Scrapbook Club - April 2013

Sunshine and Sprinkles has to be my favourite designer series paper set that Stampin' Up! have produced, possibly EVER.I love it's whimsical designs and cute images. Plus the vivid colours are just perfect for my style of crafting.

This page was highly influenced by my friend Lesley who was scrapbooking alongside me. She had such great ideas! It's hard to see in the photo but there is lots of glimmer paper and shiny bits. My new zigzag embossing folder had it's first outing and generally provided me with a fun evening's entertainment.

Check back in a couple of days for another project made using this fabulous DSP.

Love you Mr T!

A relatively feminine card for Mr T. How I love him! I tried to avoid pink but I could resist the heart.

I used a couple of new items from the Spring/Summer seasonal catalogue: Artisan Embellishment kit (pg10) and Flower Trim (pg5).

The base is from the National Composition Speciality collection in the main catalogue (pg162). Its fabulous as it comes ready embossed!

What have you done for your sweet today?

Clockworks video tutorial

Enjoy my non-festive video today!!

 

Here is the finished card:

 

 And a close-up of the clock.

Stamp set: Clockworks

Inks: Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, River Rock

Card: Early Espresso, Very Vanilla

12 Days of Christmas - Day 2

Today's idea would make a lovley addition to a Christmas tree or to be added to anywhere that needs a festive touch!

 

It's a dove decoration, inspired by my Dad. When we were young we always had decorative birds hanging around the living room at Christmas. I'm not sure of their festive significance but whenever I see paper birds I think of my lovely Dad.

 

This birds was super quick to make: Simply cut out two birds and two wings with the Bird Big Shot die.

Each piece was then embossed. The bird body was embossed with Lace Brocade die (from the Autumn/Winter catalogue) and the wings were embossed with the dotty embossing folder.

 

To stick the pieces together I used the self-adhesive sticky sheets to put the body pieces together. This meant that they stuck all over and also the bakers twine and wings could fit in too.

A little glitter for the wings...

...and a rhinestone for the eye! What a sweet flock they will make.

Emboss resist technique

It's Saturday again so here is my weekly video! This week I am showing you how to do a technique called Emboss Resist. This means embossing an image and then adding ink on top. A bit like those drawings we all did as children using white crayons and then washing over them with paint to reveal the picture we'd drawn underneath.

 

Here is a visual of the stamp set featured, Summer Silhouettes:

 And here is a picture of the finished card:

Have a great Saturday!!!

My convention swaps

This weekend I am at the 2012 Stampin' Up! Convention in Mainz, Germany. Very exciting!

 

One thing I had to prepare for the Convention was my swaps. There are 800 peope booked to attend, but I didn't feel that I could make quite that many! Instead I made a handful of these little sleeves that conceal some yummy sweets. My favourite swaps always contain an edible treat!!

 

 

Here's a view of how the sweets get in and out of the sleeve:

 

Here is a closer view:

The base is Crumb Cake cardstock. I used my lovely Scor-pal to score the lines for the folds before embossing on the Big Shot. The embossing folder is called Lace Brocade from the Autumn/Winter Seasonal catalogue.

To decorate the lovely punches came into use. The main scallop circle was punched from Very Vanilla card. Layered on top is a 1 3/8" circle of Tangerine Tango card. Raised on Dimensionals is a small scalloped circle punched from Pool Party spotty DSP. The stamped sentiment comes from one of the hostess stamp sets in the back of the Autumn/Winter seasonal catalogue. It is stamped in Tangerine Tango to match the larger circle.7 To finish a little bit of Victoria Lace was added.

I'm quite happy with them and can't wait to swap them at convention. I'll have to show you what I exchanged them for when I get home!

Owl Treats

Tonight I am meeting up with some ladies that are Stampin' Up! Demonstrators like me. And where demonstrators meet = swaps!!

 

Shockingly I finished mine yesterday, which is practically unheard of. They were based on a tutorial I saw on Pinterest by Stamp With Heather. Ironically there is no stamping involved!

 Sandwiched inside is some yummy Moam sweets.

To make the owl you need: 2 x 2.5" circles, mine were in Cajun Craze. I punched a half circle out of the top of each using a 1.25" circle punch. 2x Very Vanilla 0.75" circles for eyes with Early Espresso circles/pupils from the Mini Punch Pack. The Soft Suede section was made with half a circle in the same size as the base. I then ran this through the Big Shot using a heart embossing folder, which will be returning in the NEW main catalogue.

The feet were punched using Boho Blossoms and Crumb Cake cardstock. The beak was using the Pennant Builder punch and the heart was from the Owl punch. So loooooots of punches were used!!

Here is the finished basket of owls ready to go tonight! Looking forward to seeing y'all later!!

If you'd like to join my team, contact me for a no pressure chat: blueangelcrafts at gmail dot com

Woodgrain

Today's card is based on one by Pink Backaroo Designs, Erica Cerwin.

I got to try out my new Woodgrain embossing folder on the Early Espresso cardstock base. I then stamped the Very Vanilla panel with French Foliage in Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie. Once the stamping was complete the whole piece was run through the same Woodgrain embossing folder.

A tiny scrap of Orchard Harvest DSP and some bits of spotty ribbon and Victoria lace finished off the card. I guess I could have added a sentiment but I wasn't feeling like there was one I liked enough to add.

600th Post

Good morning. Hope I am not posting too late for some of my visitors this morning. I've been having great fun using some more new products. The stamp set used is French Foliage. I started by embossing with the dotty folder on the Big Shot and then stamping the large leaves down one side. I used a new Illuminate ink which is shimmery and lovely and then embossed over the top with clear embossing powder.

Once this had cooled off I stamped some leaves, post mark and spots in Chocolate Chip and Crumb Cake ink. The next stage was to sponge over the top with Cajun Craze, Soft Suede and Garden Green ink. Quite a few stages but all of them were really quick. Once all the ink was dried I gently rubbed over the embossed leaves to remove any excess ink and make the leaves stand out more.

Next I got out Four Frames and stamped a frame and punched it out using the Label Punch which matches the stamp set. The sentiment comes from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

A bit of a different card for me with some different techniques but, as you'll see tomorrow I got a taste for sponging!

Losing my mind

I heard that when you start living with the school terms for your child that things can go a bit mad. What I didn't expect was to lose my mind in less than 3 weeks! I could have sworn I left posts for you all this weekend, but hey-ho, the rather more speedy descent into maddness has begun.

Anyway, onto today's card:

It features a bunch of things from the new seasonal catalogue. I started with a Whisper White base that I ran through my Big Shot with the new Lacy Brocade embossing folder. There are couple of great things about embossing folders, but these new ones have something else to add: they are bigger! They now cover a whole card base front which is awesome as I always found I had to trim my cards before.

 

Next was a layer of vellum and Certainly Celery Spotty Grosgrian ribbon. The main embellishement was made with the large scallop circle on scraps of patterned paper. The stamps are from the Seasonal Hostess set: Mixed Medley. This set features all sorts of images, suitable for Christmas, valentines, halloween and friend cards/scrapbook pages. I stamped the small scallop in Raspberry Ripple and punch it out with the NEW 1 1/4" scallop circle. This punch is soooo great. I'll show you more things with it soon.

 

The centre of the embellishment was from the same set and stamped in Certainly Celery to match the ribbon. This was punched with a 3/4" circle punch and raised up on dimensionals. A little flourish of linen thread tucked underneath and voila! A slight copycat of the one on pg39 of the Seasonal Catalogue... but it has come to be mine now.

 

Check back soon (if I can find time to craft this evening!) for more projects.

Sending sympathy and prayers

Greetings! Not to be too morbid but it's always good to have a sympathy card in your stash of ready-made cards. It's really lovely to be able to send something beautiful from the heart to the people/person who is suffering most of all at a sad time.

This card is another inspired by Pinterest and feautures the special stamp set this month: Reason To Smile. Quite a nice link to a sympathy card, actually. Remember there's only a week or so left to get your hands on this fabulous stamp set. If you scroll back through my posts this month you can see how varied and stylish this stamp set can be. (If I do say so myself!)

The framelits were layered up with a blender pen-ed image. The mat was run through the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder on the Big Shot to add interest to the rather monochrome colour scheme. Texture is really important if the colour scheme is not very broad.

A smaller flower image from Reason To Smile set was stamped on the base in Marina Mist to match the cardstock base. This gives yet more detail to the card without going over the top. The Marina Mist was matched with a little Lucky Limeade for the stem, sentiment (from Petite Pairs, naturally!) and the punched strip along the width of the card. The organza ribbon makes sure the Lucky Limeade doesn't get too overpowering.

Fingers crossed this card will sit in my stash for a long while, but it's comforting to know I have a card prepped and ready.

3D flowers

Hello all! Hope you have been having a good week so far.

Today's card (based on one I saw on Pinterest) features a stamp set that used to be in a Spring Mini catalogue and was so popular it's been in the main catalogues ever since: Vintage Vogue. Such a beautiful set. There are two flower images that have been layered on top of each other and have a matching polka dot brad. The colours are: Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral and Wisteria Wonder. The bakers twine is matching in Lucky Limeade and white stripes.

To give interest to the Basic Grey base, there is a heart embossed strip on the base along with a white embossed sentiment from Petite Pairs. I couldn't resist a little bling with a rhinestone too.

Nat's swap

Last Saturday I was fortunate enough to attend my wonderful Upline, Natalie's training. Her training days are always great laughs and a fab excuse to play with new tools, pick up tips and learn from everyone who attends.

It's customary to bring swaps for everyone to training days. I have to confess I found it tough to make swaps and ended up attending empty handed for the first time ever. It was very embarrasing but fortunately everyone there is just lovely and I still received a massive pile of swaps regardless! So thank you ladies!!

This is the fantastic card that Natalie Zoe created (via Nat!) and I love all of the colours: Calypso Coral, So Saffron and Lucky Limeade. YUMMY!

If you think you might like to join my team and get £130 of Stampin' Up! goodies for just £99 with NO COMMITMENT then contact me for a zero-pressure chat: blue angel crafts at gmail dot com

Wizard!

Our next door neighbour approached me to make 30 cupcake toppers that were wizard hats. To make matters worse he needed them durable enough to make it to the other end of the country and still look presentable.

I ended up using Concord Crush cardstock and embossing gold stars on them using the star from Pennant Parade. To be honest, that took AGES! The star image is not big and so I had to stamp it again and again and again using Versamark. However, the custom-made DSP was fab and really made the cupcarkes look good, I think!

To transport them I repurposed an old tennis ball tube as they are pretty strong and allowed the hats to be stacked up easily.

Wisteria Wonderful

Hello! It's a Wisteria Wonder fest today!! The card features the Jelly Bean Brads found on pg20 of the Summer 2012 Mini catalogue. They have lots of the In Colors 2011-13 and cute little hearts. LOVE them!

Can you believe I even used a ruler and pencil for this?! Most unlike me but I think it worked to make sure the 3/4" circles were evenly spread out. Behind the holes are shimmery white cardstock so really set the brads off.

The sentiment is stamped from the set Curly Cute. Gosh I've ignored this set so long it's great to get it out and used again. It was embossed in white to make it 'pop'.

Have you got any tools/techniques you've been ignoring but wish you hadn't?

Happiest Birthday wishes

This time last week was my amazing friend Lauren's birthday! Above is the card I made for her.

The base is Soft Suede with a Top Note cut from Mocha Morning DSP. I loved the small flower image on the Beau Chateau paper so I cut that out and then set about making a large flower to put with it. I used the Fun Flowers Bigz die and cut out flowers in Pirouette Pink and vellum. I crunched up the vellum (I hate doing that as it seems wrong but the flowers looked all wrong when the vellum was flat!). They were layered and held together with an Antique brad.

The sentiment came from Apothacary Art and I embossed it on Very Vanilla card in gold to match with the tones on the Mocha Morning paper. A touch of crochet lace and a couple of pearls and it was complete!

She held a fab party which was great fun, althought the Cherry Brandy and Cointreau punch was pretty leathal so my cycle ride home in the rain was rather precarious. Anyhow I hope she had a great time!

Box of thanks

 It was my dear friend Jo's birthday party at the weekend and I offered to make her a box of thank you cards as a gift so she could send them out to her guests for gifts she'd received. I saw the design on Shelli Gardner's blog (founder of SU) and adapted it using my own stash of ribbons and adorable Everyday Enchantment papers that are back for this month only!

I made a box to put them in so she can keep special cards she receives as gifts:

 It took no time to put together using my Simply Scored tool! It was fun to spend some time adding more matching paper to decorate it along with some pleated satin ribbon in Pear Pizzazz.

 The cards were straight forward. Each one had a Whisper White base with a panel of Crumb Cake. I used all my different thank you sentiment stamps and stapled a piece of patterned paper and ribbon to the front.

To get perfect angles on my pennants I measure the diagonal distance on my square punch and then made the strips of paper the same length. It was then easy to punch pennants that were all equal and straight!

The box top had an Apothacary Art stamped top from the Summer Mini catalogue. To colour it with my inks I picked out the colours that were in the patterned papers: Poppy Parade, Baja Breeze, Peach Parfait and Lucky Limeade. The Big Shot helped me cut it out and make a mat to match.

So that was one gift I made for my friend. Check back tomorrow to see the other one!

If you'd like to order some of these yummy Everyday Enchantment papers while they are still available, or anything else from the Stampin' Up! catalogues, I'd be happy to put an order through for you. Contact me: blueangelcrafts at gmail dot com

Cuuuuute

A while back I went to my lovely friend Amy's baby shower. It was a HUGE party with over 30 guests and although I wasn't able to stay long I had a great time.

I was thrilled to receive this thank you card made by Amy for the candle I gave her to focus on during the early stages of labour. It's got some Big Shot embossing and the cute baby comes from the set All in the Family. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and was punched out with the Word Window punch.

Here is the candle I made as a gift:

It's a plain church candle and I've stamped baby foot prints and a sentiment from the baby set in the Summer Mini 2012 onto white tissue paper. The tissue paper was then attached to the candle using heat from my heat gun. Simple!

To finish I wrapped it in cellophane and added some bows and a label (that's hard to see in this photo). The label was made from parchment paper that was punched and embossed with white onto Baja Breeze card.

Apologies for the rubbish photo! I forgot all about taking a photo until I was just about to dash from the scrapbooking day I was demonstrating at to the party!! I feel glad to have taken a photo at all.

Happy Anniversary M&D T

Hello and Happy Anniversary to my In-Laws! Today is their special day and I have made them a card to celebrate!

It's a pretty close CASE from one I saw on Jenni Pauli's site Paulines Papier, the #1 Demonstrator for SU in Germany. I cannot say how much I love her creations. She is just so great at coming up with simple designs that look classy.

I can but try to follow!

This card is pretty simple. There is a Crumb Cake base with a layer of Pear Pizzazz on top. Then there are panels of Whisper White. The top wide panel had some Pear Pizzazz spritzering on it and then some pearls and rhinestones. The bottom left panel was dry embossed on the Big Shot and the bottom right panel was simply stamped in Pear Pizzazz from my favourite sentiment set: Teeny Tiny Wishes.

The heart embellishment was really simple as it is an embosslit. It cuts out the heart shape whilst also embossing it all over with tiny hearts. I cut it twice and then used a heart punch to cut the white heart out so it could be layered onto a Pear Pizzazz one. Finally a glittery glimmer brad in the same colour was added along with a little linen thread.

I hope Mr & Mrs T like the card and we look forward to celebrating with them at the weekend!

Baby shower

Today is my 500th Post! To celebrate I am offering a surprise goodie bag of Stampin' Up! goodies and cards I've made if you start following my blog!!

Sign up to follow before 8pm on Sunday 17th June 2012 and I'll choose a winner at random. You'll then have 72hours to claim your prize and send me you details so I can post you a surprise goodie bag!!!!

If you're already a follower you will automatically be entered into the draw.

Today I was thrilled to receive this invitation in my pigeonhole at work. It's to my lovely friend Amy's baby shower at the end of the month. Such a cute card that I couldn't resist sharing it with you.

The card is made of a regular card blank that has had portions cut away. The top of the sleeves has the crease. The leg and neck holes were made with circle punches. The teddy bear comes from the set Every Little Bit which is full of cute images that are perfect for so many occasions.

Such a sweet little card and it's so exciting that Amy is having her baby in just a few short weeks!!