I hope you've all had a lovely day and for those of you like me in the UK that you've enjoyed the Bank Holiday. I managed to squeeze in a little gardening before the rain set in this afternoon, at which point I came inside to craft. I made this card for a couple of challenges:

I loved the colour palette and inspiration over at Color Throwdown this week so couldn't resist squeezing in an entry, and I used the new sketch over at Mojo Monday for my layout. Here's my card:

My card was inspired by the Color Throwdown inspiration photo and those amazing cakes and florals - here's the low-down on how I made it:

Stylish Stripes - I used Night of Navy for my card base and adhered a full panel of Night of Navy that I embossed with the Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing folder to the card front, to echo the diagonal swirls of the cake icing on the photo. This is one of my most used embossing folders and I shall be sad to see it retire at the end of this month; if you haven't got one, snap it up now before it's too late.

Happy Birthday Everyone - The sentiment on my card is from the exclusive hostess set 'Happy Birthday Everyone'. I just love this font and the accompanying finishing sentiments that go with it. I finished the inside of my card with 'to a good friend' as this is where my card is headed as one of mine has a birthday this week.

Botanical Builder Flowers - I never tire of my Botanical Builder framelits and these white and yellow flowers really pop against the navy base of my card. I also added a thin border of Daffodil Delight, cut using my retired large scallop edgelit die. 

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

A little extra for you today too: I bought my friend a little something to go with her card and wrapped that in a box made using some Regals designer series paper and made with my Box Buster tool and trusty Envelope Punch Board. Here's a picture:

Isn't that pretty? So nice when you can co-ordinate your card and gift and Stampin' Up! certainly does make that easy for us!

That's all from me today; back tomorrow with another project. until then, happy stampin'! 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Happy Birthday, Everyone Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Botanical Builder Framelits Dies	Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad	Night Of Navy A4 Cardstock
Daffodil Delight A4 Cardstock	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	White Perfect Accents	Brights Candy Dots	Ornate Tag Topper Punch
Envelope Punch Board

I've been under the weather this week, but now I'm on the mend I'm catching up with a few things, including this week's new collection of Wednesday Weekly Deals! These offers are valid for one week only. As always, a new collection of deals will be announced next Wednesday.

If you want to take advantage of any of the deals on offer, you can support my business by placing your order online by clicking here or using the link to my store on the right hand side of my blog page where it says 'Shop Online' or with me in person. Don't forget to add the new Hostess Code for March XDZGYVJC if your order is under £150 and be sure to make sure that you don't check the 'no contact' box if you'd like to be kept updated with the progress of you order and receive a little thank you in the post from me. 

Here's a summary of this week's one-week only Wednesday deals - click on each item to go to the online store to purchase:

Embellished Ornaments Clear-Mount Stamp Set

Smoky Slate 5/8" Chevron Ribbon

Merry Moments A4 Cardstock Assortment Pack

Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

Rather Christmas-themed this week, if you are minded to get very organised! 

Back later with today's creative project; until then, happy shopping!

It's Wednesday and you know what that means: a new collection of Wednesday Weekly Deals! These offers are valid for one week only. As always, a new collection of deals will be announced next Wednesday.

If you want to take advantage of any of the deals on offer, you can support my business by placing your order online by clicking here or using the link to my store on the right hand side of my blog page where it says 'Shop Online' or with me in person. Don't forget to add the new Hostess Code for November SHRENCSC if your order is under £150 and be sure to make sure that you don't check the 'no contact' box if you'd like to be kept updated with the progress of you order and receive a little thank you in the post from me. 

Here's a summary of this week's one-week only Wednesday deals - click on each item to go to the online store to purchase:

Gold 1/8" Ribbon

Season Of Cheer Designer Washi Tape

Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

Just three items on offer this week - the washi tape might find its way into my shopping basket I think ... 

I have an all-day workshop today so I will be back tomorrow with a creative project; until then, happy shopping!

Good morning everyone! Thank you to everyone who joined in my Halloween theme challenge over at The Paper Players last week - the gallery entries were fantastic! This week it is the turn of my fellow Brit turned American, the lovely Jaydee, to host, and she has a great colour challenge for you to play along with:

Once I'd got past wanting to make a set of traffic lights with these colours, I settled on another card using the Christmas Cuties stamp set, this time featuring the happy little elf:

I used Cucumber Crush for my card base - this is such a great bright green colour for Christmas! - and created a panel of red detail below my image, where I embossed a piece of Real Red cardstock with the Stylish Stripes embossing folder and edged it with a band of the red striped pattern from the Holiday Homes Fancy Foil Designer Vellum. Lastly, I tied my panel with a piece of Real Red striped ribbon, tied with a little jingle bell from my 'bits and bobs' drawer, just like the ones on the elf's outfit. To finish, I added a Very Vanilla circle stamped with the elf image in Archival Black and then coloured in using my aqua painter and Real Red and Cucumber Crush inks, with a little Crushed Curry for his hair and jingle bells and a touch of Pink Pirouette for his face and hands.  

I love the cute little images in this set - such fun! I made another card using the same colours and a Whisper White base panel for my alternate design, which I'll share later in the week.

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing how you interpret our colour palette this week. I'm off for a morning of basketball and we still have some homework to do; we spent a chunk of yesterday visiting senior schools - can't believe in 12 months time the eldest of my James juniors will be heading off to senior school - eek! Hoping to then get some time to craft this afternoon; that would be nice!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Christmas Cuties Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad	Pink Pirouette Classic Stampin' Pad	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Magnetic Platform
Big Shot	Very Vanilla A4 Cardstock	Holidays Fancy Foil Designer Vellum	Real Red & Garden Green 1/8" (3.2 Mm) Striped Ribbon	Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder
Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad	Real Red A4 Cardstock	Cucumber Crush Classic Stampin' Pad	Cucumber Crush A4 Cardstock	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad
Aqua Painters

It's Wednesday (still just!) so that means a new collection of Wednesday Weekly Deals! This week's deals are included below - they will be available for one week only, before a new collection of deals is announced. 

As always, if you want to take advantage of any of the deals on offer, you can support my business by placing your order online by clicking here or using the link to my store on the right hand side of my blog page where it says 'Shop Online' or with me in person. Don't forget to add the Hostess Code for April DBJFM4DG and be sure to make sure that you don't check the 'no contact' box if you'd like to be kept updated with the progress of you order and receive a little thank you in the post from me. 

Here's a summary of this week's one-week only Wednesday deals - click on each item to go to the online store to purchase:

Build A Bouquet Photopolymer Stamp Set	Flower Medallion Punch	Handpicked Framelits Dies	Ornate Tag Topper Punch
Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Sweet Dreams Designer Buttons	Sweet Dreams Designer Series Paper	Vine Street Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players and this week Sandy has a fantastic colour challenge for us:

Aren't these colours so reminiscent of winter? I also used this week's sketch over at The Paper Craft Crew for the layout for today's card:

I used Cherry Cobbler for my card base and matted this with a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock. I created my own DSP for my background panel by stamping Mossy Meadow ink on Mossy Meadow cardstock and stamping a selection of the baubles from the Nordic Noel set. The focal image of my card is the main stamp in this set, which I coloured with my Mossy Meadow and Cherry Cobbler markers to achieve the two-colour pattern. A Stylish Stripes embossed panel added a little background texture and I finished with the gorgeous in-colour Mossy Meadow satin ribbon and an antique brad, along with a sentiment from Good Greetings. Lastly, there is a 'cheat' element to my card today - did you spot it? For all of you wondering where I managed to get my Mossy Meadow candy dots from, since they aren't in the catalogue, I'll let you into a secret - they're actually Always Artichoke! I'm hoping Sandy will forgive me, but as they aren't next to anything that is Mossy Meadow you cant see the subtle difference in colour so they do the job as far as my card is concerned. I won't tell if you don't ;-).

I hope you like today's card; do pop by The Paper Players gallery to see what the rest of the team have come up with - there are some great cards as always. There's even one by LeAnne that uses the exact same sketch layout as me, yet it looks completely different, so check it out for double inspiration!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cherry Cobbler A4 Card Stock	Cheerful Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Regals Stampin' Write Markers	Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad
2014-2016 In Color Stampin' Write Markers	Mossy Meadow A4 Cardstock	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder
2-1/2 Inch Circle Punch	Mossy Meadow 3/8" Satin Stitched Ribbon	Antique Brads

It's Wednesday so that means a new collection of Wednesday Weekly Deals! This week's deals are included below - they will be available for one week only, before a new collection of deals is announced.

As always, if you want to take advantage of any of the deals on offer, you can support my business by placing your order online by clicking here or using the link to my store on the right hand side of my blog page where it says 'Shop Online' or with me in person. Don't forget to add the Hostess Code for October (you can find this under the 'Shop Online' section on the right) and be sure to make sure that you don't check the 'no contact' box if you'd like to be kept updated with the progress of you order and receive a little thank you in the post from me. 

Here's a summary of this week's one-week only Wednesday deals - click on each item to go to the online store to purchase:

Ampersand Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Basic Metal Buttons	Chevron Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Jumbo Sticky Rounds
Regals Designer Buttons	Spook Central Designer Ensemble - Digital Download	Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

This week is all about Textured Impressions Embossing Folders - there are three different ones to choose from! Along with buttons, this week's MDS ensemble and jumbo sticky rounds, useful for flowers!

As always, these offers will only be around for one week, so don't delay - get shopping!

Hurray it's the weekend! Don't we all feel a little like that sometimes? We have a weekend of normality in the James household and that's fine by me - I even managed to squeeze in a few hours in my craft room this afternoon, so I'm certainly not complaining! Today I have another Sale-A-Bration sneak-peek for you - this time a stamp from a set called 'Hello Lovely'. I used this week's sketch over at Mojo Monday for the layout for my card - here is the sketch:

And here is the card I created:

I took the colours for my card from the Afternoon Picnic DSP, although I used Smokey Slate as opposed to Basic Grey as I didn't want the grey to overshadow the other colours. The main stamp is shaped and sized perfectly to fit the Deco labels framelits. I cut out my stamped image using the framelits but mounted on two circles in Crushed Curry and Pear Pizzazz to emphasize the central circle shape that is the focal point of the sketch.

Wondering where I got the embossing folder that I used to emboss the grey section beneath the main banner? It's actually the Stylish Stripes TIEF, that I ran through the Big Shot then turned my piece of cardstock through 90 degrees and embossed it again to give me a criss-cross pattern, echoing the background detail of the DSP and the lattice on the stamp itself.

I'll be sharing more cards using this stamp set in coming weeks; meanwhile, only four more days until Sale-A-Bration goes live and you too will be able to get this and many other exciting sets free when you spend £45.

Back tomorrow with another card; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Card Stock A4 Pear Pizzazz	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate	Stylish Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder
Pear Pizzazz Classic Stampin' Pad	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad	Blender Pens	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform
Deco Labels Collection Framelits Dies	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Crushed Curry 3/4" Chevron Ribbon

Today's post features one of the cards that I'm making in my classes this week: it's a 3" x 4" notelet card, with co-ordinating DSP bespoke envelope made with the new Envelope Punch Board. This really is a great piece of kit and can be used for so much besides envelopes, but before we get ahead of ourselves I thought I would shoot a short video to show you just how easy it is to make a simple envelope to fit a card that isn't a 'standard' size.

So here is the card I made:

The card itself is very simple, with some festive washi tape and a small punched square, that has been embossed with the Stylish stripes TIEF and had a little Christmas tree punched out using one of the Merry Minis punch trio. Then a tiny button and twine bow to finish and a simple sentiment and done. The great thing is that with the new envelope punch board a co-ordinating envelope really can be created in minutes - just watch the video below to see how easy it is:

Isn't that great? The ladies at my class today couldn't believe just how easy it was to create a perfect envelope. It was a good job this was our last card of the class, otherwise I think they would have spent the whole afternoon making envelopes and not cards! The envelope board can be used for so much more though; watch out for more videos showing you how to get the most out of this great new tool.

I'm also linking today's card up with the colour challenge over at Create with Connie and Mary, where this week's challenge is to make a card using my featured colours: 

If you would like to be inspired, pop over to their blog and see how other designers have used this colour combination in a variety of different ways. Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Today I'm sharing another birthday card that I made last week, this time for my daughter to give to one of her school friends who celebrated his birthday yesterday. After much consultation, we decided that we would go with something fun. They've both seen the Dispicable Me movies, so I decided to have a go at creating my very own punch art minion. Here is the end result:

He was actually quite easy to make with the aid of a selection of circle punches and I'm very pleased with the result. I particularly like the striped embossing on his dungarees and the white stitching to add definition. The hair was made following a tip by Tanya Bell of StampingT.com.au by stripping some standard black ribbon into strands and threading through some holes. I've never been one for sewing, but as far as cards are concerned I think this is about as far as it gets! The only stamping on this card was on the inside - I don't have a photo, but I used my ABC 123 Sketch Alphabet to stamp 'You're One In A Minion!' A perfect sentiment to finish off this fun card.

Before I go, a quick reminder that we are 7 days in to the 14 day 'Join Stampin' Up! for £25'. This is a once in a lifetime offer to celebrate Stampin' Up's 25th anniversary and is unlikely to be repeated. You can find more information in my previous post here - if you're thinking of signing up, do give me a call to talk about the benefits that being a part of Stampin' Up and my team has to offer.

Back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies Used: