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.

#CTC231 CASE Anything

There's never been a better time for you to play along - the crew have an open slate this week - CASE Anything! Use the link over on the right to pop your photo on our page - it's that simple.

I've chosen to CASE the layout on page 120...

...and make it into a scrapbook page! I have quite a large pile of photos waiting to be scrapped, so I'm feeling a little smug that I've finally made a start with this page. 

I love to use more than one photo in my page so I think CASEing some more of these full page layouts will work well for me. I like capturing different expressions and energy, so have added as many as I could, with less emphasis on the embellishments. I've changed a few elements of the CASEd page, but you get the idea. My base was Fresh Fig cardstock. I've punched Wood Textures DSP with the Tailored Tag punch and adhered them where the palm leaf is in the photo.

In place of the orchids in the layout above, I've gone with the magnolias everyone is loving from the new catalogue. I've fussy cut the Magnolia Lane DSP and placed them where they wouldn't interfere with the photos. My greeting is diecut with Well Written dies. You're probably thinking you don't remember seeing those words - and that would be correct. I've die cut a few words from Whisper White cardstock, then selected the letters I wanted and joined them back up again. To help hide the joins, I've used the Inlaid Embossing technique - where you stick your greeting to your cardstock (good old Press and Seal to help line it all up) and then run the whole piece through your Big Shot in an embossing folder, I've used my Subtle folder here. The same colours were used for matting the photos - Blushing Bride and Garden Green.

I love the concentration - pretty sure the task put her off gardening though, can't say I've seen her out there watering too often since!

Thanks for stopping by. It's time now to pop over and check out Shannon's cute project:

#CTC229 Favourite Retiring Punch

What's your favourite retiring punch?

Sadly for me it will be the Bunny Builder Punch... I love the set this punch co-ordinates with Best Bunny - they have some super cute expressions. I'd look forward to seeing you create a card with a retiring punch and add it to our Facebook page using the link over on the right.

I started in one direction and ended up in another! I found in my stash a Happy Birthday die which had been cut twice, once in Blushing Bride and once in Basic Gray, mounted together slightly offset then covered in Dazzling Diamonds, and I needed to use it. That meant I needed to alter the piece I had started with as my greeting no longer fitted in the space I'd intended it to go in.

I began with a piece of Twinkle Twinkle DSP and used another retiring punch - the 1 1/4" circle punch - to cut three circles. I stamped 3 bunnies in Soft Suede onto Whisper White cardstock, coloured their ears and chest with Stampin' Blends then punched them out with the matching punch.  I adhered the bunnies in place and mounted them onto Coastal Cabana cardstock which was added to a base of thick Whisper White cardstock. I trimmed my Stampin' Dimensionals to add to the back of the diecut and placed it onto the front of the card. 

It did make it a hard one to photograph but looks fab in real life.

That left me still looking at my original piece of Wood Textures DSP which I am super sad to see retire. It already had 3 circles punched out of it, so I created another card as above using Fresh Fig for the mat. The greeting is from Best Bunny - stamped in Soft Suede, punched out with the Darling Label punch, popped onto Stampin' Dimensionals with added Rose Metallic Thread and stuck to the card.

Thanks for stopping by - please hop on over to see what Monique's favourite punch is:

#CTC210 Sale-a-Bration

Welcome back with a new Crew look for the New Year and some new team members!  We're kicking off with a visit to the new Sale-a-Bration catalogue:



I've stayed with my older supplies just to show you can still play along if you don't have your new items yet, using the image middle right on page 9:

I've CASEd the layout using diecut butterflies and a stamped greeting layered over polka dot trim, and velvet ribbon, supplies list below. I've finally dusted off my sewing machine and as above stitched the butterflies onto the Wood Textures DSP

Please feel free to play along. If you haven't got the catalogue in your hands yet I have a link to it over on the right, not far below is another link you can use to add your creation to the Facebook page.  Time to hop over and see what Monique has to inspire us with:

Supplies used:

Springtime Impressions Thinlits Dies

Petal Palette Clear-Mount Stamp Set

Wood Textures Designer Series Paper Stack

Whisper White 5/8" Polka Dot Tulle Ribbon

Rich Razzleberry 1/4" (6.4 Mm) Velvet Ribbon

Whisper White A4 Cardstock

Pineapple Punch A4 Cardstock

Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Pad

#CTC208 - Favourite Holiday Bundle

So many to pick from!!

I've gone with the very first bundle in the catalogue, Merry Christmas To All, as I just love the script...

