Take a sip …

The stamping wheels from Stampin’ Up! not only make projects quick and easy to do, but they offer fantastic value for money when you change things up a bit and alter the wheel.  I took my scissors to two of my wheels – friendly words and take a sip -  making myself a fabulous new collection of single stamps in the process.  There’s a free tutorial on my blog showing you how to do this here.

With a little bit of paper piecing, these little thank you notelets came together easily;

and shading was added with ink and a blender pen.

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

cardstock: riding hood red, crumb cake, very vanilla; stamp sets: friendly words, take a sip; ink: early espresso;  accessories: neutrals dsp, stampamajig.

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Bella toile, friendly words and a pool party …

I’ve been trying out the traditional resist technique using the bella toile background stamp from Stampin Up.  I really love this background stamp but it will be retiring from the catalogue at the end of September – I’m so glad I got mine while I could!  Love it! 

Here, I’ve used versamark ink stamped onto glossy whisper white cardstock, and inked over with pool party ink from the new Stampin Up in-colours…

I used the small heart punch to make a border along one edge, and stamped the sentiment from my whacked friendly words wheel, using black StazOn ink.  I then attached it to a white textured card base from my stash with stampin dimensionals to add shadow and accentuate the punched border. 

Finally, I inked over one of the punched out hearts with crumb cake ink and attached it to the card with a stampin dimensional. I love the way the edges of the punched heart shape took on more of the ink, giving it a darker edge – so cool!

I was so happy with the way this card turned out – I’ll definitely try this technique again.

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Sunshine and serendipity…

Don’t you just love it when everything seems to fall into place all by itself?

This morning the sun was shining, there was a warm breeze and it felt like the perfect day.

Before the day even dawned, I was working on some photos for my blog when I quite by accident happened across a program on my computer that is fabulous for writing my blog posts. I can’t believe it’s been there all along but lay undiscovered by me – a truly happy accident!

Now, if only I can get it to do the housework for me too …

In the words of Eleanora Duse:

 

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,

if the simplest things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.

 

So here’s my card to share today.

I’m sending this to a very special friend, ‘cos sometimes you just need to know that someone cares…

 

I did some stamping on the inside too, and didn’t forget the envelope …

I love the friendship phrases on the Friendly Words wheel from Stampin’ Up! and it was after going to the quarterly training event back in April which is run by my lovely upline, Michelle Last, that I got the courage to “whack-a-wheel”, that is cut up the wheel into separate stamps, and I am so glad I did. From that one wheel, I got 13 sentiment stamps plus 3 flourish stamps too. How brilliant is that? I am one very happy lady! I’ve used the sentiments on so many of my cards already as they fit just perfectly on many of the labels dies available in the mini catalogue.

And, my card was inspired by the challenge on So Shelli’s blog for this month, to make a “thinking of you” card.

 

Several layers of cardstock on this card, with the edges of the whisper white layer given that shabby-chic look with the distressing kit, sponged with crumb cake ink, and I then added splashes of crumb cake ink with my aqua painter too (my latest favourite thing to do).

All supplies from Stampin’ Up!

Cardstock: crumb cake, very vanilla, whisper white, rose red; Inks: crumb cake, pink pirouette, early espresso; Stamp set: Friendly Words wheel (whacked); Accessories: Flower daisies die, #2 circle die, lots of tags embosslit, eyelet border punch, basic pearls, linen thread, distressing kit, crimper, aqua painter.

Have a great day everyone. Hope the sun is shining where you are too.

Thanks for dropping by today