What can I say? Busy, busy, busy! Now that my little ones are on holiday, I'm struggling to find blog time; usually I'm short on time to make up my creations (well, there's never enough time to put all one's creative ideas into practice!) but having got ahead of myself on the making front, I now can't seem  to get in front of my laptop. Hey ho - I am going to try and schedule a few posts starting tomorrow, so that should make things easier.

Now that I am here, I wanted to share with you the other of my 'Best of Flowers' cards featuring the floral bouquet. This time I went for a more colourful look and took the opportunity to use up some of my Tea For Two designer series paper:

I stamped the bouquet in Early Espresso, then picked up the colour of the rose on the DSP with my marker pen to create the central focus of my bouquet. I made this card notecard size, to fit in one of the crumb cake notelet envelopes. Quite different to the last card using this stamp, but altogether very pretty.

More fun in the sun tomorrow, but all being well will have something new to share with you too, so do pop back to see. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Best of Flowers

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla Tea For Two Designer Series Paper (retired)

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Early Espresso, Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Pink Pirouette, Old Olive

Tools: Stamp-a-ma-jig, Designer Frames Embossing Folder, Ovals Framelits

A busy day today with lots more swimming and family fun in the garden, making the most of the sunshine. Time for a little bit of crafting this evening, but today I'm going to share a card I made a little while ago when I was last playing with my Dress Up framelits that features two retiring products - the Elements of Style stamp set and the lovely Tea for Two DSP. This is a case of a card by Julie Kettlewell, who like me also seems to have had something of a love affair with the Dress Up framelits and has made some fabulous cards with this set: you can check out her card here and look at lots of other great examples of how to get the most from this versatile set. So here is my card:

As my regular blog followers will know, I don't really do 'fussy' and this card is about as vintage as I get! I really like the flower stamping over the newsprint though, and I think the Crumb Cake ribbon really finishes off this card. I used a Calypso Coral marker pen to colour the flowers to echo the colour of the flowers on the designer paper and used a blender pen to get some depth to the colour. The tri-fold design is also just a little different and yet the card still folds flat for postage.

That's all for today - tomorrow is the start of a very busy Stampin' Up! week: a new annual catalogue, a new monthly stamp set and lots of other great news and new products to share in the coming weeks, so lots of planning, making and fun to be had!

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

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Elements of Style

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Tea for Two DSP, First Edition Specialty DSP

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Early Espresso, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade

Tools: Dress Up Framelits, Blender Pen

Finishing Touches: Crumb Cake Seam Binding Ribbon

What a lovely day for a Bank Holiday! I'm writing this post sat in the afternoon sunshine in my garden, that I have been lovely trying to whip into shape all day after a winter that has lasted far too long for my liking - a blissful weather day. Today's card is another showcasing the versatility of the Dress Up framelits (well, I haven't blogged one for a few days now, so it must be time for another!). Here it is: 

I love to design my own cards, but sometimes it's nice to recreate something I've seen designed by someone else too. Crafters are generous folks and don't mind you casing so long as you give them due credit; sometimes I just case because I really love the design and it needs no further explanation, however I decided to reproduce today's card because there were some specific things I liked about it that I thought would be good to share with you:

• This makes great use of the Tea for Two designer series paper; I had this out on my desk as I'd been using it for another project, but what better way to remove the indecision associated with which side of the DSP to use - simply cut out the mannequin and flip it over - you get to see both sides of the paper and there's no waste!
• This card is so quick and easy to make - you could turn one of these out in under 5 minutes. Sometimes time is of the essence!
• I love the little trick with the Bitty Banners: instead of printing and punching flat, you print and cut two banners, then cut the ends off one and adhere underneath the ends of the complete one using glue dots. This gives them just enough height to look like a ribbon floating across the mannequin. Another great way to get extra mileage from this set and create a different look.

This card was so quick to make, I made another one with a different banner at the same time - here they are both together: 

Well, that's all for today - I'm off to enjoy my first proper BBQ of the year. I can smell the sausages cooking - typing this for the last 5 minutes has been close to torture! Back tomorrow with another project - until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Calypso Coral, Bashful Blue, Tea for Two DSP

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Tools: Dress Up Framelits, Big Shot, Bitty Banners Framelits

Two posts in one day - aren't you lucky?! If you haven't read this morning's post about the new 'This and That' journal bundle, make sure you scroll back and read it after this one; if you like scrapbooking but fancy something a bit more immediate, or even if you have never got into scrapbooking for this reason, you should check it out. The bundle of products including a blank journal, 12 sheets of designer paper, 4 sheets of over 100 stickers, 3 rolls of washi tape and a rotary stamp can be purchased at the discounted price of £29.24 during the month of May only - that's 15% cheaper than the standard catalogue price that will be charged when 'This and That' is part of the annual catalogue from July. 

So for this post, I thought I'd share another card made with the Dress Up framelits, this time using the framelits on a standard card. They really are so versatile, you can achieve so many different effects. This is a case of a card I saw on Stampin Connection - Im afraid I don't know who designed it - and since I was working with my Tea for Two Designer papers too it totally fitted the bill for a birthday card I needed to make for a friend of mine who celebrated her birthday earlier this week:

I am in love with the spotty paper in this set - I've made another card with one of these dresses too - I think the muted coral and vanilla look really nice against the black, which gives it quite a modern feel. This sentiment is from one of my favourite sets too: One in a Million is a set of stamps that can be used alone in some instances but are designed to be used in pairs - the other half of this sentiment that appears inside this card says "...that makes you one in a million!"

Back tomorrow with another project; until then don't forget to drop me a line at joanne@thecraftyowl.co.uk if you would like to order a 'This and That' bundle, to be delivered directly to your door. Happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: One in a Million

Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Tea for Two DSP

Ink: Basic Black

Tools: Dress Up Framelits, Big Shot

Finishing Touches: Basics Pearls, 3/8" Calypso Coral Ruffled Ribbon