Stampin' Up! never ceases to amaze me with the gorgeous products and promotions they continually surprise us with, and what's coming in July is no different! 

In fact, we had such an amazing busy month in June with all the Extra Extra Hostess workshops and parties, that I am not sure this little July promotion isn't really just a way of Stampin' Up! saying "Thank You" to all the fabulous ladies who went out of their way to host a workshop or attend one as a guest in support of their hostess friend!  I met so many new people, as well as caught up with lots of old friends, and I did SO much STAMPING!

And of course, there were tons of hostess freebies for all the hardworking ladies who got their friends together for a bit of a stamping session - good for you ladies!  You are going to have so much fun creating with all these extra bits and pieces!

So what IS all the fuss about in July??

Well, think bright gelati and think buttons!  You are going to love this one!  I do, I can't wait to put in my first $100 order for the month so I can see in real life how lovely the Grosgrain Ribbon and Button gift pack is.  And the great news is, it's available as a gift to every single person who places an order of $100 or more for the whole of July.

How gorgeous are those colours? Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight and Pacific Point are SO cheerful and brighten up any project, and teamed with that delicious white grosgrain ribbon with the flower pattern printed on it, we'll feel like Spring has arrived early in Australia!

So what are you waiting for?  Get out your wish lists, do your sums and email me your $100.00 orders straight away, so you too can start playing with the Icecream Parlour Ribbon and Buttons!

Email : [email protected]

* Ribbon approx 13.7m, plus container of 48 buttons (16 each in three colours). 

When was the last time you stuck a pair of scissors into a sheet of Stampin' Up! Designer Series Paper?  Do you cringe like me, and absolutely dread reducing a 12"x12" sheet to little pieces?  I hate cutting into a new page so that means I have collected a WHOLE heap of them!!

Funny thing is, it's all screaming out to be used, because its, bright, funky, elegant, sophisticated, understated, modern, trendy, colourful . . . you get my gist. Whatever your style is, there is sure to be a pack of SU! DSP that suits it!

And it doesn't have to be a complicated origami project either - you might just find the perfect, elegant, simple pattern, that is just right for a background layer on a card - understated and elegant, without detracting from the main image.  That's what I found lately when I wanted to make a DEB card for a certain young lady in our lives who was off to debut!

Do you remember the dress cards I made with blue wire coat hangers, back in May?  Well, I still had some coat hangers left over, so I was able to make a gorgeous deb-dress card - and since the young lady concerned loves black, I selected our Black Patterns DSP as a background to make her deb-dress really stand out.

. . . a close up of that skirt . . .

Now, if you'd like to see more projects featuring our gorgeous designer series papers, you've come to the right place . . . a group of my friends are doing a blog hop today starring DSP! You may have even arrived here from Judy May's blog.  To continue on the blog hop and go full circle, you may like to hop off now to Ros Davidson's blog and see what she has been doing!

See you soon in stamping land!

Well, I only got about half an hour to play in my stamping room last night - after the hideous traffic trying to get home, then a session at Contours, then a late dinner . . . way past my bed time, but I really wanted to play with this Real Red Polka Dot idea!

Unfortunately I discovered that stamping Pacific Point Blue onto Real Red card just won't give you the same effect as the lovely turquoise in the wristband, so I didn't even try the yellow and green . . . but at least I made SOMETHING . . .

Not really the same at all as the wristband - I am going to have a re-think and do the lovely bright colours on white card, then use either the emboss resist technique or masking, then brayer real red ink over the top and see if that works any better.

That way I know I will be able to get my yellow, green and blue lovely and fresh.  In the meantime, I made a couple of different sample sheets, as you can see in the photo, so I am still going to have fun turning these into cards!

This Saturday, a small group of my stamping friends are having a blog hop, concentrating on using our gorgeous Designer Series Paper. You can come back to my blog to start off on the hop.  See you then!

Did you know that this Friday 24th of June is Red Nose Day?  Sids and Kids is one of my favourite organisations to support, and this year they have some really fun items you can purchase to help raise money for the vital services Sids & Kids provides to the community.

For more information see their website by clicking here.

I totally fell in love with this red nose day wristband when I saw the bright cheerful colours - I love fire engine red and all those circles.  In fact, as soon as I saw it, I pictured a stack of "Real Red" cards, stamped all over with images from the Circle Circus stamp set!

I think I will go straight home and start working on some!  A bit of white embossing, lots of dots - what fun!  I'll be back tomorrow to show you what I come up with!

Have a good night!

Wow! Did anyone else get up in the wee small hours to watch the transformation of the moon?  So glad I got up at 5am to see it, as when I left for work an hour later, the fog had settled in (again!) and the amazing sight had disappeared!

I am sure one of the Twilight books is named "Eclipse" and I have to be honest with you - in pitch black, refreshingly cold air, listening to the rustling of critters in the the thick carpet of Liquid Amber leaves that are covering our back lawn and hearing the strange call of some mysterious night bird, (possibly a tawny frogmouth) you'd almost have to forgive me thinking Stephanie Meyers writings aren't quite so unbelievable after all!

It was eerie out there in the stillness, trying to steady my camera against the fence (no tripod!!).  I only have a point and shoot camera, and when you zoom in far enough to see the man in the moon, you really have to steady it on something!

Funny how it reminded me of the colours (and all the little moons) on these cards I made recently.

Media reports were saying the moon was going to be blood red . . . I am certain the shade was Cherry Cobbler!  And when the sky started getting lighter it was distinctly Marina Mist!  Don't you love the Stampin' Up! colours?!?

I hope you've booked into my Secret Hostess Woorkshop on Saturday, I'd love to see you there!

I am holding a free workshop at home this coming Saturday 18th June.  Please check my class page for details by clicking here.

I love making ATC's, they are mini master pieces - easy to create and easy to collect!  The small size makes them economical to create lots, and to try new techniques on a very small scale, so that you're not wasting a whole sheet of card if it doesn't work the first time.

What I also love about them, is you CAN get 9 ATC's from 1 x A4 sheet of card, so they are perfect for swapping with your stamping and papercraft buddies - when you want to try different techniques or colour combinations, or just for getting inspiration for new products - ie, like that new stamp image that you MUST buy!

One of the sets of 12 ATC's I have created in recent months has been a set of Faux Silk ATC's using the gorgeous Medallion background stamp, teamed with two stamps from the Friends 24-7 stamp set.

I created a whole "silk" sheet using different colour variations of the medallion stamp.

Then did some very light watercolouring on a sheet of bird images from Friends 24-7.

And from there, after a bit of fussy cutting, assembled my ATC's.

Creating miniture artworks like this, allows you to make a large number over a relatively short period of time, and as I mentioned before, because they are so small, it's a very economical way of sharing your artwork with your fellow papercrafters.

I have loved getting to know the gorgeous Strength & Hope stamp set in our Autumn Winter Mini Catalogue, and matching it with some our favourite Designer Series Paper - "Love Letter" and the very popular Textured Impressions Embossing Folder - "Framed Tulips".

You can offer strength and hope to those dealing with breast cancer, by purchasing the Strength & Hope stamp set.

Stampin' Up! is donating $2.00 (AUS) from this purchase to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. BCRF is dedicated to preventing breast cancer and finding a cure in our lifetime by funding clinical and translational research worldwide.

For more information about the BCRF, visit www.bcrfcure.org

The stamp set includes 4 images, and retails in Australia for $35.95 for woodmount or $28.95 for clearmount. 

I am hosting a "Secret Hostess Workshop" next Saturday, and will be taking orders via email all week for the Strength & Hope Stamp set or any of your other Stampin' Up! needs.  All orders received between now and 6pm next Saturday will count towards the workshop and the names of all people ordering will go into a draw to win a share of the hostess benefits from the workshop.

How about that?  I do the work, you get the hostess benefits, and BCRF gets $2.00 for every Strength & Hope set that is sold!  If you'd like to see more of the Strength & Hope stamp set, as well as many of the other products in our Winter Mini catalogue, and you're in Melbourne's outer east, you're welcome to come along next Saturday afternoon and make a card and check the products and projects out in person.  There's more information on my class page.

Hope you're doing something special and fun for the Queens' Birthday long weekend. I'll be around, so don't hesitate to send me an email : [email protected]

Have a great weekend!

It's a real privilege to share with you the work of two of my class attendees, who I think had a lot of fun with the Jewelry Tag Punch and Basic Pearl Jewels.  Olivia and Rebecca are very creative and great fun to have around!

Rebecca created the card on the left, and Olivia made the one on the right.  They also both created a scrapbook layout, with gorgeous cupcakes.

This first one is by Olivia - don't you love how she punched the cute tags out of different scraps of printed papers and stamped images?

I love the cute cherries on Rebecca's layout, and how about all that paper piercing around the Pretty in Pink layer?

The cute alphabet stamps on these projects is Calendar Alphabet & Numbers - a set of 56 double mounted stamps in a teeny tiny box. Very Cute!! Thank you my friend Claire Daly for letting me borrow your set!  Thinking of you this week - and especially on Friday!!

I have been doing a lot of things lately with the lovely Strength and Hope Stamp Set which is in our Winter Mini Catalogue. Be sure to check back in over the weekend and have a look at one of the cards I have made using this really lovely set.

See you then,

Kathryn.

I haven't posted a scrapbook layout for a while, so I was really excited about making one for my last class, but more importantly I was ecstatic to finally use a photo I have had in my stash for about 10 years, and have been dying to include in a layout.  In fact, over the years I have put it with countless bubble printed papers, rubber duck stick ons and baby bath toy images and none of them have ever felt right.

This layout was completely inspired by the Tiny Tags card on page 93 of the Stampin' Up! Australia Ideas Book and Catalogue.  When I pulled the photo out, I knew it would sit well with the So Saffron Yellow, Pretty in Pink and Certainly Celery Card in the example, and I couldn't wait to do a title of Tiny Tags.

For our Tiny Tags class, we stuck with the small 6"x6" layout, but I wanted to zoop it up a bit, and increase the size to 8"x8", so I added a layer, a bit more stamping and some scallop circle embellishments.

A couple of girls in my class didn't have photos to include in their layout, so we decided to put some adorable cupcakes on their's instead.  They also made lovely cards based on the cute one on page 93.  Pop back on Thursday to check out their gorgeous work!