Hi friends, Welcome to the IDEAS blog hop for August and my first time joining this fabulous group. Our theme this month is Floral Fun – Stepped up Cards.

The collage above is a sneak peek of our all the amazing projects that the Design Team have in the HUGE tutorial bundle that you could get your hands on. The IDEAS group is a collective of international demonstrators who each create unique tutorials to help inspire you and to make your crafting easy and fun.

This is my first time with the group and I’m so excited to be part of it.

Here is one of the projects that you can find in my tutorial. I have a beginners version, a more advanced fun fold version, and a ‘dressed up’ embellished version.

All the designers have created detailed tutorials for their projects, using both metric and imperial dimensions.

To get your hands on this Tutorial Bundle, all you have to do is place a $50 order with me at any time this month and the bundle is all yours for FREE! My team members will get it for free in our team forum.

You can also purchase this 60+ page tutorial for $11. Contact me for more information about this option.

Check out fabulous project by clicking the Next button below.

It’s an exciting day with the launch of the brand new mini catalogue today with hundreds of new products to keep you crafting.

Check it all out in my online store today.

Happy stamping, 

The latest You Can Create It (YCCI) supplies were bright, shiny and fun.

The July packet included two pieces of Artistry Blooms Designer Series Paper, A5 and a couple of strips of the amazing Paper.

The Artistry Blooms paper is bright and varied, so the packets I sent out included an assortment of designs.

The pieces I picked for my project just happened to be mainly blues and greens, and instantly made me think of the ocean.

The Whale Punch finished off this quick and easy card, with the sentiment from the coordinating Whale Done stamp set.

This card that I shared recently would fit with the challenge packet too.

Design Team Projects

Want to see what the YCCI Design Team made with these same supplies?

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Happy stamping, 

Christmas is my favourite time of year.

I love the colours, the lights, the decorating. I love the cardmaking, home decor and gift packaging as well (no surprises there!).

So I was thrilled when the amazingly talented Laura Mackie from the UK gave me a reason to make Christmas cards EVERY month…. with the launch of the new ‘Stampin’ for Christmas’ monthly blog hop!

Every year I promise myself I’ll make at least a few Christmas cards EACH month, so this is perfect. Join in too! I’m sure you’ll find some amazing inspiration in this hop.

My card and treat holder include sneak peeks from the new 80+ page Christmas catalogue launching on Tuesday.

Christmas Card

The card is a , embossed with the Subtle embossing folder. The feature panel is a green foil sheet embossed with the stunningly gorgeous Evergreen Forest embossing folder. I love how red and green foil sheets are packaged together in the new mini catalogue. So handy!

Little Treat Box

The new Little Treat Box dies includes 10 separate pieces: a single large die that makes up the treat box, plus 9 accompanying little dies to dress up the box.

I embossed the front and back of the box with the same Evergreen Forest Embossing folder. The trick is to only put the top plate up to the point where you want the embossing to finish. It will leave the rest of the cardstock plain.

To continue on the hop, just click on the button below and you’ll be taken to Laura’s incredible project.

August hop Roll call
Laura Mackie 
Michelle Bryant
Lisa Edwards Kmiec
Jo Blackman
Kirsty Pattrick 
Simone Bartum

Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for the links to the new catalogue.

Happy stamping, 

Yay! My favourite projects to make are Christmas projects and I’m soooo excited to share my first Christmas card of the year.

I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of wishing we could just fast forward the rest of 2020 and turn up around Christmas. What a crazy year this has been.

Anyway, back to our Christmas in July challenge, which just happens to be the theme for this week’s The Spot Creative Challenge. With a brand new Mini Catalogue launching early next month, you’ll be seeing quite a few sneak peeks of upcoming products from the design team.

I chose a new product bundle (avail from Aug 4th 2020) called the Gift Wrapped bundle. It includes the Gift Wrapped stamp set and coordinating Gift Bow Builder punch. Hint: Watch the video below to see these items up close.

This is a Z-fold card, and also features the Dainty Diamonds embossing folder and the amazing Rainbow Glimmer Paper (which I’m somewhat obsessed with).

A coordinating insert of Granny Apple Green cardstock is on the inside.

Here’s a quick 4 minute video that shows you how this card was made. Enjoy!

About THE SPOT CREATIVE CHALLENGE:

Each week our Design Team of international creatives share projects based on a new challenge. It could be a sketch, a technique, a colour challenge or – as it is in this week – a theme challenge.

Each Tuesday at 9pm (Syd/Mel time) you’ll see a new challenge post on the challenge website (click to visit). You can play along, and if you want you can even enter your card in the weekly challenge by uploading your project (and you don’t even need a blog!).
A winner will be chosen each week.

Happy stamping, 

It’s so wonderful to be back with the CTC Crew as we take inspiration from the Stampin’ Up! catalogues and bring you another CASE-ing The Catty challenge (CASE = Copy and Selectively Edit).

And this week is a very special occasion as we celebrate the 6th Anniversary since the very first ‘CASE-ing the Catty’ challenge!

I joined the team back in September 2015 which was the 47th challenge… can you believe we’re up to #277 now?! How amazing. It just goes to show, the Stampin’ Up! catalogues truly are one of THE best sources of inspiration you can find. If you are ever at a loss as to what to make, just open up the catalogue. There you will find colours palettes, layouts, sketches, themes and more, ready and waiting for you to adapt and make it your own.

This week for our CTC Challenge, we turn to the colours of the Flowers for Every Season paper – Magenta Madness, Cinnamon Cider, Bumble Bee, Just Jade and Misty Moonlight. Poppy Parade is also in that colour theme, although I didn’t use it in my project.

I used those colours with my latest purchase… the So Much Happy bundle of stamps and dies.

This was such a fun card to make.

I started with a top-fold card in Basic Black cardstock, and cut the word Happy with the special die from the Happy dies. In the same pass, I cut out a balloon window to add a bit of extra dimension to the card. When it’s closed, you can’t really tell that the Bumblebee balloon is actually on the inside of the card.

Would you like to have a go at this week’s challenge? To join in, all you have to do is make a project with the colours listed above. Then simply take a photo of your project and upload it to the CASEing The Catty Challenge group on Facebook. Each challenge will end at 7pm (AEST) on Saturday before the next challenge is posted. We pick some winners each week, but most importantly it’s a fun way to get out of your creative comfort zone and try something new. 

For more inspiration, click on Monique’s link below and check out her gorgeous project.

Thanks for visiting!

Happy stamping, 

Hi friends,

It’s great to be back again with The Spot Creative Challenge and this time it’s a colour challenge.

You can find the link to this week’s challenge page here.

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This week we were invited to use the colours Magenta Madness, Black, Gold and Pool Party.

Phew – That was a good challenge for me! Definitely got me out of my comfort zone.

Here is what I came up with:

There’s a fair bit going on with this card, and it morphed into different versions along the way.

In the end, I settled on it being a large square card – 13.5cm x 13.5cm – on a Pool Party base.

Embossing Folders & Dies

One of the layers was dressed up with the Scripty embossing folder, the sentiment cut from the Well Written dies, the black frame from Ornate Layers and a tiny loop of Magenta ribbon.

The main die cut shape across the middle is from the Poppy Moments dies.

Such an unusual die!
It cuts out the negative pieces and leaves the shape intact on the card stock.

I cut a matching piece in gold foil and also Magenta Madness to layer behind it.

I added an Adhesive Sheet to the cardstock before die cutting. Let me tell you… it was a game changer!

That stuff is MAGIC.

You just need to peel off one side of the backing paper and attach it to your cardstock before die cutting. Instant sticker! Too easy.

And the cool thing is, you can’t tell in the picture above but the gold piece also had an adhesive sheet attached so I peeled that one off and layered into a third piece – in Magenta Madness. So fun.

The result is something pretty unusual.

On certain angles you can mainly see the pink of the Magenta Madness cardstock as the dominant colour. Then you turn it on a different angle and all you can see is the shiny gold foil.

So cool!

Join the challenge

All you have to do is a make a project in these same colours, then jump over to the The Spot page to Challenge #119, scroll down and you’ll see where you can upload your project.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a blog or Instagram to link to, just click on the ‘add without link’ option and you can still share your photo. Remember that the photo will crop to a square, so keep that in mind when taking your photos.

Until next time…

Happy stamping,