This week I am enjoying creating using new products from the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue, being inspired by projects and pages straight out of the catalogue (or Casing the Catty - as we call it), and sharing that inspiration with members of our wider Art With Heart Stampin' Up! team in a "Case the Catalogue" Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from my lovely friend Kathryn Manglesdorf's blog, welcome. If you are starting here, grab a cuppa and follow the next button on each blog to do a full circle of creativity. And please leave us comments! We love to hear what you think.

Last week I was on our casual kiosk at Chirnside Park shopping centre all day Friday, and as I was packing my stuff on Thursday night (and trying to think what I would stamp all day Friday at the kiosk), my mum brought over Sweet Storybook Stamp set and framelits bundle and says, "You do want to stamp mice all day tomorrow, don't you?"

Oooh my! Yes Please!!!

Here's the super cute picture that is on page 160 of the Annual Catalogue. It's really hard to make out what format the cards take (which type of fold) because of the very light colours against the white background, but that gave me lots of scope for using my imagination in coming up with my own projects.

I stamped and stamped and cut out mice and leaves and had a fabulous day working with these gorgeous colours and these super cute images. I decorated four gift bags and made 3 cards.

The ribbon on the bags is Granny Apple Green. A lovely splash of green to match the leaves of the vine image.

I had a great deal of trouble stamping the little red flowers because of the string handles and the extra layer of strong reinforcing card on the inside of the top of the bag - made my image miss-stamp each time, and because it was such a tiny stamp it was very easy to get an ink halo.

I discovered later that it was much easier to get an awesome image of the flowers by putting all 3 flower stamps on a block at once. There is also a framelit for each of the flowers so you will see that the cards I completed next have the flowers stamped and cut out separately instead of being stamped direct on the background like I tried to do with the bags.

Here's some close up's of each one.  The first was just a normal fold A5 card, but with 3 layers on the front being 4 Stampin' Dimensionals deep.

The next card was a tri-fold card with a window through the first two panels to show the inside of the card.

And lastly I created a diorama card with 3 layers which will fold flat to fit in our standard envelope.

All of these projects are made using Whisper White Card stock, Soft Sea Foam Card stock, Granny Apple Green Classic Ink Pad, either Lovely Lipstick or Calypso Coral Classic Inkpads for the top of the mushroom and the flowers, Crumb Cake Ink painted on with an Aquapainter for the mushroom stem, and a combination of Crumb Cake or Gray Granite Ink for the mice, with outline stamps in Momento Black.

Aren't these just too cute?

Product List

Sweet Storybook Photopolymer Bundle [148409] $77.25	Soft Sea Foam A4 Cardstock [147012] $14.75	Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad [147095] $13.00
Lovely Lipstick Classic Stampin' Pad [147140] $13.00	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad [147116] $13.00	Blender Pens [102845] $21.00

 If you've left me a comment (thank you!!) and are ready to continue on in the blog hop and see what everyone else has created, then please click on the next blog picture here and go see what gorgeous projects talented Kate Morgan has created!

Catherine Proctor
Kimberly Hern 

Monika O’Neill

Caroline Manwaring

Kathryn Mangelsdorf 

Kathryn Ruddick 

Kate Morgan 

Alisha Watson

Rachel Palmeri 

Andrea Roberts 

Ros Davidson

Rebecca Jacovou

Rachel Woollard

Tina Gillespie