper pierced the Ruby Red mat and raised it on dimensionals. The centres of the flowers were sprinkled with dazzling diamonds into wet Tombow glue (doesn't show so well in the photos but looks good IRL). The two different ribbons were tied together and wrapped around). The sentiment was stamped once onto Old Olive and again onto Certainly Celery with Versamark. Then white embossing powder added to each and heated with the heat tool and finally punched and assembled.

Recipe

Stamp Sets: Bloomin' with Beauty, Seasonal Wishes, Yummy

Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White

Ink: Real Red, Markers

Ribbon: Real Red narrow grosgrain

Other: Hodgepodge

The red ribbon was tied onto the hodgepodge and wrapped around the single piece of Basic Black card to divide the image and the sentiment. The dinky heart on the sentiment is from the Yummy set (a discontinued Sale-a-bration set).

Hope to get on with a scrapbooked page or two soon to show you the DSPs that are currently on offer, so I hope you'll stop back soon.

Sara xx

Man's valentine card with faux metal and wire

As I made a dainty, romantic valentine earlier in the week I thought I'd go for a hard metal look today, suitable to make a man's valentine. I also noticed that I've made quite a few valentine cards recently and so I've gone back and added extra labels to them all so that you can find them in one place with the label Valentine now.

I used Elegant Eggplant as my base cardstock. To make the faux metal heart, I used a square piece of mountboard (I use it for framing my photos) but any piece of strong card will work. The stronger the card the less it will curl when you heat it with the layers of embossing powder. I tapped Versamark ink all over the square then dipped it in silver embossing powder and heated. While the embossing powder is still molten I dipped again into the silver powder and worked through these steps until I had 4 layers in total. With the last silver layer still molten I pressed the heart stamp from the Polka Dot Punches stamp set into the embossed layers and waited a few seconds for it to cool slightly before removing the stamp. 

Taking the Happy Valentine's Day sentiment from the Seasonal Wishes set I stamped with Versamark onto Elegant Eggplant, added silver embossing powder (only the single layer this time) and embossed with the heat tool. Both the heart and the sentiment were matted onto Lavender Lace card. I used the Crop-A-Dile to punch a couple of holes top and bottom of the heart and threaded with silver elastic cord, securing the ends at the back of the card. The heart and the sentiment were both raised with dimensionals and I put the sentiment over the top of the lower cords.

Keep Stampin'.

Sara xx

Simple Valentine pyramid card - using free stamp set

Today I've done another simple valentine card using the Polka Dot Punches stamp set. In case you've missed it previously, this is one of four limited edition stamp sets that you can get for free, simply by spending £45 or more on any goodies from the Stampin' Up! catalogue. If you order from me within the next week or so then you will get your stamps in plenty of time to create your Valentine's card. Details of the offer are here, you can browse the catalogue to create your wish list by clicking here, then email your order to me at sarastamper123@gmail.com.

For today's card I've used Ruby Red cardstock (yet again - but I promise to use something different for the next valentine's card :-) ) and cut and scored the card used a pyramid card template. The little border on the bottom was created using the Scallop Edge punch on Whisper White card and the sentiment is from the Seasonal Wishes stamp set. By the way, there's a misprint for this set in the UK catalogue and instead of "Happy Thanksgiving" we get "Easter Wishes" - much better. 

A narrow strip of Ruby Red card also decorates the border which runs round all three sides of the card. The hearts are stamped in Ruby Red ink, cut out and mounted with dimensionals. There's plenty of space on the back/inside of the card for a personal message to your valentine.

Keep Stampin'

Sara xx

Valentine gift box to match simple valentine card

Today I've made a little gift box to match the simple valentine's card that I made earlier. Details of that card can be found by clicking here.

Ruby Red cardstock was used to create the box. I stamped directly onto the box front in Ruby Red ink with the From the Heart sentiment, one of the Seasonal Wishes stamp set. Using the heart from the Polka Dot Punches set I stamped twice onto Whisper White (also with Ruby Red ink), cut out the two hearts and layered them onto the box front with dimensionals. I decorated the top of the box with some Holiday Treasures designer series paper to echo the card. The fastening is Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon.

I love creating matching sets. Hope you like it too.

Sara xx

Card for a new baby girl using fun and fast notes stamp set

Hi all.

I didn't get time for any crafting yesterday. We had friends coming round for a meal and so I had to transform my craft room back into a dining room. Here's the "after" picture. I didn't think to take a "before" picture but I'm sure that it will be back in the usual state of crafting disarray (that's a semi-organised mess :-) ) before too long. I'm making the most of the dining room by having the in-laws round for dinner tomorrow. They thought they'd done something wrong it's been so long since had an invite, lol. 

For now I've set up a temporary craft station on the coffee table in the living room, handy for watching the tv at the same time but I can only have limited supplies out. Still, I managed to get this one crafted this afternoon.

Here I've made a card to welcome a new baby girl. I like to have various occasion cards made ready so that I can pick out what I need when I need it.

For this I used Regal Rose cardstock for the base. It's an A5 card with the front folded back on itself. I used the Happy New Baby stamp from the Fun and Fast Notes stamp set, stamped onto Whisper White card and coloured and shaded with markers. This was matted onto Regal Rose and Pretty in Pink card. The front card fold was covered with a strip of paper from the Sweet Always designer series set of papers.

I attached a charm to the top right corner using Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon. To provide a bit of balance, layout wise, I stamped the bottom left in Versamark with Sweet Little One from the Seasonal Wishes stamp set. I used two very narrow strips of Pretty in Pink card to frame the sentiment.

Thanks for dropping by.

Sara xx

Christmas trio

I love a bit of bling in my crafting and so I thought I'd combine silver embossing with some hodgepodge.

I've used Whisper White, Bordering Blue and Night of Navy cardstock, Night of Navy and Versamark ink and silver embossing powder.

Stamp sets are Season of Joy for the card and the gift bag, Circle of Friendship for the hanging decoration
and Seasonal Wishes for the sentiment on the card.

I used the scallop edge punch to trim the flap on the gift bag and the scallop circle for the decoration.

The decoration has a chocolate mint sandwiched between the two scallop circles. 

I haven't quite decided who is going to get this yet but I need to start wrapping presents tonight so I guess I'd better make my mind up soon.

Keep stampin'.

Sara xx