A Blog Hop with ESAD

I can't believe there is just one week left of Sale-a-bration 2016. The Sale-a-bration gifts this year have been so much fun to create with! Even though it's sad that Sale-a-bration is coming to an end, it is a real pleasure to get out some of my crafty items and do some creating, and it's even more of a pleasure to use my favourite Sale-a-bration gift this year and show you what I have been creating with it.

If you have just started blog surfing here, you may not know that I am participating in a blog hop tonight with ESAD.

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 & 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 & 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.

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My most loved Sale-a-bration product has been the WILDFLOWER FIELDS DESIGNER SERIES PAPER.

I can't get enough of this paper, have used it heaps and when we talked about this blog hop, I definitely wanted to pull out the pretty designs, patterns and colours in this paper and play with it some more.

For those who follow my blog or Pinterest boards, you will know that I have been making of lot of cute little bags with matching note cards in them. These were originally inspired by an awesome YouTube video by Caroline Hallet - a talented demonstrator from the UK. I have made stacks of them now on various themes and colour schemes.

Here is what I created for the blog hop.

My sister and I both love teapot and cup stamps and dies and when we saw CUPS 7 KETTLE FRAMELITS DIES in the current Occasions Catalogue, there was no doubt it was going to join my collection. I just love it so much with the Wildflower Fields Designer Series Paper.

The Calypso Coral Tea Pot and Old Olive Cup have been stamped using Thoughts and Prayers stamp set, heat embossed with Whisper White Embossing Powder. I haven't pulled out the Tea Lace Doilies for quite some time so it was lovely to add bits of them as finishing touches too.

Don't you think this would make a really cute gift for someone special?

Well, thanks for visiting me, now I better let you go and see what the rest of the crew have created to celebrate the tail end of Sale-a-bration. Click on her name to go to the next blog - that of lovely Nicole Wilson.

In case you get lost or the next link doesn't work, here are all the participants in the blog hop.

BLOG HOP PARTICIPANTS:

1. Emily Campbell

http://tinykiwicards.blogspot.com.au/

2. Rachael Lewsley - Party Pants & Metallics Glitter Tape

http://www.mystampinhaven.com.au/esad-sale-a-bration-2016-last-chance-blog-hop

3. Monique Fielder

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

4. Kathryn Ruddick 

http://www.katlodesigns.com/stamping_with_kathryn_low/2016/03/last-days-to-sale-a-brate.html 

5. Nicole Wilson

http://nicolejuliewilson.blogspot.com/2016/03/2016-sale-bration-last-chance-blog-hop.html

6. Amity Knight

http://stampinamity.com.au/

7. Kelly Kent

http://mypapercraftjourney.com/2016/03/24/goodbye-sale-a-bration-2016-esad-blog-hop/

8. Lou Kitzelman

http://withabowontopbylou.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/2016-sale-bration-last-chance-blog-hop.html

9. Pauline Bennetts

http://paulinebennetts.com/stampede/

10. Narelle Fasulo

http://www.simplystampingwithnarelle.com/

11. Jackie Noble

http://www.creativejax.co.nz/blog/

12. Carly Middleton

https://cardsbycarly.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/2016-sale-a-bration-last-chance-blog-hop

13. Barbara Williams

https://stampingbarb.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/2016-sale-a-brat…-chance-blog-hop/

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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How Uber Cute are these gift tags I made using the very sweet stamp set Santa's Gifts which is a set of 10 stamps on page 68 of our 2015-2016 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue.

I don't even own this set, I just borrowed it off a demonstrator friend at a recent stamping get together (that's what you do when you're part of an awesome Stampin' Up! team - you get together and stamp), and I stamped a few images in Memento Black Ink on Whisper White card, to have a play around with.

So glad I did! These tags ended up on a tree full of gift tags for a display at our recent Christmas in July event, along with a stack of other tags I made.

And notice the Cherry Cobbler tag right at the top of the tree with the Christmas trees on it? That tree stamp is from the same set.

The other stamp sets predominantly used here are the new Lots of Joy stamp set and a returning favourite, Festival of Trees stamp set.

I stamped enough images from Santa's Gifts to do a couple of other things, and since I was on a bit of a roll with the gorgeous Floral Frames Accordian cards (see my older post for more details on that), I decided to make one more with these fun images.

I just loved how this card turned out with it's soft neutral background and lovely, cheery bright images.

These are just a couple of the cute Christmas stamp sets in Stampin' Up!'s offering this year.

Did you know a brand new Holiday Catalogue comes out in September. Please let me know if you'd like me to post a copy to you, I should have my stocks of them in the next week or so.

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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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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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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!

I love the Chalk Talk Bundle from Stampin' Up!

For our major craft shows in October last year, I created a whole poster of cards and a banner featuring this awesome set.

Well, I haven't gotten bored with it yet! I'm still using it regularly and still loving it!

I was recently looking for some ideas to use Zoo Babies stamp set and I came across a super cute idea by Susan Campfield - www.suestampfield.com.

Of course the idea grew very fast from two carriages to one in each of the In-colours, but this time I decided to steer away from Baked Brown Sugar and use So Saffron instead.

I just love how there are so many cute animals to choose from in the Zoo Babies set!

These are really simple and fun to make and how cute would that look as the centrepiece at a kids birthday party - and at the end of the day each child gets to take a train carriage home!

If you haven't purchased the Chalk Talk Stamp Set or Framelits yet, did you know you can get it with a 15% discount if you buy both the stamps & framelits as a bundle?

You can order these items by emailing or texting me, or if you are a FB user, send me a private message. If you'd prefer to order them yourself, it's easy with our online shopping.

What are you waiting for? Get your Chalk Talk stamp set & framelits at 15% off by ordering the bundle today.

Kathryn. 

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For my Stamp Club girls last week, we worked on a special project - and the timing was perfect as it meant my finished sample could also be used on my team's display at the Melbourne Scrapbook & Papercraft Expo.

It was a little late for Valentines Day, but we decided this project would make a great gift anytime - especially if it's filled with chocolate!

To create this box, you need the Stampin' Up! Hearts Collection Framelits. You will cut two large scallop hearts from stiff card, then two of the largest plain hearts in stiff card and also in patterned paper.

You also need strips of card two inches wide for the sides of the box and lid.

For this project I used Naturals White Card stock, Pistachio Pudding Card Stock and the patterned paper comes from the Sweet Sorbet Sale-a-bration Designer Series Paper pack.

The Chalk Talk Stamp Set & Framelit bundle also came into action with this gift box, and some stamping with Wild Wasabi ink, together with some scraps of Wild Wasabi card.

To draw your eye to the Spiral Flower on the lid - created using the new Spiral Flower Originals Die, I added a tiny bit of Dazzling Details to some of the petals - you've just got to have that extra bit of bling!

I just love how the finished project looks and I can't wait to make some more of these - I've already got the next one all cut out ready to go, using Island Indigo card and the Watercolour Wonder DSP.

The Chalk Talk Bundle tag on this box is one of my most used stamps and framelits at the moment, so I will be back again soon to show you what else I have created using that bundle. It's a really super cute project and I know you're going to love it!

If you don't want to miss any of my creative ideas, make sure you subscribe to this blogs feed by clicking on the link on the top left which says "Subscribe to this blog's feed".

See you soon!

Kathryn

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