Botanical Blooms - 2016 Occasions Catalogue Sneak Peek!

The 2016 Occasions Catalogue will soon be live - and this card is made with one of my favourite sets in the new catalogue, the Botanical Blooms Photopolymer set. Of course, the awesome coordinating Framelits might have skewed it, since I'm a sucker for all things Big Shot related.. This stamp set is available in a bundle with the Framelits and the coordinating Designer Series Paper to save you 15%, beginning January 5!

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Twas the Night Before

There's pretty much 0% chance that we'll have a white Christmas this year (it reminds me so much of Florida where we've spent the past couple Christmases), but that doesn't mean we can't appeal one last time to 'Let it Snow'!! 



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Cute Candy Bag

Here's the Mini Treat Bag thinlits die used as it was intended - to be a flatter bag for holding something small - like candy canes! Isn't it cute! It may seem like a lot of work, but fussy cutting (and heat embossing) the banners just make them stand out and look really sharp! 

 

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Cookies For You!

The Mini Treat Bag Thinlits dies make a super cute little bag. Instead of just making a flat bag, I cut out two of the large bag pieces and stuck them together to make more of a gift bag (it needed to hold some cookies!) 

And I couldn't resist using my old reliable retired Scentsational Season gingerbread man to help embellish the package:
 

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Seasonal Wine Topper

Today's inspiration is a gift label/wine topper. This is a great way to spruce up a gift bottle of wine and to add some personality to your 'wrapping'. This is also a great way to use up some scrap pieces of paper for your cutting.

This topper was inspired by the one that Cindy Brumbaugh made last year. Retired Supplies Used: Scentsational Season stamps and Framelits, Good Greetings Stamp set
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The View from Outdoors - MojoMonday427

It's been forever and a day since I've done a sketch challenge, so I thought I'd try one today .. and I was inspired to use my new Hearth and Home Framelits. I was stumped a little as I wanted to use the Brick Wall embossing folder, but that meant that we were looking *in* the window, and not *out*. Completely changed the vision I had initially, but I ran with it :)

Clicking on the sketch on the right will take you to the MojoMonday challenge page. Note that most of the stamps I used are retired: Scentsational Season and A Cute Christmas. It's pretty hard to see the detail on the window sill, but I also used a 'Sneak Peek' stamp set from the upcoming Occasions catalogue: Happy Home. This set has a lot of spring images that will work well with the window frame! 




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Embellished Ornaments, and why you need the Precision Base Plate!

I love these stunning ornaments, especially in the shiny red foil paper! If you're thinking how hard these Framelits will be to cut with the Big Shot, you need to be introduced to the new Precision Base Plate. This plate will allow you to cut out intricate designs like never before. Check out the video to see it in action!



This week, the Precision Base Plate is part of the Weekly Deals! Such a great time to see it on special for only $23.25!

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Christmas Cheer!

This is a great super fast card made by Diane Hilborn. Its design is simple enough that it can be customized to use whichever Framelit dies you have available, and it looks sharp! The glimmer paper star just adds that bit of necessary bling :)

    

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It's December! Advent Calendar is Ready!

Here goes! I'm kicking off a series of posts leading up to Christmas - hopefully to help you with your Christmas crafting, and to inspire you to create something for this season of giving! I'm starting again like I did last year with my advent calendar. It was quite labour intensive, so I hope you don't mind that I'm using the same project I did last year ;)

My boys were happily surprised to see the familiar fixture greeting them this morning with treats in box 1. I don't always put treats or candies in the boxes - I've often put activities, or discussion items in the boxes (such as, think about your favourite Christmas memory today, and share it with us at dinner tonight).

I made the numbers using the calendar stamp from the retired Project Life Day to Day set and inked every third number (to give enough room between each one for punching). Then I used the 1/2" circle punch to cut them out. 

Retired products used:
Letter to Santa DSP, Riding Hood Red Marker, Day to Day stamp set, Priority Mail stamp set, A Cute Christmas stamp set, Pines & Poinsettias stamp set, Ornamental Pine stamp set, Mosaic Madness stamp set, Bright & Beautiful stamp set, Endless Wishes stamp set, Scentsational Season stamp set, Tiny Tags stamp set, Scallop Square punch, Postage Stamp punch, Jewelry Tag punch, Ornament Keepsakes framelits, Holiday Collection framelits, Snowflake Card Thinlits, Frosted Sequins, All Is Calm Snowflake embellishments

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Weekly Deals - Perfect Pines Framelits

This week's weekly deals includes one of my favourite products from the Holiday Catalogue - the Perfect Pines Framelits Dies! I'm such a sucker for framelits!

I love the way the Peaceful Pines stamp set coordinates with these dies, but you can also use the dies without the stamp set. The garland string die punches holes in just the right places. Watch and see how to make Christmas trees for cards, tags and scrapbook pages:

 

Have a Fangtastic Halloween!

It's Halloween! And while there was frost on the ground last night, (it looked so glittery!) the weather forecast for tonight is not one that will require snowsuits under the costumes. Perfect night for Trick-or-Treating! 

I love this stamp set - it's so much fun :) And I can't get enough of the spider web doily!

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Have fun with all the ghosts and goblins who come to your door tonight! 

Best Day Ever - MOJO383

I wanted to play along with MojoMonday again this week, and thought that it would be fun to use the 'Best Day Ever' SAB stamp set, since we had a super fun time playing in the snow yesterday.

Here's the sketch for this week: I also did the draw for the prize for the Stamp-a-Stack survey entries - thank you so much for giving me your feedback! By an overwhelming majority, the date is set at April 25! Shara is the winner of the door prize - congrats Shara!

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Thinking Ahead to Spring: Flower Patch

Plans are underway for the Spring Stamp-a-Stack. I'm looking for some feedback to help determine the best date for this class, and the types of cards we make. Which date suits you better: April 11 or April 25? Complete this survey (which closes tomorrow, Jan 31) to submit your vote. I'm also doing a draw for those who complete the survey :)

And while we're thinking ahead to spring, I thought I'd share this card using the very fun Flower Patch stamp set (and coordinating Framelits):

While I used the Big Shot for the embossing folder, it's worth noting that the same impressions can be made with the (much less expensive) Texture Boutique Machine, which is part of this week's Weekly Deals along with a number of other embossing folders!

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Happy Blooming Birthday - Flower Patch

With the cold weather outside, I've been working away in my craft room ... hope you enjoy this burst of spring with this card.

This is a great set, and you can buy both the stamp set and the framelits together in a bundle - and save 15%! Add an ink pad, or pack of paper and you earn a freebie with Sale-A-Bration! Nice and convenient ;)

Have you had a chance to check out the Sale-A-Bration items you can earn with every $60 purchase? Which is your favourite item?

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Eclectic Kindness

Whew! The past week or so has been busy - hope you've had a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a very Happy 2015. We've just returned from Florida, and am getting used to the cold weather again. So, even though we're definitely into winter now, I hope the colours in this card warm you up a little today ;)

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Celebrate the Season of Joy

I've really enjoyed making the snowflake background on many cards this year … and here it is again! I also love the many combinations of greetings that can be made from the Endless Wishes set!

For this card, I also cut a couple of the trees out of the die in the Snowflake Thinlit set, and then embossed them with the Lacy Brocade embossing folder to give them a little extra detail.

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Blue Bright & Beautiful Stars

The Bright and Beautiful stars are so pretty when embossed. I love this simple card and hope you do too! The extra little detail added by the paper piercing just sets it off so well!

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Fringe Christmas Tree Décor

Still with the Christmas tree theme from yesterday, I wanted to share with you these awesome trees I made - they're great for décor. Warning: glitter was involved in their creation :)

To make these, first I determined how tall/wide I wanted the tree to be; then I cut the sheet of 8.5x11 to size appropriately. For my trees, I cut the paper in half, so I started with a piece that was 11" x 4.25".  (This will make the base 8.5" wide). Then I cut my sheet diagonally in half again. You can use the Diagonal Score board to score the line first, just to be sure that your cut is where you want it.

I used two sheets of paper per tree (which will give 8 triangles). Then I had fun with the Fringe Scissors and cut on the angled side of each of the pieces. You can cut in deeper at the bottom than you can at the top … I almost cut off a few tops of trees! Ooops! I ran a line of Sticky Strip up the 11" side and adhered two pieces together. Then I put more adhesive up each long piece, and stuck them into place, pressing firmly. 

Once the tree was all stuck together, the glitter came out! I used both Crystal Effects and loose glitter, as well as the Dazzling Details alternately to make sure there wasn't a single branch that was missed. ;)

Two small stars cut with the Stars Framelits top the tree nicely! You can see the other tree I made in the backdrop of the Advent Calendar.

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Snowflake Thinlit Tips

Some of my most favourite Stampin' Up! products are tools - I love punches, framelits, the punch boards,etc. So when I saw the Snowflake Thinlit die in the Holiday Catalogue, I knew I had to have it. I've played with it many times, and while sometimes it's hard to remove small bits of paper from it (especially from the very delicate pieces), I love it!

I have a three tips for this card: The first is to put a sheet of wax paper between the die and your paper. It will make removing those delicate pieces a breeze! The second tip is that if you want to extend your flip card to give some writing room, you should use a regular sized card base (8.5" x 5.25"). And lastly, if you put a little bit of Tombow on the punched scallop oval and let it dry, it will be repositionable. This means that you can use it to keep the card closed (and still be able to open it)!

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Christmas Wishes - Ornamental Pine

The Ornamental Pine stamp set has got to be one of my favourite stamp sets from this year's Holiday Catalogue. I keep using it and love it every time! I got the inspiration for today's card from Anne Power. 

I love the Dictionary background stamp too - and this was the first time I tried using it on a landscape card. The background is just a bit wider than the stamp, so you need to stamp it twice. It's a little tricky, and I'd recommend using the Stamp-a-Majig unless you're daring like I am and just eyeball it ;)