Melon Mambo and Razzleberry christmas card

I just have to share another Christmas card today!

Jessica made this one and I think she has her own very unique style -

Red cherries, green snail and a Melon Mambo pig with a cute button nose.

Finished off with some "Heard from the Heart" words:

Welcome Christmas into your heart.

Christmas Houndstooth and buttons challenge

I have borrowed two challenges this weekend to inspire me to make a card.
The Elite Challenges have 3 new challenges every month and Paper Pals Arts have one.
So this is the card I made this morning.

 The Elite challenge was by way of a sketch (If you turn to page 116 in your Stampin' Up 2011 catalogue you will see the layout that I got this from).
And the Paper Pals Arts challenge was a photo inspiration. I just took some of my colours from there and the fun flower was already cut and on my table.

 In real life the Real Red, Pear Pizzazz and Poppy Parade are very vibrant together. They are a little paler in these pictures. Perhaps I need to tweak the colours in my browser.

Featured products I have used are:

Houndstooth embossing folder

Buttons Embosslits no 5. (on sale 10% off - Don't miss the Big shot special this month)

Fun Flowers Die

Two Tags Die

Pear Pizzaz seam binding ribbon

Ice circle Rhinestone brad.

Timeless Type alphabet dies

corner rounder, sponges and

'Heard from the heart' stampset.

 Enjoy!!!

Season of Joy Medallion

I've combined three stampsets on this card: the medallion, Season of Joy and Heard from the Heart.

The technique used is "rock and roll".

I like it because you can use two colours to get depth and variation in both images.

 I like also how the tree shape and the medallion have the same shapes and dots repeated.
I have only used two ink colours: Pear pizazz and Old olive Classic ink.

 And then for some bling and sparkle I have added a few stick on Rhinestone jewels on the tree.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Season of Joy, Medallion, Heard from the Heart.

Cardstock: Whisper white, Early Espresso

Ink: Pear Pizazz, Old Olive.

Accessories: Sharp scissors, Clear Rhinestone Jewels, dimensionals.

A no knot silk ribbon bow

Nearly everyone I speak to has trouble with tying bows... just when you have the trick down perfect, you stand up proud to show a few friends and the skill eludes you once more... I know not how to tie the perfect bow, you say.

Well, not now, I have the no Knot bow at my finger tips ready to share.

It takes only a few moments to do (with only the aid of a rhinestone brad to hold it in place).

Here it is:

Take a piece of ribbon (Old Olive Satin ribbon looks so lovely in a bow) twice as wide as the bow you want to create. Fold it into equal thirds.

Then pinch it in the centre and wrap the tines (or the legs of) a brad around the pinched bit of ribbon.

Tease out the ends and trim them neatly with your scissors,

and stick it on to a card with a mini glue dot, or two.

Here it is from a different angle and tucked beneath a delightful decoration stamp.

With out a knot in sight.

Enjoy!!!

Delightful Decorations

 I think I took this photo before the glitter fell on it ... plain and simple.
So here is the stack of cards I managed to finish: 8 cards have to be a record for me.

Enjoy!!!

We stamped a stack on Tuesday...

Here is one of the cards I made on Tuesday night: the base is Concord Crush and the ink is Old Olive.
The stampsets are Elements of Style (for the branches) and Delightful Decorations plus Heard from the Heart for the sentiment across the bottom.
I made a very basic card to start, tried to repeat it, failed dismally and made a stack of various variations on the same design... I stuck to the same colour ink and cardstock for continuity...

Soon the dazzling diamonds filled the air, the tabletop and floor...
....a bit fell on the cards too.
Card Recipe:
Stampsets: Heard from the heart, delightful decorations, Elements of Style
Ink: Old Olive
Cardstock: Old Olive, whisper white, Concord crush.
Accessories: 2-way glue pen, dazzling diamonds glitter,

Dasher in Old Olive and Early Espresso

The card above is so simple. Just two pieces of cardstock and three stamps.

It looks fairly simple this way.

If you wish you can dress it up with dazzling diamonds and rhinestones to step it up and get the wow factor.

Dasher has been "rock and rolled" in the old olive and Early espresso ink (but only lightly).

The stamps are:

 Dasher

Heard from the heart

and Elements of Style.

This card uses just two stamps:

Dasher and Curly cute with a background of wheeled swirls and some polka dot patterned paper.

The variations for Dasher are endless...

expect to see a lot more of him between now and December!

Kissed En Francais Medallion

Here is the second workshop card we made last weekend.

It features the wonderful "Medallion" stamp AND the technique of Kissing stamps.

The medallion stamp was inked with baja breeze then "kissed", that means touched lightly, with the en francais stamp that was inked in Old olive ink.

The stamp is now ready to apply to your very vanilla card front.

The sentiment is stamped below the medallion.

We used "Heard from the Heart" stamp that says "May all your wishes come true"!

Lastly we tied a strip of Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon around the whole card and that was it.

Quick and fun!

Here is a similar version in Red with a Christmas spin to it.

Send me an email nerida_carter@hotmail.com if you'd like to have a workshop at your place.

We can make one or two cards, and I can demonstrate the BIG SHOT machine.

Or perhaps you're thinking its time to start on those Christmas cards?

We can do a Stamp A Stack of cards which is where for $15 you can make 6 cards of 2 different designs.

Begin your Christmas cards now to avoid the mad rush later.

And then on Friday ...

I had a very creative weekend.

On Friday a friend visited to pick up her stamping order and we made a card and had lunch together.

The colours are very ... well bold and bright!

Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise and white.

You may recognise this card from the Autumn Winter mini on page 32.

As I cleared away I had a bundle of left over cardstock and scraps and decided I had just enough time to make another card before picking up daughter from school ...

I have used the share a cup stamp again, and cut it out to lift up onto a metal edged tag.

I love how our perfect polka dot embossing folder goes with the cup pattern

 and the polka dot melon mambo ribbon.

I've used my spiral edge punch for the decoration on the edge of the card. Enjoy!!!

Vintage Vogue and Very Vintage Wheel

When I opened the new Autumn Winter mini catalogue these were the two stamps that grabbed my attention. Pages 16 and 17 are just about warn out with ruler measurements, late night pondering and staple bending... you see as a demonstrator I get to see the mini catalogue for a month before it comes live. There is "pre- order" and then playing secretly with the new stamps and accessories before the official launch date.

What was even better?  the Vintage vogue stampset comes in both wood mounted and clear mounted stamps.

The clear mount stamps are actually stampin up quality rubber stamps, mounted on foam and onto cling type film which makes them cling or stick to a clear mount block.

Clear as ? I think they are better than wood because you don't have to seal the wood blocks anymore, and you can see better where you are stamping. And, they come in a plastic storage case (about the same shape and size as a DVD box) so storage is really easy.

I couldn't wait for the chance to ink my first image of them. The flower with a scripted print on it, the floral swirls, and with gorgous words like: Life happens. Love helps. You raise kindness to an art.

The Very Vintage wheel is going to be great as a background for all those pretty and shabby chic kind of cards and scrap pages.

And look what they don't show you in the calalogue?

The Very Vintage Wheel has a bonus butterfly on the end of it!

Now I asked around what those words are on the wheel ... not a lot of french speakers in my circle of friends and family but loosely the words say:

The park in May is in flower, come into the meadows, and love the countryside.

Four years of french at school was really not one of the high lights of my learning achievements.

Now as you can see this is an Easel card. A card with its own stand. They are much easier to make than they look only two bits of cardstock with some strips for decoration.

The strip of ribbon (in Rich razzleberry) holds the top up so that it doesnt slide forward, but you can fold it down flat easily enough for postage.

And the sentiment comes from another new stampset:

Heard from the heart. Four large cling clear block stamps for $28.95.

You will need a large narrow clear block for this one (Block H: 11.3x4.1cm) $13.95

Card recipe:
Stampsets: Vintage vogue, Very vintage wheel, Heard from the heart.
Cardstock: Rich razzleberry, Pale Plum, whisper white.
Ink: Rich razzleberry, Pale Plum.
Accessories: silver brad, Rich Razzleberry ribbon.
****

Any one who speaks french or can translate (not using google translator) contact me for a $5 off voucher on your next order.
"Parque Mai tout en fleur, dans les pres nous reclame, Viens!
Non te tasse pas de meler a ton ame la campagne,"