Friday, January 30, 2015

Painted Petals for As You See It Challenges



Happy Friday, everyone!  It's time for As You See It Challenge #072 and this time around it's a colour challenge and one for which I've chosen to use our new watercolour stamp set, Painted Petals! Here's the lovely colour choices thanks to DesirĂ©e, one of our designers!



Just before we take a closer look at my design, I just want to say how disappointed I am not to be in Orlando at the Stampin' Up! Leadership conference this year and I want to say hi to all my fellow demonstrators who are attending.  I'm watching the live streaming from home but it is just not the same. The reason I'm not attending is because I just became a Grandma again and I wanted to be home for my daughter when she gave birth so I could help look after her three year old, so I think that more than makes up for not going to Leadership, but I'm definitely planning to go to Convention in June and I want some of you to come with me! It's such an amazing time! More on that later!  Let's take another look at that card:


  • I wasn't entirely sold on the Painted Petals stamp set when I first saw it, but after playing with it a bit, and after seeing some of Shelli Gardner's Leadership projects using this set, I am glad I ordered it. Here I've stamped two different designs of flowers, one in Calypso Coral, and stamped again without reinking, and one in Crushed Curry. I added a couple of leaves in Pear Pizzazz.  
  • I really love the sentiments in this set, though. What a true statement this is, particularly if you have really close friends.  Sometimes they are closer than family.
  • The background DSP is a favourite of mine and comes from the Sale-A-Bration reward, Best Year Ever Designer Series Paper.  You can earn this package of 12 sheets of 12 x 12 designer paper for just spending $60 in one order during Sale-A-Bration (Jan. 6 - Mar. 31, 2015).
  • The small doilies in the Artisan Embellishment Kit fit this card perfectly and I used Chevron ribbon in both the Challenge colours, along with ribbon from the Best Year Ever Accessories kit (another Sale-A-Bration reward) to make the flags.

I'm looking for up to 5 people to join my team and become demonstrators during Sale-A-Bration! The benefits are almost too numerous to mention and, at the very least, you can get 5 months of 20% discounts on the Stampin' Up! products you love. If you join during Sale-A-Bration, you get to choose either a free Simply Created kit from the Occasions catalogue or 2 free Sale-A-Bration rewards. You get to have an early look from the new Annual Catalogue in June and the chance to pre-order before anyone else, and you will still be eligible to go to Convention in Salt Lake City in July! All for just $125.00!

I'm planning on taking a minimum of 4 other people with me when I attend and I want YOU to be one of them!  We would have a blast!  What have you got to lose? To join my team, simply click on this link and follow the prompts, or email me your contact info and I will guide you through it.




Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Adventure Awaits for Freshly Made Sketches


I know that Adventure Awaits seems to be primarily a masculine stamp set, but if you choose a different colour scheme and different DSP, you can totally make it a more feminine design. I wanted to make a chalkboard effect card with the new Color Box Chalk inks and the Chalkboard Paper in the Occasions Catalogue and combine it with the Something Borrowed series of DSP for my retreat make & takes. While looking for a good "chalkboard effect" stamp set, Adventure Awaits caught my eye for the great fonts, and I decided to use it!

I also used the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #171 sketch for my layout:


Here's a closer look:



And while we're talking about curiosity, I just wanted to highlight an issue to do with mental health! Yesterday was Bell's "Let's Talk Day"!  People shared texts, Facebook photos and tweets in order to raise money and awareness for mental health issues.  People I'm close to face mental health problems on a daily basis, and I also struggle with mild anxiety and depression. It's so important to break the silence and the stigma surrounding mental illness.  It is an illness, not a weakness! Please do your part to talk about mental health, not hide it under a blanket of shame!


        



Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!




Product List

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Man MOJO with Adventure Awaits


I'm taking a little break from the Something Borrowed series to go masculine for Mojo Monday - Man MOJO, I guess you could say! I was packaging my Products Shares to go out today and I was sorting sheets of the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper Stack. I was admiring all the textures and patterns, so I just had to use it again. This time I decided to do a woodsy theme and use the Adventure Awaits Stamp set.  The MOJO Monday sketch has an oval shape for the main image so I picked the sentiment above from the 6 amazing ones in the set, because it has an oval shape to it and because it really fits the woodsman theme here.

This time I chose not to go tall and skinny because of the dimensions of the sentiment, so I just used the standard card size of 5 1/2" x 4 1/4".


  • All the paper you see here, with the exceptions of the Mossy Meadow card base, the Early Espresso backing and the vellum overlay, are from the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper Stack. If you haven't ordered this yet, you've got to do it. I just think it brings a whole new aspect to card making with the photographic images.  I love what you can do with it!
  • I was originally going to emboss the sentiment from Adventure Awaits stamp set right on the forest panel from Adventure Bound, but I was unsure about how it would show up on the varying light and dark areas. So I opted to emboss it in White Stampin' Emboss Powder on the White vellum cardstock and use it as an overlay.
  • The ovals were cut using the Ovals Collection Framelit dies and the Big Shot.  The vellum overlay was die cut with one framelit, while the forest scene was cut using the oval framelit that was one bigger.
  • The Essentials Wooden Element was just the perfect embellishment for this card and I used Early Espresso Baker's Twine instead of the long flag in the challenge sketch.
This was a fun card to design and definitely appropriate for any occasion for the men in your life. Hope you enjoyed it!


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List