Have to admit, I also combined it with another favourite, Signs of Santa! I've used a thick Whisper White card base, and a full size card front of Real Red. My focal DSP is from the All is Bright DSP. The Merry Christmas Thinlits dies were used to cut Tranquil Tide cardstock which I had placed the adhesive sheets over the top to allow the stickiness to take the Dazzlings Diamonds. I stamped on a piece of Wood Textures DSP to add a personal 'Have a Very'.. the gorgeous cutouts from the Signs of Santa Suite have been raised on dimensionals and a few Metallic Pearls to complete...

Close up of bling:

Please play along, using the link on the right.  Now time to visit our lovely Julia:

#CTC203 - Hostess Set - Both Catalogues

Choose either catalogue and the hostess section to create a card then add it to our Facebook page using the link on the right. You have an extra week as the crew take a break next week while many of us are attending an Onstage event.

I was drawn back to the annual catalogue and loved the look of embossing on the Wood Textures DSP at the top:

I've switched orientation and used thick Very Vanilla cardstock for my base card. I've had my white embossing powder for a while and I now think it is more Vanilla coloured, but it still works for me!  The lovely flowers from the hostess set "Very Vintage" are heat embossed. I loved the way they turned out and will definitely be using this idea again. I've used Very Vanilla baker's twine to wrap around the card, and added a bow. In lieu of the green cardstock, I've used Gorgeous Grape cardstock and ink, and another image from Very Vintage. The greeting choice is from Bubble Over, stamped in Gorgeous Grape onto Very Vanilla with a banner cut at the end. This was all popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Let's pop over and see what Monique has for us this week:

#CTC183 - Animal Expedition

We are caseing the Animal Expedition section of the catalogue this week - pages 26-37.

Those who know me will be quite surprised that there's not an animal in sight, although it is the perfect opportunity this week! If you want to see what I did do with the cute little zoo animals from this section, you can go and visit my Onstage board post here.

Instead I've chosen to case the card at the bottom right of page 35 as I was looking to make a birthday card for my brother. I've used the same stamp set, but swapped the colours a little.

I've used a thick Whisper White card base with a full size Lemon Lime Twist card front.  Onto this I have added a panel of Wood Textures DSP, with a trim of Lemon Lime Twist Mini Ruffled Ribbon. I initally stamped the clouds from Lift Me Up onto the Wood panel with Whisper White Craft Ink, but it was a little faint, so I grabbed my white embossing powder and heat embossed them instead. Because the Craft ink is a pigment ink, I had a little more time to work than the dye based inks. (Tip: You can achieve the same result by using versamark and then any of your dye-base colours, this will allow you to gain any colour embossing by using Clear embossing powder. Remember to use the Versamark first so that you don't transfer any colour onto your Versamark pad). 

I used Smokey Slate ink on the white clouds, die cut using the Up & Away Thinlits. I've also white embossed the balloon images onto Lemon Lime Twist and Tranquil Tide using the same stamp set and thinlits. The main image has the coloured pieces cut from the 2017-19 In Colour DSP, with a Whisper White balloon and Linen Thread bow. The greeting has been stamped in Tranquil Tide and banner cut. Can you see what I've changed here?  The greeting on the stamp actually says "Sending Smiles Across the Miles" but I've used the Stamparatus and masked off words to create my own greeting "Sending Smiles For A Happy Birthday".

Time now to hop over and check out the 'gorgeous' card Julia has created this week. Then you have a week to create a card yourself and add it using the CASEing the Catty link over on the right.

CASEing the Catty - #CTC175 Favourite Occasions Big Shot Project

Over to the Occasions catalogue and this week CASeing our favourite Big Shot project.  

Wasn't too hard for me to stop at page 32 as I've already been to this exact photo before, but I moved along a couple of cards and chose the one on the far right.

I've used the thick Whisper White card base and mounted a panel of Wood Textures DSP - you'll be pleased to hear that this DSP will be carrying over to the catalogue again this year!  I know I was. I've used a strip of Tutti Frutti DSP top and bottom of this panel the same way as the cased card, just a different pattern. I've used Whisper White Craft Ink to stamp my bubbles. The bottles from Bubble Over stamped with Peekaboo Peach for the small bottles and Lemon Lime Twist for the large one, then diecut with Bottles & Bubbles Framelits. The labels have the same colours, but reversed the placement so each bottle had a coloured label. I've also added a straw to my open bottle and popped caps on the closed bottles. I mounted the bottles over a strip of mini striped Lemon Lime Twist ribbon with a strip of Silver mini sequins attached to the top. The greeting is from the same Bubble Over stamp set and I used Early Espresso ink to tie in with the wood background.  

A bit hard to see above so here's a close up to see a couple of the cute little water drops from the retiring Glitter & Clear Epoxy Shapes.

Please hop over and see what Judy May has been up to this week. After that how about creating a CASe of your favourite Occasions Big Shot Project and add it to our Facebook page with the link on the right...