Rose Wonder

This would have to be my most favourite bundle for the last 12 months! It has everything- great floral and sentiment stamps, wonderful dies and never ending opportunities for creativity. It can be used as just stamps, just dies, or together, as a stencil, as an outline, watercoloured, and as a cut away.

This first one was cased from the Stampin' Up Occasions catalogue. They used a watercolour wash but I used sponges and Watermelon Wonder, Daffodil Delight and Old Olive. I cut out the flower / leaf diecut with the BigShot and my new best tool, the New die brush. Makes it so easy to use intricate dies. Then I placed the die cut where I wanted it to be and decided where to apply the different colours. I wanted it fairly free form. Once sponged I adhered the fine die cut down using the new Fine Tip adhesive. ( another very useful bit of kit!)! Then I cut around the bottom section of the card. It's hard to see from the photo but the white you see is actually the inside of the card. What a wonderful sentiment from the set.

The Rose was sponged on White Whisper with a combination of Pink Pirouette, Daffodil Delight and Rose Red. It didn't need to be sponged carefully as I was planning to cut around it afterwards. The leaves were sponged with Pear Pizzaz. The diecut was adhered to the design as above and then the whole thing was cut out with small scissors. I am not usually that keen on cutting out but this was dead easy as you use the raised diecut to guide the scissors. Card base is Elegant Eggplant and the sentiment from the same set is embossed in white.

This was cased from Jackie Bolhuis and she has a great series of You Tube videos about several different ways to use this stamp and die bundle. Here is the link to one of them.

The one above used Sahara Sand for card front and Whisper White for the card base and outlines. I cut 2 of the flower and leaf diecuts and I roughly sponged onto the Sahara Sand using Watermelon Wonder and Old Olive. The sentiment is another great one from this set and I used the new Tags and Labels dies which is great for these larger sentiments.

I started playing around with different colour combinations. The one above us Rose Red and Calypso Coral. For this I had the idea of using the negative space left from the diecut and using this as a template to sponge the Rose and then the leaves. It works out great if you want a more exact placement of the colours. The following one was embossed on Glossy Cardstock in White and then watercoloured in different shades of Rose Red with an aqua painter.

I did the same thing with the smaller Rose- I sponged the colour on three times using the negative part of the die cut and then cut 3 of the Rose outlines.

How elegant is this Very Vanilla diecut on Very Vanilla card. The ribbon is Very Vanilla satin.

This one above was the by product of me using a Whisper White diecut as a stencil to colour onto another card. When I saw the result I thought it was too pretty to throw out.

Pool Party and Pear Pizzaz. Love this lace from the annual catalogue.

Daffodil Delight and Pear Pizzaz. Another great sentiment and the surrounding frame from the same set, cut with the die from the bundle. Many of the multiple sentiments in the set fit inside this frame. They all stamp beautifully too.

Cased from Beverly Gerard at Beverlygerard.blogspot.com.au

Cased from Stampin' with Kristi. Check out the lovely new Pool Party ribbon. So sparkley.

In this one above I used the negative part of the diecut as the front of the card. I attached a piece of Pink Pirouette and Mint Macaroon behind the Rose and the leaves and then adhered the white outline over it. Then I mounted the card front to the card.

This one above was cased from Jackie Bolhuis. And I used the stamp that is one of my favourite verses. The range of sentiment stamps in this set is amazing.

Finally just a simple outline in Silver mounted on Elegant Eggplant.

Love, love, love this set. If you only get one set this year you can't go past this one.

 

Balloon Celebration and Balloon punch

I thought this set and punch wasn't a 'must' and only got it after realising I was seriously lacking in easy balloon images for birthday cards. But there are so many different ways this can be used. If you only have the punch you can simply punch different colours and draw a few strings and adhere the 'balloons'.

Or you can can use different coloured cardstock and stamp the balloon highlights onto the balloons once they are punched out.

I teamed the one below with a die cut from the Large number dies and used bakers twine for the strings. The sentiment is from the Happy Birthday Everyone set.

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Cased from Maheswari Rajaguru at http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/maheswari.

Love the different look. These balloons were punched in white using the double punch and then sponged in Sahara Sand, Mint Macaroon and Daffodil Delight. It was very light in the middle of the balloons but quite heavy sponging around the outside. The string stamp makes it so easy to place the balloons in position.

Cased from Dena Rekow at http://youtu.be/bDGsFBip_Xg. This one was stamped in Black Archival ink using the outline stamp. I used a punched balloon as a mask. Once all the outlines were done I stamped the balloons in different colours. This 2 step stamping is a breeze with photopolymer stamps.

Loving the Watermelon Wonder cardstock. I was having so much fun with the balloon punch I ended up with heaps of balloons so made some more cards to use them up. The one below has Soft Suede as the card front.

Super easy tools for quick cards.

I haven't had much of a chance to use the Bloomin' Love stamp

 

World Traveller Embossing folder

Now for something a bit different... A folder which really lends itself to male cards.

First I used Whisper White card, inking up the folder before running it through the BigShot.

The folder above was Inked in Bermuda Bay using a brayer and mounted onto Island Indigo. If you don't want too many smudges on Asia and Africa make sure you carefully dab these continents on the folder with a tissue before running though the BigShot!

Next I used Sahara Sand for the card and inked the folder with Soft Suede. I stamped and cut out the plane from Sky's the Limit. The sentiment is also from this set. Love these freebies!

I trimmed the map this time so I could fit it onto the Island Indigo cardstock. I added a compass stamped in black from the Open Sea set. I embossed the sentiment from Sky's the Limit in white and added with Dimensionals.

I love the tone on tone effect of inking the embossing folder with the same colour as the cardstock being used. The above one is inked in Pool Party that was mounted onto Island Indigo card. The oval was stamped with Smokey Slate after stamping off once. The one below is Soft Suede matted with Early Expresso and mounted onto Sahara Sand. The sentiment is another one from Sky's the Limit.

Then I got to thinking about what it would look like if I dry embossed it and then carefully ran over the raised areas with a brayer that only had minimal ink. Voila! Another look. Crumb Cake card and Ink were used and the panel matted with Soft Suede and mounted onto Crumb Cake.

The one above was Soft Sky card dry embossed and the raised parts brayered gently with Pear Pizzaz.

This one is Sahara Sand, dry embossed and brayered with Pool Party.

In this last one I was too lazy to clean off the remains of Pool Party ink from the embossing folder so ran through a piece of Crumb Cake over which I had stamped lightly in the dots from Gorgeous Grunge and sponged with a little Soft Suede to make it look a bit distressed.

Love this look. Love this embossing folder.

 

Bloom in' Love and Thinlit dies

This is a gorgeous die. It's hard to show off how gorgeous in photos. I was surprised at how much better it looks in real life. The new die brush makes these intricate dies so much easier to use. You run the die through the Big Shot 3 or 4 times. I use a couple of pieces of card on top to make it tighter but each Big Shot is different. If you need to use excess force to push it through you have too much in your sandwich. Check the die has cut right through before you remove it from the die. You can tell by turning the die over. Once it is ' done' you place it on the die brush Matt, die side up and gently run the brush over and the bristles push out the small pieces of card. Magic. Have a look at this video about the die brush.

 

This first one is Basic Black cardstock with Bermuda Bay. I used Dimensionals to attach the diecut flowers. I embossed the Wooden Expression in white. Love these wooden expressions and I hope they don't retire them in June.

Rose Red cardstock. Once the diecut was cut I attached a piece of Vellum to the back of the panel where the image had been cut out from and then carefully applied adhesive on the back of the heart using the new fine tip glue pen. Check this out.

This would make a great wedding card. It is in Very vanilla and uses the same technique with vellum as above.

Whisper White thick cardstock for this card and Bermuda Bay for the heart and flowers.

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Another square card using Pink Pirouette and Whisper White. The sentiment is from the Bloomin' Love stamp set.

So impressed with this die.

Oops forgot this one. The lovely delicate little flowers from this set teamed with die cut flowers. Beautiful. Sentiment is from Perfect Pairings in the free Saleabration flyer.

 

Sunburst Thinlit Die

Love this new die. It is something a little different from the floral dies and it coordinates with many stamp sets and other dies.

I used the die cut as a stencil. The cardstock was Whisper White. First I sponged it with So Saffron, then moved the diecut a little and sponged in Mint Macaroon.

This time I sponged the diecut with So Saffron and then Crushed Curry. Sentiment was from Sky is the Limit.

Island Indigo was the card base. I cut two diecut sunbursts, one white and one Hello Honey and attached them slightly offset. I stamped the plane from Sky is the Limit and cut it out by hand.

So Saffron card base, sponged with Hello Honey and Pumpkin Pie.

I used a piece of DSP from the pretty Petals stack for the one above. The diecut is in Hello Honey.

Here it is teamed with the Balloon Celebration stamp set. The balloons were punched with the new balloon dual punch. So easy!

 

 

Number of Years stamp sets and Large Number dies

This would have to be one of the most useful bundles from Stampin' Up in a while. The stamp set has large number stamps which have a watercolour effect and also a lovely, floral 2 step stamp combo, many useful sentiments for birthday, anniversary, school grades, fun sentiments and nice messages. It also has a scroll which you can stamp a sentiment in and cut it out with the die. I have been hoping for a big bold number set like this for ages. It's great for children's birthdays and those special age birthdays!

Bermuda Bay and Bohemian Designer washi tape make a great statement. I didn't stamp the number two, just cut it with the die.

The numbers go very well with the Sunburst die. I cut 2, one in Crushed Curry and then a white one to act as a shadow.

Pool party and Whisper White. Pretty Petals paper stack for the black circle. Love the new Pool Party ribbon from the Occasions catalogue.

The next two were cased from Orphelia Crafts at http://www.opheliacrafts.co.uk

This first one uses Rose Red as the base colour and the following one is Rich Razzleberry. Love the watercolour effect on the numbers.

Island Indigo is the base card. The front panel was stamped with the Island Indigo for the flowers and Old Olive for the leaves.

This set is going to used over and over again.