Mother's Day CTC#75

With Mother's Day fast approaching, our projects this week are CASE-ing Mother's Day inspired by either the Annual or Occasions Catalogues. I took inspiration from Grateful Bunch on page 22 of the Occasions Catalogue. I thought 'You are loved {a lot}' was kind of nice for a Mum, and I had a retired stamp similar enough in font to add at the end of the phrase. I'm not sure how I came up with the colour combination for this card, but I always have liked the way Coastal Cabana (retired InColor) gives a real 'lift' to Wisteria Wonder. For some added interest I added Tangelo Twist daisies.

This card has been made using the soon-to-retire Incolors, Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon, Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey and Tangelo Twist. Often when the NEW InColors are released, I feel a little half-hearted about them and this was the case with this five. Slowly, slowly, I began to like Blackberry Bliss, especially the way you can stamp it three times without inking between, and get three quite different shades of ink. It's just like magic!                                                     

My next favourite was Lost Lagoon. It's a great mixer, looking good with Smokey Slate or in a threesome with Hello Honey and Tip Top Taupe. There are more combinations pinned to my 'Colour' Pinterest board. As this group comes to the end of its two-year reign, and we ready ourselves to meet five NEW In colours, I will just say "I'm going to miss these colours." If you feel the same way as I do, perhaps you'd better order your A4 card, ink pad, ink refill and Stampin' Write markers. Some are bound to run out before the final day on May 31st.The retiring list is online now, with SOME stamp sets marked down and the retiring colours ink pads priced down to $8.05. You ought to pop over to check out that the stamp you've been putting off buying isn't retiring.Then if you choose to shop with me, and use the Hostess Code for April, you will receive a gift in the mail from me too.

Hostess Code: JSDCTABC

You may have come from Rebecca and now you are heading forward to Bronwyn

    

Cheers, Rachel

Weekly Deals - Second Last Week 6th - 12th April

We received word yesterday that the Weekly Deals are coming to an end. Of course that is disappointing news but of late there has been less and less on offer, so it was a huge surprise this morning when I checked to find such a great array of products. You can pop straight over to see them in my Online shop, or read on to the end and I'll add another link. You'll be able to see the prices more clearly there, but I've shared photos of some of my big faves.

The punch is from the Occasions catalogue (still current) and co-ordinates with Grateful Bunch stamp set. I've used it a lot, because the stamp with three flowers matches exactly with the position of the spaces on the punch. If you decide you need both, you'll be better off buying the Bundle and Save combo at 15% off. (Item # 140801)

On this recent card I've stamped the background leaves from Grateful Bunch, heat embossed the group of daisies onto the teapot, and punched out some more to hold the banners. It's a versatile punch too, even without the stamp set as you can punch three sizes of flower, to use as is. Here is another one from earlier this year in mauve, combined with Timeless Textures.

Next, is Remarkable You, a red rubber stamp which is included in the Weekly Deals in both formats. Clear mount for those who like to use clear blocks with their stamps or wood mount for those who like to mount stamps ready for use all the time.  This set is current in the Annual catalogue and has lovely, bold, floral images, great to leave plain or watercolour. There are some magnolias and waterlillies on my work table that I'm still working on using this stamp set, love 'em! This is another using the lily.

Two more of my favourite photopolymer stamp sets listed are Vintage Leaves and Snow Place. You can't go wrong with leaves, and last year I shared this swap card using Vintage Leaves at the November Onstage in Melbourne. This one combined the Vintage Leaves with Gorgeous Grunge.

My 25 year old son used Snow Place to make a very cute birthday card for his girlfriend last year.

 I made a few Christmas cards and held a class using Snow Place too.

My grand-daughter is mad for penguins, so this was her birthday card.

Shop here now for weekly deals.





Check out this fabulous card kit in the Clearance Rack too. There are clear mount stamps, a couple of little 1 inch square ink pads and 20 cards and envelopes, all for $20.78. Wouldn't it make a great gift for someone who dabbles in craft, a teenager, your mum?

Hey, I do hope you find something you want, and don't forget to use the Hostess Code when you check out.
Copy and paste- JSDCTABC

Cheers, Rachel

Pot Of Tea, Anyone? CQC 335

What a lovely inspiration at Colour Q this week. The naive felt image suggested a teapot to me. At another stage of my creativity I painted ceramics, and teapots were one of my favourite pieces. Today I 'painted' the teapot with daisies from Grateful Bunch. I used bleach in an Aquapainter to remove some of the colour from the inside of the petals after heat embossing with white embossing powder. Next I filled in new colour with an Only Orange Stampin' Marker from my mother's stash. Soft Sky has substituted for Cool Caribbean, and I daubed some more colour around the edges. One sentiment is from A Nice Cuppa, the other from Happy Happenings.
It is awfully handy having the Cups and Kettles framelits and a punch for the Grateful Bunch daisies. Not half as messy as sanding back a ceramic piece and preparing it, before painting and then glazing. I'm very glad I found stamps and ink!

I thought you might like to see a bit more detail of the teapot and how nicely the grouping of three flowers placed onto the pot. There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between my Only Orange and Calypso Coral, but it is a very old marker.

I think I might just go brew a pot of tea now
Cheers, Rachel

Love Blossoms CTC#69

Welcome again to another round of CASE-ing The Catty. Each week the crew take inspiration from a section of a Stampin' Up!® catalogue. Currently we are all so excited by our Occasions catalogue. CASE is an acronym which stands for "Copy And Share Everything" and we hope by sharing what we have CASE-d, you'll be inspired too. This week the assignment was to CASE the Love Blossoms section of the catalogue - you'll find that on pages 16 - 25.

