Fall Fest Halloween Pumpkin Card

by Joanne James27. October 2014 20:19

Happy Monday everyone! I've had a fun day today: made today's blog card first thing, caught up with a friend who's been away for a while, then spent the afternoon with the lovely ladies that attend my monthly card class - there can't be a better way to start my week! I tell you, those ladies are an absolute hoot and there are some real artists amongst them for sure (yes Chris, the reindeer was inspired!!) Pictures to follow on my Facebook page!

We used the Endless Wishes stamp set in my class today, but today's blog card is back on the theme of Halloween - I need to get the use out of my Halloween sets before they get retired for another year! I took my inspiration from the photo over at Fusion, but didn't double up and use their sketch too (I might have another go at this later in the week) - instead I used the rather interesting layout over at Pals Paper Arts:

  

I knew I wanted to use orange with a touch of black and definitely needed to incorporate the pumpkin in the photo - this is what I came up with:

I used Sahara Sand for my card base, and used a piece of the Motely Monsters DSP that is covered with happy smiling pumpkins as my first angular layer. For my top piece, I used a piece of Tangerine Tango cardstock and cut out a pumpkin shape using my Fall Fest framelits, so that the DSP beneath would show through. I then stamped another smaller pumpkin is Crushed Curry onto Whisper White, stamped a face in Memento Black, cut this out with a framelit, tied it with a piece of linen thread and adhered to the edge of the open aperture. I popped this whole section onto dimensionals to give a little extra lift and depth. To finish, I stamped my sentiment from 'Good Greetings' in Memento Black onto the base of my card.

I hope you like 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.

 

The Newborn King for The Paper Players

by Joanne James26. October 2014 07:00

Sunday means it's time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players where this week Nance has a great sketch for us to play along with:

I love a good sketch challenge so decided to use this one to make a Christmas card using The Newborn King, a set I haven't inked up in a while. Here's my card:

I stamped just the stable image on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock in Night of Navy, and stamped it again on Brushed Gold cardstock and fussy cut out the stable itself and adhered this to my stamped image. I stamped my sentiment in two halves: the first half, the 'glory' in Versamark and heat embossed in gold, and the second part in Night of Navy, masking off the respective elements in turn. I toyed with whether or not I should stamp a sentiment on this section at all, given the sketch, then having decided that the sentiment here was as much a part of my image as the nativity, I then wondered whether I should dispense with the vertical sentiment element as per the sketch. In fact, I decided to use the word 'believe' from the Good Greetings set here, as it seemed to fit with my main focal panel. I edged my vanilla cardstock with a piece of gold washi tape and matted this section onto a piece of Brushed Gold, which overhangs the many section to show a border. Lastly, I stamped the star from the Newborn King stamp set in Versamark and heat embosses in gold, the filled in the outline with my gold marker for added definition and punched it out using my mosaic punch and attached it with a dimensional. I used Night of Navy for my cardbase, which I think is the perfect pairing for the gold and vanilla elements. I liked this card so much, I managed to make two (always good for my growing pile of cards!) - at this rate, I might just be ready for Christmas in time!!

Do check out the amazing cards produced by the rest of the design team for this week's challenge; as always, the standard is incredibly high and there's lots of inspiration to choose from.

Right - I'm off to hockey and then lunch with the extended James family, which will be nice for a change. 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.

 

 

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Cards | Stamping

Regal 'Nutty or Nice?' Nutcracker

by Joanne James25. October 2014 12:15

Happy Saturday everyone! I am back into the challenge swing of things and today I have a card for this week's Merry Monday challenge where the aim is to create a card using non-traditional colours and I also took a little inspiration from the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches:

 

I decided to make a card using the Nutcracker stamp as it really lends itself to cards using non-traditional colours and I've been wanting to make a purple card with him for some time; here's my card: 

I used Blackberry Bliss for my base and Hello Honey for the mat and the striped DSP which is from the Midnight DSP stack. I coloured my nutcracker using a combination of Stampin' Write markers and the skin tone, Smoky Slate and Daffodil Delight Blendabilities (I sued the middle and darkest one only as these are closer to Hello Honey) and added a popped-up moustache cut out using my Big Shot and the moustache framelit. To finish, I stamped my sentiment directly onto the DSP layer. I love the Nutcracker in these colours - I think he looks very regal!

That's me done for today; I have some class prep later for next week's class and then we are meeting up with some friends later for dinner, which should be fun.

Back tomorrow with my Design Team card over at The Paper Players, where Nance has a fabulous sketch for us and there is lots more festive fun to be had!

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

A Pair of Festive Robins!

by Joanne James24. October 2014 20:53

Another busy day today but I managed to shop, clean the house and catch up on some work, so a nicely productive one. Today's card is my entry for this week's challenge over at 'Less Is More' where the theme this week is 'Little Creatures' - I'm squeezing this one in right under the wire this evening, but as this is one of my favourite challenge blogs and I haven't done any challenges this week, it was worth the effort.

I decided to make a Christmas card, although my 'little creatures' didn't come from a festive set - take a look:

I thought the little bird in the 'Hello Love' hostess set would make a cute robin, so I decided to stamp a pair under the little sprig of mistletoe that features in the Project Life Holiday Cheer stamp set and then coloured them with my Cherry Cobbler and skin tone Blendabilities, highlighting with my Colour Lifter, and adding a little red bow to the hair of one to make her into the 'Mrs'. I stamped the mistletoe in Garden Green and wiped away the bow and re-drew it in Real Red, and added a few tiny pearls to look like the mistletoe berries. For my sentiment, I chose 'I love us' from the 'Good Greetings' hostess set; this set is still available until the end of the month if you host a party and have qualifying sales of £200 or more. This sentiment just seemed to suit my robins perfectly!

A simple one layer card (even though one layer isn't part of the challenge criteria this week!) which shows a useful way to adapt the 'Hello Love' set for a Christmas card.

Back tomorrow with another Christmas 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

Halloween Graveyard E-Cutter Card For Colour Me...!

by Joanne James22. October 2014 09:00

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It's Wednesday and time for this week's challenge over at Colour Me...! where we have a playful colour palette for you to work with this week:

For my card, I took my inspiration straight from this week's challenge badge and those lovely spooky mason jars and decided to create a similar effect with the aid of my Silhouette Cameo - take a look:

I couldn't find a suitable file in My Digital Studio to work with, so I downloaded this Halloween Graveyard scene from the Silhouette store and cut it out of Basic Black. For the background, I sponged a panel of Whisper White using each of the challenge colours, having first masked off a circle with a post-it note punched with a 1 3/4" circle punch for my moon. I'm surprised at just how well these three colours blend together to create the spooky scene - it's really quite atmospheric. I left the front of my card sentiment-free and added one to the inside, as I didn't want to interrupt my picture.

So what do you think? This card was surprisingly easy to create with my e-cutter. Feel free to leave a comment on today's card, before hopping over to check out the amazing cards by the rest of the Colour Me...! team:

And our talented guest designer for October - Jen Mitchell
 
We look forward to seeing your subtle creations. 
 
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.

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Cards | E-Cutter

More Christmas Goodness - The Christmas Seasonal Supplement Launches Today!

by Joanne James20. October 2014 22:20

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I'm back from Convention and will have more news on that tomorrow. Today has been all about catching up with my family, but I wanted to write a quick post to let you know that today Stampin' Up! has launched a new supplement to the Autumn-Winter Seasonal catalogue with a handful of new products that are guaranteed to get you in the mood for the festive season: 

If you click on the above image, it will take you to the full supplement. There are two main great products that I would really like to highlight to you:

The Many Merry Stars Simply Created Kit - everything you need to create 26 stars that can be used as home décor or boxes for festive packaging and the largest of which measures a whopping 38 cm in diameter and would make a lovely alternative to a wreath with the addition of some wide ribbon. Check out the picture below showing just some of what's included, as demonstrated by Pam Morgan at the European Convention in Brussels this past weekend:

 

There is a also the 'Hello December' Project Life kit - perfect if you like to keep a 'daily December' record during the festive season.

I will be offering classes using both of the above products - I already have a Many merry Stars class scheduled for 24th November so if you'd like to attend call or email me for more details, more details on additional classes to follow - but meanwhile, do take a look at the supplement as all the items contained within it are only available WHILE STOCKS LAST - if you want to get you hands on them, I suggest you hop on over to the online store or give me a call as soon as possible to add your order to the one I'm placing tomorrow.

Back tomorrow with more creativity and fun; until then, happy stampin'!

 

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

 

 

Bright and Beautiful, Clean and Simple For The Paper Players

by Joanne James19. October 2014 07:00

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As you read this I'll be on my way home from Stampin' Up!'s European Convention and will undoubtedly have some pictures to share later this week, but meanwhile it's time for this week's challenge over at The Paper Players and Sandy has a clean and simple yet glitzy challenge for us this week:

We are using silver or gold on our cards this week - think Encore ink, embossing, sequins, glitter - so many possibilities! I decided to go with silver paired with white, and chose to use the lovely Bright and Beautiful stamp set and co-ordinating star framelits for my clean and simple card:

I used Whisper White as my card base and stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I did the same with the middle-sized star in the set, but cut this out using a framelit and layered it on a second star cut out of Brushed Silver cardstock using dimensionals, having glued the silver star to my card base. I added a sprinkling of Frosted Sequins to finish my clean and simple card. This would be a great card to make a lot of if you wanted to make a dent in your Christmas cards - you could switch the base card colours and even make in gold too to ring the changes and it doesn't take a large volume of supplies.

Hope you like today's card - check out this week's challenge page over at The Paper Players to see what the rest of the Design Team have been up to - there are some amazing cards to see as always. We look forward to seeing what you come up with this week!

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.

 

Colour Block Sweet Baby Card for Colour Me...!

by Joanne James15. October 2014 09:00

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It's Wednesday and time for this week's challenge over at Colour Me...! where we have a subtle colour palette for you to work with this week:

This colour palette presented me with the perfect opportunity for a card using the 'colour blocking' technique that I've had in my head for a while. Take a look at my card and then I'll explain:

Colour blocking is the technique of using large blocks of colour to create a solid background and works really well as a background for silhouette shapes in black or white or where you have one large image that you can reverse-block on top, as I've done here with the babygro onesie. I created my colour block background out of three equal pieces of cardstock in the challenge colours running horizontally across my card. I stamped my sentiment in the darkest colour, Island Indigo, onto the lightest one, Crisp Cantaloupe, and then picked out each of the colours in the embellishments: a Soft Sky button, some Island indigo baker's twine and a trio of Crisp Cantaloupe hearts.

Deceptively easy but rather effective I think and a technique that could work with lots of different colour combinations. So what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment on today's card, before hopping over to check out the amazing cards by the rest of the Colour Me...! team:

And our talented guest designer for October - Jen Mitchell
 
We look forward to seeing your subtle creations. 
 
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.
 

Wondrous Wreath for a Christmas Door

by Joanne James14. October 2014 08:00

DON'T FORGET: 10 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FREE PACK OF PAPER FOR 6 MONTHS SIGN UP DEAL ENDS - CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND JOIN MY STAMPIN' UP! TEAM TODAY!

As promised, I have a Christmas card for you today! When I saw the colour palette over at Create with Connie and Mary this week I knew it was time to dust off my Wondrous Wreath set which hasn't seen much action of late and put it to good use:

 Before we get onto today's card, I want to give a big shout out to the lovely ladies over at the Create With Connie and Mary Design Team - I was fortunate to be one of their top picks for my Mingle All The Way snowflake card last week and as always have pinned the winners badge to my Pinterest page with pride (click here if you would like to check my progress against all the challenges I enter!) They are an amazing bunch who often share amazing cards and projects and I highly recommend you check them out. So, on to my card! I thought these colours would be perfect for a Christmas Wreath on a nice Hardwood front door, so this is what I came up with:

I created my panelled door using a base of Baked Brown Sugar and then layered some pieces in the same colour stamped with the Hardwood stamp in Baked Brown Sugar ink, having stamped the edges to add some definition. For my wreath, I decided to stamp the same colour ink onto the cardstock for both my wreath and flowers to give a deeper and more intense finish and added a die cut ribbon and bow to hang it from the door. I finished my flowers with some tiny pearls to add a little interest and contrast. I decided to mount my wreath flat so that my card can be added to my 'post friendly' pile. However I am in something of a quandary; this is one of the few cards I've made with no sentiment on the front because I wanted to be able to see my door, and whilst I really like it, I keep looking at it and wondering if it needs a red and white sentiment banner across the bottom. What do you think? I'm still undecided - feel free to leave a comment below if you think it needs modifying!

Back tomorrow with my Design Team card for Colour Me...! and the new Wednesday Weekly Deals - 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

Happy Hauntings - Boo! Halloween Card

by Joanne James13. October 2014 10:19

Monday already - where does the time go?! This week promises to be full of fun and excitement, but for today there is lots to be done! I have a Stampin' Up! party to prepare for this evening and I need to put the finishing touches to tomorrow's project class, so a nice early blog post is most definitely the order of the day! As Halloween approaches, lots of the current colour challenges have colour palettes to match - today's card uses this week's colours over at Pals Paper Arts and this week's CAS(E) This Sketch:

 

There are some great examples on the challenge page where these colours have been used in a non-traditional way, but I decided to stick with the spooky theme and create another Halloween card - take a look:

I used a base of Basic Black cardstock, then used a panel of Tangelo Twist that is narrower than the base and popped up on dimensionals. I used my little letter thinlits to cut the word 'BOO' out of the length of the orange cardstock, then I used my Fun Fall framelits to cut two ghosts out of Very Vanilla and adhered these to the edge of the Tangelo Twist piece, aligning the 'O's to look like the ghost's mouth - they really look like they're floating off the edge of the card. I finished with a stamped sentiment and tied some black and white baker's twine around the Tangelo Twist layer and tied in a bow.

Whilst I used the negative space of the die cut letters for my card, the letters themselves didn't go to waste - I stamped some bats from 'Freaky Friends' onto a Very Vanilla envelope then adhered my 'Boo!' on top to add interest. Waste not, want not, as the saying goes!

I hope you like today's fun spooky card; back tomorrow with something altogether more Christmassy! 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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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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