Perfectly Preserved Samples

I have almost finished making a range of samples for Caroline to display at a Stampin' Up! party in October.  I have two partly made cards to finish and that's it, I need to move onto something else.  I love how versatile the stamp set, dies and gorgeous co-ordinating papers are.  I've made a few birthday cards and gift bags, a Valentine's card, Christmas card and gift box, a jar full of jelly beans (from Julie's training night) and a mini handbag.  I've also bought some big fancy glass jars and I'm going to decorate them and give them as Christmas gifts rather than buying shop bought stuff.

Wonderful Winterland Cards

Caroline has gone off on her jollies so whilst she is away I said I'd make her some samples for an upcoming Stampin' Up! party.  I love the Wonderful Winterland stamps from the new seasonal Stampin' Up! catalogue so I had to play with these first.  I stamped and coloured the two images on the cards above.  On both cards I stamped the snowflake background using a Pool Party stamp pad and the Sparkling jumbo roller wheel and the gorgeous papers are Candlelight Christmas Speciality Designer papers.  On the top card I also used another jumbo roller (love these), this time the Jolly Jingles one to make the decorative strip and I stamped the image in Real Red.  The large snowflake behind the little image is one of the stamps from the new Snowflake Soiree stamp set and I stamped onto real red cardstock then used white embossing powder.  On the second card I stamped and cut the jar using the Perfectly Preserved stamp set and matching Framelits Dies, a bargain if you buy the bundle at the discounted price.  I added some glitter adhesive to the bottom of the jar and stuck the ice skating girl onto the jar on dimensional pads.  The stunning ribbon is the new Stitched Satin Ribbon in gumball green with a Designer Ribbon Slide added.  The greeting is stamped using one of the stamps from the Petite Pairs set I used the Large Oval and Scallop Oval punches.

Everyone Seems to Have Birthdays in September

I coloured this lovely Humphrey's Corner stamped image last week using my
Pro-markers and Prismacolour pencils and blended the pencils with Sansodor before adding some stickles.  I was really pleased with the shading of the dress, I don't use orange colours much, I usually go for pinks and purples but I certainly think I will be using them again.  Today my Mum rang to say that my Dad and her were on their way to my house and should be there in about 20 minutes.  The coloured image was intended for her birthday card but I'd not got any further with it than the colouring so I grabbed some papers and ribbons and started making up the card using some Stampin' Up! cardstock in two different shades of orange to go with the dress and some lovely papers that my good friend Kathy gave me a couple of weeks ago.  My Mum likes a card with a nice verse in it so I couldn't use my usual "Happy Birthday" insert, oh no, that would have been far too easy!  I went onto the internet and googled Mothers Birthday Verses and found a nice copyright free verse and copied that into Word, rushed downstairs and printed the insert out, rushed back upstairs, cut it to size and scalloped the edges before gluing it in place.  Finished the card and insert in about ten minutes and then my parents didn't turn up for several hours - typical! 

This card I made for my "twin" brother who for 25 days every September is the same age as me and then at the end of the month I have my birthday and he becomes my little brother again.  This is another Humphrey's Corner stamped image, coloured again with Pro-markers, Prismacolour pencils, blended with Sansodor and then tons of stickles were added to the dots on the clown's pants and the flower on his hat.