Tropical Flowers FM235

An advantage of going to Stampin' Up!® OnStage is getting to try out new stamps and dies, and even getting to use them. I popped the Botanicals Gardens Suite onto my pre-order, purely for these flowers. Since I tidied up my cardstock last weekend, I've had lots of small scraps in a rainbow of colours to die cut the various flowers leaves and stamen from.There are six different leaves, six flowers and three types of stamen, so there's heaps of scope for creativity. There will be a bundle with stamps, framelit dies and Design Series Paper at 15% off. It takes up the middle page of the NEW Holiday Catalogue.




This sketch at Friday Mashup was perfect for what I had in mind, although the circle might have ended up a little larger than I'd planned! There is an absolute riot of colours in the blooms to match the tropical leafy background.

The sentiment is a new one too from a stamp that was given to everyone at OnStage. You'll be able to get your hands on Enjoy The Little Things in early January. It fits within the Washi Label Punch dimensions, a fun way to highlight it. Let me know if you'd like to receive a copy of the New Stampin' Up!® Holiday Catalogue, I'll be ordering my supplies soon.

It has been fun to have a little time out this evening,
Cheers, Rachel

CTC49 - Home For The Holidays

Another week of CASE-ing the Holiday Catalogue, pages 8-21 "Home For The Holidays', is the theme. I don't know if you're having trouble deciding what you like most in the Holiday catalogue, but on pages 10 & 11 are two photopolymer stamp sets, and two sets of framelits which fit together as snuggly as a hand in a glove. Naturally, I had to put both bundles on my first order, at least I was saving 15% and I've had such a lot of fun playing with combinations of the two - so cute!

Maybe you have arrived here from Stasia's blog, but if you're just starting out here, you can follow all the links around, doing a Blog hop with the design team at CASE-ing The Catty.

Initially, I cased the tag on the gift here on the right, almost exactly. I have to confess: - I love miniature things, so that teeny tiny wreath is a winner for me. I will have plenty of tags for my Christmas gifts, so it has been made into a full-size card.

Because we are inside looking out, I left the Soft Sky card plain, like a painted wall. The window frame is Crumb Cake, cut with the die and left plain. The group of  trees out the window come from Happy Scenes stamp set. The sentiment is from the same stamp set, and because it is photopolymer, it is possible to curve it. I used the base of my Stampin' Mist bottle as a guide and just hand-cut the banner. Easy-peasy! The tiny wreath features in Festive Fireplace. Again, easy to stamp in Mossy Meadow, before using the Stampin' Write Marker in Real Red to colour some holly berries. I grabbed a little red twine from the Oh What Fun Tag Kit and tied a knot before using a mini glue dot to attach it to the window frame. This card is one of the options to make at my November Christmas card class (Friday 21st at 7pm).


For the other card, the cat features.... peering out the window, watching his family heading off on holiday, towing a caravan behind the car. This is so typical for an Australian Christmas, since it is summer here at that time of year. My husband and I often head away to the coast, soon after our Christmas celebrations. Fortunately we don't need to take our cat anymore, because our adult sons stay at home. Our 10-year-old cat has always hated travelling in the car, and would cry for the whole trip! Two solid hours of wailing, even while being comforted, not good for any of us, so I bet he's glad to sit at the front window and watch us head off!!! The little scene makes me chuckle inside.

Let's Get Away provided the car and caravan, and the tree and birds stamp is from Happy Scenes, I just stamped some 'leaves' for the autumn tree, since it is bare but obviously wouldn't be in summer. I chose a greeting from Wondrous Wreath for this card. I'm having a lot of fun with these stamps and framelits, maybe at this rate I'll have all my Christmas cards made soon?

Now it's time to head on over to my buddy , Kathryn's blog to check out what she is sharing this week.

If you are wanting to purchase any of these items, the links below take you to that item in my online shop, but if you'd just like to check out the Weekly Deals (new every Wednesday), Clearance Rack or the catalogues in general, you can visit the online shop here. The Hostess Code for this month is EUFRFMNX

To find out more about the class, there is more information under the 'classes' tab.

Cheers

Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Christmas Tags CTC#11

It's Friday - WooHoo!!!
Actually, I'm on holidays, so that sadly means one week has passed already. I seem to be less organised, because I am having too many social events, I suspect. I was quite relieved that we are CASE-ing The HOLIDAY Catty this week, and focusing on tags.The challenge will be running for 14 days too, which will give you more time to Case the Holiday Catty and share your tags.

My inspiration hasn't come from any one particular project, but just from the general impression of several samples. I've made a simple tag for my work colleagues' Christmas bags and the bauble will hang off the bag also. The stamp used is Holiday Home, which has co-ordinating framelits.

Firstly, I cut Shimmery White card with the Homemade Holiday Framelit, choosing the house without a chimney. You can use the others too, just snip off the chimney, but I love the fancy end on this particular one. I've tried my best to colour match with the bauble, but it is more purple than Melon Mambo and brighter than Rich Razzleberry, so I've sponged a mix of the two at the top using a sponge dauber. I had a scrap of card with a curve to use as a template for the sponging. There is a light sponging of Soft Sky at the bottom.

The stamps are both from Holiday Home photopolymer stamps. I laid them face-down on the tag and then pressed the acrylic block onto the stamps, so everything was placed perfectly for the tag. The Santa and reindeer has been slightly curved too, to fit nicely onto the tag.


When you make multiples of an item, the secret is to perform each step of the process at the one time. You begin by doing all the cutting and for this project my second step was sponging them all with Soft Sky, then the next two colours, before stamping them all. That way, you only have one stamp pad open at a time and you're less likely to get them mixed up.

On the back of the tags I've stamped To: & From: which were included in Wondrous Wreath, another fabulous Christmas stamp available in Photopolymer.

Now, I can hardly wait to see what the rest of the crew on the CASE-ing The Catty design team have made for this challenge. Will you be joining in this week?

Hope to see your name there,

Rachel

Holiday Home Photopolymer Stamp Set

$27.95

Homemade Holiday Framelits Dies

$37.95

Holiday Home Photopolymer Bundle

$55.95

Wondrous Wreath Photopolymer Stamp Set

$44.95

Shimmery White A4 Card Stock

$13.95

Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad

$9.95

Rich Razzlebberry Classic Stampin' Pad

$9.95

Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad

$9.95

Sponge Daubers

$8.95

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

$9.95

Clear Block C

$11.95

Clear Block Starter Bundle

$33.95

Clear Block Starter Bundle

$33.95

Table by StampinBuddy. Try it FREE.

Big Shot & Bundles - Australian Offer

Earlier today I sent an e-card to my customers about this fabulous Stampin' Up! promotion of the Big Shot and Stampin' Up! accessories. If you've been wanting to add a Big Shot to your craft supplies, this offer is too good to miss!

There's nothing worse than making that big purchase, only to discover that you don't have anything to cut or emboss.

Well, Stampin' Up! are offering four terrific bundles, including Bright and Beautiful Stars, which has a stamp set Bright & Beautiful from the Holiday Catalogue (ordering dates 28 August-5 January) AND the Stars Framelits which are valued at $75.50 bundled (clear mount) and the bundle is free when you purchase your Big Shot.
That's a BIG saving in anyone's language, so check out the list below and see which combination will give you the best value. Then pop over to my online shop to place your order. You can see pictures of the bundles in the online shop.

Any questions? Call me 0417 500 681 or email rpalmieri5@bigpond.com.

Two Choices:

1) Buy a Big Shot and get a free bundle below.

  and/or

2) Buy a discounted bundle below at a 15% discount.

Bundle	Item Number	Stamp Set	Framelit	AUD	NZD
Sumthin' with Bubbly Words Clear-Mount Bundle	138920	Sumthin' Sumthin'	Word Bubbles	$ 54.25	$ 65.25
Sumthin' with Bubbly Words Wood-Mount Bundle	138923	Sumthin' Sumthin'	Word Bubbles	$ 58.50	$ 70.25
Decorative Goodies Clear-Mount Bundle	138921	Oh My Goodies	Deco Labels Collection	$ 62.75	$ 76.25
Decorative Goodies Wood-Mount Bundle	138924	Oh My Goodies	Deco Labels Collection	$ 72.95	$ 88.25
Celebrating Chalk Talk Clear-Mount Bundle	138922	Day of Celebration	Chalk Talk	$ 65.95	$ 77.95
Celebrating Chalk Talk Wood-Mount Bundle	138925	Day of Celebration	Chalk Talk	$ 74.50	$ 90.75
Flowery Daydream Clear-Mount Bundle	138910	Daydream Medallions	Floral Collection	$ 82.25	$ 99.95
Flowery Daydream Wood-Mount Bundle	138911	Daydream Medallions	Floral Collection	$ 93.25	$ 113.75
Bright & Beautiful Stars Clear-Mount Bundle	138200	Bright & Beautiful	Star	$ 75.50	$ 91.50
Bright & Beautiful Stars Wood-Mount Bundle	138644	Bright & Beautiful	Star	$ 87.25	$ 105.95

Remembering Your Birthday

This love of pink is something new for me and I think it has a lot to do with the arrival of a little girl in our family - after 38 years!!! A long wait but well worth it.

I've found myself using pink for scrap booking, of course, and also for cards. When you have a stamp that says "Today calls for something pink with sprinkles on top" it DEMANDS pink, doesn't it?

Beginning with Pink Pirouette, I used an embossing folder, Pretty Print Textured Impressions(132175),  from the current Holiday Catalogue. The banners are cut from retired DSP, mostly Twitterpated and I stamped and punched a cupcake with the Cupcake Builder Punch(121807). I have been neglecting my punches for a while, but they are so quick and easy to use, and I love a pretty cupcake.

The stamp sets are Create A Cupcake (128520) and  Remembering Your Birthday (131347) and the greeting is stamped inside alongside another cupcake.

I've used this sketch by Kathya at Sunday Stamps as my inspiration and stamped in Melon Mambo and Pink Pirouette.




I have finished my three days at work for the week, and look forward to a visit tomorrow with my son, daughter-in-law and their three cherubs. It has been raining all day here, I do hope it finishes and the sun comes out soon.
Happy stamping,
Rachel

Freshly Made Sketches #105

I have been visiting  Ireland, United Kingdom and Paris over the last seven weeks. A fantastic experience, but a long time to be away from getting crafty, so I am having a bit of trouble getting the creativity happening. My second son turns 34 this Saturday, and my 4th son will be 26 on Sunday week, so I have to get a couple of masculine birthday cards organised.

I headed over to check out the challenges for inspiration, and thought this sketch  by Allisa Chilton at Freshly Made Sketches was a great starting point. I chose shades of grey with Smoky Slate card  cut to make a 5 inch square card stamped with a splatter stamp from Gorgeous Grunge in Smoky Slate as well. I used a retired DSP, Howlstooth and Scaringbone from last year's Holiday Catalogue, but you can check out the current Holiday Catalogue for some other great 'manly' papers. 

I inked the rubber of the  birthday greeting stamp from Delightful Dozen with Basic Black and Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Writers, and added a fancy speech bubble paperclip from Hung Up Cute Clips. You'll find those clips on page 170 of the Annual Catalogue, there are three cute images ( 8 each of a
coathanger, arrow and the speech bubble).

I hope Jake likes the card, and I hope he has cake! He has two little boys who we missed so much while we were overseas, we visited as soon as we arrived home, taking cake with us. I didn't realise how cake-crazy those boys are, especially the younger one!



This is an easy card to make, and if you pop over to Freshly Made Sketches, you'll find a lot more ways to use this great sketch. Any questions about the products or technique, please email.
 Thanks for dropping by

Rachel

Freshly Made sketches #70

This week at Freshly Made Sketches Rita has provided this great sketch for our inspiration. I changed the format for my card because (I'm hiding embarressingly behind my hands... LOL) I didn't look carefully at the sketch before I put it together!

There is a strong possibility it wouldn't have fitted in landscape, but maybe I will try a different card in that format, this is such a great sketch.

I have used Ciao, Baby! (page 16 mini catty released Feb 1st) for two of the stamped images and 'Hello' is from the sale-a-bration set Pretty Petites. I love these two sets, probably because they have the sweetest little punches to match, mainly the Petite Curly Label Punch, because its new, and it is free with your $100 order. There is a 1and a quarter scalloped punch, originally in the Holiday Catalogue, but carried over now. I punched a one inch circle in Pool Party for them to sit on and then and Island Indigo punched out of the original Curly Label Punch. The ampersand fits pretty well inside the three-quarter inch circle punch. The patterned strip is a stamp from Summer Silhouettes, (page 82 annual catalogue) stamped in Pool Party too, which is a handy image when you just want something subtle to join it all together. The 'its your day' greeting is a retired hostess set called Happiest Birthday Wishes, which I still use quite regularly.

Hope you are feeling inspired to get a little inky too.

If you live in Australia and need help to get any of these products or catalogues, call me (0417 500 681) or email.

Cheers

Rachel