Hello crafters! Welcome to Week 20 of our AWH Heart of Christmas blog hop.
This week I’m using a stunning new product, the limited release Ever Eden Cotton Paper. This soft, delicate tissue-like paper offers a unique way to add dimension and visual interest to any paper project, can be used to wrap gifts, or it can be die cut, ripped, wrinkled or folded.
And it’s also the perfect thickness to create your own Christmas crackers!
The Ever Eden Cotton Paper comes in two colours: Soft Succulent and Evening Evergreen. For my Evening Evergreen Christmas Crackers I tied each end with the Soft Succulent Open Weave Ribbon and for the Soft Succulent Christmas Crackers I used the Evening Evergreen Open Weave Ribbon.
These crackers are super easy to make. You can use the cardboard roll from wrapping paper, loo rolls or make your own inner tube from Crumb Cake or Basic White card stock. Each cracker is wrapped with half a sheet of Ever Eden Cotton Paper, attached to the inner tube with Tear and Tape.
Don’t forget to fill your cracker with a snap, a sweet, a joke or a treat before tying the ends with the ribbon. If you forget, you can gently untie one end and insert these things later.
The label on the Soft Succulent “Tis the season” cracker is die cut with the Tailor Made Tag dies and has a second tag cut from this gorgeous Painted Christmas DSP. The sparkly Ever Evergreen In Colour Jewels decorate both crackers.
After I made all my crackers I realised I could have used the Garden Gems from the Eden’s Garden Collection! The label on the Evening Evergreen cracker has the “Merry Christmas” sentiment from the Christmas to Remember stamp set, die cut using one of the label dies from the Seasonal Label dies – I though the shape of this long narrow die perfectly suited the shape of the cracker.
A pinecone stamped in Crumb Cake and Early Espresso was cut in half and adhered under the long die at each end of the cracker.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Rachel Woollard. I can’t wait to see what she shares with us today!
If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Tina Gillespie, and she will have the list of all those participating.
If you live in Australia, you can find and purchase all these products in my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or by clicking on the images below.
Welcome to week 24 of our 2021-22 Colour Creations blog hop! Tonight we are showcasing Magenta Madness, a hot pink from the 2020-22 InColour collection.
Whenever I’m not sure how to use a particular colour in a card I turn to nature for inspiration. Take a look at the rich vibrant pink colour of this glorious peony!
I love the intricate detail in the Prized Peony stamp set – it is a “Distinktive” stamp set, which means it has a special texture that gives added depth and dimension in a single step, creating photo-realistic images. It really is one of those stamp sets that does all the hard work for you, especially if you use this larger floral stamp.
For my Happy Birthday card, I paired Magenta Madness with Mossy Meadow and Smoky Slate, but any of the greens or the neutrals will work well with this bold pink.
I love the texture of the Timeworn Type Embossing Folder. The strip of ribbon behind the peony is the Smoky Slate Textured Ribbon and the embellishments are the Subtle Shimmer Sequins.
The co-ordinating Peony Dies cut out the peony and also gave the Basic White cardstock strip and lovely scalloped edge.There are some lovely sentiments in the Prized Peony Stamp Set, however there is no birthday sentiment so I used this one from the Art Gallery Stamp Set instead.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Kate Morgan – I can’t wait to see what Kate has made this week!
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the the full list of participants below:
Hello crafters! Welcome to Week 19 of our AWH Heart of Christmas blog hop.
This week I’m combing a new stamp set and bundle that both work so perfectly together to create a Christmas scene card: the Welcoming Window bundle and the Delivering Cheer stamp set. I love the idea of this girl turning up to the front door with so many presents in her arms you can’t even see her face!
There is no door image in the Welcoming Window bundle, however the shutter stamped side-by-side six times creates a door that is the correct scale for the girl with the presents. I love a big solid front door like this!
The brickwork for the outside of the house is simply the Bricks and Mortar EF that has been swiped with the Crumb Cake ink pad (on the inside top side) before embossing a piece of Basic White cardstock.
This isn’t a quick card to make but it is relaxing (well, I think so!) to colour it all in and fussy cut the elements in this card using my Stampin’ Blends.
The shutter “hinge” dies from the Window Flower Box Dies were used with the Brushed Metallic adhesive-backed dots to create a door handle.
