Cookie-Cutter Cutie CTC#102

This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are looking at the Halloween section of the Holiday catty, pages 50-55. I'm not really into Halloween cards, but I do like the sketch on page 53 using the little scarecrow from Cookie-Cutter Halloween. For my first card I substituted the gingerbread man from Cookie-Cutter Christmas, equally cute and so easy to punch out with the Cookie Cutter Builder Punch. For this selling period (until January 3rd) you can Bundle & Save 10% by purchasing the Cookie-Cutter Christmas stamps with the Punch using it's special code #143493.

The sentiment and star embellishment both come from Tin Of  Tags stamps, and I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Currently featured on page 33 of the Holiday Catalogue at $37 for this stamp set, through November 1st - 31st you can buy this for $27.75. Several other stamp sets are included in this 25% discount offer, mainly for Christmas.
On my card I've alternated silver and gold star enamel shapes for a touch of bling. Enamel dots in Real Red are on his chest too, and the DSP is from Candy Cane Lane, which is part of the buy three, get one free promotion, ending 31st October. I've re-stocked and can now freely use my pretty patterned papers. I liked the scrap of colour popping out to the left of the scarecrow, and I added a splash of Crushed Curry for added interest.

I haven't used this Cookie-Cutter Christmas stamp set and punch near enough yet, so I am planning a class for November 18th where you'll have the opportunity to make the Double-Z card, and possibly decorate it with some of these cute santas, gingerbread men, reindeer or even the teddy bear. I just need to get busy making the samples. I'm also holding a Quick & Easy Christmas Class on Friday 9th December at 7pm and again on Saturday 10th December at 2pm and those cards are on my class page already.

My next card is what happens when my creativity gets slightly out of hand! Do you ever have those moments? Mostly I'm quite restrained when it comes to embellishments and even layers, I call myself a "clean & layered" crafter, but I do like to push myself beyond my comfort zone. This is one of those cards! It is still based on the same sketch, but wanting to include  Ghoulish Grunge stamps to bring in the Halloween theme, I created some flower stems based on an idea I saw on Maria Willis' blog for What Will You Stamp #84. I had hand cut some flowers stamped on DSP with Love & Affection and liked the way they complemented the background DSP (Serene Scenery)


The sentiment is from Sunburst Sayings, and there is another card featured on page 43 which uses the same drips, and this sentiment. The remainder of the card is finished with some (drips) stems, flowers and a 'happy birthday' stamped straight onto the Crumb Cake card in Dapper Denim.












I really enjoyed making this pair of cards for the challenge this week. Same sketch idea, with quite different results.

Now you are heading off to the talented Kelly Kent in West Australia. I bet she has something to dazzle you.

If you'd like to join in the challenge for October, there is a day or two left. Link up here

Cheers, Rachel

Thanks For Your Care FMS#249

It has been such fun playing with new stamps and papers and even though I've yet to ink up all my new stamps from the annual catalogue, I found it impossible to resist the Thoughtful Branches stamps and framelits, available only for August 1st-31st, 2016. Although I did hear a whisper that if it is really popular, it will appear sometime in the future, and from what I see and hear, it IS really popular, so who knows......?

This sketch from Freshly Made Sketches appealed to me as a way to show off both the gorgeous Moroccan DSP, and the lovely trio of trees from the stamp set. The sentiment from Sunburst Sayings is perfect for the reason I've made this card. I've been having a root canal at the dentist for several weeks, and my last procedure will be this Thursday. Even though I dread going to the dentist, and had been postponing this treatment until the pain in my face was too much to bear, this dentist has done such a great job of alleviating my fears, and it has been relatively painless too. So naturally, I want to tell him that I think he's the best, with a thank you note inside.


It was fun to stick to a blue colour scheme for a change, and Dapper Denim, Marina Mist and Soft Sky do go so nicely together. I have been adding Wink Of Stella gold splatters to all my tree cards though, it adds such a delicious sparkle! A shame it is so difficult to capture with a camera.


Happy crafting,
Rachel

Sunburst 40th - Artistic Expressions - CTC 87

Thanks for joining me on the CASE-ing The Catty Blog Hop again. This weeks CASE is from the Artistic Expressions section of the catalogue.This covers pages 92 - 157, another HUGE section of the catalogue. This card on page 99 caught my eye, with the stitching, plus the faux stitching on the card base.

I had to get my sewing machine out to take in a skirt, and I'd been putting it off for months, so I was rather pleased that this was going to 'kill two birds with the one stone.' At the moment, I'm up to date with all the 40ths my son and daughter-in-law are going to, but I decided to make it a 40th card in more masculine tones anyway, for when they spring the next one on me.

Island Indigo and Crushed Curry are my picks this time. My feeling was the Island Indigo was more masculine, but of course we needed the 'sunny' yellow. It was speckled with one of the stamps from Timeless Textures, and I stamped with white Craft ink onto black card, just like in the catalogue sample, using Sunburst Sayings. I cut 40 from the Little Numbers Thinlets (retired now, unfortunately) and then stamped in black above the numbers with 'Look who's turning' from Number of Years.
Actually, I did the sewing before I proceeded too far with all the other steps, in case I had to begin again. Luckily it worked out beautifully. There is no doiley on mine, but a few Bermuda Bay sequins made an appearance.





The inside has been layered and decorated very lightly with a stamp from Sunburst Sayings, again, the one that looks a bit like stitched lines.

Cheers, Rachel

Don't forget, Stampin' Up!® has a Bonus Days promotion happening through this month. For every $90 you spend with Stampin' Up!® in July, you will be emailed a $9 discount code to use in August. That's like a 10% discount! You can shop in my Online Store if you have a shipping address in Australia, and if you use the Hostess Code, YM3FDRCM you'll receive something extra from me in the post.

You should head over to see Tricia Raineri next

If you'd like to join in with CASE-ing The Catty, this is the link to post your entry

Farewell To Some Sale-A-Bration Items

Most of you are probably aware of the Stampin' Up!® annual promotion which always takes place in the New Year. It's the reason I joined up as a hobby demonstrator nearly 5 years ago. (My anniversary is February 28th) and every year I've loved the SALE-A-Bration collection, and usually hang onto the stamp sets. They often have great sentiments and images, and because they are only on offer with a qualifying purchase (for less than 3 months too) they are a little bit different.

Two stamp sets, and one Designer Series Paper are leaving the collection early - Monday 15th January will be the last day to add them onto your qualifying order. $90 if you want one, $180 for two or $270 for all three!

It's hard to pick a favourite out of the three. I've enjoyed using The Sky Is The Limit a lot. I used it for my January class and loved the way each of the ladies put their own spin onto my sample. They're a clever lot, those girls!





It's a great masculine stamp set and it fits in rather nicely with Traveler and Going Global stamp sets, so I will hang onto it. I made another pair of cards this week so you could see the DSP, which comes in six shades, 2 12" x 12" double-sided sheets per pack.




Now these neutrals don't really do the paper justice, but I'm sure when you see the pink, which is Melon Mambo one side and Blushing Bride the other you'll be more impressed.
Quite a contrast, isn't it? This is the other retiring stamp set, Hello.


As well as the word 'hello' in a large clear script, there are 4 sub-titles: Little Sunshine, Birthday Girl, Birthday Boy and My Friend.
For the Melon Mambo version, I've used only stamps from Hello. The little party hat is also part of it, along with a smiley face and a sun. They're designed to fit on the 'e' or the 'o'. The Blushing Bride card has some flowers from A Whole Lot Of Lovely, which was out because I was making a card to send off to a team mate who is unwell.

I couldn't resist putting a card together for a Birthday Boy as well, using Boys Will Be Boys for the Lego and Balloon Builder for a balloon, but of course there are so many balloon stamp sets around at the moment, it could come from anywhere. If you have boys under 10 in your life, Boys Will Be Boys is a 'go to' stamp set too. The different coloured Lego were water-coloured using ink and an aquapainter, easy enough, and the background lego were just stamped out in matching ink.

The inside of this card was a bit of fun too! This time the lego were stamped in 4 different colours, there is some brightly coloured washi tape at the bottom and two sentiments from Party With Cake.
You can see the little smiley face here too, but I haven't yet used the sun or Little Sunshine. I bet they'll fit into the Sunburst Sayings range rather nicely though. So which of these SAB items do you NEED in your stash?



Want to Join?


Another thing I'd like to remind you of. During SALE-A-Bration is a great time to join Stampin' Up!® especially if your wish list is a long one. The joining special is "pay $169, but order $295 retail of Stampin' Up!® products". There's no shipping to pay on that order, and you have until end of June to make your $440  quarterly minimum. Not sure what I'm talking about? Email me with a question, or a phone number and suitable time for me to call you and maybe you'll join the Stampin' Up!® family too.


It's totally okay to join for the discount, maybe you'll take your hobby further but Stampin' Up!® (nor me) will ever pressure you to do that. One of the unexpected bonuses for me has been the fun friendships and support I've received from other demonstrators. Oh, I'll just share the card I've posted to my team mate too. Its so pretty in shades of Smokey Slate and soft, subtle pastels.

I am an Australian demonstrator, living on the outskirts of Melbourne. My team, the South'n Stampers, is small and friendly. We try to meet up every couple of months to stamp together, sometimes a bit hard with work commitments and family, and I hold a class once a month. Email me at rpalmieri5@bigpond.com if you need to know more. If you have a long list from the Occasions Catalogue and Annual Catalogue ready to go now, you might want to click on the link to read terms and conditions.

Cheers, Rachel

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What I Love SAB CTC#64

This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are sharing another SALE-A-Bration pick, whether it be a stamp set, one of the papers or even Project Life - they're all available for you to pick when you make an order of $90. If you happen to be mad for everything in the Occasions catalogue, you can pick an item for every $90 you order ($180 = 2 items, $270 = 3 items, $360 = 4 etc). If you get as high as that, maybe you should have a chat to me about joining up as a demonstrator, Stampin' Up!® welcomes and supports all types of demonstrators from the hobby demo buying crafting supplies at a discount, through to those making it a full time business. During SALE-A-Bration you get to choose $60 extra, choose $295 of any products from the Annual Catalogue and/or the Occasions Catalogue and pay only $169. Of course, if you prefer to be a customer, you can purchase your supplies through my online shop, or by contacting me, you just need to have a delivery address in Australia.

This week I had fun with What I Love, a two-step or three-step stamp in photopolymer. I CASE-d the tag on the gift bag and came up with a little pack of four Thank You notecards. Really, it's so easy to ink up the leaf and stamp a few times with a couple of different greens onto a square of Whisper White, mounted onto a slightly larger square of Wild Wasabi.

These notecards are available in packs of 20 in Whisper White and Crumbcake with matching envelopes, and they only cost $10.50! So handy to have on hand for when you're short of time. You'll find them on page 149 in the Australian  annual catalogue, or click on the image in the supply list below.
To make the packet they're contained in, I cut a Gift Card Envelope from Crumb Cake and made a belly band from Botanical Gardens DSP, with some additional trims from Botanical Builder Framelits Dies and Mini Treat Bag Thinlets. There are also a couple of stamped banners from Choose Happiness.



My good friend and fellow crew member on CASE-ing The Catty celebrated her birthday recently. While this isn't CASE-ing The Catty,  What I Love helped me create this cheerful bunch of flowers to celebrate with Kathryn. I selectively inked up a greeting from Party With Cake. It's actually the bit about cake I left off - [chuckling]. No..... it's not that Kathryn and I don't like cake, we just live too far apart!! Kathryn is in South Australia and I'm in Victoria. Perhaps we should make a date for cake when we meet up in Sydney in April, hey Kathryn!


I wanted to fit a greeting into the oval, something that makes a statement and this sentiment seemed to fit that description. I've used Blackberry Bliss, stamped off once in some images, giving a lighter shade. The other two are Bermuda Bay and Melon Mambo.
 The smaller sentiment is from Sunburst Sayings which fits nicely on a 1¼" punched circle.

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 if you 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.
Starting this year we are doing a monthly challenge. If you have been inspired by any of the projects in the catalogue or on the blog hop, feel free to share with the linky tool on this post. A winner will be chosen and announced on the first post of the following month.

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

If you're someone who likes to go in the reverse direction, click on 'previous, button and it will take you to Tricia at The Speckled Sparrow

but if you're proceeding forward, you'll click on the NEXT button and move forward to lovely Liz at Lilly Loves Paper

   

                                                       

 Cheers, Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog