Good afternoon! Hope you had a fantastic weekend.

Are you a bit of a Valentines Day junkie? If so, what did you get up to yesterday and did Mr Right come up with the goods?

There was an Engagement party in our family yesterday afternoon - such exciting times! And YOU know ME!! Win! Win!

I get to try out some gorgeous Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalogue items on a really special card - I just love how there's a whole suite of romantic wedding themed stamp sets and accessories on pages 42-44 in the new mini catalogue.

Oh and lucky you! There's an ESAD blog hop today so I get to share it all with you too!

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and is a facebook group just for Australian and New Zealand Independent Stampin' Up! demonstrators.

We love what we do and love to share with our customers, friends and blog visitors. We also share what we love in our ESAD Demonstrator community, through swaps, challenges, sharing knowledge, ideas and friendship and we're always there to help and support each other.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand then please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address then I'll contact you with information on how to join our group.

You may have come to my blog from the lovely Ria Kaire or you may be visiting my blog and can start the blog hop right here. Just follow the link at the bottom to get to the next person, and if you follow them all you'll go full circle and come right back here. And as we love feedback, please feel free to leave a comment on as many of the blog hop posts as you can. There are 21 particpants today.

Now back to my Engagement Card!

As you can see from the two little sneak peak photos above, I stamped the wreath image from the Your Perfect Day Stamp Set in Crumb Cake ink, then stamped the little flower a few times around it - hmmmm even after nearly 20 years of stamping, I'm still no perfect! I ended up doing it again!

Then on Vellum, I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with Early Espresso Embossing Powder the greeting stamp Congrats to You Two also from Your Perfect Day set. These I then layered and cut out with the Hearts Collection Framelits.

The layers were attached together with Mini Brads, and a small banner made using half of one of the images from the Big News Stamp Set which is on page 68 of our Annual Catalogue.

This was then layered onto more hearts cut with the Hearts Collection Framelits, out of Soft Suede card and the absolutely delicious Something Borrowed Designer Series Paper (DSP).

The finished card is 5" wide by 7" tall, so I made a vertical belly band from Soft Suede card, embossing the top and bottom front with the new Spring Flowers Textured Impressions Embossing Folder on page 19 of the Occasions Catalogue.

The main card is a gate fold, and also has an oval envelope type flap at the top. It was a bit of a challenge working out the measurements for the score lines, before hacking into a whole sheet of card, but I love how it all worked out in the end with more hearts on the inside, and plenty of space to write a lovely message!

When it's all closed up, this is what it looks like.

The Bride-To-Be said I had really outdone myself this time - I guess she liked it!

Well, back to the blog hop! The next person on the hop is Sally Williams. Click on the picture to go on to her blog. But don't forget to leave a comment before you do!

In case the links in the blog hop are broken at any point, you can come back to the links below to find the next person.

1. Libby Dyson - http://www.libbystampz.com

2. Narelle Hoggard - http://www.handmadebynarelle.wordpress.com

3. Leonie Schroder - http://www.stamp-a-latte.com

4. Jenny Hayward - http://www.astampingjourney.wordpress.com

5. Tamsin Adams - http://tamsinadams.blogspot.com.au

6. Helen Williams - http://craftyhelen.blogspot.com

7. Pauline Bennetts - http://www.paulinebennetts.com/stampede

8. Monique Fielder - http://stamping-with-moni-q.blogspot.com.au

9. Nicole Wilson - http://nicolejuliewilson.blogspot.com/2015/02/esad-occasions-saleabration-2015-hop.html

10. Keryn Campbell - http://kerynscards.com

11. Clare Mcilhatton - http://www.crafty-cow.com

12. Ria Kaire - http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/qraftyqueen/blog

13. Kathryn Ruddick - http://www.katlodesigns.com

14. Sally Williams - http://sallystampingdelights.blogspot.co.nz/

15. Tricia Raineri - http://www.thespeckledsparrow.blogspot.com.au

16. Nerida Carter - http://www.stampingjoy.blogspot.com

17. Mel Pagano - http://createwithmel.blogspot.com.au

18. Rachael Lewsley - http://www.mystampinhaven.com.au 

19. Amity Knight - http://www.stampinamity.com.au/ESAD-blog-hop-project-life

20. Kelly Kent - http://mypapercraftjourney.com

21. Norelle Targato - http://rellspaperink.wordpress.com

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Hello!! 

