I'm in love with Forever Greenery

The new designer series paper Forever Greenery ticks so many boxes, I just love greens & blues and this DSP is full of them; Garden Green, Just Jade, Pear Pizzazz, Pretty Peacock, Shaded Spruce and Soft Sea Foam. Just like nature which has so many shades & hues so does the images in these papers, some of the images can also be die cut out with matching dies as well.

I designed this card as my second swap card and again was trying to highlight the new in-colour Just Jade with less than 2 sheets of card stock plus also have a play with the other embossing folder in the Greenery set. I have rubbed a wee bit of Whisper White craft ink using a sponge dauber over the embossed piece of Just Jade card stock. The gold trim ribbon ties fabulously. My squares are 1-1/2".

I absolutely have to say that this is my favourite of the 2 cards I'm swapping.

Supply List (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Forever Fern
Ink: Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Pretty Peacock, Whisper White Craft
Paper: Whisper White (thick), Just Jade, Forever Greenery DSP
Dies: Nested Labels
Other: Forever Greenery Trim, Greenery embossing folder, mini glue dots, dimensionals

This is a real easy card to whip up and the concept works well with any co-ordinating DSP. With approximately a week to go to the new catalogue launching I'm loving the stamps in the Forever Fern stamp set which are DistINKtive & these papers.

✿ Karen ✿

Introducing Just Jade

Hi everyone & have I been a busy beaver since I last reported in, my pre-order arrived with some goodies for the new Annual catalogue (which launches in 10 days time) as well as that real life is happening & finally NZ came out of level 3 so that meant I got to spend some time out of the house with Pete's mum, get my hair cut, take cats to the vet etc plus work.

I signed up for 2 demonstrator swaps with other Stampin' Up! demos which is where the fun & the angst comes in, shipping and mail to NZ is not really back to normal so by the time we got our goodies it seemed like everyone had already blogged what they were doing with my favourite set that we were allowed to pre-order.

I also wanted to highlight one of the new in-colours but I stuffed up my pre-order & only ordered mixed packs of the new in-colours and one of those packs was earmarked to go out with the new catalogues to my customers so I had 4 sheets of Just Jade to play with so I have been super creative with it and I actually still have 1 sheet left after making 22 swaps.

Anyhow this is my first design; I hope highlighting one of the new in-colours for 2020-2022 Just Jade.

Supply List (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamp: Forever Fern
Ink: Garden Green, Soft Sea Foam
Paper: Very Vanilla, Just Jade, Soft Sea Foam, Garden Green, Forever Greenery DSP
Accessories: Greenery embossing folder, Forever Flourishing dies, Gold Hoops, Gilded Gems, Forever Greenery trim, circle die

Forever Greenery DSP has some papers to die for but I felt this sheet highlighted Just Jade the best, the gold hoops are actually a really nice touch of bling & they are really thin & have been attached with 2 mini glue dots. The embossing folder is a set of 2.

Here are all the swaps laid out & ready to be packed up.

I have to admit I bought the Forever Greenery Suite as I loved it and it came with EVERYTHING! So I got the stamp set, the embossing folders, the DSP, gold hoops, gold laser-cut specialty paper, the ribbons (also a set of 2).  Or you can also just buy the Forever Fern bundle which is the stamp set and matching dies and is 10% off. All the items & the bundles can be seen on pages 108-110 of the new catalogue when it goes live on June 3rd. If you don't have a demonstrator in NZ and would like a copy contact me & I can get one in the post for you ASAP.

I taken a few pictures to show Just Jade compared to our current greens & greeny-blues. I personally don't feel it actually resembles any past colours but others may disagree, I also think its actually got quite a lot of blue in it as the colour I think it is closest to but totally different is Bermuda Bay!

Top row: Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaroon
Middle row: Garden Green, Old Olive, Shaded Spruce, Granny Apple Green (Just Jade lying on top)
Bottom row: Soft Sea Foam, Pear Pizzazz, Mossy Meadow

I actually think it's in the same intensity of colours as the top row of all the colours (Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaroon, Just Jade)

And these are the 6 colours in the Forever Greenery DSP with Whisper White (L > R : Soft Sea Foam, Pear Pizzazz, Shaded Spruce. L > R : Garden Green, Just Jade, Pretty Peacock)


✿ Karen ✿

My first Christmas card for 2020

I thought it seemed a good idea whilst in lockdown & presented with just a few "ingredients" for a mystery class that I might as well start on a Christmas Card.

Wow lockdown has zoomed by where did 7-plus weeks go?? A huge shout out to my upline Rhonda Fawcett & my Stampin' team the Star Stampers they have provided a real crafty fix for me whilst locked down. This is something I want to pursue I just need to work out how to do Facebook Live! I love seeing how everyone's cards turn out when we all have the same set of what to cut out but we don't really know what we're making.

So Rhonda sent the list of what we had to prepare before the live session.

3 pieces of a main colour:
21 x 10.5 cm, score in landscape at 6 cm
21 x 6 cm, score in landscape at 10.5 cm
13.5 x 6 cm, score in portrait at 2 cm (this is the piece that becomes the stand for the card)

2 pieces of white or vanilla card both the same size; 10 x 5.5 cm. Plus a scrap piece big enough for you to stamp and cut out an image on to go on the front of the card. They will go on one of the pieces of DSP in portrait position.

Second colour 14.4 x 10 cm. 

This can be embossed with your choice of embossing folder. OR you can use a piece of DSP 14.4 x 10 cm instead of embossed card stock.

Designer Series Paper: 2 different patterns of DSP cut to the same size 10 x 5.5 cm. One piece will go in landscape position and one in portrait position so check your patterns!

Plus  a pencil, ruler, rubber and a trimmer plus your adhesives.

Colours were chosen that matched the DSP. To me it's almost the starting point of the recipe. I actually chose Whisper White to be my 2nd "colour".

In this card I cut the Santa on his couch out of the DSP.

The cards come together really easy once cut out.

This was the only tricky step making a stand out of card stock so the card stands upright.

Supply List (all Stampin' Up! apart from the images that were coloured up last Christmas with Zig Real color brushes)
Stamps: Signs of Santa (retired), Oh, Goodie! (retired)
Paper: Real Red, Wild Wasabi (retired), Whisper White, Santa's Workshop Specialty DSP (retired)
Embossing Folder: Softly Falling (retired)
Other: Dimensionals

✿ Karen ✿

Monochromatic card challenge

Another challenge card & I grimaced when I saw the challenge, a monochromatic card using a retiring in-colour.

So thinking cap on how to use my favourite in-colour of 2018-2020 Grapefruit Grove; which is retiring in approximately 3 weeks time on June 2.

Anyhow this is what I came up with & I'm really happy how it turned out. I knew I wanted a square card, with a flower in the corner, the sentiment in the colour in a popped out middle circle. I kept on tweaking the dimensions ie using my mini-guillotine to take a bit more of each side to balance the card & looking closely I mayn't have actually done my mats as accurately as I would have liked but the base card is 4-1/2" square, I wanted each mat to be incrementally 1/8" smaller. I've also used the subtle folder to add some subtle texture to the top white mat which you can't see it the photo but looks nice in reality.

Working with the rose stamp it's best to stamp the outline first, then I stamped off the background 2x before stamping, I then used the second stamp that adds dimension after stamping it off once.

Supply List (all Stampin' Up!)
Stamp: To A Wild Rose
Ink: Grapefruit Grove, Versamark
Paper: Whisper White (thick for the base), Grapefruit Grove, Cardstock Vellum
Dies: Wild Rose, Layering circles
Other: White embossing powder, Champagne rhinestones, dimensionals

I still can't believe I earned this stamp set & matching dies as a freebie in Sale-a-bration this year it's so pretty & I love the scripty font. Well I have a sketch for my next challenge so better get the thinking cap on again
✿ Karen ✿

Introducing the Ornate Garden Suite

Hi everyone & another weekend looming and I like most kiwis are sincerely hoping it's our last weekend in level 3 of lockdown restrictions, it's also less than one month till the new Annual catalogue goes live on June 3rd too. One of the cool things about being a demonstrator is we get to pre-order a little bit early but Stampin' Up! are also allowing everyone to join in the pre-catalogue launch party as you can order now from this fabulous suite which is in the new upcoming annual catalogue.

I personally love gerberas & daisy-like flowers so when I saw the DSP with this suite I was sold hook, line & sinker. I also think I'm a KISS (keep it simple stamper) but I do admire those that have layers (& sometimes more layers on their cards) with this suite we can all look like we are layering Queens.

You can click HERE to see the official SU! video of this suite, which will certainly reveal all of it's fabulous-ness.

During lockdown I made quite a few of the following card & sent out to family & friends.

And the inside:

Supply List (all Stampin' Up! apart from the Copics):
Stamps: Ornate Style (#152572), sentiment is from Peaceful Moments (151595)
Ink: Early Espresso
Paper: Mint Macaroon, Terracotta Tile, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Ornate Garden Speciality DSP (#152488)
Other: Ornate Floral 3D embossing folder ((#152725). Gilded Gems (#152478), Ornate Borders dies (152724), Stitched Nested Labels dies (#149638), dimensionals, white embossing powder
Copics: see my blog post HERE to see the colours used.

Cutting Dimensions:
Mint Macaroon A5 (card base), 13.8 x 7 cm mat
Terracotta Tile : 14.3 x  10 cm
DSP: 13.8 x 3.5 cm

I also tweaked the design to send my upline Rhonda Fawcett a birthday card.

Well if you'd like to join in on the pre-catalogue launch party all the goodies from the Ornate Garden Suite are available to pre-order now. Click HERE to go shopping.


✿ Karen ✿

Star Stamper Lockdown Challenge Week 6

Wow the weeks are flying by, it helps to be able to craft when I'm locked down & not at work. This weeks challenge was set by Julie Bocock & was very happy she chose sponging.

This is one of my favourite techniques as it's easy to get a bit of wow with very little effort. I cut out a circle with a die in some masking paper & then sponged So Saffron & Blushing Bride through the mask with sponge daubers. I've used Shimmery White as it's smoother for blending on &it's quite shimmery in real life too so looks pretty. I ended up using a Flirty Flamingo mat as I felt it made the pink pop more.

Supply List (all Stampin' Up! apart from the masking paper which we're getting in the new Annual Catalogue launching June 3rd)

Paper: Shimmery White, Flirty Flamingo, thick Whisper White
Ink: Blushing Bride, So Saffron, Memento Tuxedo Black
Stamps: Dandelion Wishes (#151345)
Other: Masking paper, circle die, Champagne rhinestones, dimensionals, distressing tool.

I sincerely hope everyone is keeping well & warm. It's extremely, wet, grey & gloomy in Auckland today but we really need the rain so YIPPEE it's raining!
✿ Karen ✿