French folliage falling leaves

 It may be winter but the leaves are still clinging to the trees in orange, red and yellow that I see on my walk to school in the morning. The products in the current Stampin' Up! catalogue are still clinging on until  the end of June too. That is until they fall off the tree or go out of stock.
If you want to browse the products that are retiring this month just click on the shop now button at the top right of my blog page and you can see the pictures of products for sale.
When you shop make sure you choose Nerida Carter as your demonstrator to get your preferred customer savings.

 Thought I'd make a few cards with one of my all time favourite stampsets: French Folliage.
A friend of mine loves purple and it seems red also, I made these up for her this week and she loved them.
I just love the way you can "rock and roll" these leaf stamps in the autumn/wintery colours and they look so crisp and colourful.

I have used another retiring stamp "curly cute" for my sentiment.
These are two great sets I will miss however, as you know when one catalogue closes another new one opens... Let me know if you would like to be one of the first to own a copy of the 2013-14 Annual catalogue that goes live on 2 July this year!
Send me an email to: Nerida_carter@hotmail.com

Swallowtail thumping

Everyone seems to love this beautiful swallowtail butterfly, as I do! When I want to try a new technique or a challenge I am often drawn to it as it is a large and bold image.

On my Internet tour this morning I came across a colour challenge at the Paper Players blog. Http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.com

The three colours to use are: Gumball Green, Midnight Muse, and Raspberry Ripple.

 I love this 3D effect of layering the wings over the stamped image. I've combined several ideas here. The wings have been "thumped" with my stampin' up! Marker pens to add the blue on red and green on blue colouring.

For further interest I have stamped clock works and French Folliage in the background and used  Sweet Essentials for the thinking of you sentiment.

Feeling a little sentimental?

One thing most women love to do is party with their friends.

If I could plan my future it would be to spend more time with my girlfriends !

Whether it be over a cup of tea, at a  cafe having coffee or walking and talking we enjoy sharing our ideas and friendship. Knowing someone else is treading the same path and taking a similar journey makes life a whole lot sweeter.

 Todays card ... this one makes me smile.
I like the sentimental phone box and I have added the Pretty Petites "Hello" - stamped and punched out with the mini curly label punch. This is so cute and you can get all three of these products free when you have a sale-a-bration party!
This card reminds me to just pick up the phone and call for a chat - how about you?

Crafters anonymous pinterest Tuesday - Papaya Collage

On Tuesday's at Crafters Anonymous we challenge each other to choose a card on Pinterest that we have been meaning to CASE and share our interpretation of it.

This week I chose this card by Patty B. She calls it study in Red.

I really like the collage of stamps neatly divided into 12 squares.

Somehow it reminds me of those puzzle games where you have to shuffle the squares around to make a picture.

I chose to use Papaya Collage and French Folliage as my main stampsets and Vintage Verses for the sentiment in Elegant Eggplant and Wisteria Wonder.

Here's a close up of my Purple Papaya collage with Pearls.

Feeling Sentimental on Vine street

Today I am featuring the Sale-a -bration stampset: Feeling sentimental.

The set includes images of a bicycle, ferris wheel and Telephone box (or if blue could well be the Tardis).

The sentiment is Celebrate, which is a good all occasion stamp for Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, babies, parties, promotions, life...

I have tried to keep the layout clean and simple.

But with a vintage feel so I have rolled the edge of the flag, sponged a little and used the french foliage stampset for some splashy mud marks. I CASE'd this rolled flag idea from Anne Schach, it gives such an antique look, like it is unfurling before you.

And the background embossing I have done with my Big shot and the Vines street embossing folder (another sale-a-bration free product on offer with every $100 you spend).

But wait there's more ....

The patterned paper is from the free Sycamore street DSP, Plus the button and the ribbon come with another free set on offer.

 I really like this colour combination - Sahara sand, Island Indigo and Early Espresso.

Feeling sentimental in three designs

Last week of the summer holidays here. In between visiting friends and chilling at home I have made a few cards with the new sale-a-bration stampsets.

I have really been experimenting with different styles to feature the "Feeling sentimental" stampset.

Which one is your favourite?

Oh so simple is this technique of using the Clear stamp blocks as rectangular stamps.

As you can see I have stamped the A block in summer star fruit, H block in Pool Party and the D block in sahara sand.

My Ferris wheel is stamped with Early Espresso and the universal "Celebrate" greeting up the top.

I have added a button, tied with a linen thread bow, and finished with a flag of patterned paper from the Sycamore street DSP pack.

The Second card is inspired by red telephone boxes we had many decades ago for public phones.

I have created a window in the front of the card with my Window Frames Collection framelits.

The "hello" sentiment is from another Sale-a-bration FREE set called Pretty Petites and a matching Petite curly label punch.

For someone who can only coordinate her shoes with an outfit if they're black I love how stampin' Up's products co-ordinate so beautifully.

Check the  Raspberry Ripple stitched ribbon, the patterned paper, ink and cardstock in the same gorgeous deep red the colour of raspberries.

And to complete the collection is this penny farthing bicycle.

Have you got your Sale-a-bration on yet?

Paper Party graduation card.

I have to share with you a card I made for my friend who graduated last month.
Well she has graduated three times now, but I think this is the first Happy Graduation card I have ever made. So worth a showing on my blog during the Paper party in May.
Card Recipe:
Elegant Bird Die and the Big shot.
Basic Black and whisper white cardstock
Soft Suede, Early Espresso and Baja Breeze ink
Stampset: Teeny tiny sentiments, French Foliage.
Crumb cake Seam binding ribbon,
Twitterpated Designer buttons, Bold bright buttons.
Jewel rhinestone.
Circle punches, and
Attic Boutique Designer Series Paper.

What can you do with shimmer paint?

It comes in Frost white, champagne and Platinum.

Its being sprayed, daubed, sponged and stamped.

 Here's a few quick tutorials on how to use your shimmer paint from Stampin' UP!

SHIMMER SPRAY

You will need:

1. about 3-5 drops of Shimmer paint, 

Rubbing alcohol

a small spray bottle.

 2. 3/4 fill a small spray bottle with Rubbing alcohol

(ask for Isocol at a chemist or pharmacy)

Open your container of Shimmer paint and dip the spray bottle's tube into the paint.

You can do this 3-5 times to add the paint to the isocol in your spray bottle.

You can add more or less depending on how shimmery you want to spray.

 3. Put the spray bottle lid back on and Shake your spray bottle.

4. Spray on your cardstock and leave to dry for a few moments.

Drying time depends on how much you spray the paper.

When you use frost white it looks a bit like sea spray.

Champagne looks like little specks of gold glitter.

Tip: spray the cardstock with shimmer mist BEFORE you stamp, otherwise the ink will run or spread.

 On this sample I have sprayed the Blue cardstock, crumpled and distressed the paper, unfurled it and sprayed again. In the light it is like the deep ocean sparkling with sea spray.

And the sample above shows I have sponge-daubered the edges with  shimmer paint too.

 A REALLY WOW effect on invitations.

*  *  *  *  *

  Shimmer paint stamping!

 What you need:

1. Shimmer paint

a sponge dauber

 a rubber stamp.

 2. Use a sponge dauber to pick up shimmer paint from inside the lid of the shimmer paint bottle.

 3. Then, daub the paint onto the rubber stamp.

Keep dipping the sponge dauber into the lid of the paint and onto the rubber until the stamp is inked.

Tip: You can even mix a few drops of re-inker with the shimmer paint (add the shimmer paint and ink together on a flat plastic lid so that you don't contaminate the bottle).

 4. Lastly, stamp the shimmer daubed rubber stamp onto your dark coloured cardstock.

The Frost white and Platinum are both opaque and look best when you tilt them sideways in thelight.

This effect looks great with snow flakes, ocean, beach and water themed stamps, as well as boats and background stamps.

The card above is stamped with Frost white shimmer paint on the background layer (with the writing from the Open Sea stampset)

 with some sea salt splashes added to the blue layer. (Stamped using the French Folliage splatter stamp).

Happy New year and "Thank you"

 For my first post of the year I wanted to wish all my blog readers a very happy 2012 and also say "thank you" for your kind comments, encouragement and for sharing my creative journey with me.

I really do appreciate your comments and thoughts - they let me know that you are there and what kind of things you like to see.

 So here is a virtual

"Thank you"

 card from me to you.

Wishing you a quiet, calm new year with lots of creative surprises!

Card Recipe:

Stampsets: French Foliage, Perfectly Penned

Cardstock: Sahara Sand

Ink: Sahara sand, Soft Suede and Early Espresso

Tools: 6.4cm Circle punch

French Foliage - Thank you

It's less than ten days now until the Autumn Winter mini Catalogue ends on 31st of July.

 So, time to celebrate my

absolute-must-have-favourite-stampsets :

"French Foliage"

You can make very simple Thank you cards with this gorgeous set.

The stamping is in Old Olive and Sahara Sand inks on Confetti White cardstock.

The clean edge is made by masking.

The same idea as when you are painting a room you mask the edges and can paint (or stamp in this case) right up to the edge, peal the paper off and reveal a clean sharp edge!

 I've added the mud spatter stamp to give it that winter look and the must-have Paris circle for authenticity.

French Foliage - set of six (6) stamps. Page 20 Autumn Winter mini catalogue.

Clear mounted: $31.95 or Wood mounted: $39.95

Makes wonderful Autumn /Winter scrap book pages, too.

Why did I say that? now I have to go and make a scrap book page to prove it.

Mixed embossing ...

 I have a friend who has just flown off to Paris, France .... * sigh *

She is spending the next two months in Europe, so that called for a card to say "Bon Voyage"!

I wanted to send her Something special before she left...

 You would call this technique: Mixed Embossing...

I have mixed embossing powders with dazzling diamonds and used more than one.

Not difficult, you just have to sweep up between dustings, and don't sneeze.

Firstly, I stamped the Eiffel tour in Versamark ink

 and dusted it with black embossing powder.

But, before heating it, I sprinkled just a touch of dazzling diamonds glitter onto it and then warmed it with my Embossing heat gun.

The embossing powder melts and sticks the dazzling diamonds with it.

Contiinuing on I stamped the Artistic Etchings crown in versamark and covered it with gold embossing powder, heated it...

and stamped another image with versamark and covered them with clear embossing powder.

Now I stamped the French folliage words and the medallion  in Soft suede and Early espresso as a background.

Finishing with a sponge of Soft Suede ink around the edges.

A few pearls and rhinestones for bling and ... Voila!

Mixed embossing - it looks quite shabby - vintage ... is that a term?

Card Recipe:

Stampsets: Artistic Etchings, French Folliage.

Ink: Versamark, Early Espresso, Soft Suede.

Embossing Powder: Basic Black, Gold, clear.

Tools: Heat Tool, Embossing buddy.

Accessories:  Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Rhinestone Jewels, Pearl jewels, sponge. 

Elite challenges - SC44 and Misty Razzleberries.

Over at the Elite challenges site, Carol has set us some new Sketch, Stamp and colour challenges.

It is so long since I have attempted one of these challenges -

The First challenge is a colour challenge: Misty Razzleberries.

Rich Razzleberry, Marina Mist and Old Olive.

I really love these colours together, I just had to play and combine some of my new products from the current Mini catalogue.

 The sketch is from the card on page 16

 of the Autumn Winter mini catalogue.

 Using the Framed tulips embossing folder with the gorgeous new Bevelled windowpanes.

These are acrylic frames that highlight an image or patterned paper with punched ribbon holes on either side for threading. I have adhered the ribbon to the card with snail adhesive and let the ribbon anchor the window pane to the page. (No glue dots, nothing!)

 I've used another of my all time favourite techniques:
Heat embossing with Stampin' Up!'s Gold embossing powder.

 The words are from the stampset: You're a Gem and the crown is from Artistic Etchings, when I saw the words to this "Queen for a day" it just begged the crown to go with it.
Then I added two "all a flutter" butterflies in gold embossing onto the Rich Razzleberry layer.

 The other stampset, that I just can't seem to do with out is the "French Foliage" stampset (also in the Autumn Winter mini) the mud splatters and script stamps are great texture for making a blank piece of cardstock look old and vintage, or just interesting to look at... enjoy!!!

Inspired by Autumn Leaves

 Inspiration is everywhere ... this is the just newly renovated walkway on our way to the local shops. They've only just laid the new concrete and it's already covered in beautiful Autumn leaves of every colour!

 The Autumn leaves inspire me every day to go home and create something that captures the warmth of early Autumn... most days I havent the time, until I had to make an Artist trading card (ATC) for a crafting group I've joined.

I came up with this using Cherry Cobbler cardstock, old Olive, Soft Suede, Early Espresso and pumpkin pie and then I made two more...

 Until I had nine or was it ten...

 I used the most obvious stampset for this:
 "French Folliage" $31.95 clear mount in the Autumn mini, page 20.
To accentuate the leaf I drew in some of the veins of the leaf with Crystal effects. This is a very strong adhesive that dries clear with a hard lacquered finish.

 Then, I sent them off to Crafters Anonymous ATCs and received back 9 other ATCs all depicting different stamping and papercrafting techniques, styles and stampsets.

ATC's are the perfect size for putting on to the front of a card as the feature image, or for putting in an album to refer back to when you need some inspiration.

Hope these cards bring you some Autumn inspiration too.

 Enjoy!!!