There are 10 days left until the end of Sale-A-Bration. Lots of you have taken advantage of the extra hostess benefits on offer to host a party or received one or more of the great free gifts on offer with every £45 spend. Today I thought I would take the opportunity to remind you of the benefits of joining Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator during Sale-A-Bration:

• The starter kit will be £99 and includes products of your choice up to the value of £150 - this is a whopping £51 of extra product!
• You will also receive a business supplies pack including annual and seasonal catalogues, order forms, etc.
• You will receive a 20% discount on every order you place
• You will also receive a 30% discount on the first order you place over £150 within the first 30 days of sign up
• You will receive 2 free months of Demonstrator Web Services
• If you reach £225 sales within the first quarter (ending 30th June 2014), you will maintain your demonstrator status until 30th September. If you don't, your demonstrator status will lapse, but without penalty; you have no obligation to purchase anything other than your starter kit if you don't want to.
• If you join my growing team, you will get to benefit from my knowledge, help and support in addition to that of one of the UK's most successful teams of demonstrators and the considerable resources provided by Stampin' Up itself. You will receive your own team welcome pack from me, along with your own complimentary copy of my demonstrator software Product Table Builder worth £35 

Here's part of the welcome pack I sent to one of the lovely ladies who joined my team recently, designed to co-ordinate with a card I made for the Mojo Monday challenge recently (you can read more about how I made the card here):

In addition she also received a handbook and other items that will be useful as she grows her Stampin' Up! business. Whether you want to feed your own crafting habit by having access to discounted craft supplies, or would like to earn a little (or a lot!) extra income and run your own business, I am here to support you in any way I can.

You have just 10 days to take advantage of the enhanced Sale-A-Bration sign up offer: contact me on 07773 421446 or joanne@thecraftyowl.co.uk if you would like to know more or alternatively sign up here today!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies used:

Simply Celebrate	Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Magnetic Platform	Perfect Pennants	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry	Card Stock A4 Strawberry Slush
Strawberry Slush Classic Stampin' Pad	Basic Black A4 Card Stock	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Chevron Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Squares Collection Framelits Dies
Versamark Pad	Black Stampin' Emboss Powder	Heat Tool - Uk Plug

Good evening blog readers! Today I have a simple Spring flower card to share with you; simple in execution, yet I have been pondering its execution for almost a week. Why? Well, the challenge over at Less is More this week is to use masking or stencilling on your card. As I don't own much in the way of stencils and generally make my own templates if I want to mask or stencil something, I've been deliberating what to do. Then I saw the photo inspiration over at Fusion this week -

and I had a sudden flash of inspiration. Here is my card:

I kept with the yellows and greens of the inspiration photo and used Daffodil Delight and Wild Wasabi as I wanted my card to have a light, bright spring feel. I was tempted to stencil a repeating pattern, but decided instead to go with a single graphic flower instead for greater impact. I created the flowerhead by making my own stencil from a piece of card with a punched out circle and once in place on my white card, I positioned a flower cut with my Blossom Party Originals Die in the centre with some low-tack adhesive and sponged yellow ink onto the space in between - here's a photo of my makeshift mask/stencil which might make more sense:

For the stem I used a retired stamp from a set called 'Sweetheart'; this was the first ever stamp set I purchased so I feel I can't part with it for sentimental reasons and it was just perfect for this card. I finished with a simple sentiment and a bright pink candy dot layered on a small punched circle.

I'm also linking this card up with the lovely peeps over at The Paper Players this week, where Jaydee's challenge this week is to create something clean and simple with the theme of 'Spring'; I'm pretty sure today's card fits the bill.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Punch Pack	Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad
Blossom Party Stampin' Up! Originals Die	Wild Wasabi Classic Stampin' Pad	Wild Wasabi A4 Card Stock	Brights Candy Dots	Express Yourself

Today I want to share with you another use for one of my new favourite punches - the scalloped tag top punch. This really is such a versatile punch that can be used in so many ways. There are lots of variations on how it can be used to make an unusual card closure - today's card is a fun, concertina style Mother's Day card, where the scalloped tag top punch is used to add detail to the closure. This is what the card looks like 'closed':

Ribbon is threaded through the punch out hole and around the card and tied in a bow to keep it shut, then when you undo the ribbon and open the card out, you see the message inside:

These cards are such fun to make and so easy. All you need is one sheet of 12" x 12" for the basic card. I used a sheet of the Gingham Garden DSP for my card, and layered the inside panels with Whisper White matted on Daffodil Delight. I cut the letters for 'Mothers' with my Typeset Alphabet die, but you could easily use an alphabet stamp set such as Morning Post or Notable Alphabet if you have one instead. I took the word 'Happy' from one of the 'See Ya Later' Sale-A-Bration stamp sets and the letters for 'Day' from my Sketched Alphabet individual stamps before punching out and layering on a mini banner. I then decorated with flowers stamped and punched from the Petite Petals bundle and the Itty Bitty Punches set in colours that co-ordinated with my chosen DSP. The last panel is left blank for you to write your personalised Mother's Day message.

