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

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

You're My Anchor CTC#31

This CASE-ing The Catty blog hop this week is all about masculine cards. We always hear how difficult it is to make these cards, so it is handy to use the catalogue for inspiration. On page 40 of the Occasions Catalogue, I found a card using the anchor from Guy Greetings and I have used that as a starting point for my cards this week.






I used the ship from Traveler and the splashes stamps from Work Of Art for colour beneath in one (Mint Macaron, Lost Lagoon) and above in the other (Watermelon Wonder, Crushed Curry). The 'Happy Birthday' is in the Guy Greetings set, but I had a script birthday leftover from another project which I decided to also include for a bit of variety. Traveler has some great images for cards for the men in your life, a world globe. antique camera, steam train while Guy Greetings has some spanners and the cute sentiment 'righty-tighty, lefty-loosey' which I am looking forward to using for my plumber son soon.

 Next I decided to step the basic card up a notch or two, for my hubby. Guy Greetings has "You're My Anchor" along with the anchor stamp, so paired up with the ship it makes a great theme. After punching a hole in the anchor, I threaded some chunky Natural and Old Olive Two-Tone Trim through and added some banners at the top. That's some of the new Bohemian DSP, my favourite from the new catalogue, and I came home from Convention with a packet too. There are a lot more sentiments in the Guy Greetings set, Happy Father's Day, Congratulations and Grandpa, Uncle, Brother, Dad etc, so you'll be set for most events with this one.

The other good news is that although the occasions Catalogue finishes  in just over a week (on June 2nd) Guy Greetings has made it into the Annual Catalogue, and Traveler is there for another year too. Plenty of good stamps won't continue after June 2nd, do you need to have a chat to me to find out what is retiring? Do you need a copy of the new catalogue?

Next blog on the hop is Elizabeth Gross at Lilly Loves Paper. I wonder what gorgeous inspiration Liz has for us this week?

Cheers,
Rachel.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Travel Well SSC101

Great inspiration picture! Thanks to Sunday Stamps for this one which really had me keen to throw together a very quick card with stamps that are already out and being used.
Of late, I have been focusing on masculine cards, which makes these colours especially suitable. Traveler, with the train, boat, camera and world globe has been my stamp set of choice. Gorgeous Grunge has been featuring quite a lot to but there is just the tiniest bit of black splatter on this card base. The main stamp giving the texture to the background is the new You've Got This. I think this large stamp might just stay permanently on my table!


The quirky sentiment is also from You've Got This, -'Good Things are going to Happen'.

There are four layers on this piece on the front, so for balance I added some layers to the inside too. Fortunately I'd used black Stazon to stamp the globe, because after the first photos were taken for the blog, I decided to watercolor it, just for added interest.

Cheers,
Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Train Traveler PP224

Tic-Tac-Toe, what a fun challenge this is! I always intend to go back and see how many
combinations I can play, but I'm not even going to suggest that at this crazy, busy time of the year. Thanks to Jaydee at The Paper Players for this challenge.

I've taken the top line: tree, transport and white.

If my uncle was still with us, this would be a perfect card for him, as he was a fan of anything steam driven. He took part in many agricultural shows where they rolled out the old steam traction machinery, and all sorts of ancient contraptions!
The picture was composed using the old steam train stamp from Traveler, paired with Lovely As A Tree and a bold sentiment from Bravo! This was the first time I had used the Bravo! stamp set, and I hadn't realised how big and bold the hip-hip hooray actually was. Usually, Stampin' Up! show the stamp images at 100% but lately, with the images so large, they have reduced them in the catalogue and on the stamp cover it seems. It is actually written in rather small print that the images are shown
at 65% . Since it's a photopolymer stamp set, I was able to hold it over the design to see how much of it covered the trees, and decided that big and bold would be fine.
I'm off to a Team Catalogue Launch Webinar about an hour away from home. One of my downlines is driving and we'll have lots of fun having a bite to eat with members of the extended team and having a sneak peek at the new stamp sets, Framelits, punches and papers coming in January! One of the great bonuses of joinig Stampin' Up! has been new friendships with others who share your hobby.



Cheers
Rachel

Missing You Already PP204

Now this is an interesting colour combo, thanks to LeAnne at The Paper Players for this piece of inspiration.
I was asked to make a card for my friend to give to her sister, as the sister is moving to Abu Dhabi indefinitely with her husband and son. I've  used all the challenge colours and Just Sayin' stamp set and framelits. Since it isn't a vacation card, I was quite happy to use 'missing you already' as I'm sure Suzi, and all her family will be missing her sister and nephew. The suitcases were perfect I thought, and I assume the other image is a passport. They are some of the neat images in the new stamp set Traveler, so much fun to play with these new goodies!!! For the SUO Challenge, I've scrunched the Lost Lagoon ribbon at one end of the card, using sticky dots to catch it, and a couple of rhinestones to glam it up. There's a giant rhinestone (now retired) on the ticket too.

Suzi seemed very happy with the card today, so that makes me happy too.
Glenda Calkins card inspired me to 'ground' the suitcases on a ticket. Wouldn't you like to make a card using these colours too?
 Thanks for reading my blog,
Rachel



You can click on any of the pictures below, and it will take you to that item in my online store.

Traveler Wood-Mount Stamp Set

$48.95

Traveler Clear-Mount Stamp Set

$34.95

Just Sayin' Wood Stamp Set

$46.95

Just Sayin' Clear Stamp Set

$37.95

Word Bubbles Framelits Die

$42.95

Tag Topper Angled Punch

$39.95

Lost Lagoon 3/8" Satin Stitched Ribbon

$15.95

Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack

$11.95

Rhinestone Basic Jewels Embellishments

$8.95

Adventure Ahead FM168

My husband begins a new job this week so I decided to put a little card together to wish him well in the next phase of his life. I chose the train from Traveler, a new Stampin' Up! stamp set and paired it with a greeting which usually comes with a bicycle in the Hostess stamp set Life's Adventure.  You can probably read it for yourself, but it says 'enjoy the adventure ahead.' I received both those stamps in my BBB last Thursday, so I could hardly wait to find a reason to use them! The Large Polka Dot Embossing Folder is a new one in the catalogue too, I'm planning to have a lot of fun with it too, I can see many different ways to use it.

There's a double challenge at Friday Mashup, but I have left out the summer part of the challenge and just used the suggested colours: Mossy Green, Hello Honey and Lost Lagoon.

Bye for now
Rachel