Hi Everyone, welcome to StampingwithFiona, this is very exciting as I’m taking part in my first ever blog hop, the Stampin’ Stars and Twinklets Blog Hop. As I mentioned previously I’ve had a lot of work done on my craft room and I had to move everything out so I’ve struggled to craft for a couple of weeks. Luckily I had had the opportunity to make an advance purchase as a Stamping’ Up! demonstrator and one of the things I had chosen was the new kit in the brand new 2016 – 2017 Annual Catalogue. the Oh Happy Day Card Kit (*142725). Its great and it includes so  much; a set of stamps, a Stamping Spot in Basic Black, a selection of card bases and envelopes as well as cutouts, dimensional and even some twine and beautiful glittered dots.

 

 

 

I have made two of the cards, a Thank You card and a Friend card. 

The stamp set is great, I love the fonts and the little Stamping’ Spot is perfect for taking away with you. There are three gorgeous blue glitter dots on the Thank You card, they are luminescent which unfortunately you can’t see on the photo. I can really recommend this kit, it goes on sale mid June.

 

 

Next on the blog hop is the lovely Fiona Whitten who makes fabulous projects so please ‘hop’ on over to her .

      

Cary Buckgham & Gill Moore   2biggirlscrafting
Mandy Sullivan StampwithPaperPanda
Helen Winstone Craft Bunnies
Cat Herrington Wiggle Craft wiggle-craft
Katie Jones Deep Blue Crafting
Lesley Lendon Lelly Jelly’s Stamp ‘n Scrap 
Fiona Stanton  fis-papercrafts
Sarah McDermott  papercraftartistry
Sara Sayers  sucraftylittleminx
Jay & Barry mitosustampin
Karen Ripley  sunnystampin
Fiona Harris  You’re here
Fiona Whitten Oakfield Crafts oakfieldcrafts

 

 

The New Catalogue is here

Hi everyone, the new catalogue is here and I love it. I’ll be sharing some pictures each day of the brand new Product Suites that are so exciting.

 

Click HERE to go to the online catalogue and have a look. If you would like a copy of the catalogue please email me at stampingwithfiona@gmail.com

The first product suite that I want to share with you is the Floral Boutique. I think this so classy and perfect for Wedding stationary with the Night of Navy and Whisper White colour combination.

The suite includes a Die (141482), a Stamp Set (141767), Bakers Twine (141684), Washi Tape (141664) and Designer Series Paper (141663). I’ll be showing samples made with this set as soon as I can.

Watch this space for another preview in my  next post.

Its been an exciting week, as well as the new catalogue I now have a new craft room. Well, its the same room but it looks and feels completely new, I will be sharing photos of the before and after next week once its completely finished as I;m moved in and organised. I can’t wait too share it with you – I love it!

I would love you to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new catalogue.

Fiona x

 

 

Protect your Memories Before It’s Too Late

Hi everyone,

I just read a thought provoking article about all the digital photos we take that never make it into print and how dangerous this is from a memory keeping perspective. Stamping’ Up! work with Becky Higgins, founder of Project Life and have some great products to make memory keeping fast and easy for all busy people who think they have ‘no time’ to save these precious images which when they are older  they will want to share with their family. I started a photo album on each of my granddaughters when they were born and they love to look through them and see how much they’ve changed. Protect your memories for future generations, you don’t have to print out 100s of photos, just a few that highlight a particular time or event in your life.

Click on the link   Stampin’ Up! Project Life  to see the range of Project Life products available through Stamping’ Up! and start saving your precious memories.

Please feel free to have a look at Mike Yosts article as it might strike some chords with you as well, click Here to read it.

May Hostess Code

Hi Everyone,

The Hostess code for May is TFN2XUBP

If you buying through my online shop and spending between £25 and £149 please enter the Hostess code and you will get a small gift from me in the middle of the month following your order. If you spend £150 or above you will be able to choose your own free goodies so please don’t use the code as YOU will be the hostess.

Z Card Instructions

Hello everyone, I have been asked to post the instructions for the Z card/Cascade card that was featured at my card class in Southwater and which I shared with you on this blog. Thank You to Pauline Barnfather for sharing her design and the instructions with me before my class, it proved really popular. Here is a picture of it just to remind you:

1. Using an A4 piece of Crumb Cake cardstock, trim to 10 1/2″ and cut diagonally to create the card base.
2. Score on the long side at 3 1/2″ and 7′ which creates the folds.
3. Using Very Vanilla cardstock create layers for each panel on one side only – 3 1/2″ wide.
4. Stamp a sentiment on the bottom of all 3 Very Vanilla panels in Early Espresso ink, the choice is yours-the same sentiment or different ones.
5. On the back of the cardbase use the Hardwood stamp with Early Espresso ink.
6. Punch out small butterflies using the Butterfly punch from card endpapers of your choice and use to embellish the card.

All the products can be bought through my online store so click HERE to have a look.

 

 

I’m really loving the new InColours, particularly the combination of the Dapper Denim and Emerald Envy. As a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator I can preorder some items from the new catalogue so that I can make up some samples to share with you. This was my first attempt and I used four out of five of the new colours! The other ones I used are Flirty Flamingo and Peekaboo Peach- even the names are nice. The stamp set is also a new one – coming soon I promise; the catalogue goes live on 1st June 2016 and is full of the most wonderful stuff, one demonstrator shared that her wish lust was as tall as she is – lol! I will share more new products with you as soon as I receive them.

Happy Crafting.

 

Talented Ladies

Hi Everyone, well what a lovely evening I had last Thursday with nine talented ladies at a card class in Southwater. They made three cards and there was some great creative mojo in the room. I had a great time and I really hope that they did as well.

The Z fold card was the first card that everyone made, somehow we did one of the hardest first lol. I took along lots of Designer Series Paper that I have hoarded over the past year and really needed to use, and it was interesting to see how different each ladies colours and Designer Series Paper combinations were.

The cards below are the samples that I had prepared in advance:

The second card that they made was using the Bow Punch and again some super colour and design combinations. The third card used the Grateful Bunch stamp set.

All the items used at the class including the glues and inks can be purchased through my online shop  HERE!

 

The ladies very kindly allowed me to take a photo of them whilst they were crafting. There was quite a bit of ink getting on hands, particularly the bright pink, known as Melon Mambo which is hard to get off if you don’t do it immediately. A well known crafting tip for getting stains out of your hands is to wash your hair so I think we would all have been doing that the next morning….

Joanna very kindly let me take a photo of her project using a bumble bee instead of the bow:

A big ‘THANK YOU’ to Michelle for all her organising leading up to and during the evening, as well as for all the sweet and savoury goodies she supplied, and all the cups of tea & coffee she made! You’re a star Michelle, Thank you.

 

Hello everyone, the Retiring Product list is out so apologies for the delay in getting it to you. Some of the products are going fast, so check the list and if there is anything from the Annual Catalogue and Spring/Summer that you would like click HERE and get your order in quickly.

I spent some time crafting with my brother yesterday, he has never made any cards before and he made three great ‘Thank You’ cards, here is a photo of him with the cards he had made:

I had been asked to make a card for a 70th birthday that the person would say ‘wow’ when they opened it so using the Botanical Blooms I made a Card in a Box, I really hope she likes it. The sender said ‘wow’ when she saw it so I really hope the recipient does too. Whilst these cards are not hard to make they are time consuming and become a labour of love with the die cutting and rearranging before you end up with the final product.

I would love to hear what you think of it so please leave a comment below.

Last Ever Weekly Deals

Hi Everyone, we’re into the last 6 days of the last ever Weekly Deals – please don’t miss out. There are some fabulous offers this week, great stamp sets as well as accessories so don’t wait as they will fly off the shelves.

 

Click Here and select Weekly Deals to buy now.

On Stage begins today in Salt Lake City and we have On Stage local in Telford on Saturdays. I’m off up there tomorrow and our great group of demons ‘Stamping Stars’ is having a pre event dinner tomorrow night. Its great to get together and share our love of crafting and the Stamping’ Up! products. We make ‘swaps’ and the first thing everyone will do on Saturday morning will be to swap, it is a great way to meet other demos. I have made 80 swaps and will show them to you next week once I have swapped. I will share with you some of the ones I get in return. It is a great way to be inspired to use products that maybe hadn’t originally appealed to me, and to see what different things you can do with one product – its truly amazing how differently one demonstrators creativity is compared to another and I look forward to sharing it with you next week.

 

Last chance – click HERE to go to my shop and see for yourself – Buy Now! Don’t Miss Out!

Washi Tape

Hi everyone, I want to share with you the cards that we made at our quarterly training a few weeks ago. All four of them used Washi Tape in varying amounts and now I’m hooked! Wash tape is not a medium I had really used before except for the odd strip here and there, as you can see card number 1 is made up entirely from Washi Tape and I love it.

The washi tape was placed diagonally across whisper white card stock and folder over the edge of the card, each strip had a small gap between the next and so on until the card was covered. It was great fun lining up the diagonals, I plan to do more in this style and will share with you how different they will look depending on the colours & designs.

I love how the pearls look across the top and bottom of the cake in photo 2. and the vibrant colours really make the card ‘pop’. I feel that the combination of Mint Macaron and Melon Mambo is uplifting and two of my favourite colours.

The washi tape used here is from the Spring/Summer 2016 Catalogue, It’s My Party and its on sale until 31st May 2016, you can buy it here along with all the other products used; the cupcake punch, stamp sets, sequins, ink and marker pens.

The cardstock used is Hello Honey, one of the 2014-2016 In Colours which will be retiring on 31st May, so if you like it and would like to buy some then you should shop now as its selling our and once its gone – that’s it forever.

What do you think about the cards – do you like the colours and what do you think about the Washi Tape? I’d love you to leave a comment.

Weekly Deals Update

Hello Everyone,

The countdown has started on Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals. There is less that two weeks to stock up on some great products before the format is changed from weekly deals that change every Wednedsay to periodic sales. A lot of products have been added for the last two weeks – be careful – once they’ve sold out at that price it won’t  be repeated. The Clearance Rack has also had some stock added and there are some great bargains to be had.

The Endless Thanks stamp set is just one of the many great offers, please click the link to My Shop to see whats on offer – I’d hate for you to miss out.

My Stampin’ Up! Shop

I wanted to share with you a Birthday Card that I made for a friend who loves the colour pink. I used a stamp set that I have had for a while and hadn’t got around to using, Watercolour Wings. I saw this image by Julie Brancart and fell in love with it. The card base is Blushing Bride and the background is Whisper White card embossed with the Boho Chic embossing folder, then I stamped the Watercolour Wings butterfly in Blushing Bride and die cut it using the Bold Butterfly Framelets. I also die cut the butterfly in vellum which I placed on top of the pink one so it looks more muted. The pink and white strip going across the card underneath the butterfly is from the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper which I think is lovely, its in the Spring/Summer catalogue which is on sale until 31st May 2016. The sentiment was stamped onto vellum and embossed in white and placed on a Blushing Bride scalloped oval. What do you think of it – I’d love you to leave a comment below.