Inspiring Inkin’

A very quick post today………I have been really busy this week with Issue 3 of Making Gifts magazine, some home workshops and preparation for classes too.  Who stole this week………..I can’t believe it’s friday!!!

A quick reminder for you to check out my class schedule here I have just added an additional date for the year in a day scrapbook class, this will be held in Fareham.  There are only a few places left on the mini madness class too, so please get booked up soon.

Todays card is using the wonderful Good Neighbours Sale-a-bration set, along with my trusty Stamp-a-ma-jig !  I’ll be demonstrating this card at my February home workshops. If you don’t know what a Stamp-a-ma-jig is or you would like to earn this stamp set for free……..book a workshop with me during February.

Have a great weekend.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Today I am joining in a Sale-a-bration blog hop with some very talented ladies from the ILWS forum. If you have joined me from Dawn’s blog a warm welcome to my website, whilst you are here do have a look around, there are lots of samples, tutorials and inspiration, the tabs at the top and links on the right hand panel will lead the way for you.

All the samples on this blog hop are featuring Sale-a-abration stamp sets available for free with a £45 Stampin’ Up! order.  I have used the Whimsical Words stamp set for my cards today and at the end there is a mini tutorial.  The colour combination for my cards is Close to Cocoa and Pretty in Pink, I have embellished the cards with the Pretties kit.

This first card uses the heart from Love you Much stamp set, stamped in Rose Red onto Whisper White card and coloured with markers before cutting out and raised up on dimensionals. A little paper piercing in the corners and the heart is cut through using a hat pin studded with pearls and a little Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon.

The card below is using Fresh cuts and decorated with 2 flowers from the pretties kit, the first flower is coloured using a Close to Cocoa marker and the second is seriously glittered……I love, love glitter!

This is a pretties white fabric flower, transformed with Stampin’ Up! Fine Cosmo glitter, here it is in close up! Very Sparkly !!

Glitter flower tutorial

You will need

Fine Cosmo Glitter
Pretties kit
Crystal effects
A small dish to hold the glitter

Squeeze the crystal effects all over the flower, it needs to be well covered as shown in the next 2 pictures.

Put the flower crystal effects side down, this is messy, press down hard into the glitter check for any bald spots and press down again, do use tweezers if you don’t like to be gluey and sparkly……..me I love it!

Then put it to one side to dry, make sure it’s a non-stick surface, I use a teflon sheet, but baking parchment will work too, you will know when it’s ready the flower will feel a little crispy!!

Below are 5 flowers coated using each of the colours in the Fine Cosmo glitter kit aren’t they beautiful, a little glitter goes a very long way brilliant value at £12.95.

Thank you for spending time with my, do come back again soon, and now off to your next stop   Jo’s Blog have fun!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Do you love Stampin’ Up! ribbon? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have the perfect colour ribbon on hand whenever we needed it. This dream can come a little bit closer with my ribbon share.

I have selected some of my favourite ribbons to make up a goodie bag of 16 1/2  metres of ribbon, you can see some of them in the picture below. It includes all 4 colours of the amazing 1 1/4″ Striped Grosgrain ribbon along with many others and costs only £13 including postage.

In each ribbon share you will receive:

1 ¼” Striped Grosgrain Ribbon in Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive and Basic Black: 1 metre of each colour

1” double stitched ribbon Rose Red and Bashful Blue: 1 metre of each colour

½” striped ribbon So Saffron: 1 metre

3/8” Taffeta ribbon Kraft and Pretty in Pink: 1 metre of each colour

¼” grosgrain Elegant Eggplant and Tempting Turquoise: 1 1/2 metres of each colour

5/8” grosgrain Regal Rose and Chocolate Chip: 1 1/2 metres of each colour

3/16” Gingham Ribbon Black: 1 1/2 metres

As a bonus since we are in Sale-a-bration for each share you will also receive some stamps from one of the Sale-a-bration sets.

Please contact me if you are interested in taking part in this ribbon share. Email me. or you can buy now via paypal.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Do you have the Stampin’ Write Marker Pens on your wish list? If not, why not ? They are wonderful marker pens, a nice size, double ended, with a thick and a fine nib. Helpfully they have a thick and thin white line around each corresponding end so you know which lid to take off ! The pens can be used to directly colour onto a rubber stamp, allowing you to create an image with multiple colours. They are also great for colouring in, water-colouring, doodling and even writing.  They co-ordinate with our 48 colours so you will always have the right marker for your projects !

The markers come in colour family packs at £24.95 each but the best way of buying them is as a full set as they come with a very sturdy carry case, see the picture below.

The inside has sections for each marker and a colour chart on the back so you know where to put them all.

The complete 48 set of markers comes in a lovely carry case, costing £99.95. I understand that this is a lot of money to pay out in one go, so I have put together this club to help spread the cost over several months !

The important bit:

* The marker club will consist of four members, and run for four months.

* You must commit to participate for the whole duration of the club.

* Commitment will require post dated cheques, which will be deposited with the bank on the 5th of each month February, March, April and May.

During the club you will receive:

* One colour family  of markers per month, a total of 12 Stampin’ Write markers.

* One Stampin’ Write storage carrying case.

By the end of the four months, you will have:

1 x Complete set of 48 Stampin’ Write Many Marvelous Markers in storage case. (RRP £99.95)

And your choice of Sale-a-bration stamp set as a thank you from me!

Cost: £25.00 per month, for four months, if you are able to collect the markers from me, if not I will charge postage to you at cost.

Please contact me if you are interested in join this marker pen club! Email me.

Details of my ribbon share will be posted later today.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

On Sunday I’m taking part in another blog hop with more than 20 other Stampin’ Up! demonstrators who belong to the In Love With Stamping forum, look out for this logo!

I’ll be back later today with news of ribbon and marker shares !

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

My friend Liz had a baby boy on Tuesday, his name is Bailey, big congratulations !!!!

This is the card on it’s way to her, I can safely put it here as she is way too busy to visit my website at the moment!

The little bags are part of the present, some Choccies and English Rose bath melts for Liz, Bailey has got to wait for his pressie till I see him!  But rest assured it has stamping on it and I will post it here soon.

I think it’s important to make sure that new Mum’s have a little something to congratulate them, after all they did all the hard work!!

Below is a close up of one of the tags and the inside of the card, stamped immediately after the front of the card so I got a soft look from the ink.

Stamps : En Francais, Medallion, Whimsical Words, All in the Family
Inks: Bashful Blue, Ballet Blue, Night of Navy
Cardstock: Whisper White, Ballet Blue, Night of Navy
Accessories: Stamp-a-ma-jig, 1 1/4″ circle punch, 1 3/8″ circle Punch, Scallop Circle punch, Scallop Oval punch, Oval Punch, Blender pens, Double stitched ribbon, Paper Piercer, Silver cord, Cello bags

Finally a quick request, I have a workshop booking for Teresa Jones and I cannot get through on the telephone, it is really important that i speak with her, I have written to her as I don’t have an email address, so Teresa, or if you know Teresa please call or email me.  Thank you x

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

The first of my 2 cards for today is for the Inspiring Inkin’ Challenge Blog, Vannessa, Amy and Elaine do a brilliant job of giving us some wonderful challenges and lots of inspiration.  They are all Stampin’ Up! demonstrators who are part of my Inspiring Inkin’ team and use Stampin’ Up! only products in the challenges, do visit the blog and join in we would love to see your creations!  You can find the blog here.

So Challenge No 18 is the chalkboard technique, you use Whisper White Craft ink and pounce Stampin’ Pastels into the stamped images, I always use our sponge daubers.  On the card above I have used the Medallion background stamp with Yoyo Yellow, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie and Rose Red pastels to give the sunset effect.  The scalloped image is part of the new Sale-a-bration set Vintage Labels with a little Pretty ink Pink ribbon to finish.

My second card is using the same sale-a-bration set, this time partnered with my old favourite combination, Sage Shadow and Chocolate chip!  I have punched out a variety of circles and hoops from the Speciality Designer Series paper To the Nines and layered them one on top of the other.

There seems to be a bit of a thaw today, but the clouds look full of snow so we shall see what the rest of the day brings……..meantime I’m going to make some more samples with my Sale-a-bration sets so do pop back tomorrow.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

So how are you doing in the snow……….?  We have about 8″ here in south Hampshire, enough to bring the traffic to a stop on all the side roads.  My house is accessed up 2 small hills so no traffic has been moving here at all.  Worse still the UPS lorry can’t get up the hill to deliver my latest pile of Stampin’ Up! goodies!  Thankfully we are all safe and warm and the children are loving the snow days !

I have been crafting but for classes and the magazine so I can’t share at the moment but I will have some thing later today and over the weekend.

In the meantime look what has been launched !  Issue 2 is on sale now!

For details of how to get your copy please visit the Making Gifts website  here.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda