Are you ready for another blog hop with some of the awesome ladies in the Art With Heart Stampin’ Up! team? 
Today we focus on the new Stampin' up! Occasions 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 brochure and an Occasions Catalogue). 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 with me during Sale-a-bration, you get 2 extra free stamp sets of your choice (of any value) plus $235 product (whatever you choose). That's up to $414 product for just $169. You also get free postage! It’s quick and easy to join online too. Ask me about joining today.

I just love the Carousels and Cupcakes Product Suite in the Occasions Catalogue, so it figured that I would go kind of crazy this past week or so with some creations using this gorgeous stamp set and Designer Series Paper Stack. The three cards you see at the top were all cased from Pinterest and my stamp club ladies enjoyed making them last week, to get our mojo into gear for 2017.

Here are some close ups.

But what I really wanted to do, and something I started planning a couple of weeks ago, was an actual carousel using the gorgeous carousel horses. My birthday is coming up, and I thought, how amazing to make my own cake topper with these gorgeous products!

This one is seriously just a prototype because it's kind of wonky and I used a stack of glue with the hot glue gun, but how gorgeous, gorgeous is it??

I was more than happy last night to discover the Global Design Project theme this week is 3D projects so I'm waving the #GDP071 flag too, along with the Case-ing the Catty Team who have Cupcakes & Carousels as their inspiration this week!

The next link in the blog hop is our creative team leader, Claire Daly, click on the arrow to go to her blog! 

If you click the arrow at the end of each blog post, you will go full circle and come back here. If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:

1. Ros Davidson
2. Rebecca Jacovou
3. Tina Gillespie
4. Judy May
5. Kate Morgan
6. Rachel Palmieri
7. Kathryn Mangelsdorf
8. Monika O'Neill
9. Kathryn Ruddick
10. Claire Daly
11. Rachel Woollard
12. Alisha Watson
13. Kim Dallinger

Square Tea Light Holder or Lantern

I said I was going to show you more projects I have made recently with the Botanical Blooms Builder Framelits, but I have scheduled that post for another day, because in the meantime, THIS happened!!

I posted this photo on a demonstrator only group on Facebook and in less than 24 hours had 500 reactions!! And plenty of really lovely comments too! Including requests for the instructions.

So, since it has been so well liked, I thought I had better share it with my other stamping friends too, not just demonstrators!

Start with an A4 sheet of Crumb Cake Card stock. Cut it in half lengthways. You'll have two pieces, each measuring 10.5cm x 29.8cm.

Score at 11cm and 22cms, then cut off the end at the 22.5cm mark.

Cut a 13 x 13cm square also of Crumb Cake, score all four sides at the 1cm mark. Snip out the corners.

Line up the largest thinlet from Detailed Floral Thinlets within each square of the side wall pieces and cut it using the Big Shot. You will need to cut it twice in each piece.

Apply Stampin' Up! Tear 'n' Tape as shown in the picture and join the two side wall pieces together.

Decorate by stamping and sponging with Cajun Craze and Soft Suede Ink Pads. I used the border stamp from the co-ordinating Floral Phrases Stamp Set and the spatter stamp from Swirly Bird Stamp Set and lots of sponging with my Stampin' Up! sponge daubers.

When you have done enough "antiquing" its time to attach layers of vellum on the inside of each panel. I used the Stampin' Up! Card Stock Vellum - love this gorgeous, smooth, thick vellum. The start attaching the base by wrapping the long side wall panel around the base starting in one corner and working each side.

Insert a battery operated tea light and enjoy the gorgeous warm glow.

How much do you love that antiqued look and the beautiful cut-out design?

The Detailed Floral Thinlets are $49.00 AUS or can be purchased in a bundle with the lovely co-ordinating stamp set, Floral Phrases which is available in Stampin' Up!s quality red rubber in woodmount or clearmount, to adhere to your clear blocks.

There is in fact, a whole beautiful product suite on pages 76 & 77 of our catalogue. See it here.

One of the exciting things that happened on our wider (local) Stampin' Up! team in the past couple of months was a Platinum promotion. Now if you are not a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, that probably means zero, zip, zilch to you. But to my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators, it means an awful lot.

Since our "career plan" changed in October last year, this was the very first promotion to Platinum level in Australia and it was our very own Claire Daly from Lilydale who promoted. I think this promotion is a big deal, and obviously all our Stampin' Sisters / cousins / grandmas etc across Australia thought the same, because when I suggested creating a special handmade Platinum gift for Claire to commemorate her promotion, lots of people jumped on board.

I suggested each person cut out and decorate a scallop circle and include their name and that somehow I would assemble them all into some sort of frame or album. Kathryn Mangelsdorf from Adelaide suggested we stick to a colour scheme - obviously the silver for platinum, but also Mint Macaron and Blushing Bride. Before I knew it, all sorts of gorgeous scallop circles were arriving!

I got far too many to fit into a frame, so I decided to use the Lots of Labels Framelits and make an accordion book with a black base to mount them all onto.

This "banner" ended up being 2.7 metres long! So of course it then had to have a gorgeous box to keep it in. I felt a black base, with silver lining, and an acetate lid would do just the trick. so I measured up my folded banner to see what size I would need to make, and constructed a box with separate lid.

I was heading off to Auckland for 4 days in late March, so in the end it was a real rush to pull all this together, but for such a special promotion, I was glad to spend the time and make a really special gift, and the look on Claire's face when she received it, along with a ginormous arrangement of flowers and a bottle of bubbly, was definitely worth the effort!

Congratulations again Claire for setting a benchmark and achieving your goals as a Stampin' Up! team leader and business builder!

#likeaboss #likeagirl #tickingboxes #gogetthosegoals #platinumpromotion #artwithheart #stampinup 

We had such a busy month in July with our Christmas in July event and trying to kick the Christmas crafting into gear, that I still have a couple more projects I haven't shown you close up!

This first one is such a fun gift!

In the basket is a stack of Chocolate Sliders.  What is a chocolate slider? Well, essentially it's a cute cover with a bow attached that you pull, to slide the chocolate out from the cover. It's a really cool way of giving someone what is in essence, a really simple gift, but it's been personalised in a really special way for them.

I don't have a template for this, because each time I have made chocolate sliders, I have purchased the chocolate block first, then made a new template in the matching size - in other words, I get out a steel ruler and make the cover from scratch each time depending on the size of the block.

Can you see that the snowman on the Soft Sky chocolate slider (and the coordinating card in the background) is made entirely from different Stampin' Up! punches?

The 1" square for the hat, the Word Window for the hat brim, a circle punch for his head, two scallop circles for his body, the Tree Builder punch for his arms and the hearts on his chest.

The Santa's body Chocolate Slider uses a circle punch and the 1" square punch too.

Let me know if you'd like to attend a class to make these. They are such fun to make, and to give as gifts, I'd be happy to schedule a class to teach you how.

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Christmas in July Event

Awesomely Artistic - ESAD Blog Hop

Hi folks,

Sorry its taken me so long! I just had to come on and share some of our photos from our Christmas in July event - it was such a fun day - so many creative people in one room!

A huge thank you to everyone who came along - we hope you got to make the gift card tote, the self-closing box, the pop-up diamond card, the floral frames card, the three gift tags and the four cute birdie note cards - or at least take home all the pieces and instructions!

Also a massive thank you to all the members of the Aussie Inkpressionist Stampin' Up! team for making such wonderful displays, fantastic projects for the guests to make, clever demonstrations, delicious food and bringing along your team members, family, friends and guests to enjoy the wonderful day!

We should definitely do more days like this!

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Christmas in July Event

Christmas in July - Blog Hop

Awesomely Artistic - ESAD Blog Hop

Cardmaking for someone really special . . . 

Firstly, apologies! I was going to share this card with you on the weekend, however by the time I got through all the preparations for the wedding, then attended the pre-wedding dinner, and the wedding itself, AND the post wedding breakfast . . . I kind of lost time to do any blogging over the weekend!

Now, since everyone loves a happy occasion, and everyone loves a radiant bride, I guess I better start with that! Here is the totally gorgeous bride, with her handsome new husband, the father-of-the-bride and the step-mother-of-the-bride (that would be me!).

The wedding of such a beautiful couple brought with it the challenge of a really unforgettable, special card and with a little inspiration (particularly for the bouquet and lace edge) from this Pin by Cecile Ortiz this is what I came up with . . . 

I've used the beautiful Designer Series Paper - Something Borrowed, along with the Your Perfect Day and Butterfly Basics Stamp sets, all from our Occasions Mini Catalogue. The Blushing Bride Rosette Trim is from the Artisan Embellishment Kit also from the Occasions Catalogue.

The leaves of the fern stamp are all fussy cut - yes, that took me a very long time!

Because the card was so dimensional, I then had to find a way of keeping it safe without squashing it or tearing off any of the ferns, so the next thing was to make a cute little window sheet box to store it in.

The box is 1.5cm deep and rather than cut more ferns, I decided the leaves from the Two-Step Bird Builder Punch might be sturdier.

You can still get all of these products in our current Annual and Occasions Catalogues through until June.

If you'd like a copy of either, please let me know.

I'll be back in a day or two with the super cute thank you cards I made for the bridesmaids.

See you then,

Kathryn

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Black & White Mystery Box - Post 4

Black & White Mystery Box - Post 5

Black & White Mystery Box - Post 2

Black & White Card Projects

Hey again!

How's your week been?

Did you manage to get in any creative time? I hope you had a chance to drop in on our blog hop yesterday? If not, scroll down to my next post and follow the links.

Today I've got more of the Black and White Mystery Box contents to show you. And since we are on the Easter theme already - this actually was last year's challenge for April - hence the retired Designer Series Paper - Modern Medley, and the retired stamp set Blessed Easter.

The challenge was to make a gift box and matching card - and when we sent the Mystery Box out at the end of the year, the idea was, the Easter gift box should be full of goodies. Given we had some very hot days around Dec / January when the Mystery Boxes were in the post, I hope they all made it safely with no melted chocolate accidents.

Over the weekend I've got something totally different to show you - a wedding card that took me close to seven hours to make! Yep, very special family wedding this weekend, so be sure to check back in and have a look at the card I slaved over - oh the hassles of being a perfectionist!

Back with Part 3 of the 2014 Mystery Box Swap

OR Part 2 of the Non-Standard cards - if you prefer!

I interpreted "Non-Standard cards" to mean something with fancy folds or a different shape to you average fold in half A5 card.

Easel cards fit into this category and what could be more elegant than black and white in an easel card? So lucky to have such a gorgeous range of stamps and papers that lend themselves beautifully to such!

If you follow my blog (if you don't - there's a subscribe button up the top left so whenever I post, it will come to your email inbox) you may remember from last year I did quite a few cards using Stippled Blossoms stamp set - I'm guessing it probably was my most used set last year.

Couldn't resist getting it out again to compliment Ex Libris Stamp Set (now retired) in this elegant easel card.

Quite a few different layers happening here - but nothing too difficult - just following the lines of the stamped image. Yummy!

My third card in the "non-standard" category was a gate fold with extra folds - so I used the full (long) width of the A4 card stock.

The Modern Medley Designer Series Paper (DSP) really comes into it's own on this card - so beautiful to work with! I've teamed it with Bordering Blooms Stamp set.

And it just has a minimal amount of colouring with the Blender Pens and Crumb Cake Ink.

Are you enjoying the Black and White projects? I loved making them - the Very Vanilla and Basic Black combo is just too elegant and it's such fun to see what little touch of other colour really works with the.

Stacks more projects to show you - so I'll be back again soon!

Kathryn

Back again to show you some more of my Black & White Projects that I made for the 2014 Mystery Box Swap.

We had to make three cards that were Non-Standard. I interpreted this to mean they weren't just an A5 card folded in half - in other words use a bit of fancy folding or some different shapes.

Love the challenge of this - and to bring in the elegance of Black and White - nice!!

The first card I settled on for this was a step-fold card.

Lucky me! - I hold team nights once a month for those ladies who have joined my team, and often one of two of the girls bring along some Show & Tell or even a project for everyone to make. Lovely Heidi Bell shared step fold cards AND curling petal flowers with us one night - so I did mine in Modern Medley Designer Series Paper with a black base so I could include it in my Mystery Box.

I also used the (now retired) Houndstooth Embossing Folder, The Bird Builder Punch (for the leaves) and the Petite Petals stamp set for some embellishments.

Pretty special card I reckon - and it couldn't go in a normal envelope so I packed it in an empty Clearmount stamp set case (DVD case) for posting.

I'll be back in a day or two with the other two "Non-Standard" cards I created for the Mystery Box Swap.

See you then!

Kathryn

How I coloured the HOLIDAY HOUSE stamp set

using Stampin' Up!'s new Alcohol Markers

The Blendabilites

When I published this screen card on Facebook the other day, it got more LIKES and COMMENTS than anything else I have ever posted, - pretty exciting for little ol' not very tech savvy me!

So many people asked how did I make the houses look so 3 Dimensional?

So, I decided to try a quick video to show you what I did. Unfortunately, colouring those houses is not a quick task, so even though I worked faster and less carefully than I normally would, it's still a pretty long video . . . apologies for that! I hope you think it's worth the 14+ minutes to watch, and I'd love to know what you think!

Here it is! Holiday House and Blendabilities Video by Kathryn Ruddick.

Ohhh and p.s. I don't work with a script, so there's a couple of bloopers in there! Hilarious - if you're in Australia and you are the first to reply with what the two really obvious errors are, I'll send you some pre-coloured houses, so please comment below, and please feel share.

Hope you are having a great time working on gorgeous Christmas projects too.

Kathryn