Red Rhinestone jewels decorate the Christmas trees in pots that sit either side of the front door. The pots are from the Welcoming Windows stampset but the Christmas Trees are the top section of another stamp in the Delivering Cheer stamp set.
The sentiment is from an older Christmas stamp set, the Perfectly Plaid Stamp Set. I just had to use this sentiment as it perfectly describes my Christmas scene!
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Ros Davidson. I can’t wait to see what she shares with us today!
If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Sharon Davern, and she will have the list of all those participating.
If you live in Australia, you can find and purchase all these products in my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or by clicking on the images below.
Welcome to week 23 of our 2021-22 Colour Creations blog hop! Tonight we are showcasing Just Jade a mid teal green from the 2020-22 InColour collection.
Do you enjoy watercolouring? I find it very relaxing and I love the way Stampin’ Up! products make me feel like an artist! If you feel nervous about watercolouring have a go at making this card – it’s actually very easy to do and I just love the way watercolour turns out different every single time.
To make this card I used Shimmery White Cardstock, which is excellent for watercolouring, however you can use the Fluid 100 Watercolour paper if you prefer. Remember to always stamp your images for watercolouring using the Jet Black StazOn Ink Pad NOT the Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad.
You’ll also need the Water Painters and I like to use the acrylic blocks as my ink palette or you can simply lift ink off the lid of the ink pads. These are the colours I used to watercolour my card.
Using the two largest floral stamps from the Hand-Penned Petals Stamp Set I stamped around the edge of my Shimmery White Cardstock and then water coloured the flowers in Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight, the leaves in Just Jade and the centre of the flowers in Mango Melody. I then used the Crumb Cake to watercolour the background space.
I didn’t want to cover up too much of my watercolour pattern so I kept the rest of the card quite simple, tying some linen thread around one side and into a bow and adding a small sentiment to the middle of the card. This sentiment is from the Art Gallery Stamp Set, stamped in Versamark Ink and heat embossed using white embossing powder.
It was only when writing this blog that I noticed my mistake – let’s just call it “artistic licence”! Can you see where I forgot to watercolour my card?
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Andrea Sargent – I can’t wait to see what Andrea has made this week!
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the the full list of participants below:
Hello crafters! Welcome to Week 18 of our AWH Heart of Christmas blog hop.
This week I finally used a bundle I’ve had for ages – I don’t know why it took me so long to open it up! The Tidings & Trimmings Bundle includes the Tidings & Trimmings Stamp Set and the Christmas Trimmings Dies. It’s on page 88 of the 2021-22 Annual Catalogue.
I love creating miniature scenes on cards and the lovely brick background you see on this card is actually a reject from the Christmas card I made for next Monday. I didn’t want to waste this embossed Crumb Cake background so I designed this entire card around it.
TIP: For a more realistic effect I swiped the inside of the Bricks & Mortar EF with my Crumb Cake ink pad BEFORE inserting the Crumb Cake card stock into the EF and running it through the cut’n’emboss machine.
The mantlepiece is simply a strip of In Good Taste DSP that I embossed using the Timber 3D embossing folder. I attached the mantelpiece to the brick chimney using Stampin’ dimensionals so it sits out like a real mantelpiece would.
The three stockings are stamped in Real Red, Crumb Cake and Old Olive (one of my favourite Christmas colour combinations), then die cut out with the stocking die from the Christmas Trimmings Dies.
The little holly leaves and berries decorating the stockings and the sentiment are also cut using the Christmas Trimmings Dies – I used Old Olive for the holly leaves and Real Red for the holly berries.
I couldn’t resist adding a tiny bow of linen thread to each of the stockings – linen thread is hands down my all time favourite Stampin’ Up! product!I love the tiny upper case font on this sentiment. I’ve stamped it in Early Espresso to contrast with the Crumb Cake embossed background and to tie in with the colour of the mantlepiece.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Sharon Davern. I can’t wait to see what she shares with us today!
If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Tina Gillespie, and she will have the list of all those participating.
Thanks for visiting my site. I’ll be back with another card on Wednesday.
In the meantime, wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay calm … and keep on crafting xxx
Welcome to week 22 of our 2021-22 Colour Creations blog hop! Tonight we are showcasing Highland Heather, a soft purple from the Subtles colour collection.
