Nature's Poem CTC#191

Welcome back to another week of CASE-ing The Catty. The crew is made up of Stampin' Up! demonstrators from all parts of Australia and New Zealand.You are at the blog of Rachel Palmieri, Independent Stampin' Up!® demonstrator. I run classes at my home studio in South Morang, Victoria, share Stampin' Up!® products and tools at parties for my customers, coach my lovely team and make cards and quilts. You may have come from Elizabeth Gross, but if not you can go back and check out her fabulous project. Otherwise, make sure you keep on hopping all the way round the blog.

Nature's Poem is a beautiful suite, with such a lot of possibilities. I see sympathy cards, celebratory cards, birthday cards for men and women. I cased the Tranquil Tide card in the picture above for this week at CASE-ing The Catty.

It has had a colour change, but almost everything else is very close to the catalogue artist's vision. However, as 'Happy birthday' is not an included sentiment in the stamp set, Rooted in Nature, I pulled one from Lemon Zest. Stampin' Up!® encourages all of us to use the catalogues for inspiration, and you may freely use their designs, whereas if you CASE someone else from their blog or Pinterest, it is courtesy to
a) ask their permission, especially if you will share it online
b) name the artist who inspired you
c)link back to the source.

I think I have overcome my aversion to cutting designer series paper, so my next aim is to use ribbon and embellishments instead of collecting them. I've done okay here, with some tiny pastel pearls and the hemp ribbon!

Continuing on in that vein, I used DSP, pearls and twine to create a 60th birthday card. All the stamps and dies for the pretty leaves are included in the stamp & die bundle at a 10% discount, to make it well-worth getting both at the same time.

This verse is from Perennial Birthday, fitting well with the birthday theme.

You may know that the Large Number dies are retired now, but 'well done you' if they're in your stash. I feel they are an essential and mine will NOT be leaving my studio in the foreseeable future.

Repeating a very similar design for the masculine 60th, with a tree stamped behind the numbers and a long banner holding the sentiment. No room for twine here!

This week's blog hop will be as inspirational as always, so hop on over to join the amazing Rebecca Scurr, 

If you've been inspired to CASE the Catty too (copy and selectively edit), please share your creation at our facebook page.

GR9CWSP3

60th Birthday Cards - Handmade With Love

My husband celebrated a big birthday last week, which gave me excuses to make special cards and do some crafting with the grandkids.We kept the party low-key as we are a large family and rather noisy when we all get together. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures with all the grandkids and their cards, some had also made a card at home.One d-i-l had put together an enormous card with a photo board inside of many significant family times featuring my husband. Our family definitely love the handcrafted cards!

 I really enjoyed making this Double-Z card using Marquee Messages, stamped on different coloured card, then cut and pieced. It isn't particularly difficult to do and makes an easier way of adding some colour. I have a class making this card on Friday 18th November, at my studio in South Morang, Victoria.

 This version of the Double-Z has an extra piece added to the front to accommodate the larger size of the stamp from Marquee Messages. The patterned paper is two different types of black & white spots, just for fun.

When a stamp retires, I don't neccesarily sell it, if the sentiment is significant to me. Going Global was in a mini catalogue in the last year or so, but didn't make the cut into the Annual catalogue. It still sits on my shelves, because of the sweet sentiments included.




Our sons bought a massive state of the art barbecue for my husband, and just because I was feeling creative, and really wanted to use the Sliding Star Framelit to cut the track around for a star from Superstar, I made them a group card too. The boys are mainly tradesmen, an electrician, plumber and carpenter, while my husband has worked in many trades over the years. Guy Greetings has some marvellous sentiments, very suitable for those tradie types.

In This World and Ghoulish Grunge helped to ink up the inside of the card too, with all sorts of architectural stamps. Both sides on the inside of the card were layered, which gave the 5 sons plenty of room to write messages to their dad.

 We used props for some funny photos and the youngsters really got on board with it, as did a couple of the adults. We always do this at Christmas, but we've had an early practice run this year. Below is our little group of grandies, ranging in age from 2½ - 8 years.

We know how blessed we are to have these wonderful people in our lives, and I treasure gatherings like this celebration.

Cheers everyone,
Rachel