Bright Secret Garden Blooms

by Joanne James3. May 2014 21:56

What a lovely day - the weather here in the UK today has been glorious! We went to a restaurant for family breakfast, I baked and I even managed to get a little gardening done today; all in all a great start to the Bank Holiday weekend. Today's card uses the sketch layout over at Freshly Made Sketches and the colour combination of clashing pinks and oranges over at Colour Q this week:

 I based my card on the dress in the colour inspiration photo - here is my card:

 I used the retired Pretty in Pink for the card base and stamped a border across the bottom in the same colour using the butterfly from the 'This Day Forward' stamp set to add some background pattern. I used a doily semi-circle for shape and used a trio of flowers stamped from the Secret Garden stamp set and cut out with the co-ordinating framelits. I wanted to keep the flowers bold and bright, so I stamped them on the same colour cardstock and then used my aquapainter to wash more ink across the petals. I tucked in some Old Olive leaves behind and finished the flowers with some pearl centres and a Calypso Coral statement bow.

This card is much more feminine and girly than my usual style, but I like the way it turned out.

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

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Cards | Stamping

Blossom Party Originals Melon Mambo Flower

by Joanne James21. April 2014 08:00

Today I'm sharing a card I made with Jen Brum's great sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches - I combined it with the colours over at The Colour Throwdown, where one of my favourite colour combinations - Basic Grey and Melon Mambo - is trio'd with Garden Green:

A great combination - here is my card:

I used Basic Grey for my base and matted this with a piece of Melon Mambo to create a narrow border between my base and my central panel of High Tide DSP. I decided to use a flower as my focal point, but instead of stamping I decided to die cut two flowers with my Blossoms Originals die and layer them together, finishing with a small grey circle and pink candy dot centre. I tucked a Gumball Green leaf behind (cut with the Secret Garden framelits) and stamped my sentiment in Versamark onto Basic Grey and heat embossed with Melon Mambo embossing powder. The green leaf provides a lovely 'pop' of colour behind the flower and lifts the whole card, I think. Gumball Green has to be my favourite of the soon-to-be retiring In-Colours - I will so miss it when it's gone!

As I stepped back to admire my card, I realised that I had adhered my mat panels upside down in relation to Jen's sketch - and by this point, my Tombo was well and truly stuck fast - oops! I am hoping the team at FMS will forgive me this oversight ;-)

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

Bold Simple Stems Birthday Card

by Joanne James12. April 2014 21:39

I've had a lovely day today with members of my team at our quarterly training day; it's always such fun to get together with some of the wider team and meet up with friends I don't see all that often. Today I'm sharing a birthday card that I made for one of my downline who celebrated her birthday this week. I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch and the colours and photo over at Colour Q for the inspiration for my design:

I love the bright and bold colours over at Colour Q this week and the pattern on the sundress had me reaching for my Simple Stems set again to try and capture those bright flowers. Here is my finished card:

I used a piece of spotty Coastal Cabana DSP from the Fresh Prints paper stack as my angled background, then layered three flowers as the anchor for my birthday flag. I stamped the largest flower twice in Tangerine Tango and once in Pumpkin Pie, and having cut one of the flowers using my Secret Garden framlits, fussy-cut the remaining two flowers into sections, then layered them with a Tangerine Tango base, Pumpkin Pie middle layer and Tangerine Tango flower centre. I then popped them up on dimensionals to give a real 3D effect to this flower. I stamped the remaining two flowers in Bermuda Bay, then overlapped all three flowers - this photo shows the layering really well:

I used a piece of retired Tangerine Tango ribbon for my bow - I was tempted to use white, but decided my card needed another pop of orange amongst the lovely turquoise blues, so there you have it.

That's all for today; back tomorrow with another card, until then happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

Video Tutorial: For My Mother Flowerpot Card

by Joanne James10. April 2014 21:48

Good evening everyone! If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will remember the flowerpot card I designed for the Pals Paper Arts Colour Challenge a few weeks ago (click here if you would like to see the card). I was thrilled that this card was chosen as a Pals Paper Arts Top Pick that week (check out my Pinterest Board here if you would like to see which of my other cards are challenge winners!). I made this card with Mother's Day in mind, but it would work equally well for a female birthday card for someone special.

Well, I got so many email requests for a tutorial on how I made this card, I made another card in an alternative colourway and recorded a video tutorial as I made it to show you exactly how it's done. It has taken me a little while to get it online, because although I recorded the video promptly the editing then took a back seat, along with a few other tutorials that are still waiting for the magic touch! Anyway, all done now and better still - the Secret Garden Framelits are available at the bargain discount price of £15.71 this week as part of the Stampin' Up! Wednesday Weekly Deals offers, so if you fancy having a go at making this card now is the time to snap them up! Here is a picture of my second version of my flowerpot card:

My original card was made in Crumb Cake, Rose Red, So Saffron and Wild Wasabi; this alternative version is made in Sahara Sand, Perfect Plum, Blushing Bride and Old Olive. The finished card measures 6" x 6" square and will fit a standard envelope (make sure you don't stick the central leaf shape too high!). The video also shows what the card looks like on the reverse (especially for you, Cindy B ;-) ) in case you're curious.