I know I’m a bit late to the party, but this week I finally tried the Stampin’ Blends alcohol technique. Oh my goodness, gracious me – what a fantastic technique this is! If you haven’t tried this technique yet, just give it a go. There is no right or wrong, it’s easy to do and you get a totally different effect every time. All you need are Stampin’ Blends, 100% Isopropyl Alcohol, vellum and a paintbrush.
For my slimline card (10 x 20 cm) I used my dark Highland Heather Stampin’ Blend and my dark Night of Navy Stampin’ Blend. I simply scribbled random “splotches” of each colour onto vellum and then used a paint brush to gently paint the edges of the splotches with 100% Isopropyl Alcohol.
If I felt the gaps between splotches were too big, I simply waited for the alcohol to dry, added more colour with the Stampin’ Blend and repeated the alcohol painting with my paintbrush.
The sparkly stars are die cut from the from one of the glittering glimmery ombre specialty papers using the star dies from the Give It a Whirl dies. I used the Gorgeous Grape glittering glimmery ombre specialty papers – the lighter end of this ombre paper looks more like Highland Heather than Gorgeous Grape.
TIP: Once the alcohol has dried, adhere your embellishments to the front side of the vellum FIRST and them turn the vellum over and strategically place adhesive BEHIND where the embellishments sit so you can’t see the adhesive behind the vellum layer.
A snowflake from the Wonderful Snowflakes embellishments and the Merry Christmas sentiment from the Sparkle of the Season stamp set complete my Christmas card.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Michele Taylor – I can’t wait to see what she’s made this week!
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the the full list of participants below:
Hello crafters! Welcome to Week 17 of our AWH Heart of Christmas blog hop.
This week I decided to CASE the Stampin’ up! July-December 2021 Mini Catalogue. If you don’t know what CASE stands for, it means to Copy And Share Everything. The Stampin’ Up! catalogues are a great source of inspiration for design ideas, which is why I always hold onto old copies of the Stampin’ Up! catalogues.
The card I cased is on page 57 of the July-December 2021 Mini Catalogue and I loved this card so much I bought the Heartfelt Wishes stamp used on this card.
Although I kept the colours and the layout pretty much the same as the original, I also added in an an embossed layer using one of the wintry embossing folders. Such a simple step, but doesn’t it give a wonderful dimension to the card?
Once again I’ve used the incredibly versatile Seasonal Swirl dies and matching Sparkle of the Season stamp set for the foliage the holly leaves and the pine cones. The holly berries are Red Rhinestones.
The lovely spotted Mossy Meadow strip of DSP is from Heartwarming Hugs DSP – I’ve made a co-ordinating envelope with this DSP too.
The inside of the card uses the “from our family to yours” stamp that I also used on the front of the card, more holly and strips of the Heartwarming Hugs DSP.
This strip of Gold Brushed Metallic 12″ x 12″ (30.5 x 30.5 cm) Cardstock really adds so much interest to the card – this close up shows you just how sparkly it is!
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Claire Daly. I can’t wait to see what Claire shares with us today!
If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Sharon Davern, and she will have the list of all those participating.
Thanks for visiting my site. I’ll be back with another card on Wednesday.
In the meantime, wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay calm … and keep on crafting xxx
Welcome to week 21 of our 2021-22 Colour Creations blog hop! Tonight we are showcasing Gray Granite, a really versatile gray from the Neutrals colour collection.
This week I didn’t have a lot of time to craft so I opened up one of my Stampin’ Up! kits: the For the Guys All-Inclusive Card Kit. For $33 this kit is incredible value as you get all the materials you need to make 10 cards with 10 matching envelopes.
After you’ve made your 10 cards you still have leftover adhesives as well as an acrylic block, a Mossy Meadow Stampin’ Spot and a fantastic stamp set full of stamps to suit virtually any man in your life!
You could simply make these cards up as instructed or make your own variations. These are how the cards look when they are made up per the enclosed instructions.
Here’s my first variation. I trimmed and mounted one of the card bases to a layer of Gray Granite cardstock onto a Basic White card base. The mountain scene was layered up as per the card design but It was adhered to the a layer of Basic White and cut into 5 strips before mounting onto the card base using dimensionals.
This card uses the lovely woodgrain pattern from one of the envelopes in this kit as the base layer on the Basic White card base – I’ll simply use another envelope instead for this card. The largest layering circle die cut this scene.
