Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Wreath of Joy

This week we’ve been making clean & simple holiday card designs using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday products that just launched this week. Today we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely wreath of joy.

We get started with a base of Early Espresso cardstock. I love how it pulls out the wood stem of the evergreen in the wreath. Our backdrop is one of the larger cards of Christmas plaid from the Joyful Days pack. This really makes things festive. Our focal panel consists of two panels – the wreath card from the Joyful Days pack and the mat of Old Olive Season of Elegance paper. I love how this gives the perfect amount of sparkle that really helps bring our sentiment front and center. The full panel is adhered to the card backdrop using dimensionals. The sentiment JOY is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is adhered on multiple layers of dimensionals to ensure it stands tall above the rest of the design. We finish things off with a bow of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon at the top-center of our wreath and then some gold sparkly sequins from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins pack in opposing corners to tie the gold elements together.

I hope you’ve gotten some good ideas from this week’s designs to get you started on your holiday card stash. Next week is all about birthdays. I hope you’ll come along as we tour through the crafty stash to make some fun birthday cards.

Product List
Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Christmas Wishes

Howdy, friends! Have this week’s card designs gotten you into the holiday spirit? Well, today’s card will have you smelling evergreens. *wink*

We’re using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday release products to create our clean & simple holiday card designs this week. And today, we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack with the Christmas Tags & More paper pack with coordinating ephemera sheets and the Greetings for You ephemera pack. And what kind of card would it be if I didn’t include some sparkle? *grin*

We get started with this card with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. The background panel is a sheet of snowflake pattern Christmas Tags & More paper diecut with the largest Textured Notes die. The bottom of the panel is wrapped with Shaded Spruce sheer ribbon that is tied off with some gold thread (both now retired). Our focal panel is the smaller evergreen card from the Joyful Days card pack that is matted with some (retired) Shaded Spruce festive glimmer paper and mounted on dimensionals. I added some of the packages from the ephemera sheet included in the Christmas Tags & More pack and mounted them on varying levels of dimensionals for some realistic depth of scene. The tree baubles are some of the traditional sparkling sequins. We finish things off with a holiday sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and mount it with enough dimensionals to stand above the center focal point.

This is such a super simple design – so fun & so easy to put together. And don’t you think it’s just a lovely way to send some holiday cheer? Tomorrow we’re going to close out this week’s design series with a traditional evergreen wreath. I hope you’ll pop in and check it out.

Product List
Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Wonderful Time

It is most definitely the most wonderful time of the year. Wanna know why? Two things: (1) it’s starting to feel like fall, which is my most favorite season; AND (2) it’s time for the new Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini Catalog!!! Have you checked out all the new goodies in the shop today? What’s on your shopping list? I’ve already shopped twice and still have a few more things I’m on the fence about.

This week, we’re creating very clean & simple holiday cards using the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack, Greetings for You ephemera pack, and the Christmas Tags & More 6×6 designer series paper pack with coordinating ephemera sheets. Today’s card is maybe just about the simplest design of the whole week. You can literally turn out 6 cards just. like. that.

Today’s card starts with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. I selected the most wonderful time of year card from the Joyful Days pack and cut off just enough so it fits horizontally on the card front. Before adhering with dimensionals, I wrapped the decorative card with some (sadly retired) Cherry Cobbler & Gold satin ribbon tied with a nice, big bow. I finished it all off with a scattering of Pool Party sequins from the Traditional Sparkling sequins pack. Easy peasy!

Tomorrow we’re going to be creating a holiday card that has long legs. You’ll have to drop by to see what I mean. *wink*

Product List
Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog

Merry & Bright Plaid

I don’t know about you, but I have a love-hate relationship with holiday weeks. We all love a short work week, but it always feels to me like I’m just squeezing in a lot more work into a shorter time period. That was definitely the case today anyway!

And I’ve been SO off on my days as of late that I was thinking today was the new product release day when it’s actually tomorrow….womp-womp! But it doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for you to see all of the new stuff. I’m just sad you have to wait one more day.

Anywho, this week we’re getting another peek at some of the cute holiday products that will be available tomorrow. Our design focus this week is clean and simple holiday cards using the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack, the Greetings for You ephemera, and the Christmas Tags & More patterned paper pack with ephemera sheets included. So much good stuff! Today we’re mixing in an embossing folder.

