Spruced Up Christmas Cards

Last week I shared the first design from this year’s holiday cards. I always make 2 different designs. One for the side that celebrates Hannuakah and one for the side that celebrates Christmas. For this design I made some Spruced Up Christmas cards. I’ve made a few cards with the Spruced Up bundle, but I still haven’t managed to use all the stamps and dies yet. So I’m excited to use the 2 ornament dies for this card.

For the base I’m using Cherry Cobbler cardstock. Then I added a strip of Lights Aglow Designer Series Paper for part of the card mat/front. There’s two different Cherry Cobbler designs in this pack and they’re both really nice. I just love this pack of DSP and can’t believe that it’s not coming back next year!

The sentiment is actually 2 smooshed together on one block. Then I stamped it with Shaded Spruce ink to go with one of the die cut ornaments. To add a little something more to the card, I stamped a few Cherry Cobbler candy canes in the background. Then to add some depth to the design I popped up the ornaments with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I had to strategically place them though, so that the solid and outline of the ornaments stayed connected. It was a bit of a pain, but I really like how these Spruced Up Christmas cards turned out.

Spruced Up Christmas Cards

Check out my first card design using the Joyful Flurry bundle that I shared last week here.

Sadly this bundle is retiring and the dies are already sold out! You can still get the stamp set with a lot of other great products that won’t be available after January 4th. Or in some cases while supplies last! Find them all in my online shop, but don’t wait too long… things are already selling out!

Countdown to Disney

This time about 4 years ago we booked tickets to take the munchkins to Disney for the very first time. Unfortunately not even 6 months later we had to cancel our trip due to the pandemic. But now we’re finally able to take our trip! We’re super excited! And on top of counting down to Christmas we’re also doing a countdown to Disney.

To do this I used Stampin’ Up!s retired Advent Calendar kit from a few years ago. I cut up some patterned paper that I picked up back in April at Scrapfest to fit the boxes. And used a retired circle punch to line up with the holes on the boxes. In the past I’ve used the smallest of the Layering Circles dies, but I didn’t have enough time to die cut 25 boxes. This does make it a little tricky to open the boxes it they’re pushed in all the way. But I popped up the numbers from the kit using Stampin’ Dimensionals, so as long as we’re gentle we can use the numbers like knobs to open them.

Countdown to Disney

Inside each box I put a little something just like a regular advent calendar. Sometimes it’s the Christmas Hershey Kisses, sometimes it’s Disney pins or Disney Tsum Tsums. And sometimes it’s something Harry Potter related because we’re also going to Wizarding World at Universal Studios.

The munchkins have been really enjoying the countdown to Disney calendar!

For our first COVID Halloween I created a Halloween version using this same kit. Check that out here! I grabbed myself a second of these kits back when they were retiring for this trip and because it was a great deal. Stampin’ Up! just released it’s most recent list of retiring products and some of these are up to 60% off! Check out all the deals in my online shop.

Blue Handmade Christmas Cards

Although I’m a little behind schedule, I’m still doing better than previous years with my cards for friends and family! At least I have one of my two designs all cut and ready to assemble. The other design is almost there. I always do two different designs for the different sides of the family. This year for my husband’s side of the family they will be getting blue handmade Christmas cards. Actually the sentiment for these cards is a little more generic because while a lot of them celebrate Christmas, they’re Jewish and celebrate Hannukah. I often love using blues in my holiday crafting, but I chose blue for this card because of this.

For the card base and main colour of I’m using Pool Party. It’s such a pretty blue and works great with snowflakes… which I love to use this time of year! These snowflakes come from the Joyful Flurry stamp set. The designs on these snowflakes are so pretty and the variety in sizes is great. I also used one of the special coordinating dies for the central snowflake with Tahitian Tide cardstock. This gives the card an extra bit of pop without overpowering it.

I popped up the special snowflake with some Stampin’ Dimensionals. And behind it I have a strip of Snowflake Specialty Vellum along side the stamped snowflakes. The fuzzy designs are so soft and I love the effect you get with the iridescent designs! The sentiment is in Tahitian Tide to go with my special snowflake. And to finish it off I added a Rhinestone Basic Jewel to the centre of the it.

Handmade Blue Christmas Cards

Check out some other blue handmade Christmas cards I made previously here.

And sadly I have to report that the Joyful Flurry bundle is retiring! Along with the Snowflake Specialty Vellum. To get them while you still can head to my online shop before January 4th… retiring products are only available while supplies last!

Lights Aglow Christmas Cards

Only 26 more days til Christmas! I can’t believe it’s already almost December. I was hoping to have my Christmas cards ready to mail out by the end of this week, but I’m a little behind. I’ll share them here once they’re done. But in the meantime I thought I’d share some more cards from a recent team card swap. These Lights Aglow Christmas cards are just so pretty! I just love this pack of Designer Series Paper and am sad that it won’t be returning next year. Each of these cards features a different design from this pack of patterned paper.

The first is from my larger team leader, Jenn Tinline. She uses one of the Cherry Cobbler designs from the pack so it makes sense that she used Cherry Cobbler for her card base. It’s hard to see in the picture, but she used one of the Charming Landscapes embossing folders on the card base. She also added some more gold with the Brushed Metallic cardstock and heat embossing the sentiment from the Jingle Jingle Jingle stamp set.

Lights Aglow Christmas Cards

Julie MacIssac also used Cherry Cobbler for her card base. But she uses another piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock that she die cut with the Labels Aglow dies to create a patterned paper look. I love the touch of gold Shimmer Specialty Paper she used with the Gold and Vanilla Satin Edged Ribbon. The sentiment if from the Brightest Glow stamp set.

Lights Aglow Christmas Cards

This last card is from Kerry-Anne Pumphrey. She used the Lights Aglow DSP and a piece of Basic White that she embossed with the Timeworn Type 3D embossing folder for her background. The sentiment is also from the Brightest Glow stamp set. And she die cut a gold foil Christmas tree using the Twinkling Lights dies.

Lights Aglow Christmas Cards

These Lights Aglow Christmas cards are so pretty! I can’t pick a favourite.

Check out my card for this swap here using the Spruced Up stamp set. And if you need any holiday crafting supplies or gifts for the crafters in your life, then head over to my online shop!

Joyful Flurry Christmas Card

I’ve had this bundle on my wishlist for a while now! So I’m excited to finally have it and get crafting with it. This Joyful Flurry Christmas card is just the first of many to come! I’m definitely a big fan of snowflakes with my holiday crafting and cardmaking. So of course this is one of my favourites from the July-December mini catalogue. And since my main image is snowflakes I’m using blues for my first card.

For this card design I went with Pool Party and Night of Navy. Two nice shades of blue that contrast each other really well. And with just a little bit of Night of Navy, the Pool Party really stands out. I used Pool Party for the card base and Night of Navy for the card mat. And even with the stamping I stuck with Pool Party as my main colour. Stamping the larger snowflakes in Pool Party for the background and then surrounding the sentiment with Pool Party snowflakes.

For the banners I layered some Brushed Metallic cardstock with a piece of Pool Party cardstock that I stamped with Pool Party snowflakes. Then there’s the banner with the sentiment on top. No Stampin’ Dimensionals this time. Although that would look really nice too. Instead I kept it simple and just added a few of the small Rhinestone Basic Jewels to finish it off.

Joyful Flurry Christmas Card

I just love this Joyful Flurry Christmas card! And I can’t wait to see what I can really do with the coordinating dies!

Check out some other samples from a recent team card swap using this same bundle here. And if you’re looking to get this in time for some holiday crafting, then head over to my online store.

OnStage 2022

It’s been just over a week now since I got back from Montreal for OnStage 2022 and I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. I like to say I had an OnStage hangover, lol! There’s always so much going on at these events. The energy is high and there’s so much to be excited about. Plus this year is the first in-person event since before the pandemic… so of course everyone was excited to get together again!

It was extra exciting for me because I’m celebrating my 10 year stampaversary this year! And I was helping out with registration. So I got to grab my swag box early and be one of the first faces people saw at the event. It was so awesome to see the excitement on everyone’s faces and to cheer for those people who were attending for the first time. I also got to make some new friends as my check in buddies were 2 demonstrators from the US; Selene and Cheryl. We had a lot of fun! It was also great to see some familiar faces. It’s just not the same seeing my team members faces on ZOOM!

Making new connection and deepening old ones is one of the many things I love about Stampin’ Up! events. I also love the sneak peeks and free stuff you get! How can you not right?! And because I attended in-person I got the new January-April Mini and Sale-a-bration catalogues before other demonstrators. My swag bag was full of goodies from the new catalogues and I even got to order some of the new products before pre-order in December!

I’m so glad I got to go to OnStage 2022! I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of how much fun these events are. It’s something you really need to experience for yourself to truly know what I’m talking about.

If you’d like to join in on all the fun, join my team! We have a lot of fun together and I’m here to support you in any way I can no matter what you’re hoping to do. Sign up here!

Oh…. and don’t forget to check out the card I made to swap at OnStage! I can’t believe I forgot to mention how much I love to swap projects. Check it out here!

Dual Pop Up Card

Fancy Folds Design Team

I’m back with the Fancy Folds Design Team blog hop! And this month we’re making a Dual Pop Up Card. This card took a little longer to figure out, but in the end it wasn’t so hard. You definitely want to take your time with the two pieces for the mechanism! Jan B, a demonstrator from the UK, has a great video to walk you through step by step. She also has measurements for those of us in North America. Just look under the video in the comments for the A2/US measurements.

For my design I went with a holiday theme. Using the All Spruced Up bundle and Painted Christmas Designer Series Paper worked nicely for this. I used Soft Succulent for the card base and a lighter design throughout the inside and outside to keep it nice and subtle.

On the card front I added a few die cut tree outlines from the Spruced Up dies. One in Evening Evergreen, one in Soft Succulent and one in Basic White. Next I paired two phrases from the Spruced Up stamp set together to go on the outside and die cut them using one of the All That dies. Then I popped it up with some Stampin’ Dimensionals and added a few gold Festive Pearls.

The inside is also pretty simple. Just a couple more tree outlines on the doors. And I did add an extra piece of 3″ x 3″ Basic White cardstock on the inside to give room to write.

The Dual Pop Up card was definitely a little trickier than some of the other cards I’ve done with the Fancy Folds Design team. But still easier than I thought. Keep hopping around the world to see all the different designs. Next up is Mette Nording Shaw from Australia. Check out her card here.

And check out last month’s hop here where we made a Cascading Display card.

OnStage 2022 Card Swaps

I’m back after an exciting weekend in Montreal for OnStage! It was great to be back in person again. And it was just as awesome as I remember! There are so many things that I love about OnStage and one of my favourites is the card swapping. Here are 3 of my favourite OnStage 2022 card swaps.

This first one is by Serena Li and features the Texture Chic Designer Series Paper. I just love this patterned paper! The colour combinations and designs are so unique! Behind the strips of DSP she embossed a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock with a retired folder; the current Timeworn Type embossing folder would be a good substitute. The “thanks” is on a strip of Soft Succulent cardstock and she added a few Champagne Rhinestone Basic Jewels.

OnStage 2022 Card Swaps

This next card is from Sara Ogilvie and I love how she used the Blending Brushes to add her colours. The Basic Black card base really helps the Parakeet Party, Tahitian Tide and Orchid Oasis pop. The image comes from the Stronger Together stamp set. She also added a piece of Vellum as well as a strip of Black and White Designs DSP behind the image.

OnStage 2022 Card Swaps

The last card features the early released Fitting Florets suite. This suite is actually from the upcoming mini catalogue and you can get it now if you want. My favourite thing from this suite are the dies. The frames are so cute! And I really like how this demo layered 2 of the designs from this DSP pack to create her card mat.

OnStage 2022 Card Swaps

These are just 3 of the OnStage 2022 card swaps that I got. Check out the rest of them over on my Facebook page here.

And check out my card swap design here!

OnStage Card Swap

As you read this I’ll be on my way to Montreal! This weekend is the first OnStage event I’ve been able to attend in person since the pandemic started. I’m really excited to go and knew I wanted to join in the unofficial OnStage card swap! This is one of my many favourite things about OnStage. There’s also the sneak peeks, the free products and meeting demonstrators from all over! To name just a few.

At just about every Stampin’ Up! event there are demonstrators that make cards and other projects just to swap with one another. Card swaps are a great way to get inkspiration and to see how other demonstrators design their cards. I enjoy doing card swaps with my team and so it’s really nice to get cards from people outside of my team! Plus it gives me the chance to meet other demonstrators that I wouldn’t see otherwise.

For my card design I kept it simple. I used some of the Sunprints Designer Series Paper for my card mat on a Gray Granite card base. Then I layered a few things on top. Running across the bottom is a piece of Silver Metallic Edge Cotton ribbon. On top of that is a phrase from the Bottled Happiness stamp set that I framed using the Layering Circles dies and popped up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. And last but not least, I silver heat embossed a dragonfly from the Dragonfly Garden stamp set and punched it out with the coordinating punch.

OnStage Card Swap

I hope the other demonstrators like my OnStage card swap! I’ll post some of my favourites here next week so stay tuned. In the meantime you can check out the card I made for my team’s most recent card swap here.

And you can always stock up on stamping supplies in my online shop!

Christmas #SimpleStamping

November is here and there’s only 6 1/2 weeks until Christmas! Can you believe it?! I’m finally taking the full deep dive into my holiday crafting. I’d like to try and get my holiday cards out at the beginning of December this year. Fingers crossed! So when I saw this month’s #SimpleStamping challenge from Stampin’ Up! I was all in! This month the challenge is to do some Christmas #SimpleStamping, or something for the New Year. And this time we can add some embellishments to the usual stamps, ink and paper.

I haven’t done any crafting with the Penguin Place stamp set in a while so I decided to use that as my main stamp set. And to keep with the christmas/winter theme I’m using Pool Party as my main colour. The snowflakes I stamped in the background come from the Spruced Up stamp set. And I used Tuxedo Black Memento ink, Pale Papaya, Soft Suede and Pool Party to create the scene in the centre.

I framed the scene with a bit of Pool Party cardstock. Then popped up the scene with some Stampin’ Dimensionals and layered the phrase on top. The phrase comes from the Penguin Place stamp set. Then to finish it off I added a few of the silver Festive Pearls to the centres of the snowflakes in the background. I love this pack of pearls!

Christmas #SimpleStamping

Check out my Facebook live where I crafted this Christmas #SimpleStamping card here. I do live crafting there every Monday night, so be sure to like my page while you’re there so you don’t miss out!

And you can check out last month’s #SimpleStamping challenge here.

Handmade Teenage Birthday

I can’t believe it… I’m the mother of a teenager now! How did that happen?! Anyway… She wants to be more involved in the planning and designing now, but I still wanted to do something special for her party. I have to admit, crafting a handmade teenage birthday is a little trickier than I’m used to. Usually I have a theme to guide my design. This time it’s a colour… rose gold. A great colour. One of my favourites… but not quite what I’m used to working with.

So I went looking at a local dollar store for ideas in their party section. When I was there I found a very colourful cake topper and decided to create my own. To do it I used the retired Playful Alphabet dies to spell out “Happy Birthday” in Rose Gold Specialty paper. Then I simply stuck the letters to pieces of Basic White cardstock and cut triangles out of the bottom. To create the banner I folded the cardstock over some retired Rose Gold Metallic thread and used some Mini Glue Dots to attach it to a couple of rose gold straws.

Handmade Teenage Birthday

The other thing I needed to figure out were the thank yous for my daughter’s friends. This idea was sparked by something I found on Pinterest. It’s a simple belly band wrapped around a kraft journal. I used the Hues of Happiness Designer Series Paper for the band. And I heat embossed “thanks” from the Biggest Wish stamp set in gold (sadly no rose gold embossing powder). Then I used one of the All That dies to cut it out and added it to the band.

Handmade Teenage Birthday

I hope she likes how these handmade teenage birthday favours turned out! You can check out the birthday card I made for her here. And stock up on any stamping supplies you need in my online shop.

Joyful Flurry

The Joyful Flurry bundle is one of my favourites from the July-December Mini catalogue! It’s next on my list to get for my holiday crafting! In the meantime I wanted to share two cards from a recent team card swap that use snowflakes as their featured image.

The first card is made by Laura Seki and uses more traditional winter colours. She creates a pretty monochromatic card using Balmy Blue. First she stamped and die cut using the Joyful Flurry bundle. Then she used paper tearing on that same piece of Basic White cardstock. I love that this bundle has a mix of dies that fully cut out images and only partially cut them out. Laura’s used a bit of both on this card. She also added a bit of Balmy Blue ink to the snowflake centres using Sponge Daubers. And then finished off the card with some of the White Crinkled Seam binding ribbon and a few different pearls and sequins.

Joyful Flurry

This other card is made by Joanne Wilke and uses Fresh Freesia as it’s main colour. To make this card she heat embossed the large snowflake image first in white. Then she used a Sponge Dauber or Blending Brushes to add Fresh Freesia all around the snowflake. The “Merry Christmas” come from the Regal Reindeer stamp set. And to finish is off she added a few sequins.

Joyful Flurry

I can’t wait to get my hands on the Joyful Flurry bundle so I can make some beautiful snowflake cards like these! Check out my card for this team card swap here! And if you want to get your hands of the Joyful Flurry bundle like me, then head over to my online shop!

Paper Pumpkin Ho Ho Ho

I’m excited to join the Paper Pumpkin blog hop again this month! Probably because I’m loving this month’s Paper Pumpkin Ho Ho Ho. This is definitely my favourite holiday themed Paper Pumpkin ever! The stamp set has so many great images and phrases. And the envelopes and dies cut pieces are great too.

For this alternative project I’m making a card and I’m using some non-traditional colours; Bermuda Bay and Crumb Cake. It all started with me wanting to use Bermuda Bay to stamp some snowflakes. Then when I was looking at the pieces in the kit and I had the idea to cut up one of the intricate die cut pieces. I layered that on top of one of the pieces left over from the frame and popped it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. But not before I did some tone on tone stamping and added a snowflake to the centre of each of the die cut snowflakes.

Underneath that layer I took a strip of Bermuda Bay cardstock and did some more tone on tone stamping using the “ho ho ho” stamp. For my other phrase I combined “holly jolly” and “Christmas”. It’s one of my favourite holiday songs! I used both Bermuda Bay and Crumb Cake ink to stamp this phrase. Then to finish it off I added an Iridescent Pearl Basic Jewels to the centre of each of the “snowflakes”.

Paper Pumpkin Ho Ho Ho

I just LOVE the October Paper Pumpkin Ho Ho Ho kit! Don’t you?!

Check out the other projects on this month’s hop with the link below. And to check out last month’s hop with the September Paper Pumpkin kit, start with my alternative project here.

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Feminine Birthday Cards

This month marks the start of a busy season of gifting for us. From now until Christmas there are 6 birthdays to celebrate, plus we have Hannukah too. To kick things off I need 2 feminine birthday cards. One for my mom and one for my daughter. I’m using the same stamp set for both cards; Biggest Wish. I haven’t used it since I got it during Stampin’ Up!s flash stamp sale, so I’m excited to use it!

For my mom’s card I using some of the In Colours; Sweet Sorbet, Orchid Oasis, Fresh Freesia and Pale Papaya. The card base is Sweet Sorbet, then I used all of these colours to stamp “happy” down the left hand side of the card front. I also used Sweet Sorbet for stamping “birthday” and popped it up with some Stampin’ Dimensionals. And then for a celebratory kind of background I randomly stamped the small x’s using the other colours. At first I thought I would use some of the In Colour Dots, but the x’s almost look like confetti.

Feminine Birthday Card

For my daughter’s card I used Petal Pink for my card base. I did some tone on tone stamping to create a simple background. Rose gold is the “theme” for her party this year, so I used some of the Rose Gold Metallic Specialty Paper for the card mat. Then I layered a piece of Basic White cardstock on that I did some heat embossing on in gold. Too bad Stampin’ Up! doesn’t have rose gold embossing powder. I’d be all over that! To add a little something more to the card I used the Stitched Rectangles dies to cut out the phrase. Then I popped up these layers with Stampin’ Dimensionals and added a few Iridescent Pearl Basic Jewels.

Feminine Birthday card

I usually find making feminine birthday cards so much easier than masculine birthday cards. But with these cards it’s pretty easy to give them a more masculine look… all you need to do is swap out the colours.

If you’re stuck for ideas for the guys in your life, check out my post using the He’s All That bundle here. And you can find both the He’s All That bundle and the Biggest Wish stamp set in my online store.

Spruced Up

With every new catalogue our larger team always does a card swap. And the July-December mini catalogue is no different. For my swap I wanted to step it up a little while keeping it simple. I especially like to keep it simple when I have to make a lot of cards at once. So I made a book fold card using the Spruced Up bundle.

I have a few different elements to this card so I wanted to have a neutral card base. Crumb Cake works nicely for this and is probably my favourite brown to craft with. On the “spine” of my card front I have a strip of one of the designs from the Painted Christmas Designer Series Paper. I love the colours and patterns in this DSP pack, don’t you?! For the main part of my card front I embossed a piece of Basic White cardstock using the snowy mountain range from the Charming Landscapes embossing folders. I thought it makes a really nice background for the other elements.

I stamped the large tree with Evening Evergreen and then cut it out with the coordinating die. And the phrase is actually 2 phrases from the Spruced Up stamp set. I really love these two together! To stamp them I place them as close together on the block as I can. I stamped the phrase in Evening Evergreen too. Then I die cut it with one of the All That dies and popped it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. To finish it off I added a few Festive Pearls. These are another favourite of mine from the July-December mini catalogue. And apparently a lot of people agree… I’ve seen it out of stock a couple of times already.

Here’s my card…

All Spruced Up

Check out some of the cards I got from this recent card swap here. I’ll be sharing more here in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned! And you can check out the Spruced Up bundle in my online shop.