Snowmen

Snowmen in August... not much chance of that with all the rain we've been having. Everywhere is flooded! I still maintain that we seem to have skipped a season (summer). It'll be winter before we know it.

This is another Christmas card made last week... unusual colours, but I like them. The base card is Stampin' Up! So Saffron cardstock. The striped paper is part of the Wintergreen set of patterned papers which is on special offer during August (see the sidebar for further details).

Materials (all Stampin' Up!):-

- stamps: Flakey Friends; Basic Phrases

- cardstock: So Saffron; Always Artichoke; Whisper White

- ink: black Stazon; So Saffron; Always Artichoke

- ribbon: kraft taffeta

- other: watercolour wonder crayons (Rich Regals); Dazzling Diamonds glitter glue; Wintergreen designer series patterned papers; cutter kit (distressing tool)

Joy

A quick Christmas card made using a couple of Stampin' Up! stamp sets, several punches and a limited number of colours (Whisper White, Bravo Burgundy and Always Artichoke).

The Always Artichoke card used as the base was stamped with the Polka Dot background stamp using Versamark ink to give a watermark effect.

Glencoe

We drove up to Glencoe for my birthday last week. There's a coffee shop there which sells the best scones and hot chocolate in the world (and their other cakes are quite nice too... particularly the bakewell tart). An ideal birthday lunch! We took Marley with us, as we thought he'd enjoy some of the walks around the area - and he did. He had a good sniff at most of the scenery and managed to jump over so many clumps of grass and thistles that he was exhausted and fell asleep on the way back.

We've been to Glencoe lots of times, but on this occasion we encountered something unusual and a bit random nestled in the hills: four Scottish rugby players posing for photos (presumably for new advertising).

Blue

I don't use blue cardstock and ink very much... so I thought I'd make myself use some for this card - and I'm really pleased with the result. I've used SU Brilliant Blue designer series polka dot patterned paper (continuing with the "how to use the August special offer papers" theme!), Tempting Turquoise cardstock and ink, Brilliant Blue ink (with the "Sanded" background stamp) and Night of Navy ribbon - that's a lot of blue!

The stamps used to make the scalloped piece form part of the Seeing Spots stamp set. I've used a variety of circle punches and the scallop punch to layer the images. The flower and pearl centre are part of the SU "Pretties" kit. I've used the SU white gel pen to create the dots on the edges of the scallop to mirror the white dots on the Brilliant Blue patterned paper.

Mini Marley book

... a quick photo of the front cover of a mini scrapbook I'm working on. The album is a Basic Grey plain chipboard album, which I've painted yellow and orange. The papers, stamps and embellishments are predominantly from the Love, Elsie "Daisy" range by KI Memories.

Petals

As promised, here is the first of several cards I've made using some of the Stampin' Up! designer series patterned papers which are on offer during August. I've used the Close to Cocoa prints set for this card (two patterns: the scroll one shown on the left hand side of the card in the photo above and the polka dot print paper shown on the right hand side of the card). I've distressed the edges of the majority of the card with Close to Cocoa ink.

I've used the measurements for the "joy fold" card template published on Splitcoaststampers a couple of weeks ago; you can see it by clicking here. I've made this type of card lots of times over the years (and I didn't know it was called it a joy fold card - but that sounds like as good a name as any), although I'd (almost!) forgotten about it until I saw it on SCS. In this case, I'm going to use the card as a mini scrapbook - although I've yet to insert the two additional sections of concertina card on the inside - and I'll add a few photos and some journalling. If you're thinking of making this card using the SCS template with a view to pairing it with UK C6 envelopes, remember that the measurements on SCS (which are tailored for standard sized American envelopes) can be adapted slightly.

The base card was created using SU Pumpkin Pie cardstock. The petals for the flower were stamped using one of the petal stamps from the Pick a Petal stamp set with Real Red ink on Whisper White cardstock and trimmed. The centre of the flower is another stamp from the same set and it was stamped with Chocolate Chip ink, covered in Dazzling Diamonds glitter and adhered using SU Dimensionals (foam pads). I've used the corner rounder punch to round the corners of the front panel of the Whisper White piece (beneath the petals).

Paper Party

The Stampin' Up! promotion for the month of August is a special offer on the packs of double-sided 12" x 12" patterned papers shown on pages 72 and 73 of the catalogue... buy three packs (at a cost of £8.50 each) and receive a fourth pack completely free! Each pack contains 12 sheets - 2 of each of 6 designs. The papers are acid and lignin free, so suitable for scrapbooking in addition to general papercrafting and card-making.

The papers are great quality in their own right, but they are also colour co-ordinated to match several of the Stampin' Up! colours. In addition, some of the papers dovetail with specific Stampin' Up! stamp sets; for example, the Le Jardin paper set matches the Carte Postale stamp set, the French Flair background stamp and the Leaves a La Carte wheel (pages 56 and 57), whilst the Petals & Paisleys papers match the Polka Dots & Paisley stamp set and Petals wheel (page 51). Please contact me if you would like more information.

I've made some sample products with some of the papers; more posts to follow over the next couple of days.