Today’s card starts with a base of Cherry Cobbler cardstock. I had a leftover strip of light brown patterned cardstock from one of the sheets in the Christmas Tags & More pack which served as the jumping-off spot for the color palette and design for the rest of the card. I paired it up with a piece of Pecan Pie machine embossed with the Birch Wood embossing folder to create the backdrop for the focal panel. The focal panel backdrop is a combination of one of the smaller cards of plaid from the Joyful Days card pack and a plaid tag from the sheet of tags in the Christmas Tags & More pack. I chose the Merry & Bright circle sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and matted it with a banner of gold foil specialty paper and adhered it to the focal panel with several layers of dimensionals to be sure it really catches the eye. I finished things off with some gold sparkly sequins from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins pack so your eye catches some sparkles all the way across the card front.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to see another clean & simple holiday card design.

Products used in today’s card:
Cherry Cobbler, Pecan Pie cardstock
Gold foil, Christmas Tags & More DSP
Greetings for You ephemera
Joyful Days Memories & More card pack
Birch Wood embossing folder
Traditional sparkling sequins
Dimensionals

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Happy Season

Welcome to a bright, shiny new week, everyone! We’re enjoying a day off and taking full advantage of not doing much! So that means plenty of time to play in the craft room with some new goodies and getting a start on making new gifties for an October craft show, which means playing around with goodies from the retired stash.

It’s hard to believe that a whole new batch of Online Exclusives AND the brand new Holiday Mini Catalog goodies are due to launch tomorrow! I’m so excited for you to see all of the new things. The last few releases have been a little underwhelming, in my opinion anyway, but this one is worth the wait. This release is jam-packed full of good, GOOD stuff!

This week, we’re taking an early tour of some holiday goodies as we play with the new Joyful Days Memories & More card pack, the Greetings for You ephemera, and the Christmas Tags & More patterned paper pack that includes coordinating ephemera.

For today’s card, we get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. The background panel is a combination of patterns – a sheet of red Season of Elegance foiled paper and a sheet of the festive plaid from the Christmas Tags & More pack. The focal panel is one of the smaller tree scene cards from the Joyful Days card pack that is matted with some gold textured paper. Some new Real Red shiny ribbon is tied around the bottom third of the full panel. And tucked underneath on several layers of dimensionals is the foiled sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack. I’ve finished things off with a touch of sparkle in opposing corners from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins.

I hope you’ll drop by tomorrow to see another holiday-inspired design.

Products used in today’s card:
Crumb Cake cardstock
Christmas Tags & More (launching tomorrow!), textured gold metallic, Season of Elegance DSP
Joyful Days Memories & More card pack (launching tomorrow!)
Greetings for You ephemera pack (launching tomorrow!)
Real Red shiny ribbon (launching tomorrow!)
Traditional sparkling sequins (launching tomorrow!)
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Lights of Aurora

Year of Magic

Welcome to the weekend, everyone! I don’t know about you, but I had the Monday-ist Friday everrrrrrrr. So needless to say, by the time work was over and I was home, I had zero energy or creativity left for getting crafty. But I’m hoping to make up for it today as we close out our design series using the new SU! Lights of Aurora suite set to launch in a little over a week.

Today we’re pairing up the Lights of Aurora paper and dies to create this stunning fun fold scene. I’m calling this the Dutch Door fold because it reminds me of the divided swinging doors. What do you think?

Our card gets started with a base of Cloud Cover cardstock. I have to say that I think this might be my new favorite neutral background starter! I chose a sheet of blue paper from the Lights of Aurora paper pack that reminded me of the sky, which happens to look bright & blue just like this in our area today. The card front is cut into three sections to create the center section and then spanning section over the top. The Light & Wonder dies help us create the mountains and trees that span the front of the card. A small lake created with the pastel ombre paper peeks out from the glad in the middle of the trees. The sentiment from the Light & Wonder stamp set is stamped on the center panel and heat embossed in black. When the connected panel is lifted to reveal the center section of the card front, you can see that I’ve used the Light & Wonder dies to recreate a portion of the larger scene – a lot like a picture-in-picture effect. A scattering of some frosted iridescent dots finish things off with a little twinkle.

I think the Dutch Fold would work perfectly with similar die sets that create a cut that spans a longer distance. Think tree lines, mountains, or something similar. Would you like to try your hand at this fold? You can download the free PDF tutorial here.

Products used in today’s card:
Cloud Cover, Blackberry Bliss, Mossy Meadow, Basic White cardstock
Lights of Aurora (coming in Sept), pastel ombre glimmer DSP
Light & Wonder stamps & dies (coming in Sept)
Black embossing powder
Frosted iridescent dots (coming in Sept)
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Lights of Aurora

Do Anything

As we work our way toward the release of the SU! Holiday Mini catalog, we’re getting sneak peeks of some of the things that I just had to have in the crafty stash. This week, we’re working with the Lights of Aurora suite that will launch in the Holiday Mini. Aside from the fact that the paper and embellishments are stunning, one of the things I love about this suite is its scene building potential.

And today, we’re using the Light & Wonder dies to create a stunning sunrise scene. And this design is actually inspired by the pictures of the dies in the catalog. In particular, I was drawn to which dies that had placed next to each other and my brain just started painting a complete picture that I had to try to bring to life.

We get started with a base of Cloud Burst cardstock. It provides a nice neutral that lends itself well to the sunrise. I chose a sheet of the pink-hued Lights of Aurora paper to serve as the backdrop for the rest of the scene. The larger tree die in the Light & Wonder die set makes the perfect line of trees in the background. Can’t you just picture a towering stand of cypress back there? I also used the smaller line of trees to help give realistic layers to our scene. Both lines of trees are cut from the green-hued sheet of Lights of Aurora paper. I wanted to give the illusion of a large lake with a smaller inlet in between the trees. So I used two different shades of blue glimmer paper to give the effect of different depths of water. The deeper water is a sheet of Pretty Peacock glimmer paper (sadly retired but still in my stash of faves), while the shallow inlet is a sheet of blue pastel ombre paper. I used the Light & Wonder dies to cut both bodies of water. Dimensionals give some depth to the scene by raising the elements in the foreground. The sentiment from More Messages is stamped in black on white cardstock and adhered over a faux bow of iridescent striped ribbon using dimensionals. The clouds are diecut from vellum and tucked high in the sky behind the trees. A few frosted iridescent dots give the twinkle of the last remaining stars in the dawning sky.

We’ll be working with a fun fold tomorrow. I hope you’ll pop by and check it out.

Products used in today’s card:
Cloud Burst, Basic White cardstock
Lights of Aurora (coming in Sept), Pretty Peacock glimmer (retired), pastel ombre glimmer DSP
Vellum
Light & Wonder dies
More Messages stamp & die
Iridescent striped ribbon (retired)
Frosted iridescent dots
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Lights of Aurora

Embrace Magic

One of my favorite childhood memories is the summer nights that we would spend laying on the trampoline watching the meteor showers. Now that we live in the ‘burbs, it’s a little harder to see the stars on the regular. But our summer family trips always involve going somewhere where the night sky shines brightly. I love getting to share some of that with my city kid.

And speaking of beautiful night skies, the up-and-coming suite called Lights of Aurora by Stampin’ Up! celebrates the beautiful aurora borealis. And the gorgeous dies allow you to build scenes that really bring it to life. I’m giving a little tip of the hat to my childhood in today’s card design. Do you see it?

We get started with a base of Basic Black cardstock. I used both sides of the sheet from the Lights of Aurora paper pack – I used part of a sheet for the sky and the bottom portion is the reverse side to create the nighttime tree line at the base of the mountains using the Light & Wonder dies. The mountains in the distance are cut from Blackberry Bliss. Dimensionals help the mountains stand out against the night sky. Using the dies and paper scraps from the Aurora sheets, the clouds are cut and then adhered in the night sky. The sentiment from the Light & Wonder stamps set is heat embossed in black at the bottom of card front and a few frosted iridescent gems bring the eye down to the sentiment. A little Wink of Stella and a frosted gem create the shooting star in the center of the sky.

Tomorrow we’re going to get a different look at the Lights of Aurora paper as we work more with the Light & Wonder dies. I hope you’ll drop in and check it out.

Products used in this card:
Basic Black, Blackberry Bliss cardstock
Lights of Aurora DSP (coming in Sept)
Light & Wonder stamps & dies (coming in Sept)
Black embossing powder
Frosted iridescent dots (coming in Sept)
Wink of Stella
Dimensionals

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Lights of Aurora

Filled with Light

Welcome back on this Tuesday. I’m super excited to be bringing you some more sneak peeks at products from the upcoming Holiday Mini catalog due to release the first week of September. This week, we’re working with Lights of Aurora. Today’s card is super simple with just the combination of patterned paper and a sentiment, which comes to live thanks to the simple z-fold.

We get started with a base of Blackberry Bliss cardstock and a standard A2 card base, except you will score the left side of the card in half again to create the z-fold. I chose a ribbon aurora patterned sheet from the Lights of Aurora paper pack and divided it between the small front folded panel and the full inside panel. I matted both in the pink to purple ombre sheet from the pastel ombre glimmer paper pack. The sentiment from the Light & Wonder stamp set is stamped in Blackberry Bliss and Strawberry Slush and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I cut the sentiment from white cardstock using the new Traditional Labels dies. The sentiment is mounted over Balmy Blue & Petunia Pop ribbons using dimensionals. Some frosted iridescent dots on either side pull the eye in and give some extra twinkle.

Tomorrow we’re going to be working some more with the dies from this suite. I hope you’ll drop by!

Products used in this card:
Blackberry Bliss, Basic White cardstock
Lights of Aurora (coming in Sept), pastel ombre glimmer DSP
Light & Wonder stamps (coming in Sept)
Traditional Labels dies (coming in Sept)
Versamark
Clear embossing powder
Frosted iridescent dots (coming in Sept)
Balmy Blue sheer ribbon (coming in Sept), Petunia Pop iridescent ribbon
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Lights of Aurora

Inspiring Strength

Happy Monday, one and all. We’re getting started with a bright, shiny new week. What’s on your plate this week? Things are starting to ramp up for the kiddo with the second week of school getting underway, and it’s set to be a busy one at the office for me. But what I’m most looking forward to? Showing you a stunning new suite of products headed your way the first week of September!

This week, we’re going to be working with the Lights of Aurora suite, which includes paper, stamps, dies, ribbon, and embellishments. And it’s ever bit as beautiful as the natural wonder that inspired it! And if you’re a scene builder, then you’re most definitely going to love this coordinating suite. Today we’re getting started with a simple scene that really lets the lights shine.

We start with a base of Cloud Cover cardstock. I chose a sheet of the full sky, wavy aurora from the Lights of Aurora 6×6 paper pack. I cut the sheet in half – and since it’s only the top portion of the aurora that shows for this scene, it allows you to make two cards and not just one! I then moved to cutting all of the pieces for the bottom portion of the scene, starting with the mountain range in the background. I cut the range using the die from the Light & Wonder die set from a sheet of Blackberry Bliss cardstock. This portion is the base on which the remainder of the scene is built so it will cover the bottom portion of the card base. I cut a shadowy treeline from Basic Black using the die from the Light & Wonder set. To add some depth & detail to the mountain range, I used the detail mountain range die and cut it from the remaining portion of my Blackberry Bliss cardstock. I broke it into pieces and adhered portions of the treeline behind each piece using dimensionals. To add a little mystical sparkle I cut some water from a sheet of the blue pastel ombre glimmer paper and adhered it at the bottom so that it gives the appearance of an inlet in the center. The sentiment from Light & Wonder is heat embossed in silver just above the mountains. I adhered the mountain details with treelines just above the water and below the larger mountains in the back. I finished things off by adding some sparkly details to the mountain peaks using Wink of Stella and added frosted iridescent dots around the sentiment to draw the eye.

I can’t wait to show you more of what this suite has to offer. I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to catch another peek!

Products used in today’s card:
Cloud Cover, Blackberry Bliss, Basic Black cardstock
Lights of Aurora (coming in Sept), pastel ombre glimmer DSP
Light & Wonder stamps & dies (coming in Sept)
Silver embossing powder
Versamark
Wink of Stella
Frosted iridescent dots (coming in Sept)
Dimensionals
Adhesives