Rose Wonder CTC#129

We are Case-ing our favourite project from the Annual Catalogue, which is really difficult, like picking which of your children is your favourite. You may have just arrived here from Kelly Kent, but if you are starting here, don't forget that blogs are full circle and you can check out what all the design team selected by pressing the next button at the end.

Rose Wonder is a beautiful stamp set with some wonderful sentiments and I CASE-d a card using this on page 133 of the almost retired catalogue, to make my version.

Stampin' Up!® Catalogue Sample

I was searching for something fun for my ladies to make at our next stamp class. It is often hard to decide on something which will challenge them without overwhelming and so I've made a plain sample of white on white, and then my attempt at CASE-ing the other catalogue sample.Again, I glued white to the base, and then I had fun with re-inkers and an Aqua Painter. Also used the speckles from Touches of Texture. I know I will be using Touches of Texture, and probably that particular splatter stamp a lot now that Gorgeous Grunge is retiring. Bonus is, there are some lovely flowers included in the Touches Of Texture stamp set.

I decided not to stress too much when I couldn't cleanly remove all the pieces from the die as it hadn't cut right through, I just went with what I had. Really, the problem was not using the Precision Base Plate which is suggested for more intricate dies.

If you get lost along the way or a link is broken you can get back on track here.

We always love to see what you are crafting too, so what is your favourite project from the Annual Catalogue? You can link to our Facebook site here if you'd like to share.

Now head on over to see what the talented Rebecca Scurr has made.

Happy Crafting, 

Rachel

Dragonfly Dreaming - New From Stampin' Up!® Occasions Catalogue

It is hard to say how much birthday love you receive when your special day falls after Christmas and before New Year. It is sort of the "Black Hole" of birthdays I'd imagine. That's why I made an effort to go all out to make something special for a lovely lady in that situation.
It just so happens that this card has something old(er), something new, something borrowed and something blue. Old are two of the stamp sets I used, Pop of Paradise  and Gorgeous Grunge. New is the Detailed Dragonfly Thinlet dies, and a little older, but not that much, Swirly Scribbles Thinlets.  Something borrowed, well, my initial inspiration probably has been borrowed from somewhere else, since there aren't really many original ideas floating around these days and the something blue is the little bit of blue appearing on the row of watercoloured dragonflies diecut after the paper dried. Just for fun, there is Wink of Stella, clear and gold splattered about, and some rhinestones as well.

Hope you had a lovely birthday, Deb!
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

Big Birthday Blossoms

This card has truly been put together using bits and pieces from my scrap basket. I had a small piece of textured impressions embossed plum card, and a strip of DSP which toned nicely. The pieces were put together very much as you would construct a patchwork quilt, trimming and adjusting as needed.

The sentiment is from Birthday Blossoms, stamped over with a splash of colour from Gorgeous Grunge. It is quite a simple idea, but made quite a quick and easy birthday card. Of course, it would have been easy enough to add a punched or stamped flower but not really necessary.

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

Botanical Gardens CTC#73

This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are checking out the Botanical Gardens section of the catalogue, from page 26-29.  I fell in love with these flowers the moment they were shown to us at OnStage back in November. I particularly like the flowers with petal which separate, and the variety of leaves. I spend a lot of my spare time, die cutting scraps of card and sorting the pieces into colour families. That way, I have flowers and leaves ready to add to any project. I could hardly wait to CASE the card from the main picture in the catalogue, and as I came home from Onstage with Enjoy The Little Things in my bag of goodies, I only had to wait for Stampin' Up!® to ship the Botanical Gardens Bundle out to me.

I just changed up the colours slightly for my CASE, and made a regular-sized card instead of a square. The long, leafy die is lovely with its gentle curve. It can be used to add an edge with a difference to your cards also. With a sponge dauber, I've added colour to the edges and centre of the main flower, the wee flowers have candy dots.

The sample in the catty may have had the sprinkle of dots added from Timeless Textures, on the next page of the catty, but I didn't have it then, so used the similar one from Perpetual Birthday Calendar. You could use Gorgeous Grunge if you own that set.