I had intended to shoot a video tutorial on how to make one of these cards to accompany my series of Scalloped Tag Top Punch video tutorials, but time has not been on my side so I haven't managed it yet; I will look to complete one in the next week or so and when I do will update my blog with the link.

The best bits about this card: it's one of those projects where you don't have to deliberate over which side of your DSP to use, as you see both sides (dilemma avoided, for once) and also because of the closure, you don't need an envelope - this is a card and envelope in one! This style of card would work for lots of other occasions too - why not have a go and see what you come up with.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Scalloped Tag Topper Punch	Gingham Garden Designer Series Paper	Melon Mambo A4 Card Stock	Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Petite Petals Clear-Mount Bundle	Punch Pack	Island Indigo A4 Card Stock
Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock	Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents	Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad

Today I want to share with you another use for one of my new favourite punches - the scalloped tag top punch. This really is such a versatile punch that can be used in so many ways. There are lots of variations on how it can be used to make an unusual card closure - today's card is a fun, concertina style Mother's Day card, where the scalloped tag top punch is used to add detail to the closure. I saw a similar card to this on Julie Kettlewell's blog here and liked it so much I decided to create one. This is what the card looks like 'closed':

Ribbon is threaded through the punch out hole and around the card and tied in a bow to keep it shut, then when you undo the ribbon and open the card out, you see the message inside:

These cards are such fun to make and so easy. All you need is one sheet of 12" x 12" for the basic card. I used a sheet of the Gingham Garden DSP for my card, and layered the inside panels with Whisper White matted on Daffodil Delight. I cut the letters for 'Mothers' with my Typeset Alphabet die, but you could easily use an alphabet stamp set such as Morning Post or Notable Alphabet if you have one instead. I took the word 'Happy' from one of the 'See Ya Later' Sale-A-Bration stamp sets and the letters for 'Day' from my Sketched Alphabet individual stamps before punching out and layering on a mini banner. I then decorated with flowers stamped and punched from the Petite Petals bundle and the Itty Bitty Punches set in colours that co-ordinated with my chosen DSP. The last panel is left blank for you to write your personalised Mother's Day message.

I had intended to shoot a video tutorial on how to make one of these cards to accompany my series of Scalloped Tag Top Punch video tutorials, but time has not been on my side so I haven't managed it yet; I will look to complete one in the next week or so and when I do will update my blog with the link. Updated 8/5/14 - here is my video tutorial on how to make this card:

The best bits about this card: it's one of those projects where you don't have to deliberate over which side of your DSP to use, as you see both sides (dilemma avoided, for once) and also because of the closure, you don't need an envelope - this is a card and envelope in one! This style of card would work for lots of other occasions too - why not have a go and see what you come up with.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Scalloped Tag Topper Punch	Gingham Garden Designer Series Paper	Melon Mambo A4 Card Stock	Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Daffodil Delight A4 Card Stock	Petite Petals Clear-Mount Bundle	Punch Pack	Island Indigo A4 Card Stock
Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock	Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents	Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad

So, who's loving Sale-A-Bration 2014? All my customers are for sure - it's the best time of the Stampin' Up! year, with a free gift each and every time you spend £45 and so much to choose from. You can click on the 'Sale-A-Bration' icon on the right of my home page for a complete overview of all the gifts on offer, however today I'm going to share with you one of my favourites if you are short on time, but still want cards that are high on impact: the Good As Gold card kit. The kit comes complete with everything you need to make 8 cards with co-ordinating gold-lined envelopes, even pre-stamped sentiments; here's what the finished cards will look like straight out of the kit:

Pretty, right? As is often the way though with Stampin' Up! card kits, the packs are very generous and include lots of bits and pieces, but with a few extra envelopes and card bases, you can make your card kit go even further. Here's an example of a slightly altered version of the basic kit card:

I simply cut the card in half and used it as a piece of DSP, picking out one of the feature colours (in this case Tangerine Tango) and using it for a card base. The pre-stamped tags in the kit come in 3 different languages and you could simply stamp your own additional tags, but since I think everyone is familiar with 'thanks' in both French and German, I figured I would just use the additional pennants in the kit. The stars are those punched out from the gold pennants that come in the pack and the gold banner is cut from an offcut of gold foil and you can even cut down the envelope liners and make two from one, to insert into a standard SU! notecard envelope. I also added some leftover baker's twine from a Tag a Box kit.

I made 10 cards out of my kit, but if you really wanted to stretch your kit, you could easily make 16 cards with a few extra bits and pieces. Here's my full collection of completed cards: 

I'm using my cards as thank yous to pop in with my next customer orders; when I went to make my carrier bag labels too, I decided to create my tags using the same colour scheme: 

If you would like to get your hands on a Good As Gold card kit, you have only 13 more days to place a £45 order to get this or one of the other Sale-A-Bration items free. So what are you waiting for? Follow the links below to place an order in my online store or contact me if you live locally - I'm always on hand to help.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Good As Gold Card Kit

Angled Tag Topper Punch

Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay

Tangerine Tango A4 Card Stock

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

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:

Secret Garden Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Secret Garden Framelits Dies	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform	Whisper White A4 Card Stock
Wild Wasabi A4 Card Stock	So Saffron Classic Stampin' Pad	Rose Red Classic Stampin' Pad	Blender Pens	Rose Red A4 Card Stock
Crumb Cake A4 Card Stock	Scallop Edge Border Punch	Delightful Dozen - Clear-Mount Stamp

Good evening lovely readers! No blog post from me yesterday as I had a rare 'night off': James Juniors had a sleepover at Grannies' house and I was treated to a night at the movies (we saw 'Non Stop' with Liam Neeson - great action movie!) To make up for it, I have a whole set of cards to share with you today: my very first set of Undefined hand-carved stamps.

If you're a Facebook follower of The Crafty Owl, you may have seen today's thread that has been about what would you carve with yours followed by some guesses as to what I carved with mine. The Undefined Carving Kit is a great set with everything you need to cut and mount four stamps. This first set I carved was for Rebecca, who given her passion for swimming had a clear idea of what she wanted her stamps to feature - water, in a big way. So after much sketching and carving, this is what we came up with:

All of our stamps had something to do with swimming - the stamps themselves don't look that interesting, so I made a simple card to showcase each of the designs to give you a better idea of what they look like. So here's the first one, an abstract swimmer:

I simply mounted him with some paper pierced circles on a watery blue background. Here's a close up of the carved stamped image:

You can tell it's a hand carved stamp as it's nowhere near as sharp as a traditional SU! stamp, but then it's great fun to be able to create something unique that you carved yourself. Here is the second stamp - this time, a diver: 

 I used my Borders scoring plate and Large Scallop Edgelit to create my waves in the background. The next one was actually the first stamp I carved and it shows - take a tip from me, if you're carving words, which is quite tough, don't start with a curved letter such as 'S' - in hindsight I needed a little more practice before I started this one!

 I love the message of this card though - it was something I read on the internet as an inspirational quotation and I thought it was really apt; sometimes it's as much about the motivation and belief that you can achieve, as it is the winning itself. Our last stamp was a fun one - do you recognise this famous fish cameo? 

This is my take on Dory from the Disney movie 'Finding Nemo', a definite James family favourite and whilst it might look complicated, as the last of my stamps to carve I had had a little practice by this point, so think it turned out quite well.

I hope you like my first foray into the world of 'Undefined' - it really was fun and Rebecca LOVES her stamps, which is the main thing! I will have more to share with you another time as I still have Ben's set and mine to carve. if you would like more 'Undefined' inspiration, check out Stampin' Up!'s Undefined Pinterest page, where you will see lots of amazing creations!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Undefined Stamp Carving Kit	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Pacific Point A4 Card Stock	Real Red A4 Card Stock	Tempting Turquoise A4 Card Stock
Brights Stampin' Write Markers	Basic Black A4 Card Stock	Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker	Simply Scored	Borders Scoring Plate Simply Scored
Abc-123 Outline Alphabet & Numbers	Paper-Piercing Tool	Stampin' Pierce Mat	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Large Scallop Edgelits Die
Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Magnetic Platform	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig

Yay it's Friday - the weekend is almost here! For today's card I thought I'd try something different with the sketch over at Retrosketches this week:

Geometrical patterns have been on-trend for a little while now, with stripes, chevrons and hexagons all very popular, and this trend has continued into 2014 with triangles. Lucky for us that Stampin' Up has a great Geometrical stamp set and co-ordinating triangle punch for perfectly punched triangles every time along with the bold and bright geometrical designs of the Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper in the current seasonal catalogue and it was this that I used for the basis of my card:

I decided to use the triangle as the repeat image for my patterned layer and used a few additional stamped ones to break up the white space on the top layer in co-ordinating colours. When it came to anchoring my sentiment banner, I didn't want to spoil the sharp angles of my card with a button and twine as in the sketch, but what to use instead? Then I remembered - the little triangles in the Essential Wooden Elements set would be perfect! I simply inked these by pressing into the ink pads of my chosen colours and arranged them to echo the pattern of the DSP - perfect!

I hope you like today's card; I have some fun things to share with you this weekend, so do pop back to see what else I've been up to. Until next time, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Geometrical	Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper	Essentials Wooden Elements	Card Stock A4 Strawberry Slush	Strawberry Slush Classic Stampin' Pad
Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad	Neutrals Candy Dots	Whisper White A4 Card Stock

Good morning everyone! When I came to make my card for this week's Paper Players challenge, I decided that Anne Marie's colour challenge this week would be perfect for a baby boy card, so using this week's CAS(E) this Sketch layout, I set to work:

After much experimentation, I decided to keep it clean and simple - this is what I came up with:

I stamped the giraffe from the Zoo Babies set in Crushed Curry, then inked up the little toucan bird with my Stampin' Write markers and lined him up with my Stamp-a-ma-jig to look as if he was sitting on the back of the giraffe. I then added a little 'vintage' taffeta ribbon bow in Marina Mist to the giraffe and rounded one corner of the panel for interest. I stamped my sentiment in Marina Mist on a second panel in the same colour and used Smoky Slate as my base. I love this grey; it's so soft and subtle and for this card worked much better than the blue or yellow, which looked too overpowering. I then simply added a few scored lines towards the bottom of the card and rounded the corner to echo the shape of the Whisper White panel.

I made so many variations of this card, with various embossed elements and fancy tags, but in the end I didn't like any as much as this one - why is it sometimes the simplest designs are the most difficult to create? This card is destined for Ben's teacher at school, who has just finished teaching to begin her maternity leave. We don't know what she's expecting, so at some point I need to make a baby girl card too just in case, although Ben is convinced that she is bound to give birth to a boy - the testosterone levels of a class of 21 boys and one girl will have influenced from beyond the womb, he's convinced!

Do check out the challenge pages above for more design inspiration - there are some great examples from both the design teams and in the galleries. I am also linking my card up with Addicted to CAS where the challenge this week is 'Baby' - I'm hoping to find lots of ideas for my 'baby girl' alternative there!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Zoo Babies	A Dozen Thoughts	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate	Marina Mist A4 Card Stock
Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Envelope Punch Board	Neutrals Stampin' Write Markers	Marina Mist Classic Stampin' Pad
Marina Mist Stampin Write Marker	Simply Scored

I'm hoping for a super-efficient day today: the dinner is already prepared and in the slow cooker, I've managed a few admin tasks and I'm getting my blog post in nice and early before I crack on with more creating and ticking a few more things off my ever-growing 'to do' list - I love days like this! Today I'm sharing two versions of essentially the same card - you'll see why shortly!

I loved the colours over at CAS Colours and Sketches this week and had a specific card in mind that I thought would also work for the challenge over at Less is More, where the challenge is One Layer cards featuring Spring flowers. So here are the CAS colours this week:

These colours reminded my of iris, a spring flower that we are starting to see in bloom now; I decided to use the orchid stamp from the Happy Watercolour set for my card (an iris is a type of orchid, right?!) because I needed to be able to create something abstract without any green and the stamps in this set are perfect for this. So here is my one layer card:

Instead of using one of the watercolour pieces to colour the flowers, I decided the bold colours needed something different so used one of the Gorgeous Grunge 'splodge' stamps instead; I saw something similar at a recent training event by Laura Mackie and decided this stamp would work nicely with the bold colour scheme. The splodges look random, but are perfectly placed: with the aid of my Stamp-a-ma-jig, it was easy to get the correct placement that I wanted.  I then finished off with the 'happy' sentiment from the Happy Watercolour set - I love the font on this stamp. Having made this one layer card, I then decided to 'step it up' a little - here is my second card:

This time I layered on a base of Perfect Plum and finished the sentiment with some co-ordinating Candy Dots, rounding one corner of the white layer with my Envelope Punch Board. Some subtle additions, but they give the card quite a different look I think. I like both of these cards  - which one do you prefer?

The 'Happy Watercolour' stamp set will feature in my classes on 28th and 30th April - if you live in Northampton and would like to join me to make some beautiful cards using this set, please get in touch for more information and to book your place. You can find my full class schedule here.

Right, I'm off to get inky! Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Happy Watercolor	Gorgeous Grunge	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad	Elegant Eggplant Classic Stampin' Pad	Perfect Plum Classic Stampin' Pad
Perfect Plum A4 Card Stock	Regals Candy Dots	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Envelope Punch Board
Jet Black Stazon Pad	Stazon Cleaner