It's Wednesday and you know what that means: a new collection of Wednesday Weekly Deals! The same as last week there are more offers than usual, with increased reductions of up to 30% on Weekly Deals this month, although there are specific allocated quantities at the increased offer price; once they're gone, the price will revert to RRP, so don't delay in ordering if there is something on your wish list. Each week items are proving very popular and some are sold out within a couple of days of the offers being published. 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 August SCFAMEG2 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:

2015-2017 In Color Blossom Accents	Arrows Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Itty Bitty Accents Epoxy Stickers
Scalloped Tag Topper Punch	Silver 5/8" Satin Ribbon	Summer Silhouettes Wood-Mount Stamp Set

More great deals this week - the in-colour blossom accents and epoxy stickers are great deals for cute embellishments but my favourite weekly deal this week has to be the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch - this is my 'go to' tag punch and is perfect to get a headstart on Christmas gift tags, so at the reduced price of £15.75 it's one to snap up this week! 

That's all from me; back later with today's creative post. Until then, happy shopping!

Good morning everyone - today I have my Design Team card for our challenge this week over at Colour Me...! where we are having a creative week where you get to choose your colour palette and which team you would like to play along with:

I am on 'Team Tara' this week so I'm working with Night of Navy, Soft Sky, Garden Green and a neutral (in my case, Whisper White). Here's my card:

I decided to use Soft Sky for my base and flowers, stamped and fussy-cut from the Summer Silhouettes stamp set, with Garden Green for the foliage and Night of Navy as my accent colour and for my statement 'hello' greeting - this is from the 'Hi There' stamp set - I think it's going to be a new favourite of mine. A smattering of pearls and a piece of retired grosgrain ribbon (you could substitute this with the new seam binding ribbon in the same colour) finish my card.

To see what the rest of the team have created in each of the colour schemes, stop by their blogs for inspiration and do play along with us at Colour Me this week!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Summer Silhouettes Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Hi There Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Soft Sky	Garden Green Classic Stampin' Pad
Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad	Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Basic Pearls Jewel Accents

It's Sunday and today I'm sharing my weekly card designed for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players, where I'm a Guest Designer for the next few months. This week we LeAnne is hosting and she has a colour challenge for us using the following colour palette:

I also used the sketch over at The Paper Craft Crew this week for the layout of my card. I chose to make the new In-Colours of Blackberry Bliss and Lost Lagoon the focus of my card, but the other two colours also feature - take a look:

I used two pieces of DSP for the background of my card - the honeycomb from the Midnight DSP stack and the tiny blue flowers from the All Abloom DSP stack and I used a piece of the lovely Lost Lagoon satin ribbon to cover the join and create a statement bow. As these papers both have quite busy patterns, I decided to go with a fairly simple stamped focal point, with a sentiment from the 'Perfect Pennants' alongside a simple floral circle using Summer Silhouettes in Mossy Meadow, Blackberry Bliss and Wisteria Wonder. Lastly, I fussy cut one of the Wisteria Wonder flowers and mounted it onto a dimensional for extra interest.

I hope you like my card today and that it inspires you to hop on over to the Paper Players challenge blog to join in and upload your challenge creations. The Paper Player challenge takes place weekly, opening on a Sunday at 8am (PST) and closes at noon on Friday (PST). Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules: 

1.  Create a new paper project

2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the  post featuring your challenge submission.

3.  Please link your card to no more than three challenges, TOTAL.

4.  Have FUN!

We look forward to seeing your colourful creations! Right I'm off to a ballet exam today (chauffeur not dancer, of course!). Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Perfect Pennants	Summer Silhouettes Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack	All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack	Blackberry Bliss Classic Stampin' Pad
Blackberry Bliss A4 Cardstock	Lost Lagoon A4 Cardstock	Lost Lagoon 3/8" Satin Stitched Ribbon	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad
Wisteria Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine

Yay - it's Friday again! Boy did that come around quick! This week has been half term and having James Juniors at home for the week seems to make the week fly by! Anyway, the weather is supposed to improve this weekend so that will be good. I have a busy, busy day today with retiring lists, preorders, class preparations and more besides, so let's get to it! Today I'm sharing a card that I made for this week's challenge over at 'Less is More' where it's recipe week and we're asked to include a die cut on our card. I've also combined with the vibrant colour palette over at Colour Q this week:

I just loved the bold flowers on that shower curtain in the inspiration photo! I had to substitute a couple of the colours, as they have retired and I don't have them; I used Rich Razzleberry and Wild Wasabi in place of Orchid Opulence and Certainly Celery, so my purple is not quite so electric but my card is just as colourful - take a look: 

I actually used the same CAS(E) This Sketch layout, turned through 90 degrees, that I used for yesterday's butterfly card for today's background, although it looks totally different here. I used Simple Stems to stamp my flowers, along with the little flower from the Summer Silhouettes stamp set, then used Bermuda Bay for my card base, my die cut 'thankful' - the Expressions Thinlit Dies are currently available on the clearance rack, if you would like to pick up a set for the bargain price of £13.79, I love mine! - and stamped the 'for you' in Bermuda Bay using the Fabulous Phrases stamp set.

