Anyone For A BBQ? CTC197

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 create cards and the occasional 3D project. This week the design team are focusing on pages 28-35.

In an effort to be organised, I am creating a little ahead of time although with a little further thought I would have made this a Happy Anniversary card! The sentiment from Sitting Pretty is perfect for an anniversary card. My hubby and I celebrated 41 years of marriage last Friday, so we gave ourselves a weekend away on the coast.

 I made really good use of DSP for the card with Wood Textures for the background and the 2018-2020 In Colour DSP for the BBQ apron. Both of these are in 6" by 6" packs containing 48 for the Wood and 40 for In Color.

 Apron of Love is the stamp and Apron Builder Framelits are the dies. You can buy them bundled together for a 10% discount through to June 2019. There are dies for baking utensils as well as the BBQ set.

We do enjoy a glass of wine, usually while we cook dinner, so I stamped a single glass from Half Full, for a splash of colour (and humour?)

 Can you see how the red card from Timeless Tidings inspired my card? I decided not to put anything along the right under the banner but I liked the banner with the flagged ends facing into the card, and lowered a little from the top.

Now you can head on over to the remarkable Rebecca Scurr

Do you want to enter the challenge? Here is the link.

RJN76UGK
September

Dreaming Of Tuscany AWH - Colour Creations Blog Hop

When I was having trouble sleeping one night last week, I decided not to get up and make a card - it was too cold! - but to lie in bed and design one instead. My first task was to think of a current stamp set that would suit Basic Grey, our colour of the week. Basic Gray has been in our Neutrals range for as long as I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, and it is a good alternative when black is a bit too strong.

I was imagining a scene similar to an old black and white photo and trying the images from Mediterannean Moments in my head. But each of those didn't really work for me, and eventually I remembered Tuscan Vineyard. I had thought about making it look like a photo in an album, but it ended up like this when I actually had rubber and ink in hand, wanting to add other images.

When it came time for a sentiment, 'thinking of you' from Rooted in Nature seemed a really good fit, and on the inside I've stamped a glass from Half Full, along with a sentiment from that set, ' may your glass always be half full.' Now there's a match made in heaven!!!

As for the dreaming of Tuscany - I am married to an Italian-born Australian, but I love Italy and he doesn't as much. When I say I'd like to take an apartment somewhere in Tuscany and catch the train around to different towns for a few weeks, he rolls his eyes. I do hope I get my way some time....

I've used a lot of Dimensionals here, as the oval is lifted, the black layer is also on Dimensionals and the round 'Toscana Vigneto' label is propped up on two! It has been punched with a 1 inch circle punch, a perfect fit and so easy.

While I had this set of stamps out, I decided to make a retifrom card. I really enjoy this technique, and these images really suited. This one scored a couple of Fresh Fig accents, but any colour looks good with grey.

I'm really happy to have inked Tuscan Vineyard again, and aren't we lucky to have it to play with for another year. It goes really well with Half Full, and I used that one a couple of days ago.

Now is your opportunity to pop over to the blog of Catherine Proctor, our team leader for this fun activity. You will find links to lots more of the Art With Heart Team.

 Next week our colour will be Bermuda Bay, another fave of mine, 'cos it's blue too.

2BEUMMY3
until 4th July

Tea Room Or Wine? CTC#182

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 create cards and the occasional 3D project.

  This week we are CASE-ing pages 13-25 of our lovely new Annual catalogue. I enjoy a cup of tea as much as a glass of wine, so this time I went with CASE-ing the sample for Half Full. I changed my background stamping to one larger wine glass, although I'm sure the row of small glasses would be relatively easy with the Stamparatus.

The banner has been repeated on my card, and the label too, but with a change in colours, it is quite a different effect. The fine spotted ribbon seems to echo the bubbles!

Tuscan Vineyard has a row of corks, which I added along with the wonderful Wink Of Stella for the sparkling wine. I didn't think I'd managed to capture it in the photos, but it seems to shine and sparkle here.

I shared this on my Facebook page last week, and popped it here too as its just so true!!!

Hop on over to Sandra now, especially all my cat-loving friends! You'll LOVE her project.

If you're placing your order for items from the Annual Catalogue, you may add the host code to your order (if its less than $250) to receive a gift from me.

2BEUMMY3
Until 4th July

Cafe Chat CI#28

Colour INKspiration is a fortnightly blog initiated by Bronwyn Eastley in Tasmania. The design team 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 create cards and the occasional 3D project.

Such a pretty combination of colours for this fortnight, and I chose a stamp set which arrived at my house on Thursday for this challenge. Charming Cafè reminds me of happy times spent chatting, and this is something I do love to do. I wanted to keep the design relatively simple so white, embossed after stamping, with the Scattered Sequins TIEF seemed a perfect answer.

My resolve this year is to get cards in the mail, hence the hashtag #makeacardsendacard, This card has already been posted and hopefully has reached the recipient already.

And just because we enjoy a glass of wine together as much as a cup of tea or coffee, I finished the inside with some glasses from Half Full, and some pretty washi tape.

Next you are heading to WA, and my sweet friend, Kelly Kent.

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Onstage Swaps Melbourne November 2017 (Long Post)

I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator for almost 7 years. I joined up during Sale-A-Bration, which runs every year from early January through to the end of March. We had recently moved and I finally had a large craft studio, and I wanted/needed supplies. I thought it would be fun to get several of the SAB free stamp sets while earning a discount off my own scrap booking and card-making supplies. I didn't do much the first year, I was busy getting my head around everything. Saying that, I did have friends over to stamp and I began making cards for everyone, but in my second year I attended a Stampin' Up! convention and began to see that I might take this a little further.

November 2016, Brisbane with Natalie from Stampin' Up Demonstrator Support

The format of these gatherings has changed and they tend to be 1-day events now, held every six months in November and April. They tie in with a release of a new catalogue, in April the new Annual catalogue (customers don't see it till 1st July) and in November it is the Occasions and SAB catalogues which begin in January. This is so we can plan our upcoming events, and make samples for those. If you'd like to be a part of this and you live in Australia and aren't already working with a demo, I'd love you to join my team. You can join for the discount, or to see and purchase new product ahead of every one else. You might have a big plan to try running your own business, or maybe supplement the family income. Another great reason to join Stampin' Up! is for the joy of friendships with others who love crafting as much as you do. Below is the fabulous Jackie Noble from New Zealand and a like me, a member of the CASE-ing The Catty crew and also Colour INKspiration.

Jackie Noble demonstrating in person & via the big screen 

As this post goes live, I am at the Melbourne event. LIKE my Facebook page if you want any live updates through the day. The event goes from 8am-5pm and will be a full-on day of chatter, crafting, meeting up with on-line friends, a much-needed break for a supplied boxed lunch and an opportunity to see some other very experienced demonstrators introduce some new products. Even better, we walk away with some new free product in our hands and a 3 day period when we can order ahead of everyone else. Swapping card fronts is another part of the day and it begins early, outside the venue anytime from 7a.m. onwards. This is the full card version of the swap I made, I will pin this on the display board.

There are two stamp sets here designed by Million Dollar Sales achievers, Mediterranean Moments and Half Full. These stamp sets seem to complement each other perfectly and I began stamping the card front quite a while back. Stampin' Up! hasn't yet contracted anyone to produce a Precision Stamping Tool (apart from the Stamp-a-ma-jig) so I gave in, and ordered one from another supplier after I saw it wasn't in the Annual catalogue. Very handy for repeat stamping projects like swaps, and also makes it easy to restamp if the image is a bit faint.

EDIT: Little did I know that at this Onstage they announced the release of the STAMPARATUS, which looks heaps better than this one I used. It is very, very popular and I didn't manage to pre-order one for myself during the first pre-order period. Another will take place on 6th December at 8 a.m. You are actually reserving it at that stage as, they won't bill you until it is available to ship (probably April).

I began by stamping the scene from Mediterranean Moments in the upper right corner. Mine is a wood mount stamp, so I had to do these the traditional way and there is some variation in the placement. I had a few dummy runs with the placement of Half Full, to get them straight mainly.

You can use the grid lines on the lid to help line things up straighter, but I also had to move them in closer together.

The most time-consuming part of the procedure is changing the card front (it is held down with magnets) and inking up the stamps. Despite this, it didn't really take too long to stamp 40 card fronts.

Next step along was to colour them and I had only just started with ink and an Aquapainter, when it was announced that alcohol-based Stampin' Blends were available for Demonstrators to pre-order. I was a big fan of the previous product which had unceremoniously been withdrawn after quality issues, so I ordered the colours I needed to work on these cards. Can I just say, I love them!!!

The glass of wine in this picture has been coloured using ink and an Aquapainter and those already done, I left as they were, so they are a brighter (rosè) shade. Rich Razzleberry, Light and Dark were for the wine. Old Olive light and dark for the lid of the bottle. The tablecloth was outlined in Pool Party light, and the greenery was coloured using mainly light Old Olive and some had yellow added too. The board was outlined in bronze and the label of the bottle and the paper on the board are Ivory.

I ended up with 32 swaps which met my standards. I love the 'infinity shot' an idea I have copied from US demonstrator Brian King. It gives you an idea of the amount of work there is in making swaps!!! Originally my husband should have had surgery at the end of October but the surgeon post-poned and it is still to happen. I was going to colour these while sitting with him, but I've managed to do a little after work each day instead. I skewed the art piece on the textured embossed piece to give a slightly better view of the texture, or I could have saved myself the trouble and used plain Fresh Fig card. It is cut 10 cm by 14.3cm so it can be mounted easily onto a standard Australian card base.

We place a 'recipe' on the back of swaps and I over-stamped mine with a bunch of grapes from Tuscan Vineyard.

There were some where I coloured too close to the line with Rich Razzleberry and I have made a couple of stepped up cards after cutting the wine bottle or glasses out. I don't mind as I have a couple of demonstrator friends who I'd like to give a 'stepped up' version of the card.

The wine bottles 'overflowed' so I've cut around them and trimmed the panel narrower which gives a much better view of all that texture embossing I did with the Garden Trellis TIEF. I like the glimpse of brighter Melon Mambo too.

This stepped up version had a leaking wine glass, so I covered that up with a couple of other glasses, hand-trimmed and raised on dimensionals. This one is a bit more like the original swap which had a tab punched in olive and a stamped piece from Tabs For Everything, and a friendly 'hello'.

One last shot to show you the fun I had raising a couple of elements on the card. If you've swapped with me and come here for more details, thank you, I appreciated the chance to swap with you. If you receive an email letting you know when I have a new post, it's good to see you here today too. If you've just stumbled onto my post, it's good to meet you. Any questions, about joining my team, having a party, products used etc., feel free to ask. I really enjoy my stamping time and I'd like to share it with you too.

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Any orders in my online shop with the Host code receive a gift from me in the post. Since November is my birthday month, I am adding a handmade birthday card as well, for you to send to someone else.