A Merry Christmas To One And All!!

Wow, it is now less than a week to go until Christmas Day! This year I have managed to send out handmade cards to everyone! Most of the cards were made from past stamp sets and DSP, a useful way of using up stock to make room for products from the new Spring/Summer catalogue and Sale-a-bration goodies which will be available from 4th January.
Now back to this months card class projects.  Both of the cards were Christmas ones and the 3D project was a calendar.

 For this card we used Festival of Trees and Sassy Salutations stamp sets and the main colours were Old Olive, Mossy Meadow, Real Red and Whisper White.  The DSP was Merry Moments DSP.  To add a bit of sparkle we added a star made of Red Glimmer paper and some Basic Rhinestones.  We also added some paper piercing detail around the the card and circle.

This cute punch art reindeer did use a few punches but I think he was worth it!  The punches used were Extra Large Oval, 1/2" circle, 3/4" circleOwl Builder, Tree Builder and Pansy.  The colours used were Tip Top Taupe, Whisper White, Early Espresso and Real Red.  (The ribbon is retired).  The 'snow' was made by embossing Vellum Cardstock with the Decorative Dots folder and adhered to Tip Top Taupe cardstock and then onto the main card of Early Espresso. The greeting was taken from the Snow Place stamp set.

Sping - main colours = Mint Macaron, Daffodil Delight, Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz, Versamark; stamp sets = Sheltering Tree, Project Life Day to Day.

Summer - main colours = So Saffron, Melon Mambo, Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz, Versamark; stamp sets = Sheltering Tree, Perpetual Birthday Calendar, Project Life Day to Day

Autumn - main colours = Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie; stamp sets = Sheltering Tree, Perpetual Birthday Calendar, Project Life Day to Day

Winter - main colours = Soft Sky, Early Espresso, Versamark; stamp sets = Sheltering Tree, Perpetual Birthday Calendar, Project Life Day to Day. White heat embossing powder.

The calendar was made so that it could sit on a table/desk and be 'flipped' over to view the relevant season of the year by having a tab that slotted behind the card panels.

All the panels were adhered to a folded sheet of Basic Black card stock using dimensionals.

Christmas Card Workshop

This years Christmas Card workshop at Frampton on Severn Village Hall proved very popular with 13 attendees - two of whom had never been to a card class before and I think they enjoyed the experience. For this workshop we made 6 Christmas cards with a matching gift tag and a seasonal gift box.  Everyone was given their own set of Rhinestone Basic Jewels and a reel of Silver 1/8" Ribbon to add to their designs.  The Scalloped Tag Topper was used for all of the gift tags.
The projects were as follows:-

 Who can resist these fun snowmen??  These images are taken from the Snow Place stamp set and use the coordinating framelit set Snow Friends Framelits Dies. The main colours consist of Cherry Cobbler, Soft Suede, Garden Green and Momento Black.  The snowflakes were heat embossed using White Embossing powder and small Rhinestone Basic Jewels were stuck to the centre of some of them to add a bit of sparkle.

This card design was also made using the Snow Place stamp set and the coordinating framelit set Snow Friends Framelits Dies.  There are several other stamps within this set to add 'accessories' to either the penguin or snowmen eg scarf, tie, bobble hat so its a very versatile set to have in your collection of Christmas stamp sets! The main colours used were again Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green and Momento Black.  The background was embossed using the Decorative Dots embossing folder.

This card was created using what I think is one of the must-have stamp sets from the Annual Catalogue (pg 69), Lots of Joy. It contains a good couple of images and greetings suitable to make a variety of different cards and gift tags.  The two colours used were only Whisper White and Island Indigo which made for a simple but effective card.  The background was embossed using the Stylish Stripes embossing folder and the Silver Glimmer Paper added the extra sparkle. (The design for this card was taken from Just Judy Designs posted on Pinterest).

This is another card that only used two colours, Old Olive and Whisper White with some Silver Glimmer Paper for the sparkle.  Again another simple but effective card using another of my favourite stamp sets, Festival of Trees along with the coordinating Tree punch.  We also used Merry Everything stamp set and coordinating Note Tag punch. (The idea of this design was based on one from Barbaras Kreativ-Studio on Pinterest).

I wanted to create a card using the Confetti Stars Borderpunch but with a 'background' effect.  Therefore the Night of Navy card was punched with the Confetti Stars Border punch and layered on to Smokey Slate card to give the impression of the night sky.  I used the snowman, reindeer and polar bear from the White Christmas stamp set in Night of Navy ink and punched them out using 1 1/2" and 1 3/4" circle punches.

When I saw the example of how to use the Berry Merry stamp set and coordinating Boughs & Berries embossing folder in the A/W catalogue, I decided I just had to use it too!  I love the mix of Christmas colours; Cucumber Crush, Real Red, Crushed Curry and Pool Party along with some Gold Glimmer paper.  The greeting was heat embossed with Gold embossing powder.  The greeting on the gift tag was taken from the Sassy Salutaions stamp set.

Of course we had to make this adorable little penguin using the Curvy Keepsake die and Big Shot! The rest of the tools were Extra Large Oval, Large Oval, 3/4" and 1/2" circle punches, Washi Label punch and the beak was made using the heart from the Owl Builder punch.

I hope I have inspired you to make some cards for yourself. Its never too early to start making Christmas cards!!

Christmas Card Making Workshop

On Sunday 19th October, 10 lovely ladies came along to my Christmas card making workshop and made 20 cards and a gift box! They all received a goodie bag containing a set of 20 Stampin Up! notecards and envelopes, a reel of Lost Lagoon 3/8" Silky Taffeta Ribbon, a pack of Frosted Sequins, glue dots and 1/8th of a pack of All Is Calm DSP all for £30! I know the amount of  DSP doesn't sound a lot but I wanted to show my ladies just how far these paper packs go so are a very economical buy!
The cards used a variety of techniques:- heat embossing, dry embossing, Big Shot, free-hand cutting, punching, tying of bows (not everyone enjoyed this exercise) and the Envelope Punch Board.  The stamp sets that were used were Festival of Trees, Bright & Beautiful, Endless Wishes, Holiday Home and White Christmas. A variety of colours were used; Pear Pizzazz, Soft Sky, Real Red, Old Olive, Lost Lagoon, Pool Party, Smoky Slate and Basic Grey to name a few!  they were all proud to go home with all their projects completed in the 4 hours we had for ourselves.  Here are some photos from the day:-

Watch this space for future day workshops in the spring.

Start of the Christmas Season!

Well, with only something like 10 weeks to Christmas, I thought I would start to show off the lovely Christmas products form the Autumn/Winter catalogue. It is full of wonderful stamp sets, embellishments, accessories and ideas it was a struggle to decide what to buy. So this week I chose to demostrate the Festival of Trees and Bright & Beautiful sets to create a 3-in-1 project!

As you can see form the picture, we made a card with a circular cut-out using the Circles Framelits and then 'hung' a star from the Bright & Beautiful stamp set, embossed in silver and cut out using the Stars framelits.  The circle that was taken from the card was then stamped and again embossed in silver using a masking-off technique witht he greeting in the centre to make a gift tag.  A 'ring' of champagne glimer paper was used on the card to hide the bakers twine and the centre of this was decorated with a stamped tree from the Festival of Trees set to make a second gift tag!

Our second Christmas project this week was a mini treatbox in the shape of a birdhouse with a little robin.

This is an ideal 'thank you' gift for a teacher/neighbour/friend or a table favor etc and can be filled with a few Elizabeth Shaw mints. The stamp set that was used for the snowflakes (stamped in Whisper White Craft ink) and greeting tag (Real Red and Early Espresso markers) was Endless Wishes, another lovely stamp set with lots of  seasonal greetings and different sized snow flakes.  The box was made from Crumb Cake card stock and the roof from Always Artichoke.  The robin was made using the Bird Builder punch in soft suede.

Earlier in the year, Stampin Up! introduced Blendabilities. These are marker pens in 3 shades of several of the main Stampin Up! clolours and are used to create a subtle shading effect when colouring stamped images. So far I hadn't found time to introduce these new items into my classes so thought it was about time.
Plus it gave everyone the chance to indulge in a bit of colouring. 

This card uses two punches, the Pansy and the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border.  The DSP was taken from the Moonlight DSP stack and the stamp set used was Flower Shop, stamped using Memento Ink to ensure that the ink did not 'run' into the Blendabilities colours. The two colours used were Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry.  The Blendability pens can also be used to colour in Stampin Up! Pearl Basic Jewels (and Rhinestones) so that you can have matching emblishments to compliment your design.  The greeting was stamped in Rich Razzleberry ink using the Itty Bitty Banners stamp set.