This is one of those cards that I finished and just love - the colours, layout, the diecut word, it's so me! Do you ever make a card and like it so much that you think you'll struggle to give it away? I think the recipient of this one will have to be someone special, so if it lands in your mailbox then you should consider yourself very lucky!!

Right - I'm off to peruse the retiring lists and write out my pre-order for goodies from the new catalogue too (and maybe do a little housework!). Back tomorrow with another card; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Simple Stems	Summer Silhouettes Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Fabulous Phrases - Clear-Mount Stamp	Expressions Thinlits Dies	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay
Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Pad	Tangerine Tango Classic Stampin' Pad	Wild Wasabi Classic Stampin' Pad	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Magnetic Platform	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine

Today I have another of the swaps I received at our training event in Telford a little while ago to share with you. This card was made by Jenny Moors and we laughed as we swapped as I had used the same stamp set but taken a completely different creative approach (you can see my Telford swap card here). Here is Jenny's card:

I love the bright colours of this card and there is tons of detail here, right down to the paper pierced edge. It's also a great example of a very well made slider card - here's the inside of the card extended so that you can see what I mean:

If you would like to re-create this card, Jenny has provided a step-by-step tutorial on her blog here. Back with the last of my favourite three swaps I received at Telford next time; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Summer Silhouettes, Petite Pairs

Cardstock: Tangerine Tango, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Tangerine Tango, Rich Razzleberry, Wild Wasabi

Tools: Paper Piercing Essentials Pack

Finishing Touches: Whisper White Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, Basics Rhinestones

As promised, today I have the second two designs for my post-friendly Help For Heroes cards that will shortly be winging their way to Afghanistan to our serving troops, for them to send their precious letters home. I decided to use my Summer Silhouettes stamp set to create cards 3 and 4 - I love this set and am getting better at 'random stamping' with it, I think! I decided to use a slightly more muted colour scheme for these cards, just to provide some variety and came up with two slightly different designs for each.

For the first card, I chose a brown/blue colour scheme:

For the final card, I was back with the pinks, but subtle compared to yesterday's bright pink card and I changed the orientation of the card to landscape as it suited this alternative design: 

This stamp set is great for creating a full card front without the need for a sentiment; in this case I deliberately left the cards without one, so that they can be used for pretty much any occasion - or even just to send a note on a nice card. These cards could easily be jazzed up with a few rhinestones or pearls and some ribbon, but I think they are equally fine without. So, to the service men and women who will be receiving these cards - stay safe and know that we are thinking of you and appreciate the sacrifices you make; I'm so glad I was able to help in this small way to show how much your efforts are appreciated.

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

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Summer Silhouettes

Cardstock: Pool Party, Whisper White, Raspberry Ripple

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Raspberry Ripple, Pink Pirouette, Gumball Green

As promised, today I'm going to share the swaps I made to take to Telford for the Stampin' Up! regional training day on Saturday; lots of excited crafty ladies (and a few gents!) spent the day crafting, swapping and getting up to speed with all the latest news from Stampin' Up!. As is customary at these events, we all created 'swaps' to share and showcase each other's work. I often find swaps a tricky concept - the desire to create something special, but at the same time simple enough that to create a large volume of them won't take hours or break the bank.

In my wisdom, I decided I would break the seal on a stamp set I bought at the start of the year, but haven't yet used: Summer Silhouettes. I loved the look of this stamp set and have seen many beautiful examples of cards 'random stamped' with the flowers in this set. This was however, my first challenge; as my dear husband so often says to me, "(you) don't do random" - and it would seem this follows me into my stamping. I lost count of the amount of card I cut, stamped and binned before getting to a design I was finally happy with! So I ended up with this as my 'first final design' (I know, bear with me!):

I loved the stamping and fussy cut edge, along with the sentiment and pierced border to ground it. However I didn't like the position of the butterfly, but couldn't move it without removing the ribbon, so here is my final (yes, really!) design:

It took hours to finish them and I still could have made twice as many - there were so many people with great swaps! I will photograph some of my favourites and share those with you later in the week. If you would like to be one of the first to know what's going on in the world of Stampin' Up!, get free products (yes, all still to come!), great training and business advice and a permanent product discount to feed your own crafting habit, then this is a great time to join my team - until May 30th, you can get £155 of products for £99; add in a business supplies pack and you get a whopping £200 of kit for £99 - bargain! Check out the Special Offers box on the right hand side of my page or Contact me to talk about how you can sign up and start benefiting straight away; if you sign up in May, you will be one of the first to preview and order from the new annual catalogue due out on July 1st and you will have the opportunity to attend Stampin' Up's! European Convention in November, which is being held in Manchester in the UK this year.

Pop back tomorrow for another project; I have so much to share this week, including some great cards that we are making at this week's card class. Until then, happy stampin!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Summer Silhouettes, Wacky Wishes

Cardstock: Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Pool Party

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Wild Wasabi

Tools: Beautiful Wings Embosslits, Essentials Paper Piercing Pack, Piercing Tool

Finishing Touches: Daffodil Delight Seam Binding Ribbon