The Holiday catalogue is finally here and it’s full of absolutely stunning products!
You can look inside the catalogue right now by going to the Catalogue page of the Stampin’ Up! website and download this pdf version for free! Or you can contact me and I’ll send you out your very own print copy. If you’d like to purchase any of the products in the catalogue you can do so by visiting my online shop here.
I’ll be back tomorrow morning with some cards made from the new catalogue or checkout my blog page or some sneak peeks of cards I’ve already made using some of the new product.
Hello fellow crafters, it’s time for some weekly “Heart of Christmas” Christmas card inspiration with the Art with Heart Team.
This week I nearly threw my cards in the bin.
You see I was trying to make a style of card called scandi style or motif, a style I absolutely love but have never made before. A style I thought I needed to get my stamping 100% accurate for it to work.
To make a scandi/motif card you begin by marking the centre point of your card with a pencil and drawing intersecting lines out from this point. After that, it’s very simple. You stamp an image in the centre of the card and then stamp outwards using a variety of stamps and colours, following the lines you’ve drawn and trying to keep everything geometrical and balanced. And when you’re done you rub out your pencil guidelines.
Can you guess which stamp sets I used to make the designs below?
I really love this mix of colours and stamps but if you look closely at the images above you’ll see my designs are not 100% lined up. In fact, some of them are way out! This is a close up of all of my cards with all their imperfections!
I was quite upset about this but when I showed my mum she begged me not to throw my attempts in the bin, reassuring me they still worked. So yesterday I decided to take her advice. I trimmed down around my stamping, mounted the designs onto matching card stock and added some embellishments.
Adding some dimension really helped lift the cards and distract from their imperfections, and his is how they look now.
For my first card I added one of the new stitched felt embellishments in the centre, as well as enamel shapes stars in pool party and real red.
On my second card I added an itty bitty bow in lemon lime twist and real red enamel dots.
Finally, for my third card I went a little crazy with the bling. I cut pieces of one of the new foil snowflakes and adhered these to the card with a facetted gem. Metallic gold shapes completed the card.
I’m really glad I listened to my mum and didn’t throw my stamping in the bin. But most importantly I decided to share these cards here to show you that even with a geometric pattern your stamping doesn’t always have to be perfect to make a lovely card.
This style of stamping really lets you get a lot of bang for your buck with your stamp sets. You can mix old and new, big and small, and I reckon this would look lovely in just 2 colours as well.
So I’m going to head back to the drawing board now and practice getting neater with this style of cardmaking…and of course, always remember to listen to my mum!
Thank’s for stopping by today. If you go to Claire Daly’s blog you’ll be able to hop to all of the other Art With Heart team members and see the beautiful Christmas creations they’ve shared with you this week.
Okay, so I’m technically a few days early (we celebrate Father’s Day on the the first Sunday in September here in Australia) but I wanted to share an idea for a quick and easy Father’s Day card in case you’re also struggling with ideas for a card for your dad.
When I go to design a card I often begin by thinking of a stamped image that I’d like to use and if you’re anything like me you probably find male cards harder to make than female cards. Unfortunately, most of my stamp sets tend to be feminine in nature and male stamp sets are often sport focused, but my dad is just not a sporty dad…apart from cricket and the Tour de France, which he stays up all night to watch!
So instead of designing my card by beginning with a stamp image in mind, I found it really helped to stop and think about:
what are my dad’s hobbies/interest/passions?
what colours does he like?
what did I really want to say to him?
My dad’s hobbies include gardening, woodworking, astronomy, music and reading so I wanted to design a card that reflected one of these hobbies. I’d already used the awesome Nailed It bundle to make him a birthday card and he really loved this card. I followed a tutorial I purchased from a UK demo, Amanda Bates at The Craft Spa …and here’s the card that I adapted for Dad’s birthday from her tutorial.
For Father’s Day I decided to instead focus on my dad’s love of music, so I stamped some very vanilla card stock using the sheet music background stamp. Because this is quite a busy background (and I wanted music to remain the focus) I knew all I needed was some ribbon and a sentiment to finish this card off.
I wanted to add a little bit of colour so I added some burlap ribbon, tranquil tide ribbon and a matching bow because I know that these earth tones are some of his favourite colours. The touches of nature elements are a nod to his love of gardening and nature.
Finally, I thought about what I really wanted to say to my dad and this is where the sentiment from the new Painted Harvest stamp set was just perfect: “I am thankful for you”. I’m so incredibly thankful to have my loving, generous, kind-hearted and super supportive dad in my life.
I finished the card off with a Happy Father’s Day sentiment inside from the Thoughtful Banners stamp set, because after all, it is a Father’s Day card…I just decided to have the more personal sentiment on the front of the card, but I could also have designed the card with the Father’s Day sentiment on the front and the other sentiment inside. I also used some of the stamps from the painted harvest set to decorate the inside of the card.
Now that I’ve sorted the card…the next tricky question is what do you give your dad for Father’s Day?
This year I’ve decided to give him something I know he really wants and something he’s actually asked for but we’ve never done before. I’m organising a photographer to take a family portrait for us, as all his grandchildren just keep growing and changing. And the rest of us are certainly not getting any younger!
If you’re stuck for an idea for your dad this year I reckon most dads would love the idea of a family portrait, because at the end of the day, that’s what Father’s Day is really about…our dads being with the ones they love the most, their family.
Live in Australia? You can purchase all the supplies I used for this card by clicking on the links below.
Tonight some of the Art with Heart Stampin’ Up! team girls are sharing some fun and fabulous ideas to inspire you from our brand new Holiday Catalogue available on 1st September until 2nd January 2018. Be sure to request your copy of the catalogue today!
There are so many fantastic products in the new holiday catalogue it made it very had to choose which one to use, so I decided to use products from 3 different sets on my card this week.
The most obvious product on this card is the stunning Hometown Greeting Edgelits Dies. I’ve used my big shot to cut them out from whisper white, smoky grey and night of navy card stock. Every time I use this set of framelits I notice another tiny little detail, such as the bell in the church tower, the handle on the doors and the teeny tiny top hat on the little snowman…it’s just all too cute for words!
I knew I wanted a sentiment to add dimension to my card so I decided to use the new everyday label punch to cut out some night of navy card stock. But the most exciting part of making this card came about when I was deciding which sentiment to use with the everyday label punch.
Quite by accident I discovered that my absolute favourite sentiment from the entire catalogue (the Merry Christmas stamp in the Snowflake Sentiments stamp set) fits perfectly into the Everyday Label Punch. In fact it fits so perfectly it looks as if they are from the same bundle and designed to be used together.
Once I recovered from my excitement I just had enough time to cover the whisper white ink while it was still wet with white embossing powder and heat emboss it with my heat tool to further emphasise the beautiful font of this stamp.
The final touch for this card was little bit of bling. I used a strip of 1/8 inch silver ribbon at the bottom of the card and added a bow under the label punch. And then I stamped the moon from the Hearts Come Home stamp set (part of the Hearts Come Home bundle with the Hometown Greetings Edgelits) and sprinkled it with some silver Stampin glitter.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my holiday catalogue inspiration today. Make sure you also check our what the other ladies in our Art with Heart blog hop have made from the holiday catalogue.
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:
Welcome back to Week 13 of our weekly Heart of Christmas blog.
Although I missed week 1, I’m determined to try to post a Christmas card or project every week until Christmas. I really love making Christmas cards and being part of this weekly blog with the Art with Heart Team is a great excuse to make Christmas cards year round. It also means I end up being super organised with my cards by the time December comes around… a win/win!
This week I wanted to make a simple card that would “hero” the gorgeous new lamppost die. This die reminds me of my one and only white Christmas in 1989, which I spend in Edinburgh (where my father’s family comes from) after a month’s holiday in the UK. It was such a special time and I loved having a white Christmas in that magical city.
The Brightly Lit Christmas bundle comes with a variety of lamps and they look great angled up or down, used singularly, or with 2 or 3 lampshades. There’s also the option of a hanging banner or sign that hangs off an arm off the lamppost (the matching stamp set has signs that fit perfectly into these banners). I’ve cut out all the dies below and photographed them beside the Brightly Lit Christmas stamp set so you can see just how many pieces you get in this bundle, how they co-ordinate together, and how versatile it is!
The perfect background for this lamppost is the softly falling embossing folder. I must admit I often forget to use my embossing folders but when I do remember to use them I just love the texture and dimension they add to my cards.
I’ve used some of the new beautiful 1/8 inch real red ribbon to attach one of the darling little boxwood wreaths to the lamppost. I actually cut the wreath in half with my scissors to make it the right dimension for this card.
Finally, to finish the card off I thought the “Merry & Bright” sentiment from the new Hearts Come Home stamp set was just the perfect match for a lamppost. If you love the Hearts Come Home bundle as much as I do take a look at my blog tomorrow as I’ll be sharing another card that features this beautiful bundle.
I love this classic and neutral colour combination of black and white because I think it really makes the green wreath and red ribbon pop. And my little reindeer just loves his fancy pom pom decorations for this week’s blog!
To see what the rest of the team have made, visit Claire’s blog here. I’ll be back with more Christmas card inspiration next week.
Product List (I can’t include a link here to the Brightly Lit bundle, the real red ribbon or the Hearts Come Home stamp set because these are not available for purchase until September 1)
Now that I’ve sorted the card…the next tricky question is what do you give your dad for Father’s Day?
