Around The World Blog Hop--April

I am so excited to be participating in this BRAND NEW international blog hop started by the amazing Angie McKenzie. Her faith in my technical skills is beyond admiration! You may also see this new blog hop being referred to as ‘aWOW Blog Hop’. We will be posting monthly on the second Wednesday of each month!

The theme for our inaugural hop is ‘Must haves for your creativity’…I thought about this quite a bit and finally settled on ‘things I can colour with’…so my project includes two colouring tools—the classic Stampin’ Write markers and the newer Stampin’ Blends.

I love the soft watercolour wash in the background of these cards and the fact that every single one is unique and special. I used the Under My Umbrella and Fable Friends stamp sets and coloured the images with Stampin’ Blends. I did add Wink of Stella on top of the flowers, its another crafty must have in my Home Studio!

The water-colour wash in the background is actually one of my favourite techniques and one that I pull out of my technique closet from time to time. Its actually a great technique to share with beginner stampers as they only need our classic Stampin’ Write markers and either water-colour or shimmery white paper. In my samples I used water color paper. I also used a cello bag as the transfer piece. You could use a window sheet as well, but a cello bag is much cheaper and chances are even a new stamper will have one of these lying around.

The first step as illustrated in the first picture is to gather all of the supplies. Stampin’ Write markers of your choice, a spritzer tool with water, a cello bag or window sheet (if using a window sheet cut it to the same size as your base), and a piece of water-colour paper or shimmery white (regular white card stock is too thin to absorb as of the moisture). You may also want to have a tissue handy to blot up any excess water.

Color each marker in a diagonal line across the cello bag.

Spritz the cello bag with water.

Press the water-colour paper onto the cello bag and let sit to for a few moments to absorb the color. When removing, have a tissue handy to soak up any loose water.

And that is it! Easy peasy and creates such a wonderful background!

Click here to visit the amazing Tricia Butts in the USA!

Hershey Nugget Treat Holders

I wanted to create some cute little Hershey Nugget treat holders to pop into my customer order bags this month. This is something I want to be more consistent with as I truly do appreciate their ongoing support! I did a quick Pinterest search and found these little guys! I also wanted to use up some so retired products as well, so you may notice sold old favourites on this project!

You really could modify the measurements on the nugget holder for any size treat you like. However, for the nugget holder here, cut your card stock to 3 3/4 x 2 1/2 and score at 1 1/2 x 2 1/4 on the long side. I then cut some DSP (this is the Flowering Foils DSP that was recently available through Sale-a-bration) to 1 1/4 x 2 1/4 and in this case I actually foam brayered over top so the color would match!

You can use one of the stitched rectangular framelits to cut DSP to wrap around the nuggets and adhere with Tear & Tape.

Then simply tie the nugget holder closed with some ribbon and add a tag and voila! Easy peasy treat holder!

The sentiment Happy Spring is from the Fable Friends stamp set found in the Idea Book & Catalogue.

These cute and easy treat holders were a good way to use some Sale-a-bration items and retired products!

So Glad We Are Friends!

Hey friends! I really do appreciate you checking out m blog! I really do hope it is inspiring you to be creative! And I you haven’t been over to my Lifestyle tab, you should check it out, especially my Favourite Recipes section as I have shared a lot of my family’s favourite recipes over there! I highly recommend the Oreo Popcorn, it would be a fun snack to make with your kids!

I just wanted to share this card with you today to let you know that I am truly loving, missing and appreciating all of my friends. I cased this card right from the Idea Book & Catalogue because I was wanting to do some therapeutic colouring. I features the Fable Friends stamp set that I coloured using Stampin’ Blends. I had to use the chubby tip because the images are quite tiny and detailed.

Dino Days!

I don’t know what it is about this cute little T-Rex but wouldn’t you be happy if he came in the mail? He is just too cute! I created a bunch of these cards for my stash and thought it was fun to share, especially because they feature two products that were recently available with Sale-a-bration, and therefore might be in your craft stash!

The card features the Dino Days stamp set and no I did not use my dies to cut them out. Why? Well because I stamped his spikes on his back…and to use the dies, you actually have to stamp them separately to cut them out. Ooopsie! Luckily for me, I have TIME on my hands so I didn’t mind fussy cutting this little guy out. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Welcome to the Team stamp set. Both of these stamp sets are in the Idea Book & Catalogue!

I ran the Whisper White base through the Stone 3D embossing folder and covered it with a strip of the Dinoroar DSP. The Old Olive label is cut from the Stitched So Sweetly Dies, and I used the edge of the largest scalloped rectangle to cut the Gorgeous Grape scallop bit tucked under the DSP. I also added some of the popular Bermuda Bay Metallic thread to loop around this whole little panel.

The little tiny heart is punched from the Twinkle Builder Punch in the Idea Book & Catalogue.

I also stamped the inside of the card too for a little extra fun! I love the bright colours of this card and its perfect for any age or gender!

From this...to that!

Sometimes it takes a lot of mental energy to come up with a brand new, fresh, scrapbook page layout. Well today I decided to created a layout based on another layout I had previously designed. I thought by sharing this with you, you might be inspired to look back at some of your own creations and recreate the page using updated and fresh products and embellishments.

I used Pool Party as my page layout base and I found a strip of the Perennial Essence DSP in my scrap pin. I added a strip of the So Very Vellum Specialty Paper (which was a free Sale-a-bration reward) at the bottom as it added some unique texture. I used the DSP to dictate the rest of the color pallet and decided to pull out the Highland Heather and Pretty Peacock accents.

The border at the top is from the Wild Rose dies and layered behind in Pretty Peacock is the Label Me Lovely Punch. I decided to keep the florals ‘light’ by stamping and embossing them in white onto some vellum. Both of the florals are from the Timeless Tropical stamp set. Hello Sunshine is from the Under My Umbrella stamp set. You will find Enjoy the Little Things from the Friend Like You stamp set and Time for a New Adventure from Well Said stamp set, which can both be found in the Idea Book & Catalogue. I do believe it is important to design projects that feature at least one item from the Idea Book & Catalogue as we do always want our stampers going back to our main stampin’ resource.

There are a few retired items on this page too—-can you spot them? And the little strip of DSP under the largest flower is from the Best Dressed DSP.

I absolutely love how the page turned out! I kept the layout the same and just freshened it up with new products from the 2019/2020 Idea Book & Catalogue and the Occasions Catalogue!