One more time …

Inspired by Pinterest, I couldn’t resist using some retiring items one more time …

You can see the original card by Danielle here.  Christmas is the perfect time to bling it up a bit, so I finished off with a sprinkling of adhesive rhinestones.

Here’s what you need to make today’s card – all supplies from Stampin’ Up! -

cardstock: naturals ivory; stamp sets: contempo Christmas, baroque motifs; ink: lucky limeade, early espresso; accessories: holly berry bouquet dsp, corner rounder, adhesive rhinestones.

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Pink Ladies dsp swaps and baroque motifs ……

The new designer series papers from Stampin’ Up are just gorgeous!  I love them all, but have a few favourites too…

I got together with Michelle Last and some fellow Pink Ladies to take part in a paper share – a great opportunity for each of us to own a sample of each of the new paper designs.  The papers look even better in real life than they do in the catalouge, and now that I can see a sample of each one my wish list has definitely grown!  Don’t they look gorgeous together?…

 
I sent a handmade thank you card to each Pink Lady who took part in the swap, stamping with the Baroque Motif stamp set onto whisper white cardstock using each of the new in colours – pool party, wisteria wonder, lucky limeade, calypso coral and island indigo.  These are definitely my favourite new colours! 

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Crafty picks and congratulations…

I am so excited!  My Parisian farewell card was chosen to be featured on the My Crafty World website this week!   I feel so honoured to be mentioned alongside the other talented crafters there – their projects are amazing!

And to top that … my daughter has just landed a job working for Mills & Boon!  What fantastic news!

I just had to make her a card to let her know how proud we are of her…

I took inspiration from Kimberly, another of the featured crafters, and used similar colours and elements such as a frame, flower and butterflies, to make my card…

The flower was cut from so saffron cardstock using the big shot, then scrunched up to get this amazing texture…

…kinda reminded me of chamois leather …

The big shot was used again to cut out the label from balsa wood I had in my stash, then I stamped the sentiment in early espresso ink, sponged the edges and added the pearls and a teeny, tiny bow.

I loved the look of the faux leather and wood together - so pleased with the way they turned out.

I used the distressing kit on the edges of the very vanilla cardstock and added splashes of crumb cake ink with my aqua painter to give a shabby chic look - great fun to do!

More stamping on the inside too, and I added some designer series paper …

And I didn’t forget the envelope, I lined it with more designer series paper to match …

I hope she liked it!

All supplies from Stampin’ Up! unless otherwise stated.

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Contempo Christmas baubles…

I had such a fab time this week when I met with some of my fellow crafters to do what we love best….papercrafting!

As promised, here’s more pics of the Christmas cards I made.

We are all so busy at this time of year in the weeks running up to Christmas, so I wanted to keep things fairly simple…something where you could stamp-a-stack in an evening, especially when you need to make a lot of cards like I do!  I simplified the design of a card found on page 22 of the new idea book and catalogue from Stampin’ Up!  – it really is a great source of inspiration! I used the same colours and layout – just changed the stamped image and omitted some of the embellishments – easy peasy!

I used gold embossing powder and heat embossed the bauble image on one of the cards, which gave it a really luxurious finish - just gorgeous!  The other was stamped in real red ink.  The baubles were punched out and shaped a little with a bone folder, then popped up using Stampin’ dimensionals to give a 3D look.  I think both cards look very Christmassy - (two down, couple hundred more to go!)

Stampin’ Up! supplies used:

cardstock: real red, old olive, whisper white; stamp sets: contempo Christmas, baroque motifs; inks: real red, old olive, versamark; accessories: old olive designer paper, ornament punch, embossing buddy, gold embossing powder, stampin’ dimensionals.

I have more pics to share with you of the Christmas decorations we made, so please pop back again for those.

Thanks for stopping by today.