Social Stamping - Celebrate

Welcome back to the Social Stamping Blog Hop hosted by Kelly Kent. This month our theme is "Celebrate". We have plenty of reason to celebrate here as we farewell Winter and welcome Spring! Daffodils, blossom, new lambs and sunshine - long may it last.

I attended a Shoe Box swap today where our theme was to make a Masculine card. Because time management hasn't been my friend of late, I combined the two and this is what I came up with.

The other thing I did was choose items from my box of retired product. I've used Lucky Limeade for the base card with a panel of Wood Textures DSP. Before adhering the panel to the base, I white heat embossed a hot air balloon from Lift Me Up directly onto the wood texture panel. I've added adhesive sheet to the back of Whisper White cardstock and used my new Stampin' Cut and Emboss machine with the large hot air balloon from the Up & Away Thinlits dies. With one pass through the rollers all the intricate little shapes were nicely cut out and as the adhesive cover was removed it was easy to place the coloured panels on the reverse. I've used Tangerine Tango, Dapper Denim and Baked Brown Sugar.

This was stuck over the heat embossed balloon with Stampin' Dimensionals. Next a double layered greeting using the Celebrate You Thinllits dies with Whisper White on the top to keep with the colour theme and either Dapper Denim or Tangerine Tango for the shadow.

Thanks for stopping by. Next on the hop we have Narelle:

 If you get lost at any stage, click here for the link back to the original post.

April Onstage Global Blog Hop

Welcome to our Blog Hop sharing projects we had the pleasure of creating for recent Stampin' Up Onstage events held at various locations around the world. I went to Auckland along with 230 fellow demonstrators.

Firstly I must give immense thanks to my talented and generous friend, Kelly Kent from Australia for her assistance with the setup and graphics... and secondly thanks to Susan Wong who urged me to step outside my comfort zone and ask if there was a hop I could join. That led to a lot of demonstrators in the same position and we created a hop for ourselves - so a big thank you to the other participants for signing up - I can't wait to see what you've all made!

This was how my display was setup on the day:

 And here they are closer up. I'll try and keep brief on all the cards for the hop, and if I expand later, I'll add links rather than being too wordy here. (if there is something specific you'd like to know - feel free to ask in the comments).  

Gold foil sheets, Gold Heat Embossing

Left - Copper foil sheets, Copper heat embossing
Right - using Stamparatus and markers, adding layers on the tree until I was happy; Soft Suede, Tranquil Tide & Lemon Lime Twist - greeting stamped onto the Mini Ruffled ribbon

My happy accident card - I initially Gold heat embossed the greeting, but it didn't stand out so I repeated with white embossing powder and got a very shiny finish which I liked, but to make it pop a little more, I used my Tranquil Tide marker and 'shadowed' the right side of the letters

Random splatter by splashing water/tombow mix then heat embossed with Gold

Tiny goggle eyes (non Stampin' Up) bring these crazy guys to life

Faux tearing for ground, So Saffron cardstock masked for moon, sponged with Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight and Pool Party. Kangaroo stamped and coloured black

Shimmery white cardstock, watercolour washed, die cut and matted with Basic Black

Stamparatus assisted and some irony  - this 'little' fella was fussy cut and added later

Woven Mini Ruffled ribbon, background made by diecutting stencil leaves and sponging colour through. Frames Elements wooden embellishment under words coloured with Tranquil Tide marker and covered with Fine Tip Glue. Stamparatus used to change the alignment of the greeting

Frames Element coloured with Lemon Lime Twist marker and covered in Fine Tip Glue. Greeting inked with Versamark then Lemon Lime Twist and Clear Embossed. New Glitter Enamel Dots.

Frames Element coloured with Berry Burst marker and covered in Fine Tip glue, Silver foil diecut and Silver Heat Embossed greeting

In-colour DSP in Lemon Lime Twist and Tranquil Tide with diecut leaves

I know less is best but once I start adding, I can't stop... Started by flicking bleach onto Early Espresso 12"x12". Die cut So Saffron with giraffe print die and added to Cajun Craze before die-cutting Large Letters. Spot the giraffe lurking on the A in PARK? Leaf Ribbon wound around letters before adhering.

