Apologies everyone - this post was scheduled to go live yesterday but didn't publish (operator error, I'm afraid!) so here it is today!

We may be in a tier 5 national lockdown here in the UK, but that does mean at least lots of time for crafting! So what better time to announce that the first of this year's Sale-A-Bration 2021 promotions is here! Yes, this year times are a-changing and instead of just one 3 month long Sale-A-Bration at the start of the year, there will instead be two, slightly shorter promotions. The second one will be in July to coincide with the launch of the new annual catalogue, but the first one is happening now and runs from 5th January until 28th February. You can click on the catalogue on the right hand side of my blog page or below to access the Sale-A-Bration leaflet to download a copy or click on the icon above or on the right to go directly to my online shopto place an order - we are LIVE!

So how does Sale-A-Bration work? For anyone who hasn't come across it before, it's Stampin' Up!'s annual promotion that is loaded with offers whether you shop, join or host. You can earn a free Sale-A-Bration product for every £45 you spend between 5 January and 28 February. There is also the opportunity to earn even bigger rewards with a £90 purchase. It's the perfect time to purchase those products you've had on your wish list and earn more products for free! 

It’s also one of the best times of the year to join Stampin’ Up! There is a fabulous joining option during this year's Sale-A-Bration promotion: as usual, you can become a demonstrator for just £99 and choose £130 of FREE products for your Starter Kit. In addition to an extra £31 worth of product in your starter kit, exclusive to Sale-A-Bration, you will also receive a free stack of our Regals, Subtles, Neutrals, Brights, and 2020—2022 In Color Designer Series Paper along with your Starter Kit! There couldn’t be a better time to join the Stampin’ Up! family. Plus, the whole kit ships for free! There is plenty of choice and flexibility, whether you want to be a hobby demonstrator and just use your discount to enable you to purchase craft supplies more cheaply, or alternatively would like to build a flourishing direct sales business and sell supplies to others - it's entirely up to you. 

Hosting is also even more rewarding during Sale-A-Bration. When you host a party and reach a certain amount in sales (see the Stampin’ Rewards chart in the Sale-A-Bration brochure for more information), you can earn a free stamp set! Even if you reaches the qualifying amount on your own outside of a party, you can earn the same free stamp set too, both in person and when shopping in my online store. What's more, you can even apply your Stampin' Rewards to a Starter Kit and become a demonstrator yourself - I would love to welcome you to my team!

If you would like to host a virtual party, please do get in touch. Equally if you've ever thought about becoming an SU! demonstrator, now is a great time to do so - I would love to have a no-obligation chat with you about joining my team and the benefits.

As if that wasn't enough, today also sees the launch of the new January-June 2021 mini catalogue - full of gorgeous new products:

Just click on the image above or in the sidebar on the right to browse the catalogue online, or contact me on 07773 421446 if you would like a paper copy posted out to you and you don't already have a demonstrator; paper copies have been sent to my regular customers. If you are as excited as me and just can't wait, here's the link to my online store - everything is available to purchase from today!

If you would like more information on any of the above, please don't hesitate to get in touch! 

Thanks so much for popping by - it's always nice to share good news! Back soon with lots of projects showcasing products from the new catalogue. Until then, happy shopping!

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. This is my first proper post as a full-time design team member and am thrilled to be joining these lovely ladies! Jeanne is hosting this month and our first challenge of the new year is a colour challenge: 

 For my card today I decided to break into one of my favourite sets from the new January-June mini catalogue and create a fun card that is also perfect for the current theme word challenge over at Just Us Girls this week - take a look:

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

Snail Mail - I love the collection of cute snails that feature in the Snail Mail Suite and couldn't wait to stamp and colour one with my Blends for my card today - cute, right?! And with a friendly 'hello' speech bubble, the perfect way to send someone a little 'happy mail' and let them know you are thinking of them.

All Hearts  - I created a two-tone base for my card front and used the tiny hearts border die from the Floral Hearts Dies set to create a border edge in my Pool Party layer that reveals the Cherry Cobbler hearts from the main card base, to pick up on the heart that features on the snail's happy mail envelope. I love to find co-ordination details like this across the products in my collection.

It's In The Detail - I used the same die to add a top and bottom border to my insert and another of the stamp sets to decorate the back of my envelope to complete my card:

I left the remainder of my card insert blank as I want to use this card to send a long-overdue note to a friend of mine who now lives in the USA, so need plenty of space to write. Whilst we do share photos and such like via social media, we make an effort to keep in touch with each other the old fashioned pen-and-paper way, so I know she will appreciate the sentiment of this little snail and the preview decoration on the back of the envelope too!

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! color 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:

SNAILED IT BUNDLE (ENGLISH) (£41.25)	FLORAL HEART DIES (£35.00)	TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)	BERMUDA BAY STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	BASIC WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)
CHERRY COBBLER A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	POOL PARTY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	BERMUDA BAY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CHERRY COBBLER STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	CRUMB CAKE STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)

Today it's Sunday and time for the first challenge of the new year over at The Paper Players! We have a new trio of guest designers to welcome - hello to Debbie, Amanda and Nancy, and it's the turn of the fabulous LeAnne to host this week and she the perfect theme challenge for you to work with:

Something new - what a great theme to get our craft on into the new year! I have so many lovely new things that can't wait to share with you - I was truly spoilt for choice! I decided to use the current layout over at The Spot and use new papers, foils dies and stamps on today's card  - take a look:

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

Floral Heart Centrepiece - Today's card features a number of new items from the Love You Always suite, which includes two stamp set and die bundles. On today's card I used the fancy floral heart as my centrepiece, cut from Rococco Rose foil to compliment the foiled specialty paper that I used for my panel piece and decorated it with some additional flowers and foliage cut from other dies in the set. Isn't it just so pretty?!

Love You Always Foils - There are both solid foils and specialty foiled paper in the suite. It's always difficult to show foil to full effect on a photograph, so you'll have to take my word for it how beautiful and shiny it is! Here's another view that hopefully captures some of it for you:

Always In My Heart - The Floral Heart Dies alone are fabulous, but it also had a lovely stamp set too. I decided to go with a white heart for the front of my card, stamped in Merry Merlot (I think this red compliments Rococco Rose beautifully) given that I had used Merry Merlot for my card base and finished with a little extra stamping on the inside of my card:

It is my wedding anniversary in February, so I might save this one and use it for my dear hubby - if that's not too organised of me! So what do you think? Is the 'Love You Always' Suite one you can see yourself falling in love with? Do leave me a comment below - I will be sharing more projects using new products from this suite in the coming weeks.

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:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. No links to the online store today as these products are not available to purchase until 5th January; only another couple of days to wait though!

Enjoy your day; we will be taking our Christmas decorations down today as Jason is back to work tomorrow and this is definitely a two-person job. The Juniors have another week of Christmas vacation but if they had their way, we would have Christmas decorations up until April, so they can't be relied upon to help in a constructive way so it's not a job that can be left until Twelfth Night!! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

ALWAYS IN MY HEART BUNDLE (ENGLISH) (£46.75)	LOVE YOU ALWAYS 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) SPECIALTY DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£14.00)	LOVE YOU ALWAYS FOIL SHEETS (£9.25)	MERRY MERLOT A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	MERRY MERLOT CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)
BASIC WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)	ROCOCO ROSE A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)

Happy new year lovely readers! I hope you have all enjoyed a restful Christmas and peaceful new year with your nearest and dearest. I have enjoyed a craft-free break over the festive period, instead spending some quality time with my family and indulging in some of my other passions, such as Lego building, board games and book reading. I am slowly getting back to crafting; I have lots of new goodies to play with so am looking forward to sharing some of those with you.Today I'm sharing a card I made for the current challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches:

I love this sketch by Jennifer T and decided to create a layered sentiment and start cutting in to my new pack of True Love black and white designer series paper for my card - take a look:

I diecut the larger of my 'always' outlines out of the patterned paper and after adding some colour to the blooms on the paper with my Flirty Flamingo Blends, I popped this panel up on dimensionals. I cut the narrower 'always' out of Basic Black that I first adhered to a foam sheet and then inset this into the aperture onto the background layer and added a stamped 'forever &' to complete my sentiment, with a trio of black mat dots to finish. I also added some coloured DSP to the flap of my envelope too for a co-ordinated finishing touch.

You can see the dimension of the sentiment and the colour detail better here:

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. No online store links as these products are not available to purchase until 5th January.

Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with my first challenge post for The Paper Players. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

FOREVER AND ALWAYS BUNDLE (£43.00)	TRUE LOVE 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£10.75)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)	FLIRTY FLAMINGO A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	FLIRTY FLAMNGO STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)
TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)	BASIC BLACK A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)

Good evening everyone! I have had a busy few days with last-minute Christmas preparations so blogging has had to wait awhile, but I've managed to squeeze in some time this evening to share a card I made a few weeks ago following my 'Dove of Hope' online class that features a fun technique. The sentiment and non-traditional colour scheme also make it perfect for the current Christmas Kickstart Challenge and the challenge over at Colour Dare too:

I used the Detailed Dove Dies to create my fabulous dove and teamed it with a sentiment from the Peace and Joy bundle, along with an inked background I created using the salt technique - take a look:

Have you ever created a background using the salt technique? It's really easy: all you need to do is take a piece of watercolour paper and give it a wash in your chosen colour(s), then whilst still wet, sprinkle with salt crystals in varying sizes, some coarse and some fine, then ideally leave your background to dry naturally. When it's dry you can brush off any excess salt and you will be left with a background where the salt has created an interesting textural pattern. I added a fine spray of Frosted White Shimmer Paint too for a little added extra sparkle, before adding my layered sentiment and diecut dove.

I adore this dove die and have a few more cards with it that I've yet to share, so I'll try and add a couple more later this week if time permits. 

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. 

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

It's Thursday and time for a new challenge over at TicTacToe! It's the turn of Team X to host this week and I am our featured designer this week. This is the fun board that we are playing along with: 

I went across the middle row with house-snow-tree and created a trio of festive notecards for you today - take a look:

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

I made a set of notelets similar to these in a case as one of the projects at my Creative Escapes Craft Retreat back in October, and I still had some papers left so I thought I would make a few more. I used a combination of Trimming The Town designer paper, white cardstock, Stitched Shapes Dies and Home Together Dies to create my cards, each one with a snowy tree background, a white snowscape piece and trees and houses in various combinations diecut from the paper to create my little scenes, with each one finished with a sentiment cut from the paper too. Here's each of the cards individually:

A red and green chalet style house:

And lastly a palatial home on a landscape card, complete with porch entrance:

This last card shows lots of detail and layering - check it out:

I just love these cards - and not a stamp in sight! No supplies link today, as these items are no longer available, but I still wanted to share as I had paper to use up and for those of you in a similar position, I hope they give you some creative inspiration! I'm also linking up with the current challenge #GDP271 over at Global Design Project, where their theme is Winter/Holiday.

A tictactoe board offers so many creative possibilities - how does this week's board inspire you? Why not have a go? We would love to see you in the gallery and who knows - you might be selected for Designer's Choice and be eligible to be a guest designer on a future challenge. 

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

Today I'm sharing a card for the new challenge over at CASology where I have been invited by the lovely Melissa to be the guest designer, following my 'stag' card being chosen as a winner for challenge 378 - if you missed it, you can see that card here. 

Today's cue card is a festive one and perfect for some last-minute card making for the Christmas season:

 I decided to create a cute snowman using negative space for my card today - take a look:

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

Do You Wanna Build A Snowman - Apologies if you now have THAT song stuck in your head, but that was exactly what I decided to do today, on my card at least! Whilst I used my Snowman Builder Punch for the hat and arms, it wouldn't work for the body but this was easily remedied by using some (retired) circle punches (3/4", 1" and 1 1/4"). I added a felt scarf left over from one of last year's accessory kits for a little added texture, a simple sentiment from the 'Snowman Season' stamp set and my falling snow was courtesy of my much-loved retired Softly Falling embossing folder - it's still a favourite of mine:

This was the stamping on the inside of my card:

Design Defined - One of the things I love about the CASology challenge is that they encourage us to consider what makes our card 'clean and simple'. In addition to the basic guidelines, the design team offer some great tips in terms of their cards. Often when I play along I do the same, and if you check out my previous CASology-related blog posts, you will see lots of similar tips in relation to the cards that I created. For today's card, I defined my card design as 'Use negative space to create a focal point' which is a great way to add interest to a CAS design. 

An Unconventional Take - I actually made a second card using the same design, that was as a result of seeing this week's Inspired By inspiration photo:

I loved the holly against the bright pink for an unconventional take on Christmas colour, so decided I would use this idea to create a second version of the above card. My holly is small and I swapped out my scarf colour for more green, but this card is very much about the pink:

So what do you think? I actually still prefer the original one myself, however it was fun to change out the colour for an alternative effect. Here are both cards together for comparison:

Which one do you prefer? Do leave me a comment below - I would love to hear your thoughts.

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. Thank you to the team at CASology for having me as their Guest Designer this week - do check out the team designs and I'm sure they would love you to play along with this challenge too.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

SNOWMAN BUILDER PUNCH (£17.00)

WHISPER WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)

SNOWMAN SEASON PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (£17.00)

BASIC BLACK A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)

MELON MAMBO CARDSTOCK A4 (£8.25)

Today I'm sharing a card using the current sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches that is also perfect for the challenge over at Time Out and the current Festive Friday challenge:

It's not often I make a tag card but Jacquie's FMS sketch this week had one front and centre so I thought I'd have a go and use it to showcase a sentiment for a quick and easy Christmas card - take a look:

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

Christmas Means More - I just love this sentiment and have had a few ideas on how to feature it on a card but not gotten around to it yet, so today was the day to remedy that and get at least one of those ideas onto paper! The bell patterned paper from the 'Tis The Season stack was crying out to be paired up with it, with all those little silver bells, so I went with a full patterned background and created a simple layered tag to bring in a little more red and stamped my front tag with that famous movie quote from 'It's A Wonderful Life', just colouring the bells with some Smoky Slate Blends for a little added colour.

Sounds Of The Season - I used the Sounds Of The Season dies to diecut two tiny silver bells and some holly out of foil to embellish my tag and paired it with some (retired) twine from last year to finish my card:

Festive Friday Checklist - Having made my card, I realised I'd ticked off 5 of the items on the Festive Friday checklist: holly, tags, bells, red and green. That's all there is to it - a great card for some last-minute crafting!

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. 

I've had a fun day today; I managed to get a run in first thing after a week-long hiatus and spent a pleasant couple of hours with some lovely ladies on a Zoom call unboxing my Spring-Summer pre-order; I can tell you there were 'oos and ahs' a plenty! I'm now off to the postbox and then back in time for a Zoom quiz!! Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project and a guest appearance over at CASology, so don't miss it. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

CHRISTMAS MEANS MORE PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (£13.50)

WHISPER WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)

GARDEN GREEN A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)

TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)

SMOKY SLATE STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)

Before I get into the body of my post today, a reminder that today is the start of Stampin' Up!'s Year End Closeout sale of retiring favourites! You can read all about it in yesterday's post here - if you have any questions or would like to add to my local order to save P&P, do get in touch!

Today I'm sharing a card for the new challenge over at CAS Colours and Sketches, but this time not as a participant - as one of their new design team members for 2021! It is the final CC&S challenge of the year and they have reached a milestone 400th challenge - what an achievement! I have been invited, along with the other new design team members, Vicky, Bhavya and Jenny - to create a card for this week's challenge. This week's theme is to create a seasonal card with any of the challenge sketches or colour combinations that have featured in their challenges this year:

I actually didn't go that far back to find the challenge I wanted to work with; I missed participating in Challenge 398 only a couple of weeks ago but I loved this sketch and had so many creative ideas, I had to try one of them out for today's card. Here's the sketch that featured in that challenge:

What to do with those vertical lines? I considered a row of festive stockings, but also wanted to try something with another of my favourite Christmas sets this year, 'Sweetest Time'. Take a look at what I came up with:

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

All Is Calm Candles - If you know this stamp set (and if you don't check out the image in the shop link at the bottom of the post), it has a stamp that is a trio of candles. I decided to get creative with my masking and with the aid of my trusty Stamparatus, I stamped the central three candles, then masked them with a post-it note before stamping an additional candle either side. I did stamp the outer candles in two parts, as I wanted to shorten them too to reflect the chaging size of the lines, but this wasn't too tricky; the Stamparatus made it easy to line up the stripes so you'd really never know.

All is Bright - I decided to omit the last word of my stamped sentiment from the set and replace it with a feature 'Bright' diecut across the front of my candles, cut with my 'Joy' dies for the perfect statement centrepiece. 

Unconventional Colour Combo - I've a couple of confessions as far as this card goes: I originally made it as a single white base layer, however when complete it looked less 'clean and simple' and more 'bland'. To be fair I think this might have a lot to do with my unconventional festive colour combo of Night of Navy, Petal Pink and Cherry Cobbler that feature in Color Dare's TicTacToe challenge 422 (bottom row). I liked these colours together and thought the bold sentiment would work well with the pale candles, but when finished it was, well, bland. So I cut it up and added some outline borders and a pastel card base, along with some clear Wink of Stella to the candle flames and the Navy 'Bright' diecut - and instantly liked it a whole lot better!

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. 

 I think my card is still (relatively) clean and simple, although does now have a few more layers than I suspect my new team members would like. I am looking forward to honing my CAS skills as I work with this lovely group each week - I think that might be my 2021 New Year Crafting Resolution #1 ...

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

SWEETEST TIME PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£16.00)	JOY DIES (£30.00)	CHERRY COBBLER A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	PETAL PINK A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	PETAL PINK CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)
NIGHT OF NAVY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	NIGHT OF NAVY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	WHISPER WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)	WINK OF STELLA CLEAR GLITTER BRUSH (£7.50)	VELLUM A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.25)