 I've had people asking me whether it is worthwhile buying the bundle or should they just get the framelit dies and of course that choice is always up to the customer. I have to admit that I use the dies a lot more than the stamps but I've stamped this sample for my April class, and I really like the tropical appearance of these images. You'll find dates for my classes under a tab at the top of my Stampinpals blog - Classes. Students will make 3 cards, including both of these, using Botanical Blooms and Botanical Builder Framelit Dies and it's usually up to date with availability. Email or text me - 0417500681 - I'm in South Morang on the northern outskirts of Melbourne.

The sentiment is made up from two stamps, belonging to Happy Birthday, Everyone, a hostess set in the main catalogue (page 179). This will retire on May 31st, but although it is a Hostess set, you can purchase it (and have change) with Hostess dollars earned with your $250 order, before shipping. Contact me if you're not sure how this works.
 We would love you to join in the challenge to CASE The Catty with us. You can link your entry here

Don't forget to visit everyone by clicking on the links. You can  pop back to Judy May or continue forward to stop by Julia's blog

Both ladies have amazing projects to share with you!

  

Cheers, Rachel

Birthday Botanicals FMS#227

This sketch by Linda Callaghan at Freshly Made Sketches looked like it was easy but the card that seemed so perfect in my head, didn't really come together the way I'd planned. That means there are now some more pieces in my "Cards to be finished" basket, but I did end up with this handy birthday card. Birthday Blossoms was one of my favourites from the Annual Catalogue and it has it's own flower and leaves, but I have used a couple of smaller Botanical Blooms and a fern leaf, to decorate the sentiment. I like to use a sponge dauber to ink the edges of the flower petals, can you see it?

English Garden DSP was going to feature in a much bigger way on this card, but with the design-change, there has ended up being only a narrow strip. This pretty paper is in the Annual catalogue, with lovely florals on one side of the paper and the most amazing masculine colours and patterns on the reverse. I stamped with Gorgeous Grunge and Timeless Textures to get the splatters on the square birthday sentiment.
We have a public holiday on Monday to celebrate the 8 hour working day, so I have an extra day off = more time to get inky!! Maybe I'll try this sketch again....
Wishing you an inky weekend too
Cheers, Rachel

Field Flower Fantasy CQC#325

Since I'm on holiday, I have extra spare time - YAY! Bonus crafting time is always good, yes? It coincided with Colour Q posting their latest colour challenge. I love what the design team have done using these colours. Make sure you click on the link and take a look too.
I have been sorting my open packets of DSP, but found very little in Raspberry Ripple or Primrose Petals. Just one little piece of paper, but I do have each shade in ribbon, so managed to come up with that combination. Of course, So Saffron, Crumb Cake and white are all current colours so no problem finding them!



I was absolutely in the mood to use Flowering Fields again, knowing the blooms would fit into the panels created by a framelit from Chalk Talk Framelits. Cottage Greetings provided the sentiment, what a lovely font the birthday greeting has. Did you know that Birthday Blooms uses the same font as Cottage Greetings? More matchy-matchy! It is so handy to have all your supplies co-ordinating like that, ink & card colours, ribbons, brads and now fonts from one stamp set to another.

Now, there's a lot of talk here in Australia that they've used Australian flowers for these stamps. I'll concede that the central flower on my card does look distinctly like the Acacia (or Australian Wattle), while the flower on the right looks like a protea, which would be a South African native. Those flowers on the left remind me of wildflowers I saw growing on the Rockies in Alberta, Canada one summer. I guess I could put more time into researching what the artist at Stampin' Up!® had in mind when designing these stamps, but I'll just go on enjoying them and colouring them how I please. How I pleased today, was to use the thick end of my So Saffron marker to dab colour on the middle flower. Then I needed to mix some Cherry Cobbler and Rose Red to come up with something similar to Raspberry Ripple. I scribbled on a plastic lid with markers and then used an Aqua painter to water colour. The last flower at the very left, I mixed left overs of So Saffron with the reddish shade.

To the inside of the card, I added a piece of Whisper White and a strip of the SALE-A-Bration DSP, Wildflower Fields. From Cottage Greetings is another sentiment saying, "Hope Your Day Is Wonderful".

Finally, after finishing my card, I decided it was looking too clean. Thinking of the old art works by botanists, I've aged it with some Gorgeous Grunge and Crumb Cake.

Cheers, 
Rachel
I'd love you to choose my online shop to purchase from, and when you use the Host Code when asked at check out, I will send you a gift, along with a handmade card. The items listed below were used in my card above, and link to that item in my online shop.(Unfortunately, most are now retired, but feel free to browse anyway)

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

CASE-ing Stasia CTC#60

Stasia's Card

It's time for another CASE-ing The Catty and this week the assignment is to CASE a favourite card or project by another of the design team. I'm CASE-ing Stasia Sloma, and in particular her Christmas card with the poinsettia from here, where Stasia showcased her favourite bundle. It wasn't difficult as I love ALL the things that Stasia makes, especially the bottle tags, but this card was perfect for me to CASE. This is the last blog hop for 2015, but after a short break, we can hardly wait to start sharing and CASE-ing the new Occasions Catalogue! You'll see us back on January 10th, 2016.

This has been a great opportunity to play with my new favourite stamp and thinlet bundle, Botanical Gardens, from the upcoming Stampin' Up!® Occasions Catalogue (you can start ordering from January 3rd, or join up as a demonstrator NOW, and you can pre-order right away). The bundle with this suite is Botanical Blooms, and includes a 17 piece photopolymer stamp set + Botanical Gardens Designer Series Paper + Botanical Builder Framelits Dies. There is 15% off this value-packed bundle and at $87.75 you are only $2.25 away from a FREE SALE-A-BRATION pick. Even a pack of Dimensionals will get you over the line.

The things I loved about Stasia's card,

• a lovely sentiment on a circle of card
•  the position of the flowers at the top left of the sentiment.
• the hint of stripes and ink splatters on the base card

Initially, I used more Old Olive on my card, and a doily, and while it was still a lovely card, it wasn't making me feel happy.I've set that one aside and begun again from scratch. I decided that it was time my stencils felt ink, and used one for the 'hint of stripes'. A Stampin' Spritzer filled with alcohol rub (or water) and a few drops of refill ink gives a soft finish. A sponge Dauber would give a more definite colour.



Gorgeous Grunge is my go-to ink splatters stamp and Enjoy The LittleThings  (Occasions Catalogue) provided the sweet sentiment.When you get your hands on an Occasions Catalogue, make sure you take a look at the Botanicals Garden Suite, the options are endless. Don't forget, you can shop anytime of the day or night in my online store. Lots of Year-End Clearance items there too.

I do hope you enjoyed my CASE of Stasia's CASE! Unfortunately Stasia was unable to join in this week, so we're jumping straight to  Alison Barclay(Gothdove).

Cheers, Rachel

Pretty Party Sentiments- CASE-ing Winter Wonderland CTC 51

It's Sunday, our new night for sharing,so here we are again on a CASE-ing The Catty Blog Hop. You may have arrived from Emma's blog, but if this is your starting point, make sure you click on the links at the end of each blog, to see what the design team came up with .

Catalogue Sample

This week we are CASE-ing Winter Wonderland featured pages 22 - 45. I used the picture from page 31 from the catalogue as my inspiration, but  I didn't want to use the stamp which features on this particular card. Flower Shop and the retired Petal Potpourri were already on my work table after being used to make samples for my October card class, Card-in-a-Box. There are still spaces available for this class if you're interested in making one of these very popular 3D cards.

For my CASE of the top one in the catalogue sample, I've stamped all over with one of the Flower Shop flowers in Perfect Plum, adding a few leaves in Old Olive from Birthday Blossoms.

Next I used Butterfly Basics for the sentiment and pulled my NEW Precision Base Plate (page 14, Holiday Catalogue) to cut the butterfly in gold foil - it works an absolute treat!!!
The butterfly was a substitute for the doily. I had another piece of finer gold foil left from the Tin Of Cards project - must share that with you soon - so I flagged the ends and laid it down first, then a Perfect Plum butterfly, a gold foil butterfly, some gold thread and finally the sentiment.

There is a little bit from many different stamp sets on this second card. I decided the zig zag stamp from Gorgeous Grunge was perfect for under the circular sentiment, my favourite one from Birthday Blossoms.
I used silver ink for some more Gorgeous Grunge splatters to match the silver cording. The Petal Potpourri daisy is stamped in Rich Razzleberry, while the Flower Shop daisy is Perfect Plum again.

And now it is time for you to continue around the blog hop, your next stop is the lovely Liz at LillyLovesPaper   but if you lose your way at any stage, you can check it all out at CASE-ing The Catty.

Cheers,
Rachel

October Hostess Code EUFRFMNX

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Vintage Leaves for Fusion

Everything on my agenda has come together so smoothly today, unbelievable! This meant I had spare time to play with stamps and ink, so being inspired by both the sketch and picture at Fusion Card Challenge, I've pulled Vintage Leaves from the shelf and stamped & die cut a couple of leaves.

I've cut 2 squares using a stitched square die, and tried a few sentiments before settling on this one, from Butterfly Basics and splattered the background with a Gorgeous Grunge stamp.

To echo the strip across the sketch, I've sliced into the top sheet of card and removed a strip so that when the two pieces were glued together, it leaves a ribbon effect.

Also, I decided to tie two wooden buttons together with linen thread, and wound more linen thread twice around the card.

Thanks for popping by,
Cheers,
Rachel







Customers in Australia, please note that Vintage Leaves is on a Weekly Deal from 7th October through to 13th October at $33.75, a saving of $11.25. This does not show up until you go to the online store.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Beautiful Birthday CASE-ing Everyday CTC#42

This week's CASE-ing The Catty Blog Hop is from the Everyday section of the catalogue, pages 73-110. This might be my favourite section of the catty, it's far from Everyday in my opinion. Did you hop on over here from CASE-ing The Catty, or are you just beginning here? You know that if you lose your way along the way, or a link doesn't work, you can get back on track by heading to CASE-ing The Catty for a full list of all participants.

I had a lot of fun making my card this week, heat embossing the flower from You've Got This onto water color paper. Then I took an Aquapainter and dipped it into a little ink in the lid of the stamp pad and watercoloured the flower. I took the lead from Alison Barclay and used the Color Coach, actually one from when Pear Pizzazz first was released as an In Color. It suggested Pear Pizzazz, Rich Razzleberry and Tempting Turquoise. I'd have never used turquoise but I love it! I took another little hint from the card I was CASE-ing and placed it all on Crumb Cake, with a narrow strip of black. On the Tempting Turquoise I stamped with Kinda Eclectic, and Gorgeous Grunge splatters are on the Crumb Cake. Cottage Greetings has the prettiest scripts and sentiments. I cut 'happy birthday' with a banner originally but it hid too much of the flower, so stamping over it seemed like a solution. Finally I added a button and piece of ribbon in Rich Razzleberry.

While heat embossing, it seemed sensible to do two, and so the twin card was coloured Watermelon Wonder instead of Rich Razzleberry. The piece of water color paper was cut with Project Life Framelits and this one has been left full height, where the first one was double-cut to reduce the dimensions. The right side was also trimmed straight on both. The differences - well I'm sure they're quite obvious, and I find it difficult to pick my favourite. The first card is bold and beautiful while the second is light and lovely.

This will be my last CASE-ing The Catty for a few weeks, because as this blog-hop goes live I (hopefully) will be airborne and heading to Paris!!!! I'm very excited to return there after a brief stay 2 years ago, there's heaps we didn't get to see last time. We will also be visiting a few other European destinations before another long flight back to Australia. I am very thankful to have both my job and my health, which allow me to make these trips every couple of years. There are some posts scheduled while I'm away, about two a week, so pop in if you like.
I will miss my crafting and blogging but the online store operates 24/7 even when I'm away. You will have to wait a little longer for your thank you gift - sorry. The Hostess Code is 36JSEMF6, add that to your order at checkout and I'll post you a small gift during September. I'll be popping over to CASE-ing the Catty next Friday to get some inspiration from my friends on the design team.

Page 105 in the catalogue

Now you're heading on to Stasia's blog to see her lovely creation.

Cheers, Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Butterfly Of Happiness Take 2

This is a short and sweet post. I couldn't leave it alone - I'm sorry! Recently I made a card for a challenge, and I explained how simple designs are often the biggest struggle for me. At left is the card I submitted to CAS(E) This Sketch and below is how it turned out after I had another look at it this morning.









I added a sentiment in the right hand corner, plus some splatters of Pear Pizzazz, Cherry Cobbler and Tip Top Taupe using Gorgeous Grunge. It isn't a big change, but even the splatters made me feel a whole lot happier. The vast white space really bothered me. What do you think - with or without splatters?

Cheers
Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

It's Sneak Peek Week at CTC#32

Welcome to the CASE-ing The Catty Blog Hop. This week we are giving you a sneak peek of some of the new goodies coming in the about-to-be-released Stampin' Up!® catalogue. You may have come from my friend Kathryn's blog, or perhaps you are starting the blog here. Either way, keep on going around until you have done a complete circuit.

It's not long until the new Stampin' Up! catalogue goes 'live', Tuesday June 2nd will be a busy day, because you can purchase from all three catalogues, just for one day, but at 11.50pm Tuesday, last year's annual catalogue and the Occasions Catalogue will retire. I wonder if you have you marked your new catalogue with post-it notes, like I did? As a demo, I did get to order some select items earlier, and I'm loving playing with those, and planning my classes for the remainder of the year.

My favourite stamp set from Convention might be Sprinkles Of Life.  It could be the variety of cards you can make with these different stamps, or perhaps the Tree Builder Punch which matches it, making those clouds/ice cream super-easy to punch out. You can make cupcakes, ice creams, flower baskets, trees or clouds with just three stamps. They're all so much fun, because of the cute sentiments that go along with them. How about "Hope your day stacks up to be one good thing on top of another" on the ice cream card or "Every cloud has a silver lining - you just have to look up to see it" which is on the card with the grey clouds.

The card with the three scoops of ice cream features a couple of new In Colors:- Watermelon Wonder card and the lovely, soft, Dotted Lace Trim in Delightful Dijon. The new Paper Stack,  measuring 6" by 6" now, Cherry On Top comes in a gorgeous selection of fresh Brights and In Colors. The ice cream is Pool Party, Watermelon Wonder and Soft Saffron, the splodges behind, from Gorgeous Grunge, are stamped in the same colours. One of the new features in the catalogue which you'll love, especially if you don't have every colour in the range, is the co-ordinated packs of plain A4 cardstock which you can purchase to match the Paper Stack or 12" by 12" Designer Series Paper. They have eight sheets of  3 colours, a total of 24 sheets of card for $12.25.

You know another really good thing about Sprinkles Of Life? It's the stamp set that helps support Ronald McDonald House Charities, and $3 from the sale of each of these stamp sets is donated to RMHC in Australia (or the country in which you make your purchase). You can find this stamp on the inside of the back cover of the catalogue.

I CASE-d the Catty to make the card with clouds, just changing the colour of the striped strip down the right side of the card.

Maybe my raindrops are a bit lighter than the original too, and the Stampin' Up!® designers may have used silver embossing powder (I had none) while I have used Dazzling Diamonds. It does look like an awfully close CASE. I love the sparkle of Dazzling Diamonds. If you purchase from my Online Shop and use the Hostess Code B6VWKZMJ I will post you a 'little something' from my stash.

Folks who come to my June classes will get to make three cards with Sprinkles Of Life stamp set and the Tree Builder Punch. There are spaces on Friday 19th June at 7pm- 9.30pm, or if you and a friend would like to attend a daytime workshop in South Morang, Victoria. I am happy to run a class for 2 people, we will just have to negotiate a day and time. The third card, and some other options haven't been made yet but could feature a tree, basket of apples, flowers or something else. I keep my classes relatively small, and allow you a certain degree of creativity with your work. Email rpalmieri5@bigpond.com for more information or text 0417 500 681.

Perhaps you'd better pop along to Emma Palonek's blog now, to see which sneak peeks she is sharing with us all.
Cheers,
Rachel

If you get lost along the way, this will help you get back on track.

CTC Blog - http://caseingthecatty.blogspot.com/2015/05/case-ing-catty-sneak-peek-week.html

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog