It's S-A-B Day! Sale-A-Bration is here and the new Seasonal Catalogue!

Today has arrived and the Sale-a-bration is well under way!  This is the biggest day in the Stampin' Up! year.  There is so much to be Sale-a-brating!  To start with is the Sale-a-Bration free products - 13 of them to be exact.  There are ideas, bundles, free stamps, designer papers, embossing folders, punches AND digital products.

So what is S-A-B?  It is the time in the year when you can ....

SHOP and earn FREE PRODUCTS 

You can PARTY and get MORE TO SPEND

If you host a party or place an order with sales of £250 (or more) you get an additional £25 hostess rewards on top of all the other rewards and freebies!

 You can also JOIN MY TEAM

As a Demonstrator you can earn discount on all your Stampin’ Up! purchases, earn extra product, and all with the opportunity to earn some extra income. You will get lots of inspiration to make your own hobby more creative or build a successful business.  All this, and make new friends too!

It's never a better time to SHOP, PARTY or JOIN the Stampin' Up! family. Want to see it for yourself? You can see all the details including the amazing products you can earn for FREE in the Sale-a-Bration leaflet CLICK HERE.

Now there is MORE!  The NEW SEASONAL CATALOGUE also launches today.  A whole new catalogue of seasonal products to choose from.  To view the new seasonal catalogue just CLICK HERE.

I hope you see something you like.  I am busy enjoying my new products and will be back shortly with some projects to show, and hopefully, inspire you!  So be sure to come back tomorrow!

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a your SAB party in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Stampin' Up! Sale-a-Bration is nearly here....................

It is only a few days left to the start of the best time in the Stampin' Up! year, Sale-a-Bration!  It starts on 28th January and during the Sale-a-Bration you get to choose a free item from the Sale-a-bration leaflet with every £45 you spend.  There are 13 items on the leaflet so it is a great time to fill up your order form and earn yourself free products too!  Everybody loves something for free right?

Stampin' Up! do not just have this amazing leaflet for you to enjoy with free products, the new Spring/Summer seasonal catalogue is also coming out.  This springs into action on 28th Jan too!  It is also brimming with new products and tools you will want to get your hands on!  

Today's card is a sneek-peek of one of the products in the Spring catalogue, Petite Petals.  If you are loving the Flower Shop from the annual catalogue, then this is the 'petite' version.   It has a set of flowers just in a smaller version which work perfectly with your bigger blooms too.  Of course there is a matching punch and even better, it is a bundle offer to buy the stamps and punch, a saving of 15%.

I don't know about everyone else, but we have all been suffering with winter sniffles in this house and it seems all the family at various times in the last few weeks have been the same so today's inspiration was some get well wishes for all.

I have used Elegant Eggplant and Perfect Plum for the card and mat colours and then I have just worked with a simplistic design of a white polka dot emboss with a Framelit Label cutout. I attached my top layer with Dimensionals to raise the frame and give the shadow contrast.  The 'feel better soon' is from the hostess set Express Yourself.

Now, me being me, having created a simple card, I could not leave it alone at that and started to play some more.  A theme in the Spring Catalogue, without giving away too much, is water colouring so I decided to add a little bit more colour to my flowers with a Blender pen and some more of the Elegant Eggplant.  I also added some small pearls to the centre of the flowers.

I didn't stop there though, I then tried to add a colour wash over the sentiment just using some graduation with the blender pen again.  I am not sure if this works or just looks messy, what do you think?  I'd love to know your thoughts or suggestions on it.

Suzanne
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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Wishing You Birthday Parcels

A new year, new good intentions, time to have a tidy up and change around in your craft room? I am sure, like me, you probably have had a shuffle round already and promised yourself you are going to keep it tidy at all times this year!  Well it might be tempting to pack away your seasonal stamps to the back of the cupboard or bottom of the pile and think that they are to hibernate for the next 11 months, but wait, there may be some to use all year with a little re-designing and colours!

