It's Thursday and time for a new challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary and this week we have a colour challenge for you:

I also have a sneak peek for you today as I made my card with a new set from the 2015-16 Annual Catalogue called 'You've Got This' - take a look:

This gorgeous stamp comes in two parts with a very useful hatched pattern background stamp that I stamped in Soft Sky on my Soft Sky panel, a few sentiments and beautiful large flower bloom. I stamped my flower in Versamark on vellum and heat embossed it in silver then I coloured the stem with Smoky Slate and the petals with Blackberry Bliss ink and used a blender pen to achieve the detail. I then fussy cut my flower and adhered it to my card front using glue dots, allowing the edges to lift away from the card. The sentiment was also heat embossed in silver directly to the card front and I finished my card with a piece of Soft Sky seam binding ribbon tied in a bow. 

I just love this flower stamp and know that this is one I will be getting lots of use out of, so you can definitely expect to see more of it. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this colour combination this week - do check out how the other designers have used this colour combination too, as there are some great and varied cards to inspire you. 

I'm also linking today's card up with this week's challenge over at Can You Case It? where their theme is 'May Flowers' - I think my card certainly qualifies as one of those!

I'll be back tomorrow with another sneak peek project, so stay tuned for that. Unitl then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

It's Wednesday and you know what 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 May FZZMG3JY 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:

Basic Metal Buttons	Bright & Beautiful Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Daffodil Delight 1/4" Cotton Ribbon	Early Espresso 1/2" Seam Binding Ribbon
Hamburger Box Bigz Xl Die	Striped Scallop Thinlits Die	Subtles Designer Buttons	Tiny Triangles Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

Lots of great offers again this week - dies, accessories and embellishments - take your pick!

Back shortly with today's creative post; until then, happy shopping! 

I am starting this week with a quick post to share a card that I made with my ladies at one of my recent Stamp-A-Stack classes which was all about punch art and fits perfectly not only for the colours but also the inspiration photo over at The Color Throwdown this week:

I had been wanting to make an 'Up!' style card for a while and had seen lots of versions on Pinterest - here's my take with the card I made with my ladies:

Quite simple, but it needed to be as everyone was making a few each - Stamp-A-Stack is all about creating lots of cards in a - relatively! - short time.

The base is a piece of Soft Sky, onto which I adhered a few Whisper White clouds and stamped a few straight lines using the balloon string from the 'Celebrate Today' stamp set. We then stamped the house from the now retired Sale-A-Bration set in Memento Black onto Crumb Cake and punched it out with the retiring 'What's Up?' arrow punch and popped it on a dimensional at the base of the strings. The cluster of balloons is a carefully layered group of balloons made with the small oval punch and a foot from the Owl Builder punch. The sentiment is taken from the also retired winter seasonal set 'Holiday Home'. These bright primary colours are perfect for this card and so remind me of the scene where the house takes off in the Disney movie 'Up!'; I'm a big Disney fan and this movie holds special memories as it was the movie I watched with my daughter the first time we visited the cinema.

That's not quite all from me today - I have a second post which is my-fill in post from Saturday when I was at the Stampin' Up! UK Regional training event in Telford, so scroll back to read that one if you want to hear about the fun I had! 

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Owl Punch	What's Up Punch	Cupcake Punch	Card Stock A4 Soft Sky	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay	Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Pumpkin Pie A4 Card Stock	Real Red A4 Card Stock	Pacific Point A4 Card Stock
Crumb Cake A4 Card Stock	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad	Celebrate Today Photopolymer Stamp Set

I have a super quick post for you today to share a super-quick card that I've been trying to find the opportunity to blog for a while now that fits in perfectly with the current challenge over at Fab Friday, where the designers want us to use any or all of the retiring 2013-15 in-colours:

I like to make a little thank you card and co-ordinating bag tag for my local customers to hand out with their orders and in March I decided to feature the in-colours to remind them of their forthcoming retirement and to stock up on re-inkers, cardstock and so on before the retiring list launched. Here is my card:

Quite self-explanatory - I used a bunch of the Stampin' Up! notelets and envelopes and used one of the 2015 Sale-A-Bration promotional stamps 'For Being You' across the centre of my card stamped in Momento Black, then went across the letters and highlighted each one with a fun splodge of Gorgeous Grunge in each of the in-colours and starting and finishing with the same one on each card. I then added a piece of co-ordinating thick baker's twine and tied in a bow - job done! A little extra stamping on the envelopes, and then a bag tag to match, this time stamped with the heart stamp from the thank you set 'For Being You' as the background:

A super - quick and easy card and tag to reproduce, just what you need for mass stamping and a perfect reminder to my customers to order their retiring in-colour supplies before it was too late.  It also illustrates another way to combine stamps to great effect; one of my customers in particular loved the 'For Being You' stamp set, yet she isn't into colouring with marker pens at all and so had been asking me for other suggestions as to how she could use her stamp. Along with paper-piecing, watercolouring or embossing, combining stamps is another great way to introduce colour without resorting to colouring in with pens.

That's all from me today; back tomorrow with this week's card for the new challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary. Until then, happy stampin'! 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

All now retired, except for the notelets and envelopes!

I've had a busy couple of days with this month's classes (hence no blog post yesterday - I'm sorry about that!) so today I thought I would share with you one of the cards we made. This month's technique class has focused on using background stamps and our chosen feature stamp set was the lovely 'Something Lacy'. The class also featured heat embossing and this card shows how coloured embossing powder adds a real touch of luxury to a card:

For our Blushing Bride monochromatic wedding card, we stamped the Something Lacy background stamp in Versamark and heat embossed with Blushing Bride embossing powder. This panel was wrapped with some White satin ribbon before adhering the Blushing Bridge cardstock base. A couple of layered labels cut with the Big Shot and Labels framelits were then added, with the sentiment chosen from the now retired 2015 Sale-A-Bration set 'Simply Wonderful', which was also heat embossed. A few pearls and punched flowers, along with a big bow, finish my card. This card has a lovely sheen in real life that really isn't captured in the photograph and the monochromatic colour scheme is so very pretty.

The 'Something Lacy' background stamp is available until the end of the current seasonal catalogue on the 2nd June and isn't carrying over into the annual catalogue, so if it's on your wish list, you only have a couple of weeks left to purchase. The Labels Framelits are retiring and have already sold out, however Blushing Bride embossing powder is still in stock and half price, so there's still time to snap up a bargain!

That's all from me today; back tomorrow with another project and this week's Wednesday Weekly Deals. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Something Lacy Clear Stamp	Embossing Buddy	Versamark Pad	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Heat Tool - Uk Plug
Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Blushing Bride Stampin' Emboss Powder	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack	Basic Pearls Jewel Accents	Card Stock A4 Blushing Bride