Grateful Bunch was a stamp set I {gratefully} received at Stampin' Up!® Onstage Melbourne, way back in November. Who doesn't like a sneak peek at new stamps from a new catty? I wasn't sure how I liked it though, because I am not the master of collage stamping. You'll see this stamp set on page 22 of the Occasions catalogue. There is also a matching punch, Blossom Bunch Punch and if you buy them at the same time, you get a 15% discount. I looked at the main picture and decided to CASE the larger card, but use different colours, outside of my comfort zone.

I do remember on a long ago trip to Far North Queensland seeing the most beautiful blue butterflies in Mossman Gorge, just north of Cairns. I stood for a long time just watching them flutter above the water. They were impossible to capture with the camera, but so pretty, so it seemed a good idea to make them turquoise here.

I've echoed the catty card with the pale coloured lace, flower stem and leaves, but made my newsprint a long strip. For the second card, I've changed to Island Indigo for the blue, stayed with Blackberry Bliss, and the realistic Crushed Curry for the large flowers {Sunflowers, maybe?}

 Which colour scheme do you prefer? I'd love you to leave me a comment.

If you'd like to join in and share your CASE from pages 16-25, you can link up here at CASE-ing The Catty.

And don't forget, if you're in Australia, and you'd like me to be your Stampin' Up!® demonstrator, you can shop online, or phone /email an order, request a catalogue or get advice.
Email rpalmieri5@bigpond.com or phone 0417 500 681

You may have come from Bronwyn Eastley and her lovely card using Rose Wonder

    

and now you can head on over to Elizabeth Gross  and you'll see a different version of the Rose Garden Thinlet Dies. There are so many variations using this collection.

Cheers, Rachel

Visit Rachel Palmieri-Independent Stampin' Up!® Demonstrator Australia's profile on Pinterest.

Timeless Celebration TCTC#1

Challenges are marvelous ways to get your creativity activated when you're feeling stale and so I'm going to try out a couple of new things today. Number one is a colour combination I'm not particularly comfortable with. Number two is a new stamp set that landed on my doorstep yesterday. Number three is probably the fact that this collage-style of stamping isn't really 'me', but I've been loving what everyone else is doing with it, so here goes!

Bronwyn Eastley at The Colour Tree set the challenge, and is also giving a free PDF file of a fabulour 3D project she made for the challenge. You ought to click on the link just to see her floral arrangement, Timeless Textures from the  Stampin' Up!® Occasions Catalogue is the main new stamp set I've used and I've used a couple of pictures from the catalogue to inspire a design. It's a little bit from Timeless Textures, and a little bit more from Grateful Bunch (and then I added three flowers from that stamp set too.

There are no sentiments with Timeless Textures, but lots of very interesting background stamps! Enjoy The Little Things was a stamp set I picked up at Stampin' Up!® Onstage back in November, and I've made good use of it. Celebrate Today is from that stamp set, and then I couldn't help myself and added   ....on your special day from the SALE-A-Bration stamp set Botanicals For You.

I've just added a picture of the sweet reason I wasn't able to open my box of new goodies to play when it was delivered!

Maybe it's too much, I don't know for sure, but I do know that I will be trying out a lot more new things with my new stash this week!
Cheers
Rachel




If you can't wait to get some of these goodies in your hands, and you'd like me to be your demonstrator, you can shop in my online store here. Australian buyers only. My phone number ifyou have any questions is 0417 500 681. If your order is less than $250, it would be great if you used the Hostess code 4G296SCD when you checkout.
If your order is more than $90 I will post you a pack of It's My Party Enamel Dots, mid February.

The email address if you're in Australia and wanting those catalogues sent is rpalmieri5@bigpond.com

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Blushing Botanicals Sneak Peek CTS# 152

Christmas cards are written and posted, and its about time to get on with some more birthday cards. Can you believe, three people in my circle celebrate a birthday on December 18th? I looked through the challenges and loved this sketch this week at Cas(e) This Sketch. I often take things literally when I see a sketch, but managed to see beyond a heart this time. The Botanical Gardens die punched a larger flower out of the Crumb Cake base, so the Blushing Bride flower could be inlaid. A sheet of paper from  Love Blossoms Designer Series Paper Stack was glued to the inside cover, giving a glimpse of pretty patterned pink paper under the raised petal. The reverse of the paper has Crumb Cake hearts, which show on the inside of the card. As always, these paper stacks are really good value with delightful prints.

Collage stamping is not a strong point of mine, so I thought I should get more practice, and yet it needed to be 'clean and simple', hopefully it conforms to that criteria. I had new goodies to play with, Grateful Bunch was a gift from Stampin' Up!® Onstage, and I received the Blushing Bride sequin trim in my order this week. The banner carrying the 'happy birthday' is from a new stamp and framelits combo, Number Of Years. It will be in the Occasions catalogue (January 3rd) but I need it for a daughter-in-laws special birthday on January 5th, so it came in this week's order too.

It seemed a good idea to continue on and finish the inside off completely, when I was making the card, so another piece of the patterned Blushing Bride paper finishes off the white card which is sitting on more of the lovely Blushing Bride.

Enjoy your weekend,
Cheers, Rachel

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