This is exactly true of the Wishing You stamp set from the Seasonal Catalogue 2013.  If you remember the lovely stack of presents stamp in the set, well here it is in it's new guise as a colourful stack of birthday gifts.

I have used the Brights collection of markers to colour the parcels individually and then have stacked them within a Framelits Label.  I needed a birthday saying to match so with the markers again I have coloured just the saying "Happy Birthday to you!" from the Label Love stamp set.  

Now, what party would be complete without a birthday banner?  I have used the Pennant Parade and matching builder puncher to make mine.  The pennants were a little large for the card so I snipped them to a custom size for a perfect party show.

I had challenged a new team member to use this stamp set for a birthday card project.  It was her first stamp set purchase with her starter kit before Christmas, but could not resist having a try at a card myself.  I cannot wait to see what she designed when we meet next and share our creations.  I am loving the bright colours on my card and the frame round the present stack!  

Have you found any alternative uses for your seasonal stamps?

Items I used were:

Wishing You 

Pennant Parade (128697)

Petite Pennants Builder Punch (122361)

Label Love (130619)

Framelits Label Collection (125598)

Suzanne 

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Alphabetized Sayings

I have been busy working through a list of Birthdays to prepare cards for since my last post.  I don't know about you, but each year when writing out the calendar the list is getting longer of Birthdays, Anniversaries and other Occasions to celebrate!  With that, it is all good to be celebrating more of these occasions than less of them, I am just not sure how I am going to fit in all that crafting in between eating cake and wrapping presents!

After the last post and mention of Valentine's it got me thinking about the month ahead already, and instead of making a birthday card as I should have been, I started on a sweet valentine of my own.

This background stamp is the Alphabetized stamp (130435).  A single stamp with a complete letter set to play with and all encased in a swirly design for an instant card front.  I have seen cards play around with the lettering on this one and the catalogue has a card with the 'Hi' picked out.  I just wanted to play around with the word 'Love', but as the letters are placed all over and not in order, I came up with this one using just the 'i' and the 'u' and a cute Small heart punch (117193) in the middle.

The 'i' and 'o' are punched in a circle and then layered onto a real red Petite Curly Label (129405) each. I have then borrowed the 'Love' from Pennant Parade (128697) to create the extra tag.  The tag was punched using the Artisan Label Punch (130920) and punching a custom label shape with it.  I had a play with my punches to see which would work and fit the word on best.  There are quite a few other punches in the catalogue which can be customised for different additional shapes and labels.

The Alphabetized stamp is more versatile than just as a background too, I originally bought it as I liked the type case on it and with the Stamp-a-ma-jig you can ink individual characters to place them and make your own words up.  I already have another idea in mind with the stamp for another valentine card (not that I will be sending more than one valentine of course!).

Alphabetized Stamp (130425)
Pennant Parade Stamps (128697)
Small Heart Punch (117193)
Petite Curly Label Punch (129405)
Artisan Label Punch (130920)
3/4" Circle punch (119873)
Baker's Twine (124262)
Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon (126875)
Basic Rhinestone (119246)

Colours: Real Red, Basic Grey, Smoky Slate, Cherry Cobbler (heart)

We are getting closer to the Sale-a-Bration and the launch of the Spring-Summer catalogue on 28th January, how exciting!  If you are an existing customer already and would like copies then I will be happy to post these out to you if you get in touch.  If you do not have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator already and would like these I can pop a copy to you too.  Please just drop me an email with your details.

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email . Remember you can now order online at anytime too, just click on the link on my blog homepage.

Mosaic Madness Ripples

Rain, Rain, Go away!  Well at least if it is rainy there is an excuse to be inside crafting!  Today's card is made with the Mosaic Madness stamp set from the Annual Catalogue 2013-2014.  This set with coordinating emboss folder is just super for clean and simple layouts.  

I have combined the Rasperry Ripple of the luxurious stitched satin ribbon with Smoky Slate grey which joined our colour collections this catalogue.  The Smoky Slate is so classy and subtle on this elegant card.

