Create with Connie and Mary--My Favorite Pre-Order Bundle!

This was a good challenge as I had a hard time actually DECIDING on what was my favorite. In the end, I think a good punch wins every time so I have landed on the Flowers of Friendship Bundle as my Favorite Pre-Order Bundle!

And of course I needed to use some of our NEW upcoming In Colors on this project as I just LOVE them. I love how they all look amazing together and blend so well with our existing colors. They just feel fresh and lovely.

Nothing beats a crisp Basic White card base and layer. It’s a win every time especially when you pair it with such an awesome floral stamp set such as Flowers of Friendship. This set has 4 floral images and such as great mix of fonts on the sentiments. Of the 4 sentiments, 3 are ‘Thank You’ which is fantastic. Other than birthday, I send more thank you cards than any other. I love how each of the sentiments is unique.

The perk of this stamp set is that is is PUNCH BUNDLE! Yay! I always love a punch as it is more efficient than die cutting. The Flowers & Leaves Punch is designed to cut the two individual flowers, large and small, plus the two leafs in the stamp set.

Nothing beats a flick of your Stampin’ Write Marker or Stampin’ Blends across your project for a spray of color. It’s literally one of my favorite tricks! I flicked my Evening Evergreen Blend on this card concentrated at the bottom. This adds to the crisp white feel of the top of the card.

I felt that stamping in black ink felt to stark against the white, so I chose to stamp my floral images in Grey Granite ink. I stamped the large floral stem three times on the Basic White and then colored the flower buds and leaves in with my Stampin’ Blends in Pale Papaya (with a hint of Calypso Coral), Petal Pink (with a hint of Pale Papaya) and Fresh Freesia. The leaves were colored in with Soft Succulent Blends.

The punched flowers were colored in Soft Seafoam (with a hint of Soft Succulent), Pale Papaya (with a hint of Calypso Coral) and Fresh Freesia. In the center of each of these flowers I added an Opal Round.

The sentiment is stamped in Evening Evergreen—-I really love this color as an alternative to black!

And finally I added my favorite new embellishment, Loose Flower Flourishes! You get two sizes and three colors with this amazing embellishment—Pale Papaya, Fresh Freesia and Polished Pink.

I can’t wait to see what the other members of the Design Team chose as their favorite pre-order item. Honestly, early access is one of the things that I LOVE the most about being a Demonstrator. Haha! We all have our thing right?

You can go BACK to see what Melissa has designed and NEXT to see what Connie has created.

You're So Cool

Posting a day early in anticipation of National Scrapbooking Day! I have a big team event and a card scheduled for my feed tomorrow…so lucky you! You can steal this page layout idea and make your own version tomorrow! I do plan on making a page tomorrow night while I enjoy a glass of Prosecco!

I created this page because I am hosting an Ice Cream Social with my Team Leader tomorrow in one of our annual team events! We are making a bunch of projects featuring the Ice Cream Corner Suite so I wanted to share an idea with them for a scrapbook page.

And I am really loving Gorgeous Grape right now so I decided to make my page layout on this base. I added Coastal Cabana photo mats that I stamped with the cone detail stamp from the Sweet Ice Cream set.

The sentiment ‘You’re so Cool’ is stamped in the coordinating ink across the background and I gave the page a little spray of color with my Gorgeous Grape Stampin’ Write Marker.

I love to create little areas of interest on my pages. At the top right corner of this page I add a partial circle from the Ice Cream Corner DSP. I hand trimmed two popsicles from the DSP and added some White Twine behind. I stamped ‘You’re so Cool’ in Whisper White Craft Ink and embossed it with White Embossing Powder. I then hand trimmed out the So Cool to draw attention to the words.

I stamped ‘Treat Yourself’ in White Craft ink and embossed it on black. I love the contrast with the sentiments being in black and white and the page being such loud colors.

I added one of the new Loose Flower Flourshings to the sentiment and tucked some of the new Highland Heather 1/2 Grosgrain behind. The Calypso Coral ribbon is sadly long retired! I love a good thin ribbon!

I stamped out a popsicle from the Sweet Ice Cream stamp set and tucked it in behind my sentiment. I love this picture of me and some girlfriends in the mountains of Montana—it was HOT! And we definitely enjoyed some Ice Cream while we were on this girls trip!

This was a pretty ‘sweet’ trip if I don’t say so myself, especially as it was my last girls road trip! Ahh, life before Covid!

I hope you have an awesome National Scrapbook Day and can take some inspiration from my page!

If you are ever looking for a Canadian Demonstrator, please reach out to me! I have so much on the go and to offer virtually!

Create with Connie and Mary-Evergreen!

Hello friends! This week our theme is EVERGREEN or ‘all the greens’… I am happy to say that I did use three greens on my project including one of our new upcoming In Colors!

This week I wanted to create a scrapbooking page to feature some of my favorite greens and my favorite subject, my adorable Frenchie Hawkins. Wherever I go he is close by my side, whether its laying under my craft table or staring at me while I am in the bathroom (dog lovers get this, in fact it’s not even weird anymore!!). I recently got some cute pictures of him that I wanted to scrapbook.

This scrapbook page is a mashup of January to June Catty products and brand NEW stuff being released in the Annual Catalogue in May! So exciting! I love all of the little details I was able to incorporate into my page.

I always try to incorporate some background stamping and I chose one of the dandelion images from the Garden Wishes stamp set. The image is stamped in Mossy Meadow to create that tone on tone stamping as that is the color of my 12 x 12 card stock.

I also chose two of the patterns from the Dandy Garden 6x6 Stack to add a little pattern to my layout.

I always like to add little areas of interest to my scrapbook pages. I added a small piece of the new Open Weave Evening Evergreen ribbon underneath my photo with the word “Handsome” trimmed from a sentiment in the Handsomely Suited stamp set.

A few die cut shapes from the Dandy Wishes Dies add some fun texture and I even die cut one from the new Evening Evergreen In Color. I added a cute little Bumblebee trinket too (coming out in the new Annual Catty).

I decided to add in some grey tones to this page too as to me Mossy Meadow has a grey base and they pair so well together. I ran a strip of the Basic Grey card stock through the Pinewood Planks 3D (at an angle for a twist) and added an Old Olive scallop edge from the Scalloped Contours dies (also new and upcoming!!).

The sentiment “Love You Much” is from another new set called Pansy Patch. I love the mix of fonts in this short sentiment. I added a bit of grey twine from the Well Suited Suite behind the sentiment and stamped it in Old Olive ink on a bitty piece of Old Olive card stock.

I isolated the word “True Friend” using my Basic Grey Stampin’ Write marker from the Garden Wishes set

I am a sucker for a great ribbon and I was so happy to see this awesome Smokey Slate Textured Ribbon in the upcoming Annual Catalogue. And I couldn’t resist adding one of the little Ladybug Trinkets onto the page. The second photo is also matted with Smokey Slate to bring in another grey tone to the page.

This little area is my favorite on the page! I cut several of the dandelion shapes from the Dandy Wishes Dies in Evening Evergreen, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive and Bumblebee (to carry that yellow across the page). I let the stems hang off the page and trimmed away the excess. And I had to add another cute Ladybug Trinket! It was really easy to assemble these shapes using my Tombow glue! Definitely a craft room must have!

If you want some more green inspiration, check out my blog post from Friday (yesterday). I created an amazing card featuring the new upcoming Evening Evergreen color.

I hope this page inspires you to use some of your favorite greens in your Stampin’ collection! I love that we have 11 different green tones to choose from. Isn’t that AMAZING?

I can’t wait to see what the other members of the Design Team have created this week and to see what green shades they really love! You can hit BACK to see what Melissa has designed and NEXT to see what Connie has created for us. And as always—please feel free to leave a comment!

Beauty of Friendship

I love this time of year, it actually might be a little bit more exciting for Christmas! Not as much holiday stress and all of the presents are for ME! Hahaha! I love new catalogue time and luckily as a Stampin’ Up! lover it happens several times a year with our Annual and Mini Catty publications.

We also get a batch of 5 new In Colors being released and I really think SU knocked it out of the park this time with the 2021-2023 collection. I wanted to make a card with the luscious Evening Evergreen for a swap I am participating in with my team.

There is only ONE thing on this card that isn’t NEW…can you spot it?

As I mentioned, the base of this card is Evening Evergreen which is such a nice rich green that really fills a gap in our current color offerings.

The strip of leaf DSP is actually from the new HOSTESS DSP, Pattern Party, stack that will be available. Can we get a “HECK YES” for having this as an option? I really think this will be something our hostesses will not be able to pass up! In this amazing paper stack, one side is black and white prints and the other is bright and colorful designs. The best of both worlds!

The best part of black and white patterns is that they can become any color you like. I used the Blending Brushes (now back in stock, yay!) with Crushed Curry to make the leaves a golden tone. I then used my Mango Melody Dark Blend marker to just highlight the veining in the leaves.

I added a little strip of Cinnamon Cider card stock beneath this DSP strip to add in a golden brown tone to this card.

I decided to stamp a tree from the Beauty of Friendship stamp set in Evening Evergreen ink on the coordinating card stock and die cut it with the Beautiful Trees Dies. Then I added this to my layering piece of Evening Evergreen and slighting trimmed the side of the tree. Because this is such a deep green, doing this gave the card another layer of dimension.

The sentiment “You Truly Inspire Me” is from the Beauty of Friendship stamp set and I die cut the sentiment with the Scalloped Contours Dies (I am in love, I doubt they will actually get put away). The sentiment is stamped using the new Soft Succulent In Color and I gave it a little spray with my marker to help take away the white.

Behind the sentiment I layered the new Open Weave Ribbon in Evening Evergreen and some twine from the Bakers Twine Essentials Pack.

I love how this card turned out especially because it is not a color palette that I usually use! Sometimes it is good to challenge yourself!

If you live in Canada and need a catalogue please reach out to me and I will make sure to get you one!

Create with Connie and Mary--Blue Bayou!

This week the Design Team has been tasked with the theme of Blue Bayou or ‘shades of blue’. I actually love how many ‘blue’ options that Stampin’ Up! currently has available for us to craft with. Any guesses how many ‘blue’ tones we have? I will share the answer at the end of my post!

I decided to combine some of our ‘blue' colors with Smoky Slate as we have some really fantastic DSP right now that I wanted to incorporate and it blends these colors together. I also had not played with the Well Suited Suite so this design challenge felt like the perfect time to play!

I wanted this Well Suited DSP to be the stand out on this card which is why I did not make the card base ‘blue’. All of the blues in this strip of DSP have a grey base to them (in my opinion) and I wanted to pull that color in as well so that some of the fun elements would pop.

I added in another blue by using Misty Moonlight as my accent blue—you can see it along the strip of card stock tucked behind the DSP and the circle that is tucked behind the sentiment. The sentiment is also stamped in Misty Moonlight and I added the word ‘handsome’ to the sentiment by trimming this word from the large Father’s Day phrase in the stamp set. Handsome is stamped on Balmy Blue to add a little brightness to the card and play off the DSP.

I love how we can customize any of our projects by trimming specific words out and isolating them. It opens up a world of possibilities!

I added some MIsty Moonlight In Color Enamel Dots to the base after flicking my Misty Moonlight marker across the back and I used both of the Well Suited Twines and the Basic White Twine from the Snail Mail suite as well to accentuate my sentiment.

This card also has all of the components of #goodcarddesign that I have been sharing lately on my Instagram @stampwithbrenda (go give me a follow) and on my blog.

You can easily recreate this card using any of our DSP, stamp sets and embellishments. Watch for a future post with some #goodcarddesign samples!

And if you were wondering how many ‘shades of blue’ that Stampin’ Up! offers—I count 8!

I hope you have a lovely Saturday! Thank you so much for hoping by and if you want to go BACK you can see what Melissa has designed and if you click NEXT you can see what Connie has created for us!