Sale-a-bration blogathon

Hi and welcome to the Sale-a-Bration blogathon! If you have come to my blog from Theresa's site then you are doing it in the right order! If not, then head back to Theresa for the start of the blogathon and some really gorgeous cards. Firstly, I apologise for the poor photography - it's something I need to improve on!

I've used the lovely Sweet Summer set for my first two cards. This has to be my favourite from the free sets, although they are all pretty cute! I've stamped the banner of Rose Red cardstock with the vine in versamark and then I've scored some lines two-thirds across. You could also use the Stampin' Up! paper crimper to do this for some added dimension. The vine in the main image has been stamped with Certainly Celery and then I've gone over the stamped image using the same ink but with my blender pen. The seed head flower has again been coloured using those fabulous blender pens, and mounted with dimensionals. For an extra little touch I've added a button from the neutral set and added a tiny tag. I just love Tiny Tags, it's one of those sets that at first I wasn't sure I'd use, but now it's one of my most reached for sets.

The second Sweet Summer card is a nice simple card that just uses the three flower heads, with a tiny flower added with a dimensional, and of course decorated with a tiny basic pearl.

Bliss! How gorgeous are these little butterflies?!

And my final for today is one that was inspired by one of Mary Fish's cards, I've just shrunk it down a bit. I love this colour combination of Concord Crush, Pumpkin Pie and Bashful Blue.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you've enjoyed the cards and find lots of inspiration on the blog hop.The next person in the link is the super-talented Natalie.So head over to her blog for some gorgeous cards.

There are four rounds in this blogathon, I'm part of the second group.
Round one starts over on Sara's blog.
Round three starts with Keren's blog.
Round four starts with Kirsteen's blog.

New year, new you, new stamps?

I have to confess that I don't tend to make new year's resolutions, they always seem to be something that I don't want to stick at like losing weight, eating less chocolate and so on. But one resolution I always have on there is to craft more - I like to have at least one resolution I know I can stick to! So if you've already made yours and you want to have more quality time for yourself, craft more, get out and meet people, or even just take on a role that fits around your life, why not take a look at the Stampin' Up! starter kit.

Or do you have a wish list of £100 or more? If so, you can stil take advantage of all that the Starter kit has to offer.

In Jan and Feb you get: £275 worth of items for just £119!

You can adapt it to suit your tastes

Choose the stamp sets & colours that suit you!

Choose an extra free stamp set up to £45

During SAB you can add on an extra stamp set for free!

Enjoy Demonstrator benefits

When you purchase the starter kit you automatically become part of my team and enjoy all the benefits that being a demonstrator has to offer. You are not obliged to purchase anything further, you do not have to hold workshops or sell products. You can just purchase the Starter Kit for the great discount that it offers.

You have till June to test-run the Starter Kit

Join during SAB and you have until June to decide whether you want to continue as a demonstrator. If you decide not to continue, then the starter kit is still yours. There is nothing to pay back! If you want to continue as a demonstrator you can do so with sales of £250 per quarter. That includes your own purchases.

I joined during Sale-a-bration last year and I haveloved every minute of it. If you'd like to find out more, or simply just treat yourself to the Starter Kit then drop me a line!

More Sweet Summer fun

If you've opened the flyer for Sale-a-bration on my website, you may recognise these two cards. They are just such pretty cards that I could not wait to case them.

If you don't have patterned paper you can improvise and use the bloom flower head in the set, and stamp it on a strip of melon mambo using the white craft ink pad. I then created a faux line of stiching using my paper piercing tool and mat pack.

Still not got your own copy of this lovely stamp set? Then call me to place an order of £45 or more and you can get it for free!

Sweet Summer fun!

Summer may be a long way off but that doesn't stop us having fun with this gorgeous, limited edition set from Stampin' Up! This has to be one of the most versatile sets on offer in Sale-a-bration.



I demonstrated this technique at my open house on Friday. It's made using the brayer resist technique.

Ingredients :
Brayer
Classic stamp pads: Bashful Blue & Rose Red
Staz on
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Glossy White
1/2 inch stiched poly-ribbon in Pear Pizzazz
white crayon
Basic Rhinestones
Sale-a-bration free set Sweet Summer
Eyelet border


Start off by randomly stamping the branch stamp from Sweet Summer in stazon on your glossy white cardstock. Use a careful touch as the smoothness of the cardstock can make the ink slide if you are too heavy-handed. Put it to one side for a moment or two to let it dry. In the meantime stamp some of the spiky flower images on to another piece of glossy cardstock, again using stazon. When both pieces are dry, use your white crayon (I borrowed mine from my son's pencil case!) to highlight certain parts of your stamped images.

Now for the fun part - the brayering. Ink up your brayer with the Bashful Blue ink. Making sure that you spin it every now and then to make sure there are no lines on the brayer when you are inking it up. Then starting off the cardstock run the brayer over the top of your images. Repeat a couple of times until you have the depth of colour that you want. Then take a piece of kitchen towel to wipe off the excess ink over the white crayon marks and you should really see them pop. Repeat with the Rose Red ink pad and the flowers.

Stamp your greeting at the bottom of the page. I used a greeting from Just Believe. Then make the rest of the card up as you see in the photo, making sure you add those wonderful Stampin' Up! rhinestones to the centres of your flowers.

Please get in touch if you'd like to order any of the items I used to make this card.

Gorgeous new SAB stamps

Mmm, this post appears not to have gone live, so if you don't want to click on the link to the right to see all the lovely SAB goodies then here they are! Take a look at my post early today to see one of the cards I have made with the Sweet Summer set.

Happy New Year!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and are relaxing after the big celebrations of new year! We don't really celebrate New Year in any big way but spend the evening celebrating with friends, swapping resolutions and predictions for the year ahead (and of course looking back on the ones we made last year). One of my resolutions in 2009 was to spend more time making cards and scrapbooking. I think I can safely say I managed the first part but my poor scrapbook is looking rather neglected - something I need to combat in the next couple of months!

What better way to start the new year than with some gorgeous new exclusive stamps, and best of all you can get them for free! I am so excited about this year's Sale-a-bration. The stamps are gorgeous and I know you will love them too. From the 1st January till 28 February, your purchases can earn you free stamps! The stamp sets are only available during Sale-a-bration and will not appear in any of the future catalogues.

There are three ways that you can benefit during Sale-a-bration.

1. Spend £45 in products (before shipping costs) and earn one free Sale-a-bration stamp set of your choice!

2. Host a workshop of at least £300 (before shipping costs) and earn one free Sale-a-bration stamp set of your choice in addition to the generous hostess benefits! That's on top of any stamp set you've already earned from your personal purchases!

3. Join. Would you like to have the benefits of being a Stampin' Up! demo and be one of the first to see the new releases? Well, if you join my team during Sale-a-bration you can choose one stamp set up to the value of £44.95 from the Idea Book & Catalogue for FREE! If you'd like to take advantage of this offer then give me a call or drop me an email and I'll happily talk to you about the benefits of being a demonstrator.


Click on the little icon of the Sale-a-bration flyer in the top right corner to see all of the gorgeous stamps on offer. Pay close attention to the little pink ring around the owl in Punch Bunch! If you have the Idea book and Catalogue then you'll know what that little pink ring means ...