First onto a piece of Whisper White card I have stamped the circles in Versamark and clear embossed them.  Normally when you are embossing you stop when the image is glossy and raised, with this technique you continue to heat the embossing powder until it flattens out again.Don’t hold the heat gun too close or you will end up with burnt patches on your card.  You will know when it is heated enough because you will be able to see the images on the reverse of the card.

Then spritz the card with water it needs to form in puddles, use a sponge dauber and a variety of ink pads I have used Chocolate Chip, Rose Red and Taken with Teal.  Dab the sponge daubers over the wet card and the colour will bleed through, once you have an effect you are happy with leave to dry.

I’m back from my holiday in Malta now having had an amazing time, it will take me a day or 2 to catch up with my emails, thank you for being patient!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

I love this little set and right now it’s only £10.36 as it’s part of Stampin’ Up!s special August offer.  I’ve teamed up Old Olive, Ruby Red and Close to Cocoa.

See the post below for more details of the special offer from Stampin’ Up! during August.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Inside their bags ( which they made)  is a bookmark, decorated pen, Smarties card, notepad and a pop up chocolate bar.

It was a lovely day, thank you for inviting me Izzy!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Rose Red, Regal Rose and the ever so versatile Chocolate Chip is the colour combo, all of the large flowers have Rose red and Champagne Mist shimmer paint on them, as does the Chocolate Chip circle, here is a closer look…..

So how do you get Rose Red and Champagne Mist onto your stamp……..carefully……..tee hee………….sorry for teasing……..but you do need to be careful and have your stamp ‘n’ scrub at the ready.

Ink up your stamp with Rose Red, put a little Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint into a saucer, use a sponge dauber to pick up the shimmer paint and tap onto the stamp, stamp the image as normal, you can get 2-3 images from one application, they do get paler but that’s part of the fun!   Then clean your stamp……….IMPORTANT………..Do this before you re-ink the stamp.  If you don’t you will end up with a sparkly inkpad, which looks pretty, but might not be good for it.  (I’ll let you know……I have several sparkly inkpads now………shimmer paint and dazzling diamonds adorn many of my inkpads!)

As you carry on your sponge dauber and the shimmer pain in the saucer will get pinker and pinker, this is why you don’t want to take it direct from the bottle!

To make your Chocolate chip card stock sparkly just rub the dauber over the card with Shimmer paint and allow to dry.

I hope that is clear but do leave me a comment if not, actually please do leave me a comment, it is so lovely to hear from you!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

When I spoke with Susan about the type of projects she was interested in, she explained she liked Giraffes………..Having been to Susan’s house ‘liking Giraffes’ is a bit of an understatement, the most wonderful display of Giraffes of every type, size and material adorn her home.

I made some cards for her as her hostess gift using the Giraffe from the Fox and Friends Stamp set, but I wanted to make her something using punch art.

I found this card here on Splitcoast Stampers forum and it inspired my Chocolate bar cover below!

I am very pleased to say she loved it !

I would love to come and do a workshop for you and your friends and family, do get in touch and book one soon!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Please do not adjust your monitors there is a bow on this box, yes I have managed to tie a bow ! I am sure it is the magic of the Chocolate Chip Satin ribbon…….!

How to make the box

You need to start with a piece of card 8″ x 11 1/2″  stamp all over the card before you score it.  I have used Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Chocolate Chip  and stamps from Vintage Vogue.

Score the card with the 8″ piece at the top at 1 3/4″, 2 1/4″, 5 3/4″ and 6 1/4″.

Score the card with the 11 1/2″ piece at the top at 3 1/2″, 4″, 7 1/2″ and 8″.

Cut away the 4 corners as shown in the picture below.  Save the pieces and use them to decorate your cards as shown below.

Next decorate your love notes and envelopes, I have used the wonderful XLBird punch and the Very Vintage wheel.

Place them inside your box as shown,

Fold over the smaller flaps, stamp and punch out the F – Friends stamp and thread onto the ribbon.

Fold the main flaps in and tie the ribbon in a bow.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

This card is perfect for spring, hopefully spring will arrive eventually ! It uses both Vintage Vogue a new stamp set and Very Vintage a wonderful new wheel, you will be seeing a lot of cards with these two !

I’m taking a few days off and spending time with the family, I hope you ahve a wonderful Easter and I’ll be back next week with more projects to share.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

I do Scrapbook, I teach Scrapbooking classes, hold scrapbooking workshops, run and visit crops and yet I have singularly failed to share a page with you. I am going to rectify this today and through next week and show you a variety of pages and some more cards and 3D projects too!

So here goes, when I run a Stampin’ Up! home workshop for a group of scrappers we usually make a 6″ x 6″ page and this week I visited Anna and her friends and we made a chocolate lime page Yum!

I always take a 12″ x 12″ page to show them how they can step it up and this is the larger version.

Tomorrow I have some goodies and cards to show you from my team that I recieved yesterday at our Inspiring Inkin’ Stampin’ Up! team meeting.  We had lots of fun and I gave away so many prizes and awards the team is going from strength to strength, I am so lucky.  If you’d like to find out more about becoming a demonstrator in my team please do email me.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

It’s a spinner card using the wonderful flight of the butterfly stamp set and the co-ordinating butterfly punch.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

This one is all in purple, Lavender Lace and Elegant Eggplant. But it also looks fab in Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate chip too.

I’ve almost finished the Spinner card tutorial so do pop back tomorrow to see it.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Here are all their name badges ready to go, I’m having a bit of a purple phase at the moment, the badges are stamped with Greenhouse Garden in Lavender Lace and Elegant Eggplant.

I have a tradition of making notebooks for my team and this time is no exception, these have been decorated with the Sunny days simply Scrappin’ kit and to match I have got them all a Stampin’ Up! Sunny Days pen, well how else will they take lots of notes ?

We will be making several projects and I will share those over the coming days, but today I will show you my new invention, and I’m really excited about it, everyone will be making their own version !

It’s an art journal decorated and designed to showcase all our Stampin’ Up! punches.

Here are some of the inside pages.

Have a great Valentines day I’ll be back on Monday with more projects.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

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

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

Any how back to the card, I didn’t post it yesterday because I wanted to make sure it had arrived safe and sound, last year I made Alex a cupcake card and I wanted to have candles this year too, so decided to make them the background feature and a big blue bird as the main event!

Stamps : Queue Up, Occasional Greetings, Good Friend
Inks: Basic Black, Taken with Teal
Cardstock: Taken with Teal, Whisper White
Accessories: Markers, Stamp-a-ma-jig, 1/4″ circle punch

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

This card also uses the mat pack and Crystal effects……..wow lovely stuff!

The note pad I made for the team day it was inspired by the lovely Emma a fellow SU! demo who shared with me a template for a note pad, I tweaked it to make this one.  You can see her original here. I have added an extra cover over the binding and the wonderful eyelet punch on the inside.

That’s all from me today, I have a busy workshop tonight and I’m teaching all day tomorrow so I’ll be back on Sunday with the prize draw, 8pm UK time.

Have a good weekend

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Each card is easily duplicated at home to make your Christmas card making a fun and speedy crafting experience. The sentiment on the card is Seasonal Wishes, it is half price as it’s on the last chance list…….£7.98 for 6 wonderful sentiment stamps.

Stamps : Season of Joy, Seasonal Wishes
Inks: Old Olive, Versamark
Cardstock: Ski Slope designer paper, Old Olive, Whisper White
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Ribbon, 1 1/4″ and 1 3/8″ circle punch and White embossing powder

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

This is a card made for my hubby on our anniversary, again with the Sage Shadow, Chocolate Chip and Kraft combination, this time I stamped onto Very Vanilla card as well.

The new stamp set is called Circle Circus and it is wonderful from tiny weeny circles to really bold large circles, fabby!

Stamps : Circle Circus, Best Yet
Inks: Sage Shadow, Chocolate Chip
Cardstock: Sage Shadow, Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Ribbon, 1 1/4″ and 1 3/8″ circle punch

If you would like to order a copy of the new catalogue please email me for payment details, but better still why not get one free? All of my club members get a free copy of each catalogue as it’s launched as do all my hostesses from the previous year at a special event just for them, so why not book a workshop during September or October and get your inky mitts on one!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Jane designed this first card, well something very similar……….you see I was busy chatting ( not like me at all !  ) and stuck my ribbon on too central then the mat layers didn’t fit so I adapted the design……..I’m really pleased with it and the technique, I will be demoing this technique at my workshops during July.

Stamps : Wow Flowers
Inks: Green Galore
Cardstock: Green Galore, Whisper White
Accessories: 1/2″ circle punch, White grosgrain ribbon, Stampin’ Pastels, Sponge Daubers, Paper Piercer, Scallop circle punch

This is a bookmark designed by Vannessa, it showcases the wonderful Season of Joy, a Christmas stamp set that’s not just for Christmas!!!  I love the Summer Sun, Cameo Coral combination, just right for a summer holiday read.

Stamps : Season of Joy, One of a Kind
Inks: Cameo Coral, Summer Sun, Old Olive
Cardstock: Cameo Coral, Summer Sun, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Round Tab Punch, Boho Blossoms Punch, Brads, Paper piercer

This card was Amy’s make and take with a difference, she gave us all a bag of bits, cardstock, designer paper, confetti white card.  Black Stazon ink, watercolour crayons and the choice of 2 stamp sets, Scene in a Garden or the one I chose Soft Summer.  The ribbon embellishment uses a loop of Linen thread to attach the button, simple and stylish.  Love it!

Stamps : Soft Summer
Inks: Black Stazon
Cardstock and Papers: Confetti White, Bashful Blue, Old Olive, Summer Picnic DSP
Accessories: Button, Linen Thread, Bashful Blue Double Stitched Ribbon, Watercolour wonder crayons

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Here is my version, I have used Spiced Cider designer papers, the colours of the card are Really Rust and Old Olive.  The beer mugs I have coloured in with Blender pens and Really Rust ink which gives lovely shading.  To make the card I have used a piece of card 5 3/4″ x 10 1/2″ scored at 3 1/2″ and 7″  you then cut in a diagonal line to give this lovely shaped card, the best bit is you get 2 out of an A4 sheet!

And here is a little bit of magic, in order to make the beer foam, well foamy……..I used the tombow glue and sprinkled it with White embossing powder, you then heat it gently until the embossing powder melts ( the whole thing will bubble up.) You then allow it to cool and you get this lovely effect.  Do be careful though  because the top is dry but depending on how much glue you use under the top crust can be sticky so leave it to dry overnight.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda