It's all about Christmas!

Welcome to our last Blog Hop for 2015! Soon, everyone will be caught up in the excitement of the Christmas season and we have a lot of project ideas for all your Christmas card giving needs. And maybe a home decor item or two as a bonus.

 If you are following the Hop in order, you have arrived here from Marie's blog and your head is probably still spinning from her creativity! At any point in your journey, if you get off track, simply click on the Wacky Watercooler image above to go to the home blog.

My first project is a CAS - clean and simple - one layer card. Very suitable if you want to make multiples quickly and not worry about mailing issues because of weight or lots of embellishments. This is CASED (Copy And Share Everything) from a card I saw on Pinterest. It was created by Tracy May,  a fellow Stampin' Up! demo from the UK.

The sentiment is from the Wonderland stamp set - you know the one with those awesome trees! - and it's embossed with gold embossing powder. Of course, Basic Black cardstock is the base.

Using the Tree Punch, it was really easy to punch some trees out of the Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Paper. Love all the patterns in the collection!

A tip as to how I lined up the trees: just put a mini glue-dot on the tip of one and attach the next one.

The sparkly gold detail behind the trees is strands of gold from the gold cord that is available in the Holiday Catalogue. I didn't have a star punch or die small enough, and also didn't have any of the gold thread. As I was pondering what to do, I cut a length of the gold cord and coiled it up, but it was just too thick.

Then, a lightbulb moment! Taking my paper piercing tool, I separated the strands and Ta-Da! - gold thread.

I think this is an elegant and sophisticated Christmas card. Do you think so too?

My next card is also a CASE - from the talented Sandi MacIver. Again, I found this on Pinterest. Hmmm - looks like I spend a lot of time on Pinterest!

The ornament shape was cut out of a scrap piece of paper and used the negative image to sponge the shape onto Whisper White cardstock using Island Indigo and Pool Party inks. I didn't have the lovely new snow flake stamp set, so I substituted the little snowflakes from the Wonderland stamp set and stamped them with Island Indigo - stamped off once.

Taking the positive image next, use it as a mask to cover up the sponged image. Sponge bits of Pool Party in the background. Two of the little spots and stars stamps from the Jingle All The Way stamp set, inked with Island Indigo, add groupings of detail.

Apparently, I'm all about bling for this Hop. Not sure why the 'merry' from the Christmas Greetings Thinlits and the sequins look gold. Everything is silver: Silver Glimmer Paper, silver sequins, a strand of silver from the silver cord (love that trick - will use it often!). A tiny rhinestone is placed beside each sequin.

My third project gives into the bling completely! I've seen many samples of using the Delicate Ornaments dies to make a Christmas tree ornament, so this was inspired by all of them.

The solid ornament shapes are cut from Silver Glimmer Paper and the lacy shapes are cut from the Red Foil. A few rhinestones set off the centre detail, also cut from Red Foil.

I did have a problem trying to glue the red foil pieces to the Silver Glimmer Paper. Neither the Tombow liquid glue or the fine tip glue pen would work. Ended up using Mini Glue Dots.

 And now, you are ready to carry on. Click on the 'Next' button below, and be transported to the wonderful world of Heidi's creations!

WWC41 - Jackie's Sketch

Whew! Talk about getting in just under the wire!

In my defence, I did have my project done a few days ago, but the weather here on the BC coast has been rainy and gloomy and not great for picture taking.

As I was pondering Jackie's sketch, - you can see it on the Watercooler Wednesday blog - my eye happened to fall on a stamp set that's been sitting on my table ever since I finally ordered it a few weeks ago after coveting it ever since the 2015-2016 annual catalogue was released.

That set is Remarkable You.

It is perfect for colouring! And I love to colour!!

Since I've also been going through all my craft/stamping stuff and trying to purge, I had recently come across my one and only set of long-retired Stampin' Up! Watercolour Crayons - and here is the result:

 I used Basic Black cardstock because I wanted the image to pop.  It is coloured with Blush Blossom, Pretty in Pink, and Certainly Celery. Image is stamped with Archival Basic Black. The colours are very subtle, so I hope you can see them.

The flower is popped up with dimensionals on a circle and the image panel is also popped up.
 
A strip from the Neutrals Designer Series Paper Stack and a few rhinestones finish it off.

Now, I better get this posted - only have minutes to spare!! 

Anything Goes for the October Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop!

Fasten your seatbelts! This is sure to be an exciting ride as the theme for this month is Anything Goes. You can visit our home blog for the Wacky Watercooler by clicking here.

I'd like to welcome Lisa to our Hop - wasn't she full of surprises for you? Hope you enjoyed her masterpieces as much as I did!

Now, I'll just jump right in. Since it is Fall, and we do have some wonderful fall-themed items in the Holiday Catalogue, I thought I would do a birthday card and use the awesome Brick Wall embossing folder as well as some of the amazing Into the Woods Designer Series Paper. If you need to make a card in a hurry - this is it!

A colour I haven't used a lot of, is the Tip Top Taupe from the 2015-2017 In-Colour collection in the annual catalogue. I decided to use it as a base and also sponged a bit over the Very Vanilla cardstock after I ran it through the Big Shot with the Brick Wall Embossing Folder.

Mossy Meadow cardstock is perfect to show off one of the flower clusters from the DSP. That was cut using one of the circle framelits. Apologies for using a retired set for the sentiment - it was a piece laying on my table from a previous project and just seemed to be right for this. It is from Perfectly Penned.

I liked the Tip Top Taupe so much I used it for my next card, as well as a brand new stamp set - Winter Wishes. It just called out for a monochromatic look.

This also gave me the chance to use the very cute Reindeer paper clips! Also used the Wonderland trees stamped with Tip Top Taupe for background. The sled is stamped with Soft Suede and highlights are done with the white gel pen. Right behind the image panel is a piece of the fun white corrugated card stock that I sponged with Tip Top Taupe. Snowflakes stamped with white craft ink create a gentle snowfall.

And finally, I just had to play with those fabulous Delicate Ornaments Thinlits!

Using the Gold Foil, I cut the outline ornaments and then cut the solid ornament from the Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Series Paper. I love the combo of the gold, black and white.

Just a bit of colour was added by stamping the holly in Mossy Meadow and Real Red. Scattered in the corners are Basic Black Candy Dots and pearls.

For the hanging ornament, I glued two of the solid die cuts back to back and the topped them with the gold foil detail die cuts. This is where the new Fine Tipped Glue Pen came in really handy!

A little bow tied with the Gold Cording and some more pearls set off the ornament on the card just right. Here's a closeup:

Your next stop on this journey is the inspirational Jean Fitch. Still have that seatbelt fastened? You're really going to need it!! Just click on the 'Next' button to continue.

WWC35 - Marsha's "Anything Goes" Challenge

I have yet another Bokeh card! Hope you are not tired of seeing them as I don't seem to be tired of doing them. Since the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge this week is "Anything Goes", this is a perfect fit. You can see all the entries by clicking on Watercooler Wednesday.

And here is my entry:

The colours are Mossy Meadow, So Saffron and Daffodil Delight. As always, the circles are done with Whisper White craft ink.

For the trees, the Wonderland stamp set from the 2015 Holiday Catalogue is the perfect choice. Love these trees! I used a sentiment from the Moon Lake stamp set that was in the Occasions Catalogue. Unfortunately it is no longer available to order. I try not to use retired product for projects I post on my blog, but this one was just so perfect I had to use it!

The cardstock is Whisper White for the image and Thick Whisper White for the card base. What I love about this is it is really very simple and would be so easy to do a whole set in not very much time at all.

Now, go and see what the Watercooler Artists have come up with!

September Free For All

Welcome to our September Mix-Up! Why a Mix-Up? Well, maybe it's because right now we have two fabulous catalogues to tempt us - the 2015-2016 Annual Catalogue and the Holiday Catalogue which we can order from until January 4, 2016.

Because our Hops always go in a circular fashion, if you are starting here, I'm the first stop on the journey. If you joined in somewhere along the line and are working your way around, you may have come from Deb's Stamp and Create blog. I don't how she comes up with all the amazing creations she shares with us!

Let's jump right in with my first project. The idea of the Free-For-All or Mix-Up is to use products from both catalogues. So my first project features the Woodland Textured Impressions Embossing Folder and the Among the Branches stamp set - which very conveniently are offered in a bundle which saves you 15%. I teamed them up with the Thankful Forest Friends stamp set which is also in the Holiday Catalogue.

When I looked at the bear image, I immediately pictured him peeking out from behind one of the trees. I call this card Peek-A-Boo Bear. For products from the Annual Catalogue I used the sentiment stamps from Work of Art and punched it out with a retired punch because I didn't have any current punches that would work for this! Many apologies!

Next, I had to re-visit a favourite technique. Bokeh! Because it reminds me of bubbles, I teamed it up with this very fun jellyfish stamp from the Land to Sea set from the Annual Catalogue.

 The inks are all blues - Night of Navy, Bermuda Bay and Pool Party. To make the jellyfish pop - they are stamped with Versa Mark ink and embossed using White Embossing Powder. For an item from the Holiday Catalogue, I chose the Softly Falling Textured Impressions Embossing Folder - again, because it can be bubbles or snowflakes!

Thick Whisper White card stock is perfect for the card base.

Finally, I had to go all Christmas. But, Christmas with Bokeh!

This is pretty much all from the Holiday Catalogue - except for the Night of Navy, Whisper White and Thick Whisper White cardstock.

The Sleigh Ride Edgelits Dies are just way too much fun! And add such a WOW factor against the Bokeh sky with silver glitter that was so, so easy to do by dabbing small dots of glue using the Fine Tip Glue Pen. Love that glue!!

The 'peace' is cut from silver glimmer paper using the Christmas Greetings Thinlits Dies set. I used the same ink colour as with the jellyfish card.

So I have lots of new toys to play with, which is always fun. Hope I have given you some inspiration!
I know you will get a lot of inspiration from the next Hopper - Debbie. Just click on the 'Next' button, below, to continue your journey.

Sprinkle August With Life

Welcome to our Sprinkle August With Life Blog Hop! Love that title chosen by our very own Heidi who does such a wonderful job every month of keeping us on track. Thanks Heidi for all your efforts putting this together for us!

If you are following the Hop order, you've just come from Marie's blog. Didn't she capture the essence of our blog title perfectly?

This month we are highlighting the Sprinkles of Life stamp set and co-ordinating Tree Builder punch. Sprinkles of Life is the Ronald McDonald stamp set for the 2015-2016 catalogue. Each year Stampin' Up! designs a special stamp set for this designation and donates a portion of the sale of each set to the Ronald McDonald House program.

My first card is an idea that I've had rolling around in my brain for a while. I combined the Sprinkles of Life stamp set with the Hot Diggity Dog stamp set to create a dog sitting in a dog bed.

Ink colour for this card are Cucumber Crush, Mint Macaron, Watermelon Wonder, Soft Sky, Tip Top Taupe and Memento Tuxedo Black.

Cardstock is Tip Top Taupe and Thick Whisper White. The strip of Designer Series Paper at the bottom is from the Farmer's Market collection.

Now, my project featuring the Tree Builder Punch did not come together all that easily - even though, in my head, it wasn't all that difficult. Buuuut - it's not always easy to get the idea from the brain into an actual project.

My idea was a combination of a sort of snow globe in a clear glass ornament. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, take a look first:

I've actually had this ornament - and about 11 others that I bought two years ago when they were marked down to under $1 each after Christmas. Figured it was about time I did something with them!

These particular ornaments are meant to have a photo put into them. I used the template that's in the ornament to cut a piece of Windowsheet onto which I used mini-glue dots to adhere the tree trunk and branches onto. I cut two of the tree trunks out of Whisper White card stock and glued one on either side off the window sheet to hide the glue dots.

Then I punched four of the little flower shaped from the WW cardstock. I needed something very fine to use as a loop for them to hang from the branches, and took the gold thread from a piece of gold metallic Baker's Twine. A tiny spot of Tombow holds the gold thread between two punched flowers.

In the bottom of the ornament, is a combination of the snowflake shapes from the Frosted Sequins. I also punched several more of the flower shapes from gold and silver glitter paper to mix with the snowflakes.

This project presented several problems I did not forsee until I actually started putting it together. Because the window sheet with the tree trunks on it essentially divides the ornament in half, it was a bit tricky trying to get the snowflakes/glitter flower bits divided equally. Then, when I closed the two halves of the ornament, some of the snowflakes got stuck in the branches of the tree. After almost half an hour of fiddling around trying to get them unstuck - I gave up.

The next challenge came when it was time to take photos of my projects - particularly this one. 'Cause the main problem is it reflects the light from the flash. I tried several locations in my house and nothing really worked. Of course by the time I tried all the places I could think of, it was starting to get dark outside.

Finally, I set it on the windowsill of  the window in my living room, and finally got this silhouette effect that kind of works. Except the glimmer paper bits don't show at all!

Now for the third part of our assignment, I cased a sample from the 2015 - 2016 catalogue. On page 14, a card done with the photopolymer set Another Thank You caught my eye. I think I might have made this project more complicated than what the concept artist who designed it did.

After I had this all done, it suddenly occured to me that the background would probably be a lot simpler to do by using an acrylic block, putting ink on it with markers then spritz with water and stamp on the watercolour paper.

What I did instead was to tape the piece of watercolour paper down with some Washi Tape, spritz with water, then brush colour onto it using an Aqua Painter. That meant I had to dry it with my heat tool. Then, a closer look at the catalogue sample convinced me that the creator of the sample had done the Bokeh technique. So, I had to hunt for my template I had previously made with all the different sized circles punched out. Couldn't find it. Still haven't found it. Will probably  stumble across it next week.

So I used a scrap piece of cardstock and punched a 1 1/4" circle, sponged with Whisper White Craft ink. That meant drying again with the heat tool.

All the different Thank Yous were arranged on an acrylic block and inked with Staz On Black.
The card base is Thick Whisper White on which I stamped the little heart from the Another Thank You set in Tangerine Tango and Staz On. I did the Tangerine Tango spatters with the Aqua Painter.

On the catalogue sample, it looks like Very Vanilla Thick Baker's Twine was used. I didn't have that so I cut a couple of threads from the White Jute ribbon to tie the bow. And a sequin finishes it off.

Now you're off to visit Jean who has some wonderful projects for you! Just click on the 'Next' button to continue your journey.

WCC28 Buffy's Colour Challenge

Colour challenges are a great way to get out of your comfort zone. I love colour challenges for that reason and Buffy has picked a doozy! Just look at this combo:

You can see what the Watercooler Design Team has come up with by clicking here.

To give you an idea of how much out of my comfort zone these colours are, the first thing I like to do is get the stamp pads and cardstock together. These particular stamp pads all needed re-inking! I have probably used the Pool Party more recently than the others, but it is not a colour I reach for often.

And I like all these colours! I really do. But I always seem to gravitate to the Neutrals and Regals the most. So, after I decided that Melon Mambo would be the base for my card, as it is the strongest colour in the group, the next decision was the stamp set/sets.

I thought I would pick a stamp set that had enough images in it that I could use all - or most - of them in all of the colours. The set that filled the bill for me was Bohemian Borders. My first intention was that my card would be in portrait orientation and I would fill the entire Thick Whisper White panel with alternating patterns.

However, once I had done one each of each pattern and colour, I just happened to turn the cardstock sideways - landscape - and the lightbulb went on! I immediately thought of a sample I had just seen on Pinterest by a Stampin' Up! demonstrator in England. See her card here. And this is what I pictured:

The buttefly and the sentiment are from the Best Thoughts stamp set, which is available only with Stampin' Rewards which can be earned either by hosting a workshop or placing a qualifying order.

After stamping the sentiment in Melon Mambo, I stamped the butterfly with Memento Black ink onto a scrap of Thick Whisper White. To colour it, I used a method I had been wanting to try and that is to fill an Aqua Painter with alcohol instead of water. I used all the five colours from the challenge to colour the butterfly by squeezing a bit of ink into the lid of the stamp pad and picking it up with the Aqua Painter. The alcohol makes it dry really fast and makes the colour more vibrant than when colouring with water. I can see me doing this method a lot!

And there you have it. I challenge you to give it a try. You never know what you will come up with and I would love to see your creations!!