Favourite Retiring Annual Item CTC 127

Favourite retiring item from the Annual catalogue? There are so many I don't know where to start!
Welcome back to another blog hop with the crew from CASE-ing The Catty. You may have come from the fabulous Kelly Kent, but do keep on hopping along, to see what else the crew are sharing. I've loved Bear Hugs as a stamp set, and have used it for my grandchildren. Even when they're making cards for their parents, it has been a cute choice. It will be staying on my shelf! I CASE-d this card from page 107 in the Annual catalogue.

Stampin' Up!® catalogue illustration

I've changed the orientation of my card to portrait, but used the woodgrain background and placed the subject on a white background. I have lightly coloured the background with the new Lemon Lime Twist for grass and Soft Sky for a hint of blue sky.

The cute trio of flowers is another stamp in this set and can also be placed in the bears paw. Stampin' Write markers are perfect to colour something small like the groups of flowers and the Berry Burst, Fresh Fig and Powder Pink were all that was needed for the flowers, with Tranquil Tide for the leaves. The bear is threaded through a new die called Lovely Words Thinlet Dies, which matches Lovely Inside & Out stamp set. They are available bundled together at 10% discount in the new catalogue. The small sentiments, also from Bear Hugs, seemed a perfect match for the circular die.

I've shared a stamp set that is retiring, matched with new In Colors and my favourite new die. Bear Hugs is still available in clear mount and wood mount, and the clear mount has been reduced to $28.50 if you'd like to add it to your collection. The Bear Hug Framelits are 50% off at $22.50.

This woodgrain paper is a small stack in the new annual catalogue, and I used watercolor paper for the background.

This week should be a great challenge to join in with us. What is a favourite of yours that is retiring? CASE a sketch or colour scheme from the catalogue and share here.

Next blog along this hop is the marvellous Monique 

Cheers, Rachel

Cards For Significant Birthdays

It's great when people appreciate a handcrafted item, and I love it when someone orders a card for some special event. Over the year there are a number of these special orders which don't make it onto the blog and so I thought I would just write a post to share some.

At work this year, a couple of lovely ladies reached this significant milestone, and since 60 is the new 40, subdued tones weren't going to suit these girls. One has been trimmed with pieces cut with Flourish Thinlets. They look so elegant in black on the Emerald Envy and the other uses a selection of Botanical Blooms on Flirty Flamingo and a similar layout for both cards.

The 50th birthday card uses a retired stamp set and a lovely lacy scroll cut in Wisteria Wonder with the Flourish Thinlet again. Those Large Number Framelits cut dramatic numerals from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper.

Now this 40th, for a fun loving girl who loves diamonds. I did my best to meet the criteria with gems in silver on Crumb Cake card, another lovely set of numbers cut from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper and some Flirty Flamingo to bring it all to life.
Perfect for someone who loves a touch (or more) of bling!!

This last card for Darren might just have been the most fun of all! I was told that Darren likes camping and fishing ( and was being given a gift card from the local fishing and boating store.) With all this information, earthy tones seemed ideal, along with linen thread. After stamping a couple of Vintage Leaves, I placed them behind and through the '40'. These numbers were cut from corrugated cardboard and inked up around the edges.

I had some watercolour paper leftover from another project, so I stamped the little fish onto that and cut them out with the matching die from Bear Hugs.

You can see here that the pocket for the gift card was stapled in place, but the back of the staples were covered when I adhered the second layer onto the front cover. Some more fish to trim the inside of the card and a crisp sentiment from Guy Greetings.

I hope you've enjoyed this summary of some of the cards made for special orders this year. Cards usually cost $6-7 (depending on size, layers etc) plus postage, if you are interested in ordering one.

Cheers, Rachel

Beautiful Bears

You can have so much fun with Bear Hug stamps and framelits. The first card has a turquoise Sunburst layed on top of the soft sky base.  The bear was stamped on one side of the card, before cutting out with the framelit, and stamping again on the back. This is so her arms can be folded to hold onto the four, from Number of Years. Yes, there was a lot of die cutting on this card, but once it was done, it was quite easy to put it all together. These balloons are from Balloon Builders, and they are actually punched out with the Balloon Bouquet Punch.

The bear painting his self-portrait also uses the easel from Painters Palette, a tree from Sheltering Tree and clouds and grass are also from Painters Palette. It is just a fun idea I had, and I haven't added a sentiment or posted it off to anyone yet.

Don't forget, if you're making an order through my online shop, it will ask for the HOSTESS Code before you check out. August 21st - Spetember 20th it is P2KYFUU9

Cheers, Rachel

Birthday Bears and Trucks

Originally, this was the card I was making for CASE-ing The Catty (Artistic Expressions Blog Hop) but as I am away from home and my computer, also the internet most likely, it wasn't possible to link in for this week. I don't actually own Country Livin' but one of my lovely team brought it to a stamp day and I stamped out a few images. 

I've enjoyed colouring these trucks in, and I have to confess that I mainly used the retired Blendabilities on Shimmery White card. I had no issues with any of mine, so I hung onto them. I always enjoyed the smooth way they blended and can't get that effect yet with the other popular alcohol-based marker. I still hope we will hear that the problems of drying out etc have been sorted, and Blendabilities return or another substitute is found. I based my card on this one on page 131 of the Annual catalogue. Instead of coloured DSP, I cut a layer of the kraft corrugated card, also retired and stapled a loop of Burlap Ribbon in the top right corner. 

There has been some clear Wink of Stella added in

strategic places too, and the 'happy birthday' 

sentiment comes from Guy Greetings. This card was for my son's birthday, nearly a month ago and I also helped his two-year-old son make his Daddy a card too, while I cared for him one day. This is the youngest child I've ever stamped with, and I had decided that two splatter stamps from Work Of Art and a small one from Gorgeous Grunge were most suitable for some background colour. Oliver stamped the splatters, and adhered the two bears which had dimensionals attached already. I only had to stamp the words, and the two bears, plus die cut them. Guy Greetings provided all the words, Bear Hugs is the set with these gorgeous bears. I think he did a great job with this card, but he still prefers playdough over stamping for his crafting activity!

Don't forget, if you're making an order through my online shop, it will ask for the HOSTESS Code before you check out. August 21st - Spetember 20th it is P2KYFUU9

Cheers, Rachel

Wildflower Birthday Wishes SAB CTC#68

   This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are sharing another SALE-A-Bration pick, whether it be a stamp set, one of the papers or even Project Life - they're all available for you to pick when you make an order of $90. If you happen to be mad for everything in the Occasions catalogue, you can pick an item for every $90 you order ($180 = 2 items, $270 = 3 items, $360 = 4 etc). If you get as high as that, maybe you should have a chat to me about joining up as a demonstrator, Stampin' Up!® welcomes and supports all types of demonstrators from the hobby demo buying crafting supplies at a discount, through to those making it a full time business. During SALE-A-Bration you get to choose $60 extra, choose $295 of any products from the Annual Catalogue and/or the Occasions Catalogue and pay only $169. Of course, if you prefer to be a customer, you can purchase your supplies through my online shop, or by contacting me, you just need to have a delivery address in Australia. 

One of the great things about being a demonstrator is being able to really plan your spending to take advantage of these promotions. This is the time of year when I stocktake my card, dimensionals, glues - really all the consumables I use for classes. Naturally I spread it over the three months of Sale-A-Bration so it doesn't do too much damage to my budget, and I usually end up with everything from the SAB catty. I love the SAB products, possibly because they have to be earned and there are generally less of them around. On the other hand, have you noticed what fantastic sets of sentiments they have during SAB. You can't ever have enough variations of 'happy birthday' greetings, can you?

The card in the catalogue with the cute chick is so sweet, I could have happily CASE-d it for my project. However, where's the challenge in that? Using that layout as my base, I took the Wildflower Fields DSP, Flowering Fields and Perfect Pairings rubber stamps, and this is what I came up with. I'm just a tiny bit besotted with the wee butterfly too, it's such a sweet little addition. This is a simple little card really, you could use this design for so many different cards.

With that challenge on my mind, I've substituted a baby bear for a cute chick. Bear Hugs comes with dies to cut the many pieces, and Balloon Builder of course has the matching punch, but this exercise was to show what you could do with less supplies. Cherry On Top is the paper stack used at the bottom of the card, it has helped me to pull a variety of colours for the card. I am wishing that I'd put a wee butterfly over baby bear's head (and I think I might just do that before it leaves my hands!)

Would you like to learn how to make cards like this for your family and friends? I have a simple beginners class on Thursday 10th March. Come at 10 am or 7pm, it will only take 1-1½ hours to make two very easy cards. The location is South Morang, Victoria - more details given when you make contact. Email-  rpalmieri5@bigpond.com

If you'd like to play along at CASE-ing The Catty, you can link your project here.

You may have arrived from CASE-ing the Catty

and perhaps now you're going to head off to Helen at H2 Designs

Have fun hopping

Cheers, Rachel

Baby Bear Turns One FMS#222

My littlest nephew is turning one next week. He had his first haircut last week and no longer looks like a baby - he's a toddler!!

I have so many birthday cards to make over the next few weeks, S-I-L celebrated 3rd February, Logan is 6 on the 14th, Stephen is 1 on the 17th, Xavier is 8 on the 21st, Matthew is 40 on 2nd March and Alice is 3 on the 8th March. Balloon Celebration with the matching Balloon Bouquet Punch is my life saver!
I haven't made up my mind yet whether I prefer a punch or a die, but this Balloon Bouquet Punch is fabulous for using up scraps of card, so I have a container of balloons already punched sitting on my table.

Last night, looking for inspiration, I found the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. Aussie Narelle is responsible for this little beauty, and although there are a lot of pieces layered onto this card, I hope it's still 'fresh' enough.
The colours were drawn from the patterned paper, a lovely retired Christmas DSP, All Is Calm. I love these soft, sweet shades. I used the Little Number Thinlets and cut a space in the large balloon so the number lays flat. There was already so.o.o.. much texture happening here, we didn't need any more.

The littlest bear from Bear Hugs has a hold of his birthday balloons and he's grounded by the banners. It's so handy having an easy-to-use banner stamp, and this one is from Number Of Years. I have been using that stamp set most of the time for birthdays, but this little guy needed a petite numeral. The birthday sentiment from Boys Will be Boys fits perfectly inside the banner, always handy when you want to stamp something quickly.

Don't you love the stamped shading on the balloons? Oh, and did you know that if you buy the stamp set and punch together, you get a 15% discount, how good is that!

Cheers, Rachel

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