Sometimes we all need a little inspiration from others to help get the creative juices flowing and as I am often limited on time to craft due to family commitments I often take a sneek peek at others creations to get me started when I sit down to craft.  It is only right to credit the originator of this card design Michelle Last, another fantastic demonstrator from Stampin' Up!  If you have time, just click on her name here for a link to her beautiful blog of creations.

If you have been watching my previous posts you will have seen me use the Express Yourself stamps already.  This time it is Happy Birthday for this card, but the card design could be for thanks or other occasions too.  The Raspberry Ripple is lovely for a Valentine project too.

For this card I used:

Mosaic Madness stamps
Mosaic emboss folder
Stitched satin ribbon (raspberry ripple)
Rhinestones
Express Yourself (hostess)

I hope you like the card

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Birthday Cake Celebration with Washi Tape

Well Happy New Year!  My first post since the Christmas ended and we entered 2014.  I have been busy with the tidy up after Christmas and also finding my crafting feet again after putting them up over the Christmas period.  This post brings you all, my blog readers and customers, best wishes for a fantastic New Year ahead!

Todays post is a card I made for my niece using the Birthday Cake stamp (130390).  She has grown up so fast and I cannot believe she is well into her teens now.  Last time we spoke I showed her the Washi Tape from SU as she uses this tape in her artwork project folder so for her birthday card I just had to make her card with the Gingham Garden washi tape (129314).

I simply wrapped a piece of card stock with the strips of washi tape in the three designs to give a background to my stamped image.  I thought the colours though on the tape were a perfect pick-me-up post Christmas and I followed these in the stamped Birthday Cake.  I coloured my birthday cake image using marker pens to pick out the different colours I wanted to use and it allowed me to make my flames on the candles.  I love looking at the single stamps on offer as it is great to have one that you can play with and colour differently - everybody loves a bit of birthday cake so this one was a great addition.

I wanted some natural elements on the card so added a piece of doily and the naturals ribbon. I am not too sure the ribbon works, possibly a little heavy, but I had stuck it down before I changed my mind so I went with it.  

Looking ahead we have February coming, the month of love  so I am sure we are going to be seeing a lot more love hearts being used on cards in the next few weeks, mine included.  I bought my Large Heart punch (119883) some time ago so I am all prepped and ready to go, but don't forget there are other heart punches available; the Small Heart Punch (117193) and if you already have the Owl Builder Punch (118074) or are thinking of buying it, that has a lovely little heart to play with too!  My heart here carries the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment from the Hostess set Express Yourself (130336).  This set is a fantastic choice if you are Hosting a party - 12 all-through-the-year expressions for just £14 of Hostess Pounds (for a set value of £21.95).

The list for my card if you are feeling inspired:

Birthday Cake stamp (130390)

Gingham Garden washi tape (129314)

Express Yourself (Hostess only - 130336)

Large Heart punch (119883)

Tea Lace Paper Doilies (129399)

Natural Trim (129287)

I mentioned Valentine already and Stampin' Up! have some great products for Valentine wishes.  If you click here it will take you to the details of stamps, simply sent cards and treat bags and ideas for sending little packages of love.  The Monster Hugs are to wrap around a chocolate or treat and are so cute for little ones to gift at school or nursery, or for us adults with young hearts too!

There is also a beautiful selection of stamps made for love to add to your collection, just lovely. 

These valentine products are available now until 27th January 2014.

Thanks for dropping by and don't forget to come back as I have more cards and projects to post too! For those of you that are regular to Stampin' Up! you will also know Sale-a-Bration is coming, come back to see some sneek-peeks of the free products you can earn!

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too by going straight to my My Online Store.

Christmas Mistletoe Love

Today's card is a special one.  As it gets close to Christmas it is time to start spending time with those you hold most dear to you and to show them how much they mean to you.  This card is for my husband so I had to reel in the glitter and glam to make a card he would appreciate without it being too girly.  Of course, there is still some glitter on there.......well it is Christmas after all!  I think he is getting used to the glitter and sparkle by now.

I cannot seem to find a place in the house to take a photo with enough light at the moment so I am not sure you can see the best of this card.  It uses a background of Cherry Cobbler and then a mat of that glitter Glimmer Paper.  There is also some added subtle glistening from the top layer of Shimmery White.  This last layer also gives the card a subtle off-white colouring which I like.

I have had this card layout in mind for some time.  After my last couple of projects with the Expressions Thinlits I knew I would be using them again soon for this card.  I have simply used the 'Love' saying from the set and cut it out from the Shimmery White layer.  I have then cut it again in the Cherry Cobbler cardstock and then used both of these, one either side of the cutout in the shimmery white layer for my stack of 'Love'.

I had wanted to add the mistletoe for the symbol of love at Christmas and also for some Christmas kisses.  I have a lovely set of mistletoe lights as a garland on my mantle piece and I had these as my inspiration.  The Little Leaves sizzlit die gave me my bunch of leaves. I cut from some Always Artichoke scraps I had as the nearest colour to the mistletoe green leaves.  I went for the Large pearls for the berries as these stood out the most on the card.    

I have added some Cherry Cobbler Chevron Ribbon in a couple of accents round the bunch of mistletoe and as a tab on the right hand side.  Just enough to keep the card simple.  There is also an Antique Brad to secure the ribbon wrap on the mistletoe.  I trimmed the ribbon in half along the length to use it for my wrap. 

I am just loving my Envelope Punch Board too.  Making custom cards means I can just cut the card to any size I want and then just quickly make a custom envelope afterwards.  No more trying to make the designs work in a standard card size and I can make larger cards for those dearest and then make a beautiful envelope out of designer paper to make it even more special.

I think my Christmas crafting is nearing it's final stages, not least as I need to tidy up the craft room (aka the guest bedroom) for our visitors on the big day!  Just a few more tags to make now as the elves have been busy wrapping here (finally).  I hope you are all feeling organised too and enjoying some time of rest.

Here is the list of what I used again:

Glimmer Paper (124005)

Shimmery White (121717)

Expressions Thinlits (132171)

Little Leaves Sizzlit (114511)

Antique Brads (117273)

Large Pearls (125577)

Chevron Ribbon (130012)

Don't forget too the Envelope Board, only £17.95 to make all your envelopes and much more! (133774)

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Washi Tape Pegs and Tags

The weather outside is certainly frightful, I hope you are all safe and warm inside.............as I write this my hubby is currently outside shoring up our fence which is about to take it's very own Christmas flight. I am here, inside, keeping dry with the kettle on for a nice warm drink when the rescue crew return. So, my second post in a day - Wow! I must be on a crafting roll for Christmas!

As promised here is a picture of some little extra tags and Washi Tape Pegs I have made to decorate and label my parcels.  Earlier I mentioned the Very Merry Tags (130393) stamp set in my post, well here they are again.  The tags are cut again with the Chalk Talk dies .  I cut a bunch in one craft session so I had some ready cut and then have just decorated as I found time.  I made these tags for gifting so I have made them into a little gift package with the Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine (123125) wound ready for cutting to the required length.

There are several designs which match punches that you may or may not already have in your collection so some easy stamp and punching and you have beautiful homemade tags to use!  I loved the cheeky 'Naughty Nice' checkbox tag design which matches the Decorative Label Punch (120907) .  I have also used the little 'Very Merry' and 'I ~heart~ Santa' stamps from the set with the matching 7/8" (2.2cm) scallop circle (129404) and Petite Curly Label (129405) punches.  I did also sneek in that small snowflake again from the Snow Day (131892) set too.

The Pegs are just plain wooden washing pegs which I picked up at a local discount store and all I have done to smarten these up is  use the Season of Style Designer Washi Tape (132155) to cover them. Just perfect for adding to a parcel, gift bag or gift tag.  To sit them on the card background for my gift package I have punched with the Word Window Punch (119857)  to create and opening and then pegged them through.

I hope you like them and have some ideas for making your own tags for that extra personal wrapping.

I'll be back soon with some more Christmas crafting so make sure you keep dropping by.

