Favourite Holiday Project CTC209

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 our favourite Holiday project. I'm sure if you love Stampin' Up! products, you will have a favourite project too.

So Santa was a last-minute purchase for me. In the end I couldn't resist, because he suits our Australian Christmas so well. I made a quick little decoration for the ever-handy Pizza Box, which has Christmas tea light candles inside. I based the colours on the decoration I found at my local supermarket - isn't he fun? 

My next task was to make 23 Christmas cards for the children in the classroom I work in at school. I began with stamping notecards. This is #simplestamping at its best. The sentiment is stamped below the image, to make simple one-layer cards.

Probably, I could have left them as they were, so the kids could colour them in, but I decided some minimal colour was called for. The watercolour pencils were handy to use, as I did it in odd moments between other chores this week. 

Then just because I couldn't leave them alone, I've stamped 'clouds' using a stamp from an upcoming stamp set called Geared Up Garage. Check your Occasions catalogue for that one and place your order from January 3rd.

The image on the Pizza Box was coloured using Stampin' Blends, but no matter what your favourite way to colour is, this So Santa stamp set is a good one to try. My preference is the clear mount stamps, which are $40 here in my online shop but because wood mount are being phased out, they retail for $37.80 and you'll find them in the Year-End Close-Out Sale.  This special ends January 2nd, in time for the Occasions Catalogue starting. If you do order through my Online Shop and remember to use the Host Code WAN2Q3HZ at checkout, you'll receive product in the mail from me.

Maybe you'd like to share your favourite holiday project too, and pop on our Facebook page.

Next crew member on the bloghop is the wonderful Rose Packer

WAN2Q3HZ

Toil & Trouble CTC200

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 48-55, and I headed straight to page 55 and the Hostess stamp set Hung With Care. CASE-ing is an acronym for 'copy and share everything' and the Stampin' Up!® catalogues are the most logical places to start.

I don't have Hung With Care stamp set....yet, so I substituted Beautiful Baubles, because of the similarities. Stockings and baubles both hang, and there was a long sentiment to place above. It was more effective in a portrait orientation, rather than the landscape used for Hung With Care. On the catalogue sample, one of the stockings has been 'fussy cut', but the Beautiful Baubles Dies includes a die to cut out all those hanging ornaments in one move. 

It was much easier to colour them with Stampin' Blends before die cutting, and 3 of the baubles are raised on mini dimensionals. You do know that there is a special code to use when buying both the Beautiful Baubles stamp and the Detailed Baubles Thinlet Dies? That code (#149920) activates a 10% discount, your reward for buying them as a bundle. You can check out this set on page 10 of the Stampin' Up!® Holiday Catalogue.

The Stamparatus really comes into its own when it comes to making Christmas cards, as they are often a card you'd make multiples of. Another wonderful accessory is the 6 inch square grid paper, recently introduced, along with spare plates. I was using the regular grid paper cut down, but there was a bit of wastage with the size it is. I find the grid lines very useful for lining up the strings from the baubles, words etc. The Stamparatus itself saves wasting card, because when you stamp an image missing pieces like shown in the pic above, you can re-ink and re-stamp for a clear, crisp image.

I CASE-d the green card with multipe stockings.

You are very welcome to join in and CASE pages 48-55 also, then link into our Facebook page to share your creation.

Rebecca Scurr, that very talented Queenslander is your next stop on this blog hop.

RJN76UGK

Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop Week 24

I love joining in with the other team members from Art With Heart whenever time allows, and I have something worth sharing. Recently I was reading the blog of Angie Juda, also known as Chic And Scratch. In 2015 she became a Stampin' Up! Million Dollar seller and was able to design a stamp set to celebrate. Her stamp set is Bella and Friends, which I love and have used for many occasions. Like many Stampin' Up! demonstrators, Angie shares her creativity freely and the gift bag she made had Bella wearing a Santa hat! Oh, that's way too cute!

Santa's hat is from the Santa's Suit stamp and fits Bella's head perfectly. Santa's Suit is another of the very cute stamp sets on offer in the Holiday catalogue, and you are able to dress Santa in a couple of different ways. It is also available in a bundle with the matching dies for a 10% discount on the total, or the dies and stamps can be purchased separately.

At the beginning of October, for 10 days there were some new-release stamps at a discount too. They were part of suites which included patterned paper (DSP) which was on special for the whole of October. If you want to be kept informed of these promotions, make sure you sign up to either my newsletter or your demonstrator's newsletter. Demonstrators get to take advantage of these specials too, so I bought the Brightly Lit Christmas stamp. I might not have bought it otherwise as I haven't any plans to use it in a class, although if you'd like an in-home party, we could make one of these cards with your guests.

I didn't want my cat-loving friends to say I was favouring dogs, so I've made a feline version too. This stamp set is Pretty Kitty, and I do love this one too. Which is your favourite, the dog or the cat? And is that only because that is your preferred pet?

The link below is our team leader Claire, if you'd like to check out what the other Art With Heart team have made for week 24 of the Christmas blog hop.

Claire Daly

ZTQVTQPR

November is my birthday month so when you use the Host code I will send you a product gift plus a bonus - a handmade birthday card for you to send on to someone. Spread the love by snail mail as well as electronically.

Favourite Big Shot Project CTC #150

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. This week we are featuring our favourite Big Shot projects from the Holiday catalogue.


There are just so many to choose from and I can't wait to do the blog hop and see what the rest of the crew like. I know there are a lot of people out there who aren't as keen on Santa for their Christmas cards, but I have decided that this is suitable for my non-Christian-gift-giving friends. Even they take an opportunity at the end of the year to say thank you, and kids like gifts no matter what the family philosophy is. So, my choice to share for this log are two fairly simple cards featuring Santa's Suit!

There aren't too many versions on Pinterest of Santa face-on, using Santa's Suit. I've come to the conclusion that there might be two reasons for this. The first probably is that it involves many more staeps to add the face, beard etc. The second reason might be that it seems to change the shape of Santa, into a somewhat taller and thinner version.

 The card still 'needed' something so I stamped presents from Happiest of Days and scattered some Metallic Enamel Shapes about - they're very suited to Christmas!

It was such fun to make this card! A few days ago I had a session stamping and diecutting these shapes so there actually is a handy little container of the pieces for me to choose from. The set has the outline of the garments, and then separate stamps to put the colour on, and what's more, they were super easy to line up. I found that 2 stampings of red gave a more intense colour, which I prefer. I used some texture paste on his hair but it is tricky to see. The clothes line was stamped across the white circle & card base, before the red stitched circle was added. Washie tape held it in place as I stamped, and the red circle hides any bump in the line.

Stampin' Up!® are hoping/planning to add alcohol markers called Stampin' Blends to the range before the end of the year, and demonstrators are trialling them, and providing feedback at the moment. Old olive in light and dark coloured Santa's underwear, and I'm thinking of making some more of this card with underwear in different colours! We have Rich Razzleberry, Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight to name a few - won't that be gorgeous?

I'd love to know what you think of these cards, leave a comment if you have time. Now let's hop on over to see my friend Monique's favourite Big Shot project.

The CASE-ing The Catty Crew love to see your interpretations too. You don't need to have a blog, or be a demonstrator, just a Facebook presence, but if you do have a blog, you can share a link back to it. One photo of your project to be posted at the Facebook link below in the picture.

 When you add the Host code to your online order, you help me to maintain my business. You will always receive a gift from me the following month, but at the end of October there will be a special draw from all September/October online orders (minimum $50 before shipping) to win a special Christmas stamp set.

URYS3BV2

Merry Little Christmas CTC#145

CASE-ing The Catty is all about seeking inspiration from the talented artists who design for Stampin' Up!®, and CASE-ing those designs. It might be a colour combination, an arrangement of elements or the general layout of the card. This week we are CASE-ing anything from pages 10-19 of the Stampin' Up!® Holiday Catalogue.

When I received my September order, I was excited to try out Merry Patterns. This is a bonus hostess set for parties that reach $450 (Australian) during September and October. The really great thing is, you can hold a virtual party and show your friends the Annual Catalogue and Holiday catalogue, in case they need anything for their Christmas crafting and combine the orders with you as the hostess. I can explain this better to you if you call me, 0417 500 681 or email rpalmieri5@bigpond.com. If you live within 30km of South Morang I can come and do an actual party for you, just gather your friends for some inky fun! And if you're like so many of us, you can find $450 worth in the catalogues that we MUST have, and that is classified as a party too.

I've kept this card very simple. It happened that the DSP (a retired one) was lying on my table. It echoes the stripes above, and it's in my most favourite colour, Bermuda Bay, so that seemed like a perfect starting point. The candles are nifty, as you stamp the outline, and there are two different stamps to fill them in. The candles in the foreground are stamped full strength and the 3 in the background were stamped off once.

The sentiment is all in one, with 'season' as another stamp to fill the gaps. I haven't lined it up terribly well on the Bermuda Bay version, but it isn't going to bother me. I opened the mini tinsel to add as well, and a few rhinestones.

Next I tried the design in red, after finding another lovely retired stripe DSP, The dimensions of this crumb cake card are a little smaller, 5 inches square for the base so cut 5" x 10" and score at 5". The DSP is 4½" square. I used the mini tinsel in red on this one, and some more rhinestones. Although this size still means you can only cut one card from a sheet of A4 cardstock, I quite like having some square cards in the mix. The left over piece is a very useable strip anyway, it will fit the deer stamp that is in this stamp set.

Don't forget, this stamp set Merry Patterns is available with a party or order reaching $450 in product (not including shipping). It is only available between 1st September and 31st October. You will still earn $45 in hostess dollars to spend on anything from either of the catalogues, so it truly is an extra bonus.

A couple more samples using the candles from the Stampin' Up! designers. These are good cards to CASE too.

Now it is time to check in to see what Sandra Collett has produced this week.

ERBPDTEM