And since I've had my first real big holiday from stamping, and classes and everything else, I should also say "Happy New Year!!".

What an exciting way to come back from a good long break - with Sale-A-Bration in full swing and a Blog Hop to show you lots of the gorgeous products we have been using to make lovely, lovely projects!

Today, along with some of my fellow team members from the Art With Heart Stampin’ Up! Team, we have a blog hop for you, focusing on the new Stampin’ Up! Occasions Seasonal Catalogue and also Sale-a-bration!

If you place an order with me during Sale-a-bration, you can choose a free item with every $90 you spend in one transaction. There are lots of fabulous free items to choose from (ask me for a Sale-A-Bration Flyer and an Occasions Catalogue) and the promotion goes right through until 31st March. 

Better still, become part of our awesome fun, friendly and supportive Art With Heart team. We have a really large team Australia wide that has been around since Stampin’ Up! came to Australia. We have a very active team forum and also have in person stamp days, challenges, card swaps, product shares and more. When you join during Sale-a-bration, you get to choose whatever you like from our catalogues, but pay just $169 for $235 worth of product (that’s a huge discount!) and you also get to choose between two free product options. It’s quick and easy to join online too. Ask me how!

Now let’s get into showing you what you can make with the great new products in the Occasions and Sale-a-bration catalogues. You may be starting here or may have come to my blog from my gorgeous friend in Adelaide, Kathryn Mangelsdorf.

Just have a lovely browse and at the end of each blog post you'll see a link button to take you to the next one, eventually you'll go full circle.

I chose to show you a couple of my FAVOURITE Sale-A-Bration products today - a stamp set, and a fabulous, gorgeous, wonderful Specialty Designer Series Paper ( DSP).

I decided to start with the DSP - it's called Irresistably Yours and yes, it's all white with delicious white embossed motifs - in this case stars. This means you can sponge, brayer, spritz all over it and then wipe the excess ink back to reveal the embossing - how could I resist sponging rainbows over it?

I teamed the lovely star design with the Confetti Stars Border Punch which was in our Holiday Catalogue and is a carry over item - along with lots of other Christmas goodies.

I then matched these two products with the cute and fun Big Day Stamp Set which is a stamp set you can choose for FREE with your Sale-A-Bration $90 order. Love this fun set!

Quite a number of Art With Heart team demonstrators attended a Stampin' Up! event last Saturday - Partytime Warragul which was a really fun day out - and as part of the preparations I made these twelve card fronts for a team swap which my team did to coincide with the event.

I loved the bright primary colours so much, and I wanted to use the stamp set a bit more, so I made another card using all the same products.

First I sponged more of the rainbow background.

Then I stamped and coloured the cake from the stamp set.

Then I put them together with some layers of Pacific Point Card stock and the super delicious White Jute Ribbon from the Occasions Catalogue. Love this card - so happy and cheerful!

Well, as you can see - I just had too much fun with these - such cheerful colours and such fun images that truly do co-ordinate with products we already have!
 
But, we'd better keep this blog hop hopping. Next person to visit today is Claire Daly. Click on the heart to go to her blog.

Thanks for visiting today. Don’t forget to email me [email protected] to get a copy of the Occasions Seasonal Catalogue or Sale-a-bration flyer, or to enquire about joining the Art With Heart team, and please leave a comment as we love to get feedback!

Participants:
1. Kate Morgan
2. Kathryn Mangelsdorf
3. Kathryn Ruddick
4. Claire Daly
5. Judy May
6. Christine Gibbins
7. Genna Gifford
8. Nikki Sadler
9. Rachel Woollard
10. Ros Davidson

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