Before you go, here's that list of items used:

Very Merry Tags (130393)

Decorative Label Punch (120907)

7/8" (2.2cm) scallop circle (129404)

Petite Curly Label (129405)

Snow Day (131892) 

Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine (123125) 

Season of Style Designer Washi Tape (132155) 

Word Window Punch (119857)  

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

'Tis the Season of Style - Merry Christmas Banner

How many times do you see a beautiful decoration or card in a retail outlet and you think "I can make that"?  Well here is my take on a banner my Sister placed an order for after seeing one in a Christmas catalogue and asked me to make her something simliar.

It was supposed to be a simple design based around the Crumb Cake cardstock, but I wanted to use the Season of Style papers (132340) too.  These papers are in the Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive colours, a change from all the Festive Flurry and blue hues I have been using a lot of lately.

It took me a while to work out how I was going to fit 'Merry' and 'Christmas' on the banner, given that it was going to be on a fireplace mantle and could not been too long.  I settled on using the 'Merry' from the thinlits again and adding it on the first pennant.

I cut all my pennants just using a template I made, but I was really pleased I had my new Circles Collection dies (130911) for the circle layers.  It made cutting circles of all sizes so much easier.  To save paper too I was able to cut the patterned paper pennant and then cut the circle I needed for the top layers from the middle of the pennant.

To keep it a little rustic I have threaded the pennants on some of the twine I had from my Simply Created Banners kit.  If you look closely you can see a little of the Natural Trim (129287) from the annual catalogue tied at points along the banner too.

My banner does have some retired products included.  The large eyelets are no longer available and the lettering I have used is the retired Alphabet Soup chipboard letters from last year.

Come back later I will have some more Christmas tags and projects to show you ............

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

It's a Wrap!

At least there is something being wrapped in our house right now and it's in this lovely gift wrapped box.  In it is a Festive Flurry banner I made which I have gifted to my Mum. I wanted to make a box to protect it and, in a recycle and make-do-and-mend moment, I found a perfect size box.  Of course I needed to make sure it was empty of all the lovely chocolates that it contained first, but needs must!! 

You can just see a little of the banner peeking through the windows of the box.  I re-shaped the windows to match the design of the Winter Frost papers, but cutting the paper with the Festive Flurry dies first.  Remember the Stamps and dies come in a bundle deal (133284) saving you money when you buy them together.

I then added a lovely finished Festive Flurry decoration.  You may recognise this from the pages of the Autumn/Winter catalogue.  The centre of the decoration, under the Frosted Finish (132150) embellishment, is a Silver embossed snowflake, embossed onto a window sheet. The box look fabulously expensive when finished and almost another present in itself!

Wrapping the gifts is one of the tasks I just have not started yet despite best intentions.  It has been traditionally a marathon Christmas Eve event, but I have promised myself this year I will have it all done before then so I can sit back and enter the Christmas Day festivities relaxed and ready for some family fun!

When I do finally start the wrapping, I have some extra decorations to add to my beautifully wrapped gifts as toppers.  I am hoping they can be attached so they can be removed carefully to be used as decorations by the recipients and enjoyed throughout the Christmas period.  That is, if they make it through the frenzied unwrapping!

Here too in the picture, are some simple tags which I have made stock of ready for the wrapping to begin!  The tags were cut with the Chalk Talk die set (129983) for the Big shot.  This set has several labels of a really useful size and I love the little cutouts included in the set to make your decorative holes for the baker's twine or ribbon that you choose.  On the back, I have used the 'To: From:' stamp which is in the Very Merry Tags stamp set (130393) to create my instant tags.  The mini snowflakes are from the Snow Day stamp set (131826) which I have used previously for my Snowman projects.

I have also photos of the banner I have made for my sister so pop back tomorrow when I will be able to show that and some more tags ideas too!

Winter Frost Sepciality (132341)
Festive Flurry Bundle(133284)
Frosted Finishes (132150)
Chalk Talk die set (129983)
Snow Day (131826)
Very Merry Tags  (130393

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.