Stamp Review Crew | Artistically Inked

Hello Monday! Thanks for joining me this morning as I hop with my Stampin’ Up! friends from around the world for another Stamp Review Crew hop. Today we’re sharing projects we’ve made using the Artistically Inked stamp set.

This was my top pick from the 2021 Annual Catalogue. I couldn’t wait to have the whole suite – the stamp set, the coordinating Artistic Dies, the stunning Expressions in Ink DSP and Expressions in Ink Ephemera Pack.

I’ve used my favourite layout at the moment for these cards – a notebook style fancy fold where you take a standard card size, score at 4-1/8” from the open end and adhere the space between the side fold and the score line to create a solid side piece.

The colours for this DSP are so pretty, so I’ve used Polished Pink and Soft Succulent from the 2021-2023 In Colors to complement the DSP.

Each side contains deluxe gold foiling, which made the choice to add accents die cut from gold foil an easy one.

The stamps in this set have a beautiful watercolour effect. You’ll want to make sure you apply ink carefully – either with a brush or sponge dauber, or smoothing the ink with a sponge or brush after you’ve inked directly from the pad. It makes so much difference to the variation in colour that it’s worth the extra effort!

As well as the floral images, the stamp set contains sentiments you’ll want to use on every card you make!

Have I convinced you yet how necessary this suite is for your collection? Keep hopping to see more ideas on projects you can create using this stamp set. Next blog to visit is the fantastic Jay Soriano.

Have a wonderful week!

What a Year Memories & More

I shared a card yesterday that I made using the What a Year Memories & More cards (click here to see). That project was the inspiration for another series of cards – using more of the Memories & More cards and the Biggest Wish stamp set.

The colours and patterns of the What a Year Memories & More cards are fabulous. The combination of pinks, yellows, aqua and greens are beautiful and the designs are quirky, cool and fun!

I picked out 4 of my favourite patterns and paired them with the same elements from yesterday’s card – Tasteful Textiles 3D Embossing Folder and Biggest Wish stamp set.

Here’s a closer look…

RAINBOW

PLANTS

STRIPES

SCISSORS

Do you have a favourite? I love them all. Sometimes simple is the best!

Social Stamping | subtles

Hello! Thanks for joining us for another Social Stamping Blog Host. This is the final hop in this series and I’m delighted that my stamping friends & I are sharing projects made using colours from the Subtles Collection.

These colours form some of my favourites in the SU! range and are always a pleasure to create with. They are soft but not meek with the prettiest of tones and the ability to step in for the projects that we need a little elegance for.

My projects today all use a fancy fold that I’ve lifted from a card I got sent for my birthday by my gorgeous friend Elizabeth Gross. I haven’t seen this fold before – I have no idea what’s it’s called but it’s had me at the clever use of DSP.

The card features a tri-fold using the DSP, which opens out and displays both sides of the DSP. Remember when I said in my Stamp Review Crew profile that one of my biggest challenges was choosing the side of the DSP I wanted to use on a card – well this fold solves that problem for you!!!

Every card sits closed using the seashell tab on the left to keep it all together, but when the right side is opened, you can start to see the DSP patterns revealed.

The fully opened card shows the writing panel…

I’ve made a video to show the fancy fold in all its glory – its so simple but so magnificent!

I’ve used three different patterns from the Sand & Sea DSP. And there’s really no better example of when it seems a shame to only use one side than this pack. It retires at the end of the June (when the Jan-June 2021 Mini Catalogue finishes) so you’ll want to stock up ASAP in June. As a wonderful parting gift, this DSP will be available from 2nd June at a 50% discount. Order via my online store next Wednesday to secure yours plus so many amazing specials as the Last Chance Retirement List takes over. Click here to see what else you can get a discounted price. Click here to shop online.

The stamp & die bundle for these cards is the Friends are Like Seashells stamp set and Seaside Shells Dies. They are part of the Sand & Sea Suite and coordinate beautifully with the DSP.

The ribbon is from my collection and I have no idea which combo pack it was from – it could be retired!! I’m terrible at keeping all the ribbons & embellishments I ever buy and never being able to keep track of what’s in a catalogue and what’s out! As long as it still looks good, it’s ok to use – yes!?!

Did you spy the three Subtles I used in the cards? My favourite is always Blushing Bride, but there’s nothing like a pretty DSP to urge me on to add in different colours. The other two I’ve used are So Saffron and Balmy Blue. The coordinating neutral is a long time favourite – Sahara Sand.

Next up on the hop is Julia Quinn. Julia has been a part of every single hop since they started last year. That’s an amazing commitment – thanks Julia!

You can see the full participant list and a few of my thoughts about our current COVID situation here in Australia over on the main Social Stamping Blog Host post.

I hope the rest of your weekend is amazing!

Just Add Ink #553 | sketch

Hello! I’m excited to be creating tonight with the Just Add Ink Design Team for challenge #553 – a sketch I designed for the team. They’ve knocked it out of the park – the creations are beautiful!

We can’t wait to see what you do with the sketch! You can join the challenge over at the Just Add Ink blog by adding your card to the gallery.

When I looked at this sketch again to make a project, it seemed better on its side. Lots of the design team agreed with me, so you’ll see lots of portrait styles on the JAI blog. You are welcome to adapt the sketch to suit your creativity – as long as you keep the main elements / structure.

I used the front panel and the strips to frame my succulent creation.

You’ll find the Simply Succulent bundle in the Jan-June 2021 Mini Catalogue. Not only does it come with succulent stamps and dies, but you also get the amazing cover plate die you see in the background of my card. Such amazing value and so many options for ways to use this bundle.

I’ve stamped the succulents in Evening Evergreen and coloured with Stampin’ Blends – Soft Succulent, Just Jade, Mint Macaron and Highland Heather. The cardstock colours for the card are Soft Succulent, Evening Evergreen and Basic White. I am enjoying the green duo in the new In Colors – Soft Succulent is so dreamy and Evening Evergreen is a fabulous contrast.

Is this bundle part of your collection or on your wish list? It’s one of the many carryover products that made it to the 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue, so we’ll be able to enjoy this bundle for the next year.

You can shop online for all your Stampin’ Up! needs – both catalogues are available in the online store, open 24-7. Click here to shop.

Have a wonderful weekend. I hope it’s filled with lots of happy!

Stamp Review Crew | Dragonfly Garden

Hey there Monday! Welcome to another Stamp Review Crew hop with my friends from around the world. Today we’re sharing projects we’ve made using the Dragonfly Garden stamp set. This was the make & take set – together with the coordinating Dragonflies punch – for last November’s Stampin’ Up! OnStage event. So, there’s plenty of samples out there and we’re excited to add even more ideas to the mix on how to use this great punch bundle.

I’ve made two cards to share with you today…

The first card uses the stamp set, punch and coordinating Dandy Garden DSP. The colours are Blackberry Bliss, Rich Razzleberry and Bumblebee.- guided as always by the colours used in the DSP. It’s a great way to put together colours without too much thought.

I’ve clear embossed the floral image on the Basic White circle (using the now sold out Stitched Shapes for the circle die cut). I love the subtle detail this adds to complement the delicate pattern of the DSP.

The sentiment for this card is just the ‘friend’ part of one of the sentiments in the stamp set. I’ve used partial greetings for both cards. It’s a good way to make the sentiments work for your style of card making.

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The second card for today was inspired by a stunning card shared by Jan Clothier. The layout using the stitched triangles is great for creating a scene and perfect for the Dragonfly Garden stamp set!

I stamped the images from the stamp set across a piece of Basic White cardstock and then cut using three different sizes of triangles as per the layout. I then coloured them with Stampin’ Blends and layered over two solid coloured triangles (Bumblebee & Blackberry Bliss).

The final touches for this card were an Old Olive card base, Basic White mat layer embossed with the Painted Texture EF, a Rich Razzleberry stamped dragonfly and another partial sentiment.

I love that so many of the elements of this card were the same but the end result was so different.

To see more Dragonfly Garden creations, please keep hopping. The next blog is the wonderful Cindy Elam. You can see the full list of participants by visiting the main Stamp Review Crew blog.

Have a wonderful week!

Butterfly Brilliance Collection

There’s a new range of butterflies available – and although they will appear in the 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue in May, they couldn’t wait to stamp with you and have released early!

The collection includes the products listed below, or you can order them under one product code (159408) as the Butterfly Brilliance Collection for $125.

– Butterfly Brilliance Cling Stamp Set (155092) $30
– Brilliant Wings Dies (155523) $77
– Butterfly Brilliance Bundle – stamp set & dies (155821) $96.25
– Butterfly Bijou 6”x6” DSP (156824) $20
– Natural Touch Specialty Paper (156825) $8.75

You know I love DSP and buy it all, so of course I couldn’t resist getting the Butterfly Bijou DSP during the demonstrator preorder period!

The butterflies in the DSP can be fussy cut with scissors or with amazing product coordination by SU! they can also be cut using the Butterfly Wings Dies!

The sentiment is borrowed from the Boho Indigo stamp set in the Product Medley. The Butterfly Brilliance stamp set is 6 delightful butterfly images, meaning you can mix & match it with your favourite sentiments.

The beautiful watercolour style background is on the reverse side of the DSP and showcases the colours of the DSP perfectly. I’ve cut it using a square die from the Stitched Shapes Dies and then layered on another piece of white. To change it up from my usual standard card size, I’ve made this one as a slimline card – long and skinny.

All of these gorgeous butterfly products are now available in the online store or via your Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator. If you live in Australia and don’t have a demonstrator, please contact me as I’d love to get some butterflies into your craft room!

Social Stamping | brights

Hi there! Thanks for joining me and my Stampin’ friends for the first Social Stamping Blog Host of 2021. I started these hops in 2020 as a way to stay connected during the pandemic. I had no idea at the time we’d still be sharing projects as a group almost a year later! To see the full list of participants for today’s hop, click here to view the main blog host post.

The theme for today is the Brights Colour Collection. I think this is the happiest range of colours and projects made with these colours are fun and bold and interesting.

I’ve used the Brights DSP Stack – which is currently available in the Starter Kit for anyone who joins Stampin’ Up! during Sale-A-Bration. Sale-A-Bration finishes tomorrow (9pm WA time) so please message me this weekend on Facebook, Instagram, leave a comment here or send me an email if you need more information. Or, if you know how it works and you’re ready to join my Paper Adventures team, you can purchase your Starter Kit by clicking here. If it doesn’t find me automatically as your demonstrator, you can search for me using my name “Kelly Kent’ and location “Dalyellup’.

I made two cards for this hop so I could use all 10 colours in the Brights collection – Poppy Parade, Melon Mambo, Flirty Flamingo, Mango Melody, Daffodil Delight, Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Pacific Point and Gorgeous Grape.

The first card uses Flirty Flamingo, Melon Mambo, Poppy Parade, Mango Melody and Daffodil Delight.

I cut the Detailed Hearts Die in Basic White cardstock and then again in the DSP so I could layer the hearts within the frame. So I didn’t waste any of the DSP, I cut 1.5″ strips of each colour and then cut out just the segments of hearts I needed.

I won’t lie, this card was time consuming – but it’s worth placing each of those little hearts into the space and filling it up with pretty colour.

The sentiment for both cards is from the Sweet Strawberry stamp set – white heat embossed on black cardstock as I love the contrast of black, white and the pop of colour from the Brights.

The second card has been swirling around my mind for a while – I’ve had feathers on the brain! And the combination of Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Pacific Point and Gorgeous Grape seemed like the perfect colour combination to make it come to life.

The feather die is from the Nature’s Thoughts Dies. The pretty scallop edge is from the Be Mine Stitched Dies. And the die I’ve used for the hello there sentiment is from the Hippo & Friends Dies.

Next up on the blog hop for some more bright creations is my gorgeous team member Lisa Whitehead. Lisa took advantage of a joining special with Stampin’ Up! a couple of years ago and has just celebrated her 2 year Stampinversary.

If you’d like to get your hands of 5 packs (200 sheets!) of DSP just for buying a Stampin’ Up! Starter Kit, then now is the time. This DSP will be available in the upcoming catalogue released in May 2021, so you’ll be among the first to have it in your stash. Click here to start adding items to the Starter Kit.

Thanks for hopping with us today. We look forward to sharing another colour collection again next month.

Social Stamping | Sunflowers

What a glorious morning! We had such a lovely time stamping at the Taste of Dalyellup cafe. I shared one of the card options yesterday – A Cut Above male themed card. You can see it by clicking here.

The other card option was a sunflower creation using the Celebrate Sunflower stamp set and Sunflower Dies. This gorgeous bundle can be found in the 2020-2021 Annual Catalogue. As each new mini gets released in the catalogue cycle, I find it’s so easy to forget about sets in the annual.

The colours for this card are Night of Navy, Cinnamon Cider, Bumblebee, Crumb Cake and Whisper White.

I experimented with adding some texture by ripping the DSP or cardstock. I love techniques like this that don’t require any special equipment.

I always try to offer two versions of a card for Social Stamping, or crafts are welcome to create their own! This is the alternative version in a different orientation.

The DSP is the Flowers for Every Season – it’s a lovely mix of patterns and florals that coordinate with a couple of sets in the annual catalogue, but generally works well for lots themes with the pretty colour combinations of the 2020-2022 In Colors (Bumblebee, Cinnamon Cider, Misty Moonlight, Just Jade and Magenta Madness).

Thanks to the lovely ladies who come out and support Social Stamping. It’s such a pleasure to design cards for these sessions. And a huge thank you to the Taste of Dalyellup cafe. The ladies love their coffee and I love treating myself after class with their yummy sushi!

There’s no Social Stamping next Monday due to the Public Holiday, but we’ll see you the week after for more stamping!

Paper Blooms DSP

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the Paper Blooms DSP is in the top 3 of Sale-A-Bration products Stampin’ Up! customers have chosen so far for this promotion. I wonder how those choices will change in the last month of SAB. You have until the end of February to make sure you’ve got all your favourites.

My trio of cards today celebrates this gorgeous DSP – but not the main side (which I also love), I’ve used the reverse side! I couldn’t resist the the coordination of having two patterns in three different colours. This combination was perfect for the current Mojo Monday sketch.

These sketches are awesome. Julee always gives measurements which takes some of the brain work out of crafting. And if you saw my post the other day about crafting during school holidays, you’ll know this kind of help is making my day at the moment. So, with sketch and pretty paper at the ready, these cards came together in no matter at all.

Two of the three colours I’ve used will retire at the beginning of May so I’m making sure to use the outgoing 2019-2021 In Colors as much as possible. The soon to be retiring colours are Pretty Peacock, Purple Posy, Rococo Rose, Seaside Spray & Terracotta Tile.

ROCOCO ROSE

SEASIDE SPRAY

SOFT SEA FOAM

As well as the Paper Blooms DSP, other products you can see:

• Painted Texture Embossing Folder
• Floating & Fluttering bundle
• Blossoms in Bloom stamp set
• Stitched Rectangle Dies
• Stitched Shapes Dies

And just like that I have three more cards in my collection! Making cards in multiples is an easy way to build your stash. Use a stamp set with different sentiment options and a cute font, like Blossoms in Bloom or pick a favourite and stamp them all the same!

There’s one more month of Sale-A-Bration, plenty of time to earn the Paper Blooms DSP for {FREE} when you order $90 of your favourite Stampin’ Up! products. Click here to go shopping in my online store.

Wrapped Bouquet

Hello! Although craft time has been somewhat limited during our very busy school holidays, I carved out a little time yesterday while the Mini Papercrafts

There’s two points of easy inspiration for me when I’m sort on time to explore the creative journey – CASEing a card and using a challenge. These cards ended up being a combination of the two.

CASEing the Catty Challenge #302 was to CASE a floral project and Just Add Ink #538 had a brilliant sketch.

So with those two sources of inspiration and a handful of new products at my fingertips, I decided on getting the new Wrapped Bouquet bundle inky.

Here’s the catalogue inspiration photo from the Wrapped Bouquet page…

Using the layouts, styling and DSP patterns from the inspiration photos, and keeping the Wrapped Bouquet bundle as the centrepiece, these are my versions –

You can see that I changed just enough of the design to make it my own, but used enough of the inspiration samples to make designing cards while on limited crafting time easy & pleasant.

For the first card (top left), I changed up the background to match the Just Add Ink inspiration photo – moving the black & white squared DSP from a whole background to smaller rectangle and then adding in another one using the same DSP pattern as used in the other sample. These DSPs are both from the Well Suited DSP.

I chose a one tone colour palette on each card to go with the neutrals (black, white, grey) as the pop of colour. This card is Blushing Bride and Rococo Rose – I seem to be on a pink run at the moment!

This bouquet from the stamp set is my favourite of the two, so I used on both cards, but there is another floral bouquet option. The Wrapped Bouquet stamp set coordinates with the Wrapped Flowers Dies which cuts out the whole stamp perfectly. There’s also a die in the set which cuts out a rectangle with crease lines to turn it into the paper for the bottom of the bouquet, but the stamped version was cute, so I’ll save that for another project.

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The second card uses the layout of the catalogue card (bottom right), with a different colour palette. I love a good layout and this one was too good to mess with so I changed up the colours. Mint flowers – yes please!!!

In keeping with my mesh of the two catalogue cards, I’ve included the black & white squared DSP for one of the strips. The other is Mint Macaron. as well as Pretty Peacock for the tag and Soft Sea Foam for the leaves – in keeping with a one tone pop of colour. The flowers are coloured with Soft Sea Foam & Mint Macaron Stampin’ Blends.

Want to join in with either of these challenges? You’ll find CASEing the Catty on Facebook and Just Add Ink via their blog.

The magic question for the rest of the week – will I get any more time at the craft table??? There’s only a few more days of school holidays here in Western Australia and then summer break is over. We’ll be back to early morning wake ups, packed lunches and some sort of a routine! As much as I’ve missed getting inky, I’ve loved having the kids home and getting out and about every day! Why can’t we have it all??? 🙂