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 Thick Whisper White base, 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.

---

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, 

Tags: Poppy Moments, Stampin Up!, The Spot Creative Challenge

Welcome friends,

Today’s project is a triple easel card, and features the stamp set Friend Like You and the coordinating Friendly Silhouettes dies.

The easel card is my contribution to the latest ColourINKspiration challenge #81. This week it’s all about Cinnamon Cider, Real Red, Crumb Cake and white.

---

The 3 panels

It’s a little tricky to photograph, but hopefully this side-view image makes a bit more sense.

Back Panel

Here is a close-up view of the back panel.

One of the dies in the Friendly Silhouettes pack includes this negative cut-out die of the trees. It’s really very clever how It works.

Middle Panel

And here is the middle panel, which includes an embossed Crumb Cake layer, and a stitched square of white Cardstock with 2-step stamped images from the Friend Like You stamp set.

Front Panel

And finally, on the front panel we have the die cut reeds, which have been lightly coloured in Cinnamon Cider ink with the Wink of Stella Glitter Brush to add definition to the cattails.

Easel Stopper

A little raised die-cut dragonfly acts as the stopper for the easel card, and keeps all the layers standing up.

Folding the Triple Easel Card

When closed, the three panels collapse down on top of each other so it is a standard size when flat – 10.5cm x 14.5cm.

It fits perfectly into a regular C6 envelope. Nice!

There’s plenty of room to write your message under the folding easel layers too.

Measurements

This card was based on a few different versions but they were all in imperial measurements and started with US letter size paper. I have modified this to be in centimetres and to fit our A4 Cardstock with minimal cardstock wastage.

I’ve jotted the measurements down, but am in the process of putting together a tutorial for this card.

When complete, I’ll email the A4 tutorial to all my customers who place an order with me this month (you’ll need to give permission for me to access your email address when you place your online order). I hope you enjoy this extra little thank you for shopping with me. xxx

---

If you would like to have a go at creating with these colours, jump over to the Colour INKspiration Facebook Group where we encourage everyone to join in by uploading their projects. You’ll also find all the Design Team members projects in an album, plus see all the projects created by others. Oodles of inspiration for you.

Happy stamping, 

Welcome! Today I’m sharing my first challenge card as a design team member for The Spot Creative Challenge.

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.

So this week, it’s all about making your own patterned papers (or DSP, Designer Series Paper, as we call it with Stampin’ Up! lingo).

Building the Design

Step 1

Stamp a full sheet of white cardstock in Seaside Spray ink using the hydrangea stamp from Beautiful Friendship.

Step 2

Add the Misty Moonlight flowers, and then the Gray Granite leaves.

Step 3

Fill any smaller gaps with a smaller stamp from the same set, this time in Crumb Cake ink.

Step 4

Add highlights to the dark blue Misty Moonlight flowers with a white watercolour pencil.

The hand-stamped patterned paper is trimmed to size, adhered to coordinating matt layers and a piece of torn vellum (sponged on the tear line) is wrapped around the panel.

The final step is to wrap linen thread around the matt layer before adhering it all to the Gray Granite card base.

Add a stamped greeting and layer it with punched and die-cut shapes.

---

Your Challenge