Christmas in July--its a thing!

Don’t believe me? Hahaha, or do you feel that its blasphemous to talk about Christmas in July? Well if you do, maybe this cute card will change your mind and get you thinking about Christmas 2020. It might be the only thing we have to look forward too. Hahaha!

Actually I can think of something else to look forward to, making awesome holiday cards and Christmas projects! I actually start this process in August believe it or not!

I created this card using traditional Christmas colors in Real Red, Old Olive and Crumb Cake and the upcoming Heartwarming Hugs Suite.

I used the Warm Hugs stamp set and Warm Wraps Dies to create this card. I started by stamping Happy Christmas randomly in Real Red on the card base. It is hard to capture in the picture, but I flicked my Wink of Stella pen across the card front as well. If you haven’t tried this before, experiments! It can add some amazing sparkle too your projects!

I cut a strip of Heartwarming Hugs DSP and layered it on some Crumb Cake. I tried some Linen Thread around in a bow. I I used three stamps from the stamp set to create the label. To highlight it, I cut a scalloped strip using one of the dies from the set and tucked it underneath the Crumb Cake.

It actually didn’t take long to create a bunch of these for a card swap I was in—yes, a Christmas in July card swap!

Create with Connie and Mary--Favourite NEW In Color!

Since Stampin’ Up! released the 5 new In Colors—Cinnamon Cider, Just Jade, Bumblee Bee, Magenta Madness and Misty Moonlight, my FAVOURITE of the 5 colors has changed almost every week as I discover new things I love about each one. So this weeks creative theme of your favourite color was a tough one!

As you can see from my bright and colourful cards, I have chosen Magenta Madness of my favourite new color du jour! I actually had a great time making these cards as they use a One Sheet Wonder template that I found on Pinterest that was originally shared by Kelly Kent, a demonstrator in Australia. I had to make one small adjustment as our card sizes/bases are a little smaller than what she was using.

If you are in North America and want to follow this template, just trim Panel A to 5 1/2—easy adjustment! Cut the DSP starting with Panel A and set off to the side. You can then cut Panel B and divide it into Panel C. That should leave you with a final strip which is Panel D.

Once I had selected Magenta Madness as my favourite color to work with this week, I new pairing it with the Flowers for Every Season DSP was a perfect choice as it has such a fun cheery color palette. Once I selected this super floral pattern, I new I could take these cards to the Avid level by accentuating them with the All Things Fabulous Bundle!

With each of the cards I did some background Tone on Tone stamping with the Magenta Madness ink and some marker flicking. The pink flowers are stamped in three pink colors—Blushing Bride, Magenta Madness and Melon Mambo in that order. If you have a Stamp-a-ratus, I would definitely pull it out to use with this bundle!

I love how perfectly this stamp set worked to create these cards. I was able to use a different sentiment from the set on each card, making it a really easy class option!

The yellow flowers are stamped in Daffodil Delight, Bumblebee and Crushed Curry in that order. I stamped the leaves in Just Jade to pull out the green on the DSP. Some of the leaves are stamped on Mint Macaron and some on Whisper White.

I addd in Blushing Bride as some mats for the DSP and its was the perfect compliment to Magenta Madness. I decided to keep all of the sentiment stamping in black ink as to not compete with all of the bright colours in the DSP.

I hope you enjoy our Blog Hop today! You should be full of In Color Inspiration for sure once you travel around to all of our blogs. You can go back to visit Melissa or next to see what Connie has created! Please feel free leave a comment as well. Happy Saturday!

Happy Anniversary--soft and sweet!

I wanted to share an anniversary card that I recently created for a swap card in one of my groups. When I went to create this card, I realized that Anniversary sentiments are ones that I severely lacking in my giant stamp collection! The only ‘Happy Anniversary’ that I could find came from the Itty Bitty Greetings stamp set. It is actually a set that I refer to beginner stampers because it has a little bit of everything in it. The sentiments are nice size can fit in many of our punches. This is important to our newer customers because we have not had a die cutting machine to offer them for the past year. So stamp sets that have many punch options are a go to for me!

I am really loving the simplicity and impact that a white card and base can make. Keeping this white gave this card a touch of elegance, especially with the gold and bronze accents used on this card.

I ran the front panel of this card through the Tasteful Textile 3D folder, it really should be a must have in your craft room! I then cut a 2 inch circle out so that when I placed this layer on the card front it would make the embossing folder stand out even more by seeing the contrast of solid paper behind the window.

I once again reached for the Forever Fern bundle to embellish this card. I cut one of the larger ferns out of the Bronze Foil sheets and stamped two of the images, both in Just Jade ink, one on Whisper White and one on Just Jade card stock.

Happy Anniversary is embossed in gold and I added in a few of the Gold Glitter Dots. The twine is from some long ago kit that I found laying around! I will admit, I am a scraps of this and that hoarder! This was the perfect find for this card!

You could easily swap this sentiment out for Happy Birthday, Thinking of You, Hello or anything really! The card design is timeless.

Just Tag it! Create with Connie & Mary!

Happy Christmas in July! Are you having fun hopping with us and getting some holiday inspiration? Stampin’ Up! has really knocked it out of the park with the new upcoming Handmade For You (Holiday) catalogue. Once August hits our stampin’ friends will be able to order! I was able to get my hands on some products because of my demo status #myfavoritething! Getting my hands on new stuff early is super exciting for me!

One of the things I was super excited about was the Tag Buffet Project Kit—it is right at the start of the Handmade For You catalogue so you cannot miss it! And you won’t want to! I have been a demonstrator for a long time and I think I can safely say this is the BEST tag kit we have had yet! I love the oversized tags, the traditional Christmas colors and the volume of tags this kit makes—-30 in all of 6 designs! Everything you need is inside a cute decorated box, similar in size to our mini Paper Pumpkin boxes (which I love!).

As soon as I put these tags together I knew I needed to create a scrapbook page! It might be the fastest page I have ever made!

There is a separate and coordinating stamp set to purchase to accompany this kit—called Tag Buffet. I used it to stamp the sentiments on the tags and ‘Tis the Season’ on my page. The font is fun and whimsical and perfectly suits this tag kit.

Scrapbooking doesn’t always have to take hours to put together a page! When you have great elements like these in the Tag Buffet kit, fabulous pages can come together in a snap!

Isn’t the size of these tags perfect? Great for gifts giving, easy card embellishments and memory keeping!

I added a bit of background splatter with my Water Painter and Shaded Spruce ink pad. Just smash your ink pad on an acrylic block, drop a bit of water in and flick the Water Painter across your background. It creates a really easy background.

You will notice that I did not pop the holes out on the tags I used on the layout. This helped them look more like shapes versus tags. I added a few of the Gold Glitter Gems to the page and few twigs/leafs stamped in the background here and there!

I hope by sharing all of these fabulous tags you are inspired to purchase this Tag Kit! I cannot wait to offer it as a class when it gets closer to the holidays! You can hop back to see Melissa’s Christmas in July projects and hop forward to see what Connie has created!

Create with Connie and Mary--Tropical Feelings!

Hello my friends! I am definitely having Tropical Feelings this week as I was scheduled to be in Maui on the Stampin’ Up! Incentive trip. And while I am not there, I am still counting my blessing and feeling thankful for all the people that continually support me so I can earn and achieve these trips each year! This past year, 40 Canadian Demonstrators stamped their way to Maui and to be a part of such a wonderful group (our biggest yet) is truly an honour. I love what I do and have had the support of so many people over the years to truly “LOVE WHAT I DO”.

Our weekly Saturday Blog Hop is channelling those ‘Tropical Feelings’ and I pictured myself on a beach drinking yummy cocktails while being fanned by my husband (well maybe not the last part but a girl can dream!) So I leaned into the Nothings Better Than stamp set as a jump start for some fun cocktail cards!

What is really awesome about this stamp set (pg 91) is the variety of words and sentiments in the stamp set. It actually makes creating custom phrases so easy and fun which is what I did here with these cards.

Using the Playing with Patterns DSP was also a no brainer in creating these cards! I love the color palette and being able to mix and match the patterns made these cards come together so easily. The featured colors are Calypso Coral, Crushed Curry, Coastal Cabana, Night of Navy and Purple Posy. I swapped out the Night of Navy for Misty Moonlight and added Blushing Bride in as well for the 6 card bases.

The cocktails are stamped in Momento ink and then colored with Stampin’ Blends in the coordinating colors. I used a water painter to flick coordinating ink over top of the first card stock layer, focusing mainly on the edges (as that is all you see once the white layer goes on top). I added a couple of the Playing with Patterns Resin Dots to each card for the perfect finishing touch!

I just love the added texture the water painter can add to a background! This is a technique I definitely use A LOT!

As usual you can go back to see what Tropical Creation Melissa is sharing with us or continue going forward (NEXT) to see what Connie has designed!