My Top Ten Picks from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions Catalogue

Well, the Occasions Catalogue has been out now for a week, and I thought it was high time to let you know, for what it's worth, which products are my favs! Yes, it's time once again for My Top Ten Picks!! I will list the ten products and let you know why they are my favourites, and hopefully, that will make it easier for you when choosing what to purchase from this amazing little volume.

Here goes:

1. Best Paper Stack: And the winner is: It's My Party Designer Series Paper Stack. (Click on the link to purchase!) 

This beautiful, bright paper stack is actually 12 x 12 and you get 4 sheets of each design so you'll have lots of your favourites to play with. It's perfectly designed for birthday cards!








2. Best Designer Series Paper: This was a really hard choice because they are all lovely, but because of the soft colours and beautiful florals, the nod has to go to Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper.

3. Top Bundle: There are some absolutely wonderful bundles in this Occasions catalogue and it seems there are more than ever this year. That is great for you because it means you can save money. If you buy a bundle instead of each item in the bundle separately, you will save 15%. Bundles have different catalogue numbers than the individual items so make sure you use that when you order to get the savings.

But the bundle I like the best is (drum roll, please);  The Rose Wonder Photopolymer Bundle.

The beautiful stamp set, the amazing dies including the rose outlines, leaf sprig and that great label all combine to make this a really versatile and creative tool.















4. The Best Ribbon: My upline calls it Mermaid Ribbon! It's so sparkly and such a beautiful colour! Pool Party like you've never seen it before! The award goes to the Pool Party 3/8" Glitter Ribbon, hands down!

5. Best New Tool:  It's what we've all been waiting for! No more dryers sheets and piercing tools!!
It's the Big Shot Die Brush! Removes all the little bits of paper from those intricate dies and die cuts! Hallelujah!

6. Best Kit:  The winner is a cute piece of home decor in the shape of a mini clipboard with interchangeable display pieces! Very cute! It's called Enjoy the Little Things!

7. The Best Stamp Set: I know this is pretty subjective, but because I love hummingbirds and starfish (my home is decorated with a beach cottage theme, with sea stars up the ying yang), I have to go with Picture Perfect, a two-step stamping set. Besides, I think it will work so well with other sets like By the Tide and From Land to Sea, as well as any Floral stamp sets.

8. Best Masculine Suite of Products:  Cheating a bit here, just so I could get some more paper and stamps in the mix, but I truly love this whole product suite, and you know how I love to make masculine cards. It's the Going Global Stamp Set, the Going Places Designer Series Paper Stack and the World Traveler Embossing Folder! I know this will be worth your money because it would work so well with other sets such as Traveler, The Open Sea and Guy Greetings.

9. Best Sentiment Stamp Set: This was a toss up between two sets, Suite Sayings and Greatest Greetings. They are both really versatile, with Greatest Greetings having more stamps, but Suite Sayings has a variety of fonts and also coordinates with other products in the Occasions Catalogue, such as Designer Series Paper, so I singled out Suite Sayings as the best!

10. Best Embellishments: I know these have issues for mailing, but Shannon West from Stampin' Up! came up with a great solution for that problem, and they're just soooo cute - Honeycomb Embellishments.

And there you have it! What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Which are your favourites?

And because it's Tuesday, there's a new slate of:

More Christmas Gift Ideas

As of today, there are only 44 days until Christmas! Wait!! Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just stating the facts. And that often frustrating period when we try to find the perfect gift for everyone on our list begins in earnest. Over that last few years, I've found that shopping online is a great way to reduce the stress as long as you don't leave it until the last minute.

If you have a person who likes to craft, I can offer you some solutions for your gift giving dilemmas! Last week, I highlighted all the kits in the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue. Today, I want to share another perfect gift for a crafter or a would-be crafter:

Do you know someone who would like to make some time for creativity each month, but has limited space and time? This is the perfect gift! It's also a great gift for your kids so that you can spend some quality crafting time with them. You can prepay a subscription to Paper Pumpkin for them and each month the little orange box will arrive with a great paper crafting project, containing everything they will need minus the adhesive the projects are so cute and a great value and all the instructions are provided, including an optional video tutorial they can access online! Here is a sample of some of the past Paper Pumpkin projects:

If you know someone who would love these, here is how you can buy a prepaid subscription for them:

Click on this link to Prepaid Paper Pumpkin Subscriptions, then choose the length of subscription you'd like and click on that. Click on Add to Bag and then Check Out. You will be prompted at each step after that. If online shopping isn't your thing, just contact me and I'll put that order through for you!

There are new Weekly Deals today:

Thanks for dropping by!

Sleigh Ride Edgelits and Winter Wonderland Design Paper

I love that one of the Designer Series Paper sets in the new 2015 Holiday Catalogue has a black, white and gold palette! How cool is that? It's called Winter Wonderland, and it's certainly unconventional! But there are so many beautiful designs to choose from within the set! I chose a black paper with white snowflake designs, and decided to keep to the colour scheme of the paper and do a black and white Christmas card, with a tiny bit of gold thrown in! And I accomplished that using the Sleigh Ride Edgelits dies! So classy, but fun at the same time!

• Notice the narrow border of Gold Foil Sheets that I used. It doesn't give the gold star billing but it has a great supporting role! 
• The snowflake on black design from the Winter Wonderland Designer Series is perfect for an evening sleigh ride, don't you think? It makes the sky so big and prominent, like it is when you're out late on a snowy evening!
• I used the Sleigh Ride edgelits on ever increasing lengths of Whisper White and Basic Black cardstock. I flipped the town edge over to have it in the right location for the other edgelits.
• The black edgelit was placed in the middle for contrast with the sleigh edgelit. You can see the layers quite plainly in real life, but the photo makes it harder to see the contrast that separates them.
• The sentiment, from the Jingle All the Way stamp set, is inked in Versamark Ink and embossed with Black Stampin' Emboss Powder, just to give it a little dimension. The stamp set and the edgelit dies are available together as a bundle so you can save 15%.

And it's Tuesday and time for another set of Weekly Deals:

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

Jingle All The Way Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139904]	Jingle All The Way Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139907]	Jingle All The Way Wood-Mount Bundle [140861]	Jingle All The Way Clear-Mount Bundle [140862]	Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Series Paper [139588]
Gold Foil Sheets [132622]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Versamark Pad [102283]	Black Stampin' Emboss Powder [109133]
Embossing Buddy [103083]	Heat Tool [129053]	Sleigh Ride Edgelits Dies [139670]	Big Shot [113439]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]
SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]

Happy Mother's Day for Mojo Monday!

 I love this week's Mojo Monday sketch!  And the My Mother stamp set has just the right "Happy Mother's Day" images to go with it! Here's the sketch:

Thanks, Julee Tilman, for a good challenge.  And here's my take on the sketch:

• I found that with the size of the images, I had to move the sentiment block up higher on the card to fit everything in, but I think it still retains the essence of the design.
• The drama of Pink Pirouette with the high contrast Melon Mambo and Early Espresso give energy to the design.  I tried it the other way with Early Espresso being the card base and Pink Pirouette the accent colour, but the dark brown was too overwhelming.
• A little Gorgeous Grunge never hurt anything!  I used the two pinks with two of the splatter images.

• Scallop designs add a little extra femininity to an otherwise boxy design.  I used the Scallop Edge Border punch for the Whisper White accent on the side bar and the 2 3/8" Scallop Circle punch for an Early Espresso matte on the round panel.
• Three little flags, one with a Large Rhinestone Basic Jewel round out the total design.  This was lots of fun to create and would be perfect for your mom is she is not big on girly flowers and frills!

All Occasion Stamper's Dozen

It's the time of year for important celebrations!  Easter is next week.  Shortly after, it's Mother's Day, then Father's Day and scattered throughout are weddings, anniversaries and graduations!  You are going to need a great many cards!!!  An All Occasion Stamper's Dozen will really help with all of that.  And guess what?  I just happened to have planned three of them - in April, May and June.  You'll make 3 each of 4 designs ranging the gamut from Anniversary to Weddings, Graduation to Mother's and Father's Day and a couple of Get Well and Sympathy cards thrown in!  Find out more here.

Here are this week's Weekly Deals:

ADORNING ACCENTS EDGELITS DIE Price: $11.95 $8.96	ANYWHERE GLUE STICKS Price: $5.50 $4.13	FLORAL DISTRICT PHOTOBOOK TEMPLATE - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD Price: $19.95 $11.97	NATURAL 5/8" CHEVRON RIBBON Price: $8.95 $6.71
NEEDLEPOINT BORDER TEXTURED IMPRESSIONS EMBOSSING FOLDERS Price: $9.95 $7.46	NIGHT OF NAVY 1/4" STITCHED GROSGRAIN RIBBON Price: $6.75 $5.06	OUTER SPACE STAMPIN' AROUND JUMBO WHEEL Price: $10.50 $7.88	VENETIAN ROMANCE DESIGNER SERIES PAPER Price: $13.50 $10.13

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

133080	133083	130514	130517	119686	111351
115320	100730	126974	126956	126948	129324
119850	118874	119882