Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Ann to host this week and she has a fun clean and simple challenge for us to work with:

The woodland animals on our badge this week are so sweet, but I have new goodies and am trying to rapidly increase my stock of Christmas cards, so I grabbed the sketch over at Try A Sketch on Tuesday and set to work - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Reindeer Days - The starting point for today's card was my festive reindeer, that I fussy cut from a piece of Reindeer Days designer series paper. There are some great reindeer patterns in this pack; some of them fit the co-ordinating Reindeer Fun Dies too. You can see my reindeer more closely in the photo below:

All Around Wreath - Taking my cue from the wreath around my reindeer's neck, I added a layered wreath, diecut using my All Around Wreath Dies and decorated with red rhinestones, in place of the oval on the sketch. My strip on red was inspired by the wreath's bow.

Greetings Of The Season - A simple sentiment from the 'Greetings of the Season' stamp set and some sparkly green enamel dots complete my clean and simple card. 

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; we are spending the day with family to celebrate my Mother-in-law's 80th birthday; birthday cake two weeks running - gotta love September birthdays! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

GREETINGS OF THE SEASON PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (24.00)	REINDEER DAYS 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (11.75)	SHADED SPRUCE A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	GRANNY APPLE GREEN A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	REAL RED A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	REAL RED CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)
BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)

Today I'm sharing my design team card for our new challenge over at As you See It where it's time for a sketch challenge, designed by me:

I had a card designed in my head for this sketch, but as is often the way my time has not been my own this week and I did not have the luxury of a peaceful few hours to pull it together. So - time to pivot and instead I grabbed my new 'A Little Bit Festive' designer series paper pack and a few other new items and rustled up a quick Christmas card - take a look:

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

A Little Bit Festive - Those of you who are regular visitors know what a fan I am of the 'Frames & Flowers' paper pack ion the annual catalogue; well think of 'A Little Bit Festive' as its Christmas equivalent! Full patterned paper sheets, combined with diecuts and fabulous frames, the pack is great for all kinds of festive projects and is definitely one of my favourite things in the new mini catalogue. On today's card I used a strip of striped paper and a cute red truck, complete with Christmas tree in the back - you can see the diecut detail more closely below:

Just One Stamp - With the diecut elements bringing most of the detail to my clean and simple card, I only needed to add a stamped greeting to my card - no other stamping required. I used a sentiment from the new 'Greetings of the Season' stamp set and am linking up with the lovely ladies over at SUO Challenges where this is actually their theme this week. 

Tag or Label - I added my sentiment to a label - or is it a tag? - from the coordinating 'Greetings of the Season' Dies. These dies look like labels but actually have a hole that makes them into a tag; perfect on today's card to tie a twine bow to finish off the red twine that I'd wrapped around my card base. A trio of Garden Green enamel dots complete my clean and simple Christmas card. I can't wait to make a few more using these papers - I think they will help me to build my Christmas card stocks nicely!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Here's a summary of our challenge rules:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your post.
• Make sure you link the specific post and not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI#(insert challenge number) when uploading to a public gallery
• Please turn off word verification so that we can send you lots of feedback.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges. 
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider for Top Pick and Featured Artist, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back over the weekend with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

GREETINGS OF THE SEASON BUNDLE (ENGLISH) (48.50)

A LITTLE BIT FESTIVE 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) MIX & MATCH SPECIALTY DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.50)

REAL RED A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)

GARDEN GREEN CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)

BASIC WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (13.00)

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Elizabeth to host this week and she has a colour challenge for us to work with:

Elizabeth's trio of primary colours are perfect for a back-to-school or teacher appreciation card, but since I didn't need either of these I decided I would challenge myself to use these colours in another way. I had some great options with retired sets, but I wanted to use something current. So armed with the Tuesday Morning Sketches layout, this is what I came up with - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Bee Builder - I settled on a bee as the focal point for my card, since it ticked the box for one of my three colours. I heat embossed my bee's face and stripes in black for a little extra shine before punching him out and added a pair of heat-embossed vellum wings. I also added a couple of punched red hearts - so cute!

Bee My Valentine - Don't be fooled by the name, as the 'Bee My Valentine' stamp set stretches well beyond the 14th February and is perfect to let a loved one know how special they are. In addition to my bee and sentiment, I decided to use two of the other stamps in the set to add some decoration to my layers: some tone-on-tone honeycomb to the yellow layer, and some bold flowers to the red panel. This is a great way to stretch your stamps and add interest as an alternative to embossing or designer paper; it's always worth considering if stamps in a set can be used in this way.

Spotlight on Beauty Threads - I added my bee to a circle diecut using one of the circle dies in the Spotlight on Beauty Dies set. These circular dies have such pretty decorative edges; the one I used on today's card also lends itself to threading with some linen thread or baker's twine, so I threaded mine with some (retired) black and white twine and finished with a double bow detail:

Voila - my card is complete! The primary colour palette makes for a bold and bright card - I quite like the finished result. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else does with them this week.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; I don't have much planned, just family lunch and maybe a spot of gardening and of course looking forward to polishing off the remainder of my birthday cake. I'll be back soon though with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

BEE MY VALENTINE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (20.00)	BEE BUILDER PUNCH (23.00)	SPOTLIGHT ON NATURE DIES (33.00)	BLUEBERRY BUSHEL A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	REAL RED A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	REAL RED CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)
DAFFODIL DELIGHT A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	DAFFODIL DELIGHT CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	VERSAMARK PAD (9.00)	BASICS WOW! EMBOSSING POWDER (20.00)

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. Nancy is hosting this month and our first challenge is a colour challenge: 

Nancy's colours are all from the Neutrals family and whilst I like each of them, I'll confess I struggled to know how to use them effectively together. So I decided the best thing to do was keep it simple - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I still had the Friends For Life bundle out on my desk having made Sunday's card, so decided to choose 3 elements - a sentiment and two diecuts - and created a simple layout making a feature of the structured leaf stem and added a trio of Blackberry Bliss enamel dots to complete my card:

Turns out I actually rather like the finished result - sometimes less really is more, right?

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

As a reminder, for our colour challenges, you must use all of the stated challenge colours. You may also use neutral colours; however, the challenge colours should be the most noticeable ones featured on your card. We use Stampin' Up! colour names for reference, but you are welcome to use any other companies' products as long as you match the challenge colours as closely as possible.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with news of the new mini catalogue. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

FRIENDS FOR LIFE BUNDLE (ENGLISH) (50.25)

TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (7.50)

BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)

MOSSY MEADOW A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)

MISTY MOONLIGHT A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)

TRANSPARENT ADHESIVE-BACKED DOTS (7.50)

I took the week off from my last challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches as I was on vacation. So I decided to use the sketch and create a clean and simple card with t using the current colour challenge over at Color Dare, to use white, brown and one other colour. Deborah's sketch shows a trio of images in a column:

For my card I went super clean and simple: one layer, one stamp set and just two ink colours - I chose one of my favourite pinks, Melon Mambo, as my choice colour. This is what I came up with:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I stamped a trio of Latte Love coffee cups in Melon Mambo and added my sentiment and coffee swirls in Pecan Pie, changing out the coffee art on the central cup and nestling the sentiment in between:

 Done - #simplestamping, that's all there is to it! A quick and easy card to invite a friend on a long overdue coffee date because everyone loves a good catch up, right? If you want to play along with this sketch, you have one more day to get your entry in.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project for our new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

LATTE LOVE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (19.00)

MELON MAMBO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)

PECAN PIE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)

BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)

Hello everyone - I'm back! It's never good when a vacation and blog migration issues combine, but I'm back, crossing my fingers and hoping that finally everything has been resolved and I have some quick and easy cards to share with you! Today I'm sharing my design team card for our new challenge over at As you See It where it's time for a fun speed challenge chosen by Jane:

I don't have any current fruit in my stash, but thought this challenge would be a perfect opportunity to use up a glut of retired Tutti Frutti designer series paper. I grabbed a couple of retired fruit theme stamp sets too and started out with a bright, zesty card - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Speedy Tips - I decided on a super simple layout that would allow my DSP to do the heavy lifting and decided I would score a couple of lines directly onto the reverse of my card front to create 3 rectangles, then fill two of them with DSP and stamp a vertical sentiment onto the third. If you look closely you can see the scored detail on the image below:

A sentiment from 'Sweet Citrus' completes my simple yet fruity card.

Quick In Half The Time - Well, almost - my card took me just 5 minutes and 32 seconds to complete:

A Fruity Collection - since my challenge card really was so quick to make, I decided to use up a bunch of other papers in the pack and with a variety of other sentiments, created a whole bunch of cards with a fruity theme:

They really were so easy! Each patterned panel across the bottom is the reverse of the fruity panel, so with a few quick scorelines and slices of my trimmer, I'd manage to create a bunch of fun cards. Here they are in more detail:

And I used up a bunch of paper too - bonus!

Here's a summary of our challenge rules:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• For a Recipe Challenge use all elements of the recipe - the possibilities within those parameters are endless.
• For a Colour Challenge use all of the given colours and only those colours with these exceptions:
• White and Very Vanilla are free colours.
• In addition, you may use of ONE of these neutrals: Basic Black, Basic Gray, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige.
• For a Speed Stamping Challenge you must tell us the time it took to make your project and it must be finished in under 10 min.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your post.
• Make sure you link the specific post and not the whole blog to the Linky. Use AYSI#(insert challenge number) when uploading to a public gallery
• Please turn off word verification so that we can send you lots of feedback.
• You can combine our challenge with up to 3 other compatible challenges. 
• We do reserve the right to delete, or not consider for Top Pick and Featured Artist, entries that do not comply with these guidelines.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back soon with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Claire to host this week and she has a fun clean and simple challenge for us to work with:

Before we go any further - If you are a regular reader, you will know that I’ve been having my fair share of blog and website problems this week. They still aren’t fixed completely, hence today’s late (re typed!) short post although I am at least back online for the time being. It could be a couple of weeks before things are properly back to normal, so please bear with me for the next little while.

Onto today’s card! I took Claire’s fruit theme and thought it was perfect to feature this little cutie in her apple dress-up from the retired Just Kiddin’ designer series papers. I used the current Try a Sketch on Tuesday sketch for my layout - take a look at what I came up with:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I fussy cut my focal image and added her to a die cut rectangle, with a trio of die cut stripes from the Friends For Life Dies in coordinating colours behind. I think this would make a fun card for a young child or equally suit a thank you card for a teacher - after all, an apple for the teacher is the perfect image, right?!

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; all being well I'll be back on Tuesday with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Jan to host this week and she has a fresh colour challenge for us to work with:

I thought these colours would be perfect for some clean and fresh florals, so I grabbed this week's layout over at Freshly Made Sketches and a stamp set I haven't used in a while, and set to work - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I used my Cheerful Daisies Dies to create a trio of diecut layered daisies, and mounted each onto a stitched square of Lemon Lolly. I added Flirty Flamingo to the top petal layer with a sponge dauber, to soften the intensity of the colour. I added some additional detail to my centre flower, with a trio of pale lemon pearls in the centre and a simple white twine bow and added a heat-embossed sentiment beneath it:

I almost left the card base plain, but as a nod to our hostess this week, my lovely friend Jan, who does love an embossed card front, I instead embossed it using my Eyelet 3D embossing folder. I must say I really do love the result.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; we are celebrating the youngest of the James Juniors reaching the ripe old age of 17 today - finally able to begin driving lessons in earnest, hurrah! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

CHEERFUL DAISIES PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (24.00)	CHEERFUL DAISIES DIES (32.00)	STYLISH SHAPES DIES (28.00)	EYELET 3D EMBOSSING FOLDER (9.50)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)	BAKER'S TWINE ESSENTIALS PACK (10.25)
LEMON LOLLY A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	LEMON LOLLY STAMPIN’ BLENDS COMBO PACK (10.25)	SOFT SEA FOAM A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	FLIRTY FLAMINGO A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	FLIRTY FLAMINGO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	BASICS WOW! EMBOSSING POWDER (20.00)
VERSAMARK PAD (9.00)

It's August and there are some important promotions to bring to your attention! Firstly, we all love gorgeous Designer Series Paper, me especially, and during the month of August you can enjoy a 15% discount on select papers from the current annual catalogue. Now is a great time to stock up and save on some of our most popular paper designs! The papers included in the promotion are detailed below:

A reminder too that August is the month to redeem the Bonus Days coupons you earned in July:

The designer series paper sale is perfectly timed for redeeming those Bonus Days coupons earned; remember the must be redeemed before August 31st, so the sooner the better.

Also this month - we have two new great kit collections that have been released. The first of these is the Haunted Home Kit:

Get your Halloween crafting on with the Haunted Home Kit! This kit costs £17 and comes with all the paper pieces you need to assemble your very own haunted paper house. You’ll start with cardboard walls, pre-cut vellum, and other paper pieces for accessorising. Assemble the house following the instructions then add your own ghostly touch to it. It’s the perfect paper crafting activity for any gathering with fellow crafters, friends, and family during the spooky season!

The second kit is the Christmas Wishes Christmas card kit:

Keep your Christmas card crafting easy AND elegant with the Christmas Wishes Kit! This kit comes with 8 bright red card bases detailed with gold foil and coordinating gold, shimmer envelopes. Create your own Christmas cards using the pre-cut paper pieces, the stamp set, and Stampin’ Spot. Use the included address labels to send your cards to your recipients! This kit costs £22.

All of the above items can be found in my online store by clicking the links below. Happy shopping!

BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	COUNTRYSIDE INN 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	COUNTRY LACE 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	COUNTRY WOODS 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	FULL OF LIFE 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	LILY POND LANE 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)
MEDITERRANEAN BLOOMS 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	PERENNIAL LAVENDER 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	TAKE TO THE SKY 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	THOUGHTFUL JOURNEY 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	TO MARKET 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	UNBOUNDED BEAUTY 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)
WILDLY FLOWERING 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	WINTER MEADOW 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (9.99)	HAUNTED HOME KIT (17.00)	CHRISTMAS WISHES KIT (ENGLISH) (22.00)

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. Deborah is hosting this month and our first challenge is a colour challenge: 

For my card today I decided to make a card to send to my Paper Players teamie, the lovely Anne Marie Hile, who is currently recovering from some serious health issues. It's a while since I sent her some happy mail and whilst her regular Facebook updates are keeping us informed of her great progress, I thought these colours would be perfect for a cute hot air balloon to carry my best wishes across the miles to let her know I am thinking of her:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

My card really is super simple! I diecut some clouds out of masking paper, then added a sky using Boho Blue ink and a blending brush to my card base, before removing the masked clouds. I stamped a balloon in Melon Mambo and added a decorative panel from Calypso Coral cardstock, before adding to my card using dimensionals:

I almost left it there, but decided to add a trio of Melon Mambo glossy dots for a little understated sparkle - a nod to the lovely Anne Marie herself! I initially struggled with this colour combo, even though it includes my favourite Melon Mambo, but when it came down to it they suited my card perfectly. I can't wait to see how you use these colours!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

As a reminder, for our colour challenges, you must use all of the stated challenge colours. You may also use neutral colours; however, the challenge colours should be the most noticeable ones featured on your card. We use Stampin' Up! colour names for reference, but you are welcome to use any other companies' products as long as you match the challenge colours as closely as possible.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

HOT AIR BALLOON PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (19.00)	HOT AIR BALLOON DIES (28.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)	BLENDING BRUSHES (14.00)	MELON MAMBO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	CALYPSO CORAL A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)
CALYPSO CORAL CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	BOHO BLUE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	GLOSSY DOTS ASSORTMENT (7.50)