 

Trimmed the Lemon Lime Twist Mini Ruffled ribbon to thread through the buttons and knotted it

I didn't have leaf stamps to match my dies, so some of my leaves were created by randomly stamping with Tranquil Tide the leaf images from Rooted in Nature on Lemon Lime Twist cardstock then spritzing with water until the colour blurred a little. The others were Tranquil Tide card spritzed and screwed up while wet then both were diecut after they had dried again.

DSP as above this time in Berry Burst, Powder Pink and Fresh Fig. Each rhino was stamped in the same colour ink as DSP and then watercoloured a little with an aqua painter.

 

And my final set - using Blends to colour. Background on left is stamped, and the oval was Brusho on shimmering White carstock. Greeting is Congratulations Graduate, in Pool Party and clear embossed.
Balloons are highlighted differently with the color lifter Stampin' Blend. The left uses comma strokes, and the right sort of square shapes but shaped as if on a curve. 

Thanks Stampin' Up for this fantastic opportunity - I was able to use all the goodies in the mystery box and happily not too many retiring items, something we don't know when we are given the chance to create. I loved the challenge and I hope you feel inspired. Please now venture over to Western Australian and Kristel Rimmer

CASEing the Catty - #CTC169 Sale-a-bration

Not much longer but back to the Sale-a-bration catalogues this week...

I've chosen the shaker card on the top left of this image at the bottom of page 17: 

Notice I've changed the orientation to landscape to maximise the ability to hide my shaker frame which was filled with Gold Glitter Flakes and Mini Sequin Trim pulled apart. Little tip you might already know - ensure all tape covering is removed before turning your shaker card over!! (Thankfully not too much escaped!). I used thick Whisper White and diecut the word celebrate, then went crazy with my Moss Green Brusho adding a little Yellow on top then waited until it was pretty much dry. I swiped the Dynamic Hexagons TIEF with Soft Suede ink, but not evenly so as to replicate a hive, and it gave random bits of colour in the grooves. I then used my Versamark pad and swiped across the top and added Clear Embossing Powder. Before I heated, I brushed some of the powder off again randomly, to give a shiny image as honey might on a hive. Initially I went towards a Crushed Curry base, but it didn't give me enough contrast, so I drew my inspiration of Elegant Eggplant from the dots of Brusho at the top of the image. You can see these better in my collage photo below.

I made faux washi tape with a strip of Color Theory DSP ripped, and added the banner greeting with words from Party Pandas. You may have seen similar bumblebees to these here before, but I was meant to make more for this card. Stamped with Memento Ink and coloured with Watercolour pencils with Wink of Stella on the wings and antenna - yes I fussy cut their antenna! Little moment of insanity perhaps. I used Tombow to adhere them, added some of the foil hexagons and a few Metallic sequins.

A hard card to show the effects but I've tried with the photo below:

Thanks for stopping by and time to move on and see what Kathryn has been up to this week:

Feel free to play along - create your card and upload with the link over on the right.

CASEing the Catty - #CTC167 Sale-a-bration

Here we are again returning to the Sale-a-bration catalogues for inspiration. Welcome if you have just arrived from visiting the lovely Angela. Hope you are feeling the need to join us with your creation this week - follow the link up on the right.

I've chosen the image on the bottom right of page 16 of the initial catalogue.

As you can see, I've changed a few things and adapted another couple. I've kept the idea of Gold embossing on Crumb Cake and switched it to a card using the Hedgehugs set. The base card is Calypso Coral to match the die cut 'Celebrate' (Celebrate You Thinlits) and the Ombre ribbon.The scallop circle element on my card is diecut from Layering Circles Framelits and Whisper White card. The banner is vellum, banner punched at each end. I like that it shows off the ribbon in a subtle way. The foliage is from Petals & More Thinlits.

Thanks for stopping by, and now time to go check what Monique has to show you: