Simply Stampin' Sketch Challenge

Good morning stampers,

Have you been wondering what the new features I mentioned last week were?? Well you may wonder no longer, the first of the new features starts today!!! Simply Stampin' will be joined the first Saturday of each month by a special 'guest' design team member and the very first 'guest' is none other than the amazing Monica Gale!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this fabulous crafter!

As I mentioned in the title, it's sketch week so grab your supplies and give it a go!

Here's a sneaky peek, of Monica's card

If you want to see her beautiful card in full you'll have to pop over to the challenge and take a look.

Now onto my card, I decided to rotate the sketch 180 degrees and in the end I also decided not to add a sentiment, it's quite a versatile card so I didn't want to add the sentiment just yet.

I've made a punch art vase full of tulips using my Ornament punch for the vase, and my Bird punch for the stems and flowers (it's the birds wing!) the DSP is from Nursery Nest, and I paired it with Perfect Plum CS.

Now don't forget to go over to the challenge to check out Monica and the rest of the Design Teams projects, and I hope we have inspired you to give the sketch a go.

Happy stamping, xx

Sell Out News

Good evening,

I have news of the first sell out items from the retired list

Sense of time stamp set
2010-2012 in colour re-inkers
Riding Hood red 12x12 cardstock
Jumbo eyelets, both colourways
Star punch

We are only days into the sale and already having sell-outs, I'm not surprised about the Sense of Time set at all.

On to a card I have made using a set that will be staying out in the new catalogue, Just Believe,

Although this wonderful stamp set is staying with us, unfortunately the beautiful Springtime Vintage DSP is not :(

See you soon, xx

Pick a Petal

Good Morning,

I have been crafting for almost 4 years now and have been purchasing Stampin' up! products for the last 2 years although I have only been a 'demo' since January. Ever since I got to thumb through my first SU! catalogue I have had a wish list as long as your arm! There are some sets that you want, but they never seem to get to the top of your list, other things always push them back. Well that's how it was for the Pick a Petal set, it's always been on my wish list but when ordering I've always been wooed by something else. Well about a fortnight about I finally got my hands on it and now I'm wondering how I ever did without it!

Take a look at this card I made using the Pick a Petal set and the in-colours.

I don't want to blow my own horn but isn't it pretty?! I wish that I'd got it ages ago now, and I can see it being being turned into butterfly wings, and I have used the centres for the background stamping in this card.

I have also just managed to get this posted in time for the Try it on Tuesday challenge, which is flower power.
Hope you like my offering, xx

So Many Birthdays!

Hello!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weekend!

I have so many birthdays this month it is unbelieveable! Two people at work are the big 50 next week (you know who you are!), two of my sister's birthdays are Thursday and Friday, I have several orders for birthday cards including the dreaded men's cards, as well as father's day. Thank god for challenges to inspire me!

This card is for one of the 50th birthdays next week, I don't always like to put ages on the cards, so I haven't with either of these. I have used the Sweet Sunday sketch for my layout inspiration,

and the colour pallette from CR84FN challenge blog, this is a new one for me but I liked the inspiration photograph, so I'm sure this will become one of my regulars.

I have chosen to use Baja breeze, So Saffron, and Crumb Cake (formally known as Kraft) I thought that it would be hard to make these colour's feminine but blue is Karen's favourite colour so I thought this pallette would be perfect for her.

I really like the Springtime Vintage DSP which just so happens to but in the same colours, so it all worked out great! The Saffrom backing paper is from the Nursery suite DSP, so it just goes to show that these papers are not just for baby cards they co-ordinate well with other paper packs too.

I will also be entering this card into the Simply Stampin' challenge which this week is Floral Frenzy, if you look closely you'll see that not only have I used a floral backing paper, but I have stamped a cute floral image from the Timy Tags set around the 'K', as well as making my own flower from the scallop circle punch.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Happy Birthday Amanda!

Good Morning, all you crafty people!

I made this card for my fabulous up-line Amanda, happy birthday!! I made it earlier this week and have been dying to show it, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise just incase she wondered over to my blog before hand.

Those of you who know Amanda will know that she always says that envelopes have a be decorated so I couldn't very well leave it blank, so I carried on the theme to the envelope. I really liked the look, I may have to start decorating all my envelopes this way!

I have used the gorgeous Sweet and Sour speciality papers for this card and envelope. You may have guessed by now that I LOVE challenges (I'm officially addicted to them) So I took the opportunity to combine a few for this card.

The sketch is from Mojo Monday, I have missed out the bow (very unlike me) as I wanted the Daisies die to have more of a focal point and I have swapped the large tag for three small ones (aren't these Tiny Tags just the cutest).

Next I wanted to use a great colour combo, colour challenges are fast becoming my favourite, they really push me out of my safety zone. So I just had to head over to Color Throwdown for my colour inspiration. This week there is an added twisted with the addition of 'pick your own' guest colour. I chose to add Rose Red, which is the colour of the DSP.

Lastly I thought that I would also add in the theme featured on SU-only which was May Flowers, and as I'm loving my Daisies die, that was no problem what so ever!

I do hope that Amanda likes her card, I'm sure she will get tons of them! Enjoy your surprises, birthday girl!

See you soon - xx

Another Triple Challenge Card

Good morning,

It's a little overcast and dull here this morning, not very inspiring at all. Good thing it's Sunday, as each week I pop over to the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge blog to be inspired with a beautiful sketch



I have also combined my card with the Simply Stampin' colour combo



I didn't have any basic grey CS, or ink so I have substituted this for some grey/silver brads, hopefully this is OK. I would also like to enter this card for the Less is More challenge which this week is a thank you or congrats card.

So here it is

I'm continuing on my own personal challenge (see yesterdays post if you don't have a clue what I'm babbling about LOL) to use all of my stamps and not just stick to my favourites. I'm not sure if I've used this one, which makes me think that I haven't. It's a level 1 hostess set called Punch Potpourri, which co ordinates with four of the punches. The bird punch is another of the items that I bought which rarely gets any use. I can't think why, it's very pretty!!

I'd also like to say thank you to everyone who left me comments, I do love to read them, and try to leave one back for you.
xx