Sale a bration Kick Off 2023!

Hello friends! I hope you had an amazing holiday season and I am so excited to be back again after a little crafting hiatus. I mean, I did craft, I just didn’t share as much on social! The theme of my post today is Sale a Bration—or the happiest time of year! Who doesn’t LOVE to get FREE stuff. I mean if you are spending money anyway…might as well get some free goodies!

Isn’t this little owl the cutest? He is actual one of three owls found in the new 2023 Sale a Bration stamp set Adorable Owls. And he truly is! I wanted to create a card that depicted an owl flying high in the sky and I think this turned out pretty close to my vision!

I started with a base of Basic White card stock and I used Balmy Blue ink and a Blending Brush to add the first layer of blue. I then added some Tranquil Tide in the corners. I feel like these two colors did a great job created dimension for the sky. I then took my Water Painted and flicked some water over top. Water acts like an eraser giving the illusion of moisture in the air.

 

The cute stitched clouds are die cut from the Give it a Whirl Die set in the annual catalogue. I love that you get 3 sizes of clouds to help design a scene!

I added a strip of DSP from the In Color DSP stack along the bottom to help ground the sentiment. And a little Linen Thread behind the sentiment (stamped in Tahitian Tide) with a little scallop border just makes it pop.

My flying owl is colored with a mix of Stampin’ Blends from the Neutral Tones collection plus some Crumb Cake and Tahitian Tide. I really feel that this owl has a lot of dimension and I really enjoy coloring with our Blends. I couldn’t resist adding some of the new Pastel Adhesive-Backed Sequins too. They might be my favorite new embellishment!

 

You can shop the Sale a bration catalogue, choosing a free item with your $60 CAN purchase by clicking on any image. This should direct you straight to my online store.

Look at all these fun choices you get during Sale a bration 2023! I love the Adorable Owls set, I think it has alot of potential to color with Stampin’ Blends, Watercolor Pencils, or lazy watercoloring!

A Card a Day in May--Day 9!!

Happy Monday everyone! May 9th card for this month is a spinner card! I have had the Give it a Whirl Dies for an entire YEAR and just make a whirl card with them! Hard to believe isn’t it??

I decided to use the Nothings Better Than stamp set (a definite fan favorite) for this card as it has 3 images. This is important for the whirl card because you have three image windows for the spinning component that you need to have. And coffee, cookies and chocolate are a universal favorite, I thought this card could work for anyone!

I wanted to use the new Tahitian Tide and Sweet Sorbet In Colors as well and grounded them on a Crumb Cake base. However, now that I look at this card it has a definite Captain America feel to me. Hahaha!

 

The background was easy to create as I put all three words —Cookies, Coffee and Chocolate on a block at once to stamp in Tahitian Tide ink. So quick and easy!

The images were colored with Stampin’ Blends in the Tahitian Tide, Crumb Cake and the SU 500 neutral Blend color.

‘Because Adulting is Hard’ is stamped in Sweet Sorbet and cut with one of the shapes from the Give it a Whirl Dies. I also used the dies to cut some stitched little stars to add as an embellishment along with some Sweet Sorbet twine.

Overall, putting this whirl card together was a lot less intimidating than I thought! Who doesn’t love a cute interactive card? I also thought it could make a fun gift card holder too where you could add a gift card to get either a coffee, cookie or chocolate! I know I would love it if this showed up in my mailbox!

I cut a 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 piece of Tahitian Tide card stock and used the circle from the Give it a Whirl Dies to cut a little dip for the gift card. I stamped the card stock the same way as the front panel.

‘Just for You’ is from the Celebrating You stamp set and is die cut with a shape from the same dies. I also added a little Crumb Cake twine behind the sentiment.

If you haven’t tried this die set out yet, I recommend it. I had been using the stitched clouds all year long but this was my first go at a whirly card! Its absolutely FUN!

If you live in Canada and are inspired by anything you see on my blog, please consider shopping with me so I can keep loving what I do!

Around the World on Wednesday--Fun with Basics!

This month our team is focusing on BASICS—-this can be items with ‘basic’ in the title or crafting basics that are a must have for us. My project, a scrapbook page, combines Basic White as its my go to neutral and a focus on DIES because its very rare that I can make a project of ANY kind without using my Stamp Cut & Emboss Machine.

I also recently just hit a couple of fun milestones—15 years and 500,000 CSV in sales (which is Canadian dollars is over 600,000!) so I wanted to scrapbook a picture of my first meeting/photo with Shelli Gardner at Convention. Remember Convention? Were you ever lucky enough to go? I was blessed enough to go a few times and have such amazing memories!

I am absolutely in LOVE with how this page turned out. It is definitely going on display in my craft room so I can look at it all the time!

The base of my page is Basic White and I also used that for the 5x7 photo mat and all of the clouds. The various clouds came from the Give it a Whirl Dies and the Basic Borders Dies. Both are MUST HAVES if you love the Rainbow of Happiness Bundle. They support this bundle perfectly!

This page might be full of Basic White elements but it is anything but basic if you ask me!

It think it was destiny that my outfit in this page just happened to match the Sunshine & Rainbows DSP, haha! It was actually perfect and the little piece of colored strips on the left is what influenced the colors in the rainbows.

The sentiment “So Happy to Know You” is truly perfect. Over the years I have had the pleasure to meet and visit with Shelli on several occasions. She even came to one of my events in Calgary and we had a lovely phone call when she called to congratulate me on my recent achievements. Her call really affirmed to me the Stampin’ Up! value of “We Care About People First”.

You would never know by her megawatt smile that this picture was taken at the end of a very long day at Convention, there was barely anyone left when I nervously asked her to pose for this picture with me! Of course she said yes with her gorgeous smile!

The sentiment is stamped in Magenta Madness ink and is die cut with the Sweet Hearts Dies (I love when SU adds a great label die into a set) and has my favorite white twine (in truth I rarely make anything without twine. I LOVE IT) and Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon. Also a craft room must have. Any ribbon in Basic White has unlimited potential because we can color it to match our projects.

I love these Amazing Thanks Dies…add them to cart NOW! Haha! I loved how fresh they looked cut in Basic Black and Vellum. They are a great size for card making and paper crafting! And the phrase is perfect for this page!

I love how the Brilliant Rainbow dies bring this whole page to life with the accent clouds. I love the little rainbow tag above the stamped sentiment and how the pop of color in the bigger rainbow jumps off of the Basic White background. I hope this page inspires you to start your canvas with Basic White and layer in a bit of color. Let your photo guide you with what colors too add onto your project.

Please visit Tricia Butts from the United States who is next on the hop! Thanks so much for joining in with us!

See you next month! We always have unique and fun themes for our hop! And if my page layout inspired you, please click on any images or the Shop with Me tab on the side. Thank you in advance for helping me love what I do!

Dad--You're the Best Scrapbook Page

I am really on a roll with my Father’s Day projects this year! I have created a couple different pages and I am so happy to share them with you in advance! Hopefully you will be inspired and can get the supplies together you need to make them!

final 70.jpg

I always find masculine pages more challenging, you can’t just add in flowers on a masculine page! hahah! The base of these pages is Night of Navy (classic man color) and I was excited to add in some Designer Series Paper from the Well Suited collection and the returning favorite In Good Taste. In lieu of flowers I did decide to incorporate the leafy sprig image from the Artistic Dies. I also added in the pointy die from the Basic Borders dies on each of the photo mats as a unique and new accent.

final (1) 38.jpg

The hearts on both pages are from the Give it While Die and I ran them through an embossing folder for some texture.

I always like to add a variety of sentiments onto my scrapbook pages. On the top left “It’s Your Day” is stamped in Night of Navy ink from the A Good Man stamp set. The main sentiment on this page is from the Handsomely Suited stamp set. While I don’t gravitate towards the ties in this set, I do really enjoy the variety of phrases it has. To draw attention to the ‘Father’s Day’ aspect of the phrase, I stamped it on Smoky Slate and hand cut it to add over top with a Mini Dimensionals. The main sentiment is cut with the Switched So Sweetly Dies. A fan favorite!

I added in some Linen Thread and a bit of retired crumb cake ribbon for a lighter natural feel. Plus a few Resin Hearts because I couldn’t resist and I will be sad when they are retired.

final 69.jpg

You will notice this partner page has some carry over elements. This is important to me to create balance and connection across my two layouts. However, it is important to add some unique features too. Here I have added in a the new Smoky Slate Textured Ribbon behind the top sentiment. This sentiment is from A Good Man and is die cut with the Stitched Rectangles.

You’re the Best is from the same stamp set with a different ribbon behind but layered on the shape from the Artistic Dies. I also like having photo mats that go in both directions for a bit of variety!

I have one more ‘Dad’ themed page that I created that I am planning to share next week! I hope you will pop back for a visit!