So without further ado, here is the video tutorial - enjoy!

 

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

 

Get Well Simple Stems

by Joanne James26. March 2014 21:28

Another busy day today and my third night out in a row: today to a school concert, which was very entertaining with lots of singing and instrumentals. Now I'm back and today's card uses the colours over at Dynamic Duos this week, where it's actually 'Triple Threat' week and this week's sketch over at Retrosketches, which has an interesting decorative element:

And here is my card:

My card uses a single flower from the 'Simple Stems' stamp set and I printed the offset flower head on the base layer and the stem on a layer of Soft Sky, having cut out the area around the flower using the co-ordinating Secret Garden framelit. The Soft Sky layer was layered with dimensionals to give depth and allow a simple white baker's twine bow to be wrapped around the base.

As Pale Plum is a retired SU! colour, I substituted with Perfect Plum. I was a little concerned that it wouldn't have enough pink in it to work with the Rich Razzleberry, especially I had decided to experiment with stamping the Rich Razzleberry onto the contrasting Perfect Plum cardstock. I don't generally take two tones of the same colour and use them together in this way, but I quite like the effect - the Razzleberry 'warms' the Plum I think. I thought I would include a picture of my test card to show you how the effect differs depending on the colour ink you use:

The flowers are stamped clockwise from bottom left in Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum then Rich Razzleberry on Perfect Plum cardstock - it's interesting to see how different they each look, don't you think?

Anyway, back to my card! I finished it with a little 'get well' sentiment that I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed in white. This card will be sending get well wishes to one of my lovely customers who is having major surgery at the end of this week; if you're reading this Chris, I hope you're up and about again soon!

That's all from me today - I'm off to catch up on my beauty sleep! Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

Spring Banner Class

by Joanne James23. March 2014 18:16

This morning I held one of my weekend project classes. They generally last longer than my monthly card classes and are a great opportunity to do something different and a little more involved. Following a successful class last December to make festive Christmas banners (you can read more about that and see our wonderful creations here), at the request of a few of the ladies who attended I decided to hold one to make a Spring/Easter banner with the other half of our banner kits. I chose a colour scheme that would compliment that of the Burlaps and Blooms wreaths that several of us made at my last weekend project class - you can see my finished wreath here. So here is my completed banner:

I chose to feature the word 'Spring' on my banner, as I am intending to leave it up to decorate for a while, but some of the ladies in my class made one that featured the word 'Easter'. We stencilled our backgrounds and letters using the now retired Build a Banner stencil kit in Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango and Pool Party with lettering in Smoky Slate.

The banner is decorated with flowers made with the Spiral Flower Originals Die and punched and die-cut butterflies. Here are some close ups of the individual banner pieces - this is the first piece, with a layered butterfly with a lightly embossed layer and some tiny ones punched out with the Itty Bitty Butterfly punch: 

Here's a close-up of one of the letters, along with a couple of the spiral flowers; a single yellow flower and a two-tone blue flower, finished with some Smoky Slate leaves cut out with the Secret Garden framelits:

This one has a So Saffron single flower and a two-tone one in Tangerine Tango and Crisp Cantaloupe, finished with an extra-large pearl, along with a bitty blue butterfly:

My banner simply served as inspiration and as is often the way with this kind of class, everyone makes theirs slightly differently and adds their own unique touch. If you hop on over to my Facebook page, you will be able to see the finished banner that Julie, one of the lovely ladies who attended the class made - different to mine, yet equally gorgeous!

If you live in Northampton and would like to join any of my card or project classes, check out my schedule of forthcoming classes here or contact me for more information.

Back tomorrow with a card to share; until then, happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

Flowerpot Fun

by Joanne James17. March 2014 21:45

I've had a great start to my week today with a pleasant morning smelling fragrances and catching up with some good friends. Today I'm sharing my entry for this week's Paper Pal Arts Colour Challenge:

When I saw these colours, I immediately thought how lovely they would be for a spring flower bouquet. I decided to get out my Secret Garden stamp set and framelits and start creating - here's my card:

Not quite a bouquet, granted - I went for a Crumb Cake flowerpot instead! I then stamped a variety of flowers, colouring some of them with ink and a blender pen and layered them, raising some of them on dimensionals, to fill my flowerpot. A few Wild Wasabi leaves to add some green and a 'For my mother' gift tag complete my card. I think this would make a lovely Mother's Day card and the flowers would certainly last longer than the real thing.

Only two more weeks until Mothering Sunday here in the UK, so if you haven't thought about your cards yet, you'd better get started! I hope you liked today's card - back tomorrow with another project; until then happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

 

Mixed Bunch Meets Gorgeous Grunge

by Joanne James28. February 2014 21:01

Today I have a quick card for you which was inspired by both the sketch over at The Paper Players this week and last week's trio of colours over at Dynamic Duos. Here is Jaydee's sketch over at the Paper Players:

And here is my card:

I toyed with going with a literal interpretation of the sketch using nothing more than various papers for the design, but instead I decided to go down a different route and use a combination of washi tape to create my 'stripes', with a tone-on-tone Mixed Blossom flower as my focal point. I then used one of my Gorgeous Grunge stamps to add some interest to the background. This card was something of an experiment but I love the bright, bold colours and the addition of a green stem is just enough to lift the other key colours. I'm also just in time to link up with 'Less is More' where the challenge this week is to add metal to your card - whilst there is only one candy dot brad on my card, I think it serves an important purpose in bringing the whole design together.

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

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

Scalloped Tag Meets Hardwood

by Joanne James26. February 2014 14:09

Today I've a card quite different to yesterday's - I finally caved and purchased the Hardwood background stamp, having seen so many beautiful samples of it on other people's cards and projects. I almost didn't, as I already own Woodgrain and the Wood embossing folder; but I loved the panelled effect so in my basket it went and I have inked it up for the very first time for this project. I am taking my colour inspiration from CAS Colours and Sketches this week and the tag focal point of my card was inspired by the sketch over at Retrosketches, where tags are the order of the day:

So without further ado, let me share my card with you:

 

With the Hardwood stamp as my neutral whitewashed background, I used a combination of Secret Garden flowers along with a little pink one from Petite Petals to decorate my tag, the tag itself being punched with the Scalloped tag Topper Punch (such a versatile punch!). I then decorated my tag with a doily, an in-colour embellishment in Strawberry Slush, a Daffodil Delight candy dot and some lovely Smoky Slate Chevron Ribbon tied with some yellow seam binding ribbon along with a double-layered sentiment tag. I'm hoping I didn't get too carried away to qualify for CAS Colours and Sketches this week - I ended up with more layering and detail than I originally intended when I started out with this card, but I must say I really like the effect and love the colour combination.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

 

Happy 70th Birthday Ann!

by Joanne James3. September 2013 21:51

Today I'm sharing a birthday card commission that I made for my sister-in-law's very special Mum, who celebrates her 70th birthday today. I decided to use a combination of some of my favourite of this year's in-colours and the lovely Secret Garden framelits. Here's the finished card:

I love the pretty ruffle trim ribbon and added a tiny sliver of silver glimmer paper to add a little sparkle. I must confess to having had a few failed attempts before producing a card that I was really happy with - I needed this card to be 'just right' and am pleased to say I was happy with the finished result. Here's a quick picture of the card I made for Ann to wish her a special 70th birthday: 

Not the best of photographs, I'm afraid - when flat you can see the sentiment through the aperture cut with an oval framelit - but hopefully good enough to give you an idea. This one uses a similar colour scheme and the Flower Shop stamp set - check out the vellum flowers on the front, which I stamped then heat embossed with Iridescent Ice for a lovely sparkle.

One last thing on my original card: did you notice the little butterfly stamped on vellum that highlighted my label? Here's a close-up:

 

This is one of the butterflies in the Papillion Potpourri stamp set, punched out with the Bitty Butterfly punch - these are the items on offer at 15% off when you buy them together before 30th September - you can read more about this offer here.

Both James Juniors are back at school tomorrow; whilst I'll miss them not being at home, I can't deny that I'm looking forward to getting back into my craft room for a bit more creating - lots to do!

Do come back in the next day or so to see what I've been creating; I'm looking forward to sharing some of my Christmas ideas and September is a month of birthdays for me, so I'll have lots on this front too. Until next time, happy, stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Secret Garden, Delightful Dozen, Memorable Moments, Papillion Potpourri

Cardstock: Whisper White, Strawberry Slush, vellum

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers:  Strawberry Slush, Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding

Tools: Secret Garden Framelits, Oval Framelits, Bitty Butterfly Punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Finishing Touches: Strawberry Slush Stretch Ribbon Trim, Silver Glimmer Paper, Basics Pearls

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About Me

Hi I'm Joanne and live in Northampton and when I'm not looking after my husband and two beautiful children, am an avid crafter with a passion for all things Stampin' Up!

I must confess that I have never been a big rubber stamper - until I discovered Stampin' Up! that is. I love the fact that I can get such great results with co-ordinating stamps, inks, papers and punches - the possibilities are endless! Join me on my stamping journey as I share the things I love and be inspired to create amazing things yourself!

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This is my personal blog and is not endorsed by Stampin’ Up! I hope you find it a plentiful source of ideas and personal inspiration but please don't copy my designs for contest submission or use for classes, publication or sale without express permission.