This is my little creative get away spot in a very hectic world. I love to stamp, meet other stampers and share my inspirations. So come and, sit for a while, explore my site and leave a comment when you can.
Did everyone feel the year fly by to get to this point? Being away from mid-October to early November not only made the holiday season creep up a lot quicker, but it filled me with anxiety like never before.
I almost forgot I'd been away on holidays as I felt extremely pressured to get my Christmas cards completed. I had about 60 more cards to make for consignments, family, friends, and customers when the announcement about the Canada Post strike happened on November 15th, 2024. At first I was in limbo wondering if I'd get my precious cards mailed out, but as the strike dragged on past December 1st reality set in and I began looking for alternatives.
So this is my first "card less" Christmas in the sense that if I couldn't hand out a card in person, then I wouldn't be sending one out. When I got my head wrapped around that concept relief set in and I was able to focus my energy on preparing for Christmas instead of last minute panic.
Thank you to everyone who has supported my small hobby business throughout the past year. I appreciate your comments and following my posts and for always inspiring me to be more creative. I want to wish you a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, love and laughter. As ever, your business, loyalty, and support mean the world to me!
January to April Mini Catalogue:
At the end of November I ordered the new January to April Mini Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration flyers to be mailed to all my treasured customers who continually support my business. Unfortunately these catties are stuck somewhere in the mail and hopefully will be delivered to recipients before January 7th when they go live. If not, I'll be supplying an electronic link in a future email
Heads up, it's time for the last FREE SHIPPING promo of the year! From December 9–11, you can shop and save on all qualifying orders of $100or more. This is a great way to stock up before year end. Combine this promo with the Last Chance Product sale, and you'll have double the savings.
Please bear in mind that due to the anticipated high volume of orders and the Christmas season, Stampin' Up!s distribution center may fall behind their typical shipping timeframes. They will being doing their best to get out all orders as quickly as possible , but any orders placed during this promotion are not guaranteed to arrive before or by December 25. Also, with the Canadian Postal strike UPS and Fed Ex are handling an extra load, so if you need an order by Christmas, order as early as possible or consider expedited shipping.
Just a reminder, the Last Chance Products sale is on now. This first update features products that will soon be leaving Stampin' Up!s September-December Mini Catalogue, the September Scrapbooking Brochure, and some of our Online Exclusive releases. And, you will also find products listed that were previously available on our Clearance Rack. So don't miss out. This is the perfect time to combine sale items with Free Shipping (see above)!
The October 2024 Paper Pumpkin Kit called "Nests of Christmas" was absolutely beautiful to work with. The Nests of Christmas Paper Pumpkin kit included:
Bases for 10 cards: 5 each of 2 designs and 10 coordinating envelopes
Tri-fold card bases
Precut Real Red grosgrain ribbon
Precut labels with specialty green foil trim
Precut ephemera including cardinals, branches and berries.
This kit coordinates with these Stampin' Up Colors: Basic Black, Coastal Cabana, Granny Apple Green, Night of Navy, Real Red, Shaded Spruce (Classic Stampin’ Spot)
Photopolymer Stamp Set called
Ink Spot:
This beautiful kit also coordinates with the Nests of Winter Suite in the Holiday Mini. When kits coordinate with suites you're able to create so many more additional cards by mixing and matching designs. I absolutely love when this happens.
Exclusive Add-On Die:
Frequently Paper Pumpkin will have a die that goes with the kit of the month, and most often it will carry on with additional monthly kits. Here is a look at the Merry Tags & More Dies which will also coordinate with the October to December kits too!
Here's a video clip of the unboxing of this Paper Pumpkin:
If I fall in love with one of these Paper Pumpkin kits, I usually can't wait to get creative. I seldom follow the original designs included with the kit and instead launch off in my own direction. Well that's what happened when I saw the Nests of Christmas kit. I was able to make a total of 22 cards by subbing out the card bases for 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 Whisper White, Misting Moonlight and Coastal Cabana cardstock.
Here are my cards:
I absolutely love how these cards turned out. The photopolymer stamp set provided beautiful sentiments and clear images. In particular I didn't think I would be too impressed with the Cardinal stamp, however quickly changed my mind when I saw the clean crisp lines of the image stamp out. Although the stamp is smaller than the Cardinal that's included in the kits Ephemera, its just the perfect size for layering on the greenery. So that's a keeper!
I basically cut all the card bases included in the kit into three pieces and then mixed and matched these for the various card designs I came up with . I only cut apart one of the envelopes as they were so beautiful it was hard to taken them apart.
When I was putting this card together I didn't like the look of all the white space between the birds and branches, so I coloured the white background with my Misty Moonlight Stampin' Blends. I also used some Shaded Spruce to colour up the branches a bit more and blended that in with the Misty Moonlight. The image was mounted with dimensionals over top of the background which is also in Misty Moonlight.
Well I hope you enjoyed seeing all the cards I made with this super Paper Pumpkin kit. They will be selling replacement kits as well. I'm planning to purchase the coordinating dies as I could have easily incorporated tags instead of the circles used to platform the images in my cards. If you want to know more about getting a Paper Pumpkin subscription you can click here for details.
In the meantime let me know which of these cards are your favourite(s). I'd love to hear.
I took the chance on buying a small stamp set on page 56 of the new Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini catalogue called Yuletide Village, and I'm so happy I did!
The line stamp images in this set are very easy to color with blends, watercolor pencils or ink. The images are very easy to cut out.
Here are some cards I've made so far with this jewel of a stamp set:
I found a video on Youtube by Andrea Wallbaum from Germany who demonstrated her masking method for the card below, which I cased. I added my own little touches of course, but I was most enamoured with her neutral colour scheme, and wanted to capture that for my card too.
I used Stampin' Up! Masking paper to mask off the individual pieces so I could create a village scene. If you didn't have masking paper you could simply stamp on a post it note, cut out the image and place it over the actual stamped image. Remember when cutting the mask to cut very close to the outside line of the image, otherwise after you blend and remove the mask you will wind up with a halo effect around the stamped image.
This stamp set will be gone soon when the Last Chance Products offering is happening in December, so if you're interested in purchasing it don't wait too long. This is not just a seasonal stamp set, it can be used for any occasion that features houses.
Last Chance Products include retiring products from both the Annual Catalogue, Mini Catalogue and online releases (excluding Paper Pumpkin kits).
Last Chance Products in this category are available while supplies last and will be discontinued when they sell out. Items will be automatically removed from the category and the online store when they are discontinued.
Discounts vary and are subject to change. Also, depending on inventory, these products may or may not have discounts.
The Last Chance Products category will be updated every other month. Updates to this category will happen in February, April, June, August, October, and December. Updates may include additional products in the category and any adjustments to product discounts. Updates happen at the beginning of these months and Stampin' Up! will let demos know when a category has been updated.
Individual items from bundles or Suite Collections may be added to our the Last Chance Products category. If one or more products from the suite collection or bundle are in the Last Chance Products category, then the bundle and suite collection will also appear in this category. The bundle or suite will not be orderable if one or more of the items in the bundle or suite collection sell out. The standard 10% bundle discounts will only be available if one or more of the items move to the Last Chance Product category; however, the item in the Last Chance Products category may have a deeper discount.
There may be times Stampin' Up! needs to discontinue certain products outside of this process. This can happen due to factors outside of their control, such as overseas shipping issues, disruptions to the supply chain for raw materials, or changes to our suppliers. If a product is discontinued outside the process, it won’t be available in the Last Chance Products category. However, all discontinued products will show on the Discontinued Products List in the demonstrator view of our website. (See more information in the next bullet.)
Once an item has sold out, it will move to the Discontinued Products List and will no longer be a part of Stampin' Ups! offering.
SPECIAL RELEASE DESIGNER SERIES PAPER - DECEMBER 3RD, 2024
As a special release, Stampin' Up! is offering three previously released Designer Series Papers but with a twist. That's right a twist! They have recolored some of the previously popular Designer Series Papers using some of their best-selling colors!
Serene Love is recolored from True Love.
Refreshed Beauty is recolored from Blackberry Beauty.
Hi everyone! Wow today is the first day of December 2024 and it's officially 24 days until Christmas! How did that happen?
Although I've been busy making Christmas cards for weeks now, it unfortunately looks like I won't be mailing cards to my customers, friends and family due to the current Canada Post Office mail strike. The US and I'm sure other countries have stopped forwarding mail to Canada until the strike is over, so not only will I not be sending cards out but I'll also not be receiving any. Sending Christmas cheer by way of a handmade card, is something I look forward to each holiday season. It's my time to catch up on all that's new and happening in my circle of friendships. So I'm feeling Blue!
Okay so I'm sad, but I put on my big girl panties, and decided to look at other options for delivering my Christmas cheer. Thank God for Messenger and Facebook, as I'm able to send personal messages to those who live overseas and across North America. I'm also planning to hand deliver my cards to those I'm seeing during social occasions this month. And, if there's a saving grace to this it's that I'll have lots of cards left over for next year.
Just a heads up that things will be winding down with Stampin' Up in terms of getting orders out across the country, so if you're planning on putting in a December order I'd suggest you do it before the 15th of December to ensure it's arrival before the new year. To help you along with that, Stampin' Up is offering some specials starting December 3rd so you'll want to check those out in my December 3rd post.
HOW TO USE THE DECEMBER HOSTESS CODE
If you're planning on placing a December order valued from $60 to $199.00 (before shipping and tax) just add my December Hostess Code BPTFX97A at the end of your order to receive a small token of my appreciation and a thank you card. The benefits of shopping at my online store and adding my monthly Hostess Code are:
You never have to go to a workshop or party, you can order from your own home.
If you need help with your product choices just call or email me, I'm always here to help.
You decide when to place your order - daytime or evening my online store is always available 24/7.
Want exclusive items that aren't available in any of the catalogues, well you can get them in the Online Exclusive Shop on my webpage. New Online Exclusives are released every two months.
Delivery is fast and comes directly to your front door. Orders generally arrive within 5-7 days of placing your online order.
After you've placed your order and applied the current hostess code you'll receive a free surprise gift from me and thank you card generally within 2-3 weeks.
ADDING THE HOSTESS CODE TO YOUR ORDER:
If you don't already have an online Stampin' Up! account with me, you'll need to set one up. It's fast and easy. To add the Hostess Code to your order locate the "shopping cart symbol" in the top right hand menu line on my web page. It looks like this:
Before you finalize your Shopping Cart order at the checkout you must add my Hostess Code for December into the circled area marked "ADD HOSTESS CODE" (see blue circled area in above snapshot). Please note: I'm unable to add the hostess code on behalf of a customer once their order is submitted. So remember, if you haven't added the current month's hostess code to your order before hitting the checkout button, it won't qualify for my free gift.
Stampin' Rewards:If your order is over $200 don't worry. You'll automatically receive Stampin' Rewards at the checkout based on your order total and will be prompted to enter product numbers adding up to the qualifying amount.
NOTE: My December Hostess Code promo closes at noon on Saturday
December 21st, 2024. That's two weeks earlier than normal as I'm taking a holiday from Stampin' Up! this year. Your free gift and thank you card will be sent to you sometime in January depending on when the Postal Strike is over. Thank you. HAPPY STAMPING!
Here's the latest sketch challenge from Freshly Made Sketches #662 and designed by Jen T. Make sure you check out the Design Team cards as there are so many delightful samples for how to use this sketch. And, while you're at it why not join in. This challenge is open until 3pm EST Monday November 18th, 2024. I'd love to see your creations on the board too!
Here's My Card:
I'm still working on Christmas cards, so for this challenge I just needed to make a decision as to what stamps and paper I wanted to use. Since I had opened but not used the October 2024 Paper Pumpkin kit called Nests of Christmas I felt this would be a good choice, and I'm glad I went with it.
I began with an 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" base of Whisper White card stock that was scored at 4 1/4". I stamped the sentiment "merry CHRISTMAS" from the Nests of Christmas stamp set along the bottom in Shaded Spruce ink.
Next I cut a 3" x 5 1/2" piece of Whisper White cardstock and embossed it with the Painted Posies (159175) 3D Embossing Folder, and added a 1/2" piece of Shaded Spruce cardstock to the bottom with only a 1/4" showing along the edge.
To finish the design I chose some greenery and a beautiful cardinal image from the ephemera in the paper pumpkin kit and adhered it to the front panel. I added small red rhinestones to the berries on the greenery for a hint of sparkle and then mounted the front panel to the card front with dimensionals.
I kept the inside of the card fairly plain by adding a 4" x 5 1/4 piece of Whisper White card stock stamped with the "joyful thoughts to you this season" sentiment and the leaf image from the Nests of Christmas stamp set in Shaded Spruce ink.
One of the things I really like about the Paper Pumpkin kits are the envelopes. They generally include up to 9 decorated envelopes with each kit. These can be left as envelopes or they can be taken apart and used to further the number of cards that can be made from the kit. I chose to leave these ones as they were.
This card came together quickly once I had made the decision of what to make. Having a sketch really makes cardmaking that much easier, and this card was super easy to assemble. Hope you liked it and will leave a comment.
