Sunday 14 February 2016

Bloomin' Love - not just for Valentine's Day


Happy Valentine's Day! Hope your other halves have been sweet to you, if you go in for that kind of thing. Mr B has gifted me a single red rose, thoughtfully accented with a diamante rhinestone. And some booze. Dead, dead classy, we are :)

If you've bought the Bloomin' Love stamp set, don't consign it to the shelf now that Valentine's Day has passed. It contains lots of lovely delicate floral images perfect for other occassions. You only need to add a suitable sentiment.



For this quick and easy birthday card I've repeat stamped the small flower spray and the longer leafy bough stamps in Blushing Bride and Sahara Sand. I've stamped them into a loose right angle shape. I've also stamped and die cut three small flowers and stamped the banner & backed it with Blushing Bride glimmer card. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments stamp set.




Then I've glued the three die cut flowers over the stamped background, tied some linen thread and popped the banner up on 3d foam. The card is backed with some coordinating paper from the Love Blossoms DSP stack and layered onto a card blank.


Complete the card by carrying on the theme on the inside of the card too. 

Here's what I used. If you fancy buying the stamps, you can also buy the coordinating dies as a bundle and save 15% - click on the bundle link at the end of the slide show. And remember that until the end of March you can receive free products from the Sale-a-bration catalogue with every £45 spend.




Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Sunday 7 February 2016

Sale-A-Bration 2016: Flowering Fields


We're nearly half way through Sale-a-Bration 2016, and I wanted to show you what I think will turn out to be the most versatile of the stamp sets you can get for free with each £45 spend.



Flowering Fields (#141303) is one of this year's great free Sale-A-Bration offerings. It has lovely clean lines and is great for colouring in. You might be tempted to stamp the flowers all in a row for a botanical guidebook feel, and they work very well that way. Or cluster them together for a wildflower garden effect. Check out Pinterest for oodles of ideas on how to use them.

For today's card I want to show how they can be used to form backgrounds, rather than being the focal point of a card.  I've repeat stamped a single image (top row, middle stamp) to draw the eye in towards the centre of the card.

As you can see, I repeat stamped the leaf image in the top left and bottom right corners of the cardtstock, making sure that I tapered them off as I got towards the middle of the card. (You're aiming to fill in a rough triangle shaped space with your stamping).

I coloured my leaves in with alcohol markers, using two tones that match Mossy Meadow, the green cardstock I used.



I also stamped the little heart shaped petals from the Bloomin' Love stamp set, in Rose Red ink in among the green leaves.

The flower cluster behind the sentiment is also from the Bloomin' Love set. It matches this flower from the Love Blossoms DSP pack:


I inked up the whole stamp with a Rose Red ink pad, the carefully wiped off the ink from the leaves and coloured them in with a Mossy Meadow green marker. I stamped it once onto the label, inked it up the same way and stamped again, slight twisting and overlapping the two images - the banner sentiment (also from Bloomin' Love) then covers up the join.




The label is finished off with some silver twine and a pink flower cut from the Bloomin' Heart framelits

It's a nice, crisp card you can adapt for any occasion. 

Remember, the Flowering Fields stamp set is free when you spend over £45 during Sale-A-Bration. You can place a qualifying order by clicking on the products I used, below.

 
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

That's me in the corner...




Thrilled that my Valentine's Treat Bag made it onto the front page of the Stampin' Up! US website, and then onto the telly in Utah! Follow this link to get  a fleeting glimpse at 3.28 - bottom right of the screen. (Stampin' Up! are based in Utah, so it's not quite as random as it seems.)