Social Stamping | A Cut Above

Hello! We are about to head into week 4 of school here in Western Australia (but only the third week of school thanks to a COVID lockdown). We’re back into a routine and all the term based activities have started again. Back to swimming lessons, gymnastics, trampolining and – Social Stamping at the Taste of Dalyellup cafe.

Mandy Depiazzi and I are running Social Stamping every Monday morning – and we’d love for you to join us. You don’t need any supplies – we provide them all! Any level of crafting experience is welcome.

We like to mix up what we make – so there’ll often be a new stamp set to try or a new technique or style to play with. Tomorrow’s we’re using the “A Cut Above” stamp set to create a card for the guys.

Often, there will be two layout options – or you are welcome to make your own design using the pieces provided.

Remember how I said last week that I had an idea for the long die in the Suit & Tie Dies? Well, here it is – the stitched strips are the perfect size to fit along a standard Australian card. I’ve used Granny Apple Green, Pear Pizzazz and Garden Green.

The guy is stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento ink and then coloured with Stampin’ Blends. Doesn’t he look like he’s having an amazing birthday!!! I’ll take a cocktail in the hammock for my birthday too!

I’d love to see you tomorrow at the Taste of Dalyellup cafe. RSVPs are appreciated but not essential. The class is $12 to make one card or $15 to make both and includes a drink of your choice.

Well Suited | Traditional

To manage the balance between life and craft, so many of my blog posts are scheduled – I write them ahead of time and tell the blog when I want them to appear on the internet. Today, as a special event, I am writing to you live! The kids are occupied, the tennis is on for company and I have a couple of cards I want to show you.

The Handsomely Suited stamp set and Suit & Tie Dies were an impulse buy to boost my stash of ‘male’ themed products. When the catalogue is largely flowers and girly stuff, it’s wise to get these additions while they are available. The Well Suited suite is the masculine offering in the Jan-June Mini Catalogue. Father’s Day in America is during this catalogue period and therefore we are most likely to see these products appear in the first half of the year. If you wait until closer to our Father’s Day in September, you’ll almost certainly find less choice. Though, if you are reading this Stampin Up! Product Team….. please make more sets we can use for the guys!

So far I’ve shared some less traditional cards using the Suit & Ties Dies including a hi-vis jacket, a manly floral and a Harry Potter card. Today I’m sharing a more traditional use of the dies – in a tie and bow tie version. I’ve left this card sentiment free so it can be used for a variety of occasions and plan to stamp the one I need from the Handsomely Suited stamp set on the inside.

The pieces in the Suit & Tie Dies have everything you need to make up these smart looking suits. I love the red DSP pattern against the crisp black and white – it reminds me of Grandad Papercraft who used to always wear a red ‘dicky bow’ and traditional suit on very formal occasions. You’ll find the Flower & Field DSP, available for {FREE} with a $90 purchase until the end of the month as part of the Sale-A-Bration range.

The stitched strip makes for a very stylish shirt option under the jacket, but I can see the potential of this die on so many cards. Check in next week to see me bring this idea to life!

So many cut details! The buttons, the pocket, the kerchief (which is actually half the collar die!). And the best part – you can make it any combination of style or colour you like! It’s a great way to personalise the card to the recipient.

If you’d like to add the Handsomely Suited bundle or any other product from the current catalogue to your stash, then the next 10 days is the time to do it! Sale-A-Bration finishes at 9pm (WA time) on Sunday 28th Feb 2021. Until then, every order receives a free SAB product with every $90 you spend. Stock up on all those basics, get the sets on your wish list and earn those freebies!!!

Click here to browse in the online store. Happy shopping!

Just Add Ink #537 | Family Blog Hop

Happy New Year from the Just Add Ink Team! We’re starting off with a traditional blog hop. The theme is family. Clicking ‘next’ on each blog post will take you around to see each design team member, but you can also see all the posts on the Just Add Ink blog. Click through to the blog to share your family inspired projects.

One of my favourite things about card making is being able to add a personal touch. Whether it’s making the card and gift coordinate, using their favourite colours, or creating a theme that’s uniquely them.

This card is for my brother-in-law who is mad about his drone.

He’s recently started sharing his drone photography and they are sensational! Check out his socials – Facebook & Instagram. He lives in Albany, a coastal suburb of south western Australia which makes for picturesque land & sea photos. We were lucky enough to visit last year and did some wonderful sightseeing. This is Team Kent at the Wind Farm.

Although Albany isn’t primarily known for it’s lighthouses, they do have terrific coastline and I loved the symbolism of the High Tide stamp set. Albany is known for it’s many peaks, so I’ve combined this set with the Waterfront stamp set to create an ocean & beyond inspired card.

This card gave me a chance to play with new and old favourites including getting my new Blending Brushes inky and trying out a cloud mask (brand: My Favourite Things). The sentiment is from Itty Bitty Birthdays stamp set and the DSP is In Good Taste DSP. At new catalogue launch times, I find I really have to focus on everything I have in my collection – not yet the newest additions.

The final touch for this card was the drone, which is a free png image I found online cut in black vinyl on my Silhouette Cameo machine and applied to the card. This shape would have been so hard to piece together using Stampin’ Up! supplies, so I’m grateful to have a range of tools at my disposal to make my vision come to life.

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Next up on the blog hop is my super duper awesome friend Lou Kitzelman with an adorable creation to share with you. Keep hopping to see all the fab creations from the design team and don’t forget to join the challenge yourself my sharing your project into the gallery on the Just Add Ink blog.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Birthday Fun for Mr Papercraft

Just when we’ve cleared the festive season for 2020, it’s soon Jan 2021, which means we’re celebrating Mr Papercraft’s birthday today.

Stampin’ Up! have released a fabulous new masculine theme suited called Well Suited – and while Mr Papercraft is not a suit and tie kind of guy, the colours and styling of the Well Suited DSP are perfect for birthday themed card.

The colours I’ve used are Whisper White**, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate and Misty Moonlight inspired by the tones of the DSP.

Since the card was from the whole family, I couldn’t resist adding in a little fun with the Darling Donkey stamp set – a cute & light hearted set available free (with a $90 purchase) during January & February as part of Sale-A-Bration 2021.

The sentiment is a mix of an Annual Catalogue favourite – Happy Dies with a new stamp set that I am in love with – Pretty Perennials from the Jan-June 2021 Mini Catalogue.

You may have seen the update about Stampin’ Up! changing suppliers for the white range of cardstock & paper products. The new Basic White range is now available to order. This video by Stampin’ Up! shares the key similarities and differences between the new and old white ranges.

Here’s more information on which products have switched over to become Basic White.

While I run down my supplies of Whisper White, I’ll continue to use what I have, but I’m excited to receive my Basic White order and road test the new version!

Have a wonderful weekend! We will be having a fabulous time celebrating with Mr Papercraft. Let there be cake!

A Cut Above | Chainsaw Punch Art

We live and work around a roster based system which means we sometimes need to shift special occasions. Father’s Day was slightly delayed for 2020, so I’m only just sharing the card I made for Mr Papercraft!

The last few months have been all about the chainsaw as we collect wood to get us through the winter cold. A punch art chainsaw in Husqvarna orange (aka Pumpkin Pie) was the perfect theme for this guy!

The wood themed DSP is from the retired Wood Textures patterns. I love keeping all my old DSP – it’s been handy for more than a few cards lately!

The punny sentiment (which Mr Papercraft was sure referred to his current “mop” of hair that he’s so proud of) is made using the Playful Alphabet Dies with Foam Adhesive Sheet and snipped letters from the Ridiculously Awesome stamp set.

Happy Father’s Day to all the shift work Dads! I hope you enjoyed being celebrated – whenever that may have happened!!!

More Stitched Triangles

Last month I shared a super girly patchwork card using the Stitched Triangle Dies.  Click here to see go back in time and check it out.

Today I’m sharing a creation in green tones that would work for girls or guys.

I cut a range of different sizes and the different types of triangles in Pool Party, Mint Macaron, Just Jade and Pretty Peacock and arranged them in an overlapping pattern on a Whisper White card base.

The sentiment is from the Itty Bitty Greetings – white embossed on Basic Black cardstock and cut using the Classic Label punch.  A simple finish to go with the no nonsense triangles!

Ombre colour combinations have always been a favourite of mine, but I’m keen to try this in some different match-ups!  I can imagine a yellow, black & gray version (another favourite combination of mine!!!).  I probably need pushing out of my comfort zone.  Leave your suggestions in the comments!

Just Add Ink #520 | Guys

I’m so excited for this week’s Just Add Ink challenge – it’s all about the guys.  Cards for our male counterparts can sometimes be a little more challenging, so I can’t wait to see the inspiration that will fill our gallery.

This challenge came at a great time for me as Little Mister Papercraft turns 2 this week!  After having two girls, it’s a delight to see life from the perspective of a “boy mum”.  It’s all go – perpetual movement, lots of outside play and if it’s got wheels, then it’s awesome!

The On The Move stamp set from the Annual Catalogue was a must have on my shopping list.

Sometimes when stamp sets come along they are just right for the long term collection and I see this set serving up lots of “little guy” cards in the years to come (and maybe even some big guy cards too!).  You can see the slider card I made last month using this set by clicking here.

I wanted this card for Mr Almost-Two to be all about the trains – you may notice similarities to a certain blue tank engine that he’s obsessed with!

Using makeup brushes and Stampin’ Up! ink I blended the background on Whisper White cardstock (and splattered with water for extra texture) .  The sky is Balmy Blue and Pacific Point, the grass is Garden Green & Granny Apple Green.  The hill was cut using the Home Together Dies.

The letters are from the Playful Alphabet Dies with Foam Adhesive Sheet backing – my current obsession and making it to every card I make at the moment!!!

The sentiment is from the All of Us stamp set – I’m a sucker for a great “happy birthday” stamp.

If you need an excuse to add some ‘guy’ cards to your stash, have a certain guy in mind or just love playing along with the Just Add Ink challenges, please pop over to the Just Add Ink blog and add your card to the gallery.

Here is a photo of Little Master Papercraft with his train loaded cake taking great delight in the sparklers on the top of the cake.

Freshly Brewed Projects | for the guys

Hello!  I’m joining in today with the Freshly Brewed Projects blog hop where the theme is ‘for the guys’!  I’m always looking for inspiration for cards that guys will appreciate because they take a little more thinking!  With a catalogue filled with flowers and girly things, it can be a little harder to create something that’s appealing to the male mind.

I’m sharing a Spinner Card made using some of the products from the World of Good Suite.  This suite is a collection of rich colours in a travel theme that works well for everyone, including guys.

I only bought the dies from this suite (not the stamp set, but I’ll probably get that soon to complete the set!), but the World Map Dies and World of Good Speciality DSP are all you need to create this spinner card.

I think all of the pictures I took have the same globe side showing but there’s actually two different globe dies in this set, which I have layered front and back.  When you twist/flick the globe it spins around in the free space of the card front.

The globes have a piece of twine running through the middle which is attached between the DSP and card base layer.  The circle space was cut using one of the circles from the Layering Circles Dies.

The inside panel is embossed using the Old World Paper 3D Embossing Folder. The crinkle effect is awesome!  I didn’t take a picture of the writing panel, but I added Whisper White cardstock to the back for the birthday message.

The birthday sentiment from this card is from Happiest Birthday Wishes stamp set – which is getting a workout on my blog this week!  Haven’t ordered yours yet?  Trust me, it’s a set you’ll use over and over again for all your birthday card needs!

Thanks for hopping with us today.  For more ‘guy stuff’, please click on the next button to visit Ann Craig.  A full list of participants is below.

I hope you get some time in the craft room to make your own version of a guy card soon!

Participant List

• Libby Dyson
• Jessie Holton
• Narelle Fasulo
• Leonie Schroder
• Kelly Kent – you are here!
• Ann Craig
• Debbie Yeomans
• Jeanne Moss

Paper Adventures Team Retreat 2020

On an unseasonally wet weekend in March 2020, our Paper Adventures team headed to Perth for our annual Paper Adventures Team Retreat hosted by Siobhan Fitzsimmons of Hightrees House of Cards.  We all reflected that the last team day we had it rained too!!!  Rainy days do make for great crafty days!

I always look forward to getting together with the team.  And a whole day – yee har!  We were lucky that 9 of the team were able to make it on the selected day.  Siobhan put on a lovely venue for us as always and we had a great time.  We even had a whole table of Big Shots – what a sight!

The format of our retreat days has stayed the same since we started – it’s all about the time stamping with regular opportunities to eat, and lots of chat and plenty of laugher.  We each bring along a make & take project with all materials and kits for the team to recreate the design.  There are usually less kits than people, so you don’t get to make all of the projects but you do come away with a bag full of completed cards with pretty designs, often using stamps you don’t own.

This is the card I made.  I wanted a masculine card using a stamp set from the Annual Catalogue.

Stamp sets: For the Win, Lined Alphabet
DSP: Country Club
Colours: Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Night of Navy
Embossing Folder: Subtle
Dies: Stitched Shapes

The card needed to be simple enough for the team to put together in 20 mins, but interesting enough to be fun for an avid crafter.  My card had several added elements to take it from simple to simple + including an embossed layer, a little but of fussy cutting, some colouring and heat embossing.

I also added the option to stamp the envelope for anyone who finished early.

If you live in Perth or South West WA and would like a supporting & welcoming stamping team to join, then Paper Adventures might be a good fit for you.  We have an active Facebook page, meet regularly and value the friendships as much as the stamping.  Click here for more information on joining Stampin’ Up! or click here to purchase the starter kit and join the fun!

Thanks again to Siobhan for hosting and to the team for making it an amazing day!

Colour INKspiration #30

Welcome to a Colour INKspiration blog hop where Stampin’ Up! demonstrators from Australia & New Zealand share their creations using the same colour palette and then invite you to share your creations with us via our Facebook group.  Click here to visit Colour INKspiration Challenges.

These are the colours for challenge #30 based on this amazing inspiration photo.

This is Pebble Shore Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana.  I’d love to visit and see these spectacular colours in real life!

This is my creation using these bold & fun colours…

I love a good pun!

But I added a beer to the inside of the card with a birthday message – just in case they didn’t get the pun!

Don’t forget to share your card using these colours via our Facebook group.

Thanks for visiting.  Next up on the Colour INKspiration hop is my gorgeous friend with an amazing way with colour – Kim Badelt.

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Product List

Bubble Over Photopolymer Stamp Set

[145868]

$30.00

Bottles & Bubbles Framelits Dies

[145663]

$49.00

Bubble Over Photopolymer Bundle

[146082]

$71.00

Perennial Birthday Clear-Mount Stamp Set

[145760]

$38.00

Large Letters Framelits Dies

[141712]

$172.00

Layering Squares Framelits Dies

[141708]

$58.00

Silver Foil Sheets

[132178]

$7.00

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

$15.75

Basic Black A4 Card Stock

[121688]

$14.00

Fresh Fig A4 Cardstock

[144248]

$14.00

Card Stock A4 Soft Sky

[131292]

$14.00

Island Indigo A4 Card Stock

[124390]

$14.00

Pumpkin Pie A4 Card Stock

[108601]

$14.00

Cherry Cobbler A4 Card Stock

[121681]

$14.00

Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin’ Pad

[126945]

$11.50

Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin’ Pad

[126966]

$11.50

Versamark Pad

[102283]

$15.00

White Stampin’ Emboss Powder

[109132]

$8.75

Heat Tool

[129056]

$50.00

Paper Snips Scissors

[103579]

$17.00