I did make up this card as per the kit instructions, but as I would not use this as a Father’s Day card (as suggested in the instructions) I substituted the Father’s Day sentiment for the birthday one instead.
I’m really happy with these masculine cards – the Gray Granite works so well these other soft neutral colours.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Kate Morgan – I can’t wait to see what she’s made this week!
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the the full list of participants below:
Hello crafters! Welcome to Week 16 of our AWH Heart of Christmas blog hop.
This week I have another two Christmas Bauble cards, made using the Delicate Baubles dies and Bright Baubles stamp set from the Bright Baubles Bundle.
I’ve used some of the Stampin’ Up! specialty papers for my bauble cards. Card one uses Red Foil for the base of the bauble and Snowy White Velvet Sheets for the intricate “Merry & Bright” pattern detail on the bauble. I’ve taken this super close up photo to show you how shiny the red foil is and how gorgeous this velvet paper is – I wish you could stroke this card!
For both bauble cards I’ve embossed the Basic White layer using the Tasteful Texture Embossing Folder.
There is another layer of red foil behind the embossed Basic White layer. To get the most out of my craft supplies I’ve cut a large rectangle out of the centre of this layer BEFORE I assembled the card.
The “Merry & Bright” sentiment from the Bright Baubles stamp set matches the die cut and it was embossed in silver to match to Metallic Mesh Ribbon bow.For card two I used the green foil for the base of the bauble and a Snowy White Velvet Sheet for the intricate “Joy” pattern detail on the bauble. Once again, I die cut the rectangle out before layering so I didn’t waste any foil.Here’s a close up of the die detail and that gorgeous Snowy White Velvet Sheet.I decided to make this card horizontal and use two of the sentiments from the Bright Baubles stamp set to match the “Joy” on the die cut.
For both cards I adhered an adhesive sheet to the back of the Snowy White Velvet Sheet before die cutting – this turns it into a sticker and ensures there is no glue mess on the bauble.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Andrea Sargent. I can’t wait to see what Andrea shares with us today!
If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Tina Gillespie, and she will have the list of all those participating.
Thanks for visiting my site. I’ll be back with another card on Wednesday.
In the meantime, wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay calm … and keep on crafting xxx
Welcome to week 20 of our 2021-22 Colour Creations blog hop! Tonight we are showcasing Granny Apple Green, a vivid green from the Brights colour collection.
It’s such a cold, wet and windy day here in Sydney – the sort of weather that calls for a bright and happy rainbow card!
The rainbow colours on this card from top to bottom are:
Real Red
Pumpkin Pie
Daffodil Delight
Granny Apple Green
Pacific Point
Gorgeous Grape.
Because I didn’t feel there was enough Granny Apple Green in the card to justify using it for a Colour Creations Granny Apple Green blog hop, I made a matching envelope to showcase this vibrant green, using the Pattern Party DSP.
The layering circle dies make this card quick and easy to make. I created the top and bottom rainbows by die cutting a circle of Real Red with the largest circle die then die cutting it again with the next smallest sized circle and repeating that process with all the colours, using smaller and smaller circle dies. I carefully adhered the colours in rainbow order onto a circle of basic white and cutting it half. The rainbows on the sides of the card use the leftover circles, adhered in the same colour order.
TIP: adhere these circle in 2 sections of 3 layers each and cut them in half BEFORE adhering both sections together. These rainbows are 6 layers thick and too thick to be cut in half with paper trimmer all at once.
The scoring and cutting pattern for the envelope is shown in the photo below – whatever size your card is, make sure your finished envelope allows enough room for the card to slide in and out.
This card measures 11.5 x 11.5cm (4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches) so I made my envelope 12.5 x 12.5 cm (5 x 5 inches). The flaps either side are scored at 2.5 cm (1 inch) wide and, the bottom flap is scored at 9.5 cm (3 3/4 inches) and the top flap is scored at 6cm (2 3/8 inches).
The back flap of the envelope closes with die cut Basic White circles secured to the card with square brads and a tie made using a short length of Basic Black Bakers Twine twisted around them. The “Hello” sentiment is from the Blossoms in Bloom stamp set.
Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the lovely Rachel Woollard – I can’t wait to see what she’s made this week!
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the the full list of participants below:
