OCC: Summer Inspiration

Oops! I'm a little late blogging my sample for this week's OCC challenge - it's a long weekend here in NZ, and Shan and I have been relaxing to the max - we caught a basketball game on Friday, went to dinner and did a little shopping today and in between enjoyed lots of snuggly DVD time - heaven!

The theme this week is what Summer means to you. Summer seems a long way off here at the moment - but I love this topiary image, it always seems summery to me, and I definitely miss the sunshine!

I watercoloured the image and added glitter glue paint to the hearts before trimming it, layering on black card and cutting it out again. The quilt image was stamped in So Saffron, Bashful Blue & Certainly Celery before cutting with nestabilities.

I've repeated the super simple layout on the inside of the card and used an offcut of the stamped background to bring it all together.

Head on over to Our Creative Corner - the team has some wonderful samples for you this week! I'll try and get a new project posted tomorrow in between all the lazying about! :-)




Paper & Card: Basic Black, Whisper White. So Saffron DP.
Ink: Regal Rose, So Saffron, Bashful Blue & Certainly Celery
Other: Crystal Effects, Dazzling Diamonds

Stamps: Inky Antics
Other: Circle Nestabilities

OCC: Sketch Week

This week the lovely Loretta has given us a fun sketch to work with at Our Creative Corner. Love this one -  lots of layers for stamping or embossing or patterned paper.

I've also worked with the Color Throwdown challenge for this week - Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette & Melon Mambo, and the Stamp Something challenge to use two of something on your creation - I've used two jumbo eyelets.

I watercoloured my image and added glitter glue paint to the icing on the cake.

For the inside of the card I've repeated that fun paper from the Walk in the Park pack and punched out my sentiment from On Your Birthday.

Head over to Our Creative Corner - the design team have some wonderful samples this week!




Stamps: Celebrate Everyday, On Your Birthday
Paper & Card: Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo & Whisper White cardWalk in the Park DP
Ink: Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo
Punches: Scalloped Circle & Circle Punches
Other: Melon Mambo Ribbon, Crystal Effects, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Mat Pack, Piercing Tool E-mail me to purchase.
Other: Jumbo Eyelets, Oval Nestabilities

Good Thing

Hi everyone, It's time for another SUO creation - last night I felt like colouring and out came one of my favourite hostess sets of all time, Time Well Spent. After looking at all my paper samples I decided on this Fall Flowers DP, I'd forgotten how cool it is!

The colour combo here is Old Olive, Really Rust, Soft Sky & River Rock.

The sketch for this card comes from Karen, I loved this one - lots of room to highlight that cool paper! I coloured the butterflies with ink pads, then dabbed on my glitter glue paint to create raised, sparkly accents. When I was done with the panel it just needed a little something, so I pleated some Old Olive ribbon behind the panel to finish it off.

Hopefully you can see the glittery detail in this shot. I like making my own glitter glue like this when I want a raised, shiny finish.

I finished the inside of the card with the other great sentiment from this set, another butterfly, more glittery goodness and DP. I hope you like it!


Stamps: Time Well Spent
Paper & Card: Old Olive, Really Rust & Whisper White card
Fall Flowers DP
Ink: Old Olive, Really Rust, Soft Sky & River Rock
Other: Dimensionals, Dazzling Diamonds, Crystal Effects, Blender Pen, Old Olive Grosgrain
E-mail me to purchase.

Bloomin' with Gorgeousness!

Hi everyone - woohoo, Thursday already! I love short weeks. I just finished this card I started last night - it's so relaxing to just stamp and colour an image sometimes. This one turned out just how I thought it would in my head - the Bloomin' with Beauty set always makes for a gorgeous card!

The Color Throwdown colours this week were Pink, Gray and Olive. I used Pink Pirouette, Going Gray and Old Olive. The sketch is SCS 275 - it's been awhile since I did a SCS sketch!


I coloured the vase using ink pads, then glossed over the flowers with my glitter glue paint technique. If you click the photo you should see how glossy and sparkly they are!

I used the definition sentiment inside the card - love this one. See you tomorrow and I'll share a project I made as part of Shanan's anniversary gift!


Stamps: Bloomin' with Beauty
Paper & Card: Pink Pirouette, Going Gray & Old Olive card.
Candy Lane & Old Olive DP.
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Going Gray, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Basic Gray
Punches: 1/4" Circle Punch
Other: Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon, Old Olive Brads, Dazzling Diamonds, Crystal Effects
Pink Pirouette Reinker
E-mail me to purchase.

Bella Rose Bucket Purse

I didn't have a lot of time to stamp this afternoon - but I had to make and share this gorgeous little purse style giftbox. I used some of my favourite products on this one, and had to break out a little glitter too!

Isn't it cute?! The pattern by Mel is available here - she's done a great job. My purse is pretty self explanatory - but the papers I used are from the Bella Rose pack (this might be my favourite paper this year I think), the ribbon is my favourite Kiwi Kiss double sided satin, and the beautiful stamps are from Dreams Du Jour. I love that sentiment - it's so true!

I've used my Glitter Glue Paint method to add a little sparkle to the butterfly (and a bit of shading - you can pull a little colour from the image as you add the glitter) and to the Kiwi Kiss parts of the sentiment.

I'm off to wipe the glitter off my nose and get ready for date night! Have a great evening.



Edited to add: Oops! forgot to mention - I've added the Google Follower gadget on the right sidebar for those of you that would like to subscribe that way, otherwise you can subscribe via email or your favourite feed reader. Thanks for visiting - I appreciate it, and your comments so much!

Some supplies available from Stampin' Up! Email me for purchasing details.

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Christmas Crafting

This Christmas I kept things super simple on the crafting front by opting to make all my Christmas cards the same, and all my gift tags the same design but in different colours. Previous years I've tried to make a bunch of different Christmas Cards...and...you guessed it - just never got finished! This is actually the first year I've posted out handmade cards (shock horror!) although I have made place cards and other handmade gifts before.
I kept the layout for my card super simple. In fact, you've probably seen this layout a dozen times from me before - but I love it, and it's super quick to mass produce using the Scallop Edge punch. I used paper (Ski Slope) and stamps (Tree Trimmings) from the last mini catty, and my oh-so-gorgeous favourite ribbon (Kiwi Kiss double sided satin). The colours are Red Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze & Kiwi Kiss. The sentiment is from the Best Yet hostess set.

The red ornament is cut out and popped up, and the glitter on both was made mixing Crystal Effects with Fine Supernova glitter. I just dabbed it on with a toothpick - it looks rather overwhelming due to the macro setting on my camera, but had a pretty sparkle in real life.
My tags were quick too. A simple rectangle, edged with the Scallop punch, a cut out and raised tag image, a big bow and some glitter glue and they were done. I used lots of retired colours on these to use up my stash of wide ribbons - the above is Purely Pomegranate.

Bloomin' Thanks

Here's the finished card from today's Technique Spotlight: Glitter Glue Paints. Don't you just love that sparkle?

Are you sick of seeing this Bloomin' with Beauty stamp set yet? I can't help but use it all the time, it's so gorgeous and so much fun to colour.

The image was stamped twice on Very Vanilla cardstock with stazon ink. I masked and sponged the vase, as I did with this card. I used Close to Cocoa for the vase, Old Olive for the leaves and Soft Sky for the flowers.

After making my glitter glue paint, I used it to shade the flowers - the sparkle in real life is so pretty!

I used my white gel pen to dot the center of each flower. This makes a huge difference to how the flowers draw the eye, try it and see!

I cut out the coloured flowers and layered them on my stamped and cut out image with dimensionals.

The paper is from the Fall Flowers pack, don't you love those colours? So pretty. It's layered on Old Olive which has been lightly sponged.

The sentiment from Short & Sweet was stamped with Stazon on Very Vanilla, punched out with the Small Oval and sponged with Soft Sky. This was layered on a sponged Large Oval punch.

I used my slot punch to create a slot to run the River Rock double stitched ribbon through. This is my favourite ribbon right now, such a pretty colour.

I punched three 1/4" circles from Soft Sky card and adhered them to the designer paper layer using Old Olive brads. The entire layer was stuck to the River Rock cardbase using Stampin' Dimensionals.

Overall this is a pretty simple design, offsetting all the elements gives it a really dynamic feel though. Hopefully you didn't mind seeing Bloomin' with Beauty again!



Stampin Supplies:
Stamp Set: Bloomin' with Beauty, Short and Sweet
Ink: Soft Sky, River Rock, Stazon, Close to Cocoa
Card stock: River Rock, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Soft Sky
Paper: Fall Flowers Designer Paper
Punches: Large and Small ovals, Slot, 1/4" Circle and 1/16" Handheld punches
Accessories: Crystal Effects, White Gel Pen, Dazzling Diamonds, River Rock Double Stitched Ribbon, Sponge Daubers, Earth Elements Brads, Stampin’ Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive.
All supplies available from Stampin' Up!

Technique Spotlight: Glitter Glue Paints

Today I thought I'd do a technique that I find soooo useful for adding a little sparkle to your cards and other projects. We're going to be making our own glitter glue in custom Stampin' Up! colours. Glitter glues and paints are really popular for adding shimmer and shine to your papercrafts and I love being able to make any colour you want!

Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever do this...but having never read a tutorial for it I have no idea if there's an official "recipe" out there - this is just my tried and tested way of making a glitter glue/shimmer paint!

To start, you'll need:

• Toothpicks
• Reinker in the colour of your choice (I'm using Soft Sky)
• Crystal Effects
• Dazzling Diamonds Glitter

That's it! Let's get started! First, spoon out a small amount of glitter onto the lid of a stamp case. Yup, no fancy mixing jars or even plastic plates here - I just use a stamp case because I always have one on my work surface! I just use the toothpick to spoon out a small amount of glitter. You only need as much as you can use in one sitting.

Add one or two drops of reinker on top of the glitter. It's best to start with one if you want a colour really close to the Stampin' Up! colour - I used two because I wanted a darker shade of Soft Sky.
Mix the reinker into the glitter using the toothpick. Mixing it this way first gives a really nice colour to the glitter.
Add three or four drops of Crystal Effects to the glitter. It's best to start with a small amount, you can always add more later to tone down the colour. Mix well with the toothpick.
That's it! All done! Your glitter glue/paint is ready to be used on your project. I like to use an old dried up blender pen to paint it on, a cotton bud or the toothpick will also work.

I pick up a small amount of the solution and paint or dab it on. Here I've used a dark solution of Soft Sky to shade the flowers. Once you're finished, be sure to use a tissue to wipe the remaining solution off your stamp case. I just scrub my dried out blender pen on scrap paper to remove any mixture.
The finished product! It dries in minutes, and not only do you get the sparkle from the glitter, I also find there's a subtle shine and sheen to the overall solution. A photo doesn't do it justice, I hope you'll try for yourself! If you'd prefer to just add sparkle, perhaps to a snowflake on a Christmas Card, just omit the reinker when you make up your mixture.

The best thing about this technique is the glitter will NEVER flake off your project. No more glitter on your hands.....face.....carpet....the cat....

See the finished card here: Bloomin' Thanks

Stampin Supplies:
Reinker in the colour of your choice
Crystal Effects
Dazzling Diamonds Glitter

All supplies available from Stampin' Up!