Hi! I am back after a short hiatus! Moving to the country and getting set up on the farm will do that!

I am glad to be back joining in with the Art With Heart Colour Creations Blog Hop tonight with a classic colour - Basic Gray.

Basic Gray

It's great to revisit these timeless colours that have been in the Stampin' Up! colour families for many years, and to see how they continue to be so versatile with the newer products.

This week, for a little fun, and also by way of reminder that time is fast running out for the January to June Mini Catalogue, I wanted to use a stamp set that is only available for a couple more weeks. This stamp set is one you can earn for free with a $250 order (which can be a combined order between friends).

I really love the cute images and handy greetings in the Mischievous Mice host rewards stamp set. And when I saw that this week is Basic Gray, I had to colour some little gray mice.

I made a very basic Z fold card - just take a standard A6 card and fold the front back on itself. I used Basic Gray card for my base card, and a piece of Basic White for the inside.

I embossed an extra piece of Basic Gray card with the Bricks & Mortar 3D embossing folder, then touched the embossed image very gently onto the Basic Gray ink pad to highlight some of the texture.

The mice were stamped with Basic Gray ink onto Basic White card then coloured with Smoky Slate, Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Daffodil Delight & Mango Melody Stampin' Blends Duos. I also used the Colour Lifter in a couple of places on the mice fur.

The images were fussy cut with my trusty Stampin' Snips.

The mouse with the balloon was popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

The mouse with the cheese was stuck flat on the inside of the card.

I have always loved gray and yellow as a colour combination, and I think the different tones created by the Basic Gray Ink on the Basic Gray cardstock, and the different shades of yellow work perfectly with these images to create a super cute universal card.

Now, it's time to check out the rest of the blog hop and see what the other talented ladies in the Art With Heart Stampin' Team have created with Basic Gray. Please go on and visit my friend Theresa by clicking on the "NEXT" image below.

If at any time the link doesn't work, please go to Cathy Proctor's blog where she has the main list of participants. Enjoy the blog hop! I hope you get lots of inspiration - and don't forget, the January to June mini catalogue finishes in just a couple of weeks, don't miss out on your favourite items, like the Mischievous Mice.

Product List

Basic Gray A4 Card Stock [121689] $16.25	Basic Gray Classic Stampin' Pad [149165] $14.00	Mischievous Mice Host Cling Stamp Set [158070] $22.00
Smoky Slate Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154904] $15.75	Calypso Coral Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154881] $15.75	Stampin' Blends Color Lifter [144608] $8.00
So Saffron Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154905] $15.75	Daffodil Delight Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154883] $15.75	Mango Melody Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154888] $15.50
Brick & Mortar 3D Embossing Folder [149643] $17.50	Basic White A4 Cardstock [159228] $18.00	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430] $7.50

Hey everyone,

I am a little late posting my Colour Discovery tonight. I have been away for 6 days Farm-Sitting for a family member and even though I got home last night, today Meeowie had her annual vet check and I had a uni class in the afternoon AND I also made time to have snuggles with a very gorgeous baby boy! So special!

So, no, you haven't gone crazy, it is already after 10pm instead of my usual 8pm . . . !

This week I have such a sweet colour for you - and talking of babies, this colour is heavenly for a soft baby card. 

What colour is it?

It's Purple Posy!

I've deliberately left a space on this card for the greeting, because while it would make a beautiful baby card, I think it would also be lovely for a little girl's birthday card and there is room for a large number - a 1, 2 or 3 - which I would stamp and die-cut and pop up with Dimensionals, as well as more than enough space for a rectangular greeting panel layered partially over the trim.

This is such a simple, yet versatile design, using various stitched rectangles and squares and limiting the colour palette to just Purple Posy, Basic White and Crumb Cake. 

Purple Posy is one of the In Colors which will retire this year - I think I need to stock up on Stampin' Blends and that beautiful trim, as this is such a dear colour!

If you would like to see here  what some of my lovely stamping friends have created with Purple Posy, I invite you to visit lovely Cathy's blog here she has the links to each of their projects.

See you soon!

Kathryn Ruddick

Pumpkin Pie is one of my MOST used colours - it goes with everything! It's warm, friendly and versatile.

Pumpkin Pie

Today I have taken a card sample from page 75 of the mini catalogue and transformed it by switching out the colour for Pumpkin Pie. This gives the card a whole new look.

Here is the original in the catalogue.

I have switched the Pool Party base cards and heart for Pumpkin Pie, and also swapped the stamped pink hearts for the image of the bunch of flowers in the stamp set. I inked the stamp using the Pumpkin Pie and Granny Apple Green Stampin' Write Markers. They are so good for multi-coloured images.

I selected a piece of striped background paper from the Ice Cream Sorbet Designer Series Paper and have included a strip of that on the inside of the card too, with an extra Pumpkin Pie heart. The hearts are die-cut - there is a tiny heart die in the coordinating Kangaroo Dies.

I love using the card layouts in the catalogues for inspiration, and I love it even better when they come out looking so good using different colours and patterns!

Some of my dear stamping friends are also exploring Pumpkin Pie this week over on the Colour Creations Showcase. If you would like to see what they have created, please pop over to Cathy's blog where she has links to all their pages. 

You'll be glad to know that first week back at uni is going well, very hectic, but so far I am in LOVE with my classes - even though we are just online this week . . .  It's good to be back into it!

Well, I hope you'll leave me a comment, and I hope that you go and visit my friends and see what they have created with Pumpkin Pie,

Talk soon!

Kathryn Ruddick

Product List

Pumpkin Pie A4 Card Stock [108601] $15.25	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad [147086] $13.00	Kangaroo & Company Bundle [156269] $64.75
Kangaroo & Company Photopolymer Stamp Set [154502] $28.00	Dies Kangaroo [154334] $44.00	Granny Apple Green A4 Cardstock [147014] $15.25
Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad [147095] $13.00	Ice Cream Corner Designer Series Paper [154567] $20.00	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708] $10.00
Crumb Cake Stampin' Blends Combo Pack [154882] $15.50	Brights Stampin' Write Markers [147157] $52.50	Regals Stampin' Write Markers [147155] $52.50

I adore the new Snail Mail Product Collection from Stampin' Up!

For years I have wanted some miniature envelope dies and stamps and I have seen a few different ones from other brands but as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I really wanted a set I could create with that I could then also be confident that my customers could buy the same stamps and dies to use themselves.

So when our January to June Mini Catalogue came out, I was very happy to see these!

This week our Colour Creations Showcase was Petal Pink and even though the pink in these papers is Blushing Bride, I was happy to mix and match the pieces to make 4 cute cards - two fancy fold cards for the blog hop, then 2 really quick standard cards using up the leftover bits.

Here's my Colour Creations Showcase post.

And here is the first of my extra cards made with the leftover pieces.

Most of these pieces are die-cut from the Designer Series Paper in the suite. There is a tiny bit of stamping in the background just to anchor the toadstools and snail to the ground.

On the inside of the card I put a simple strip of the DSP.

I wanted the second card to be even more simple with a bigger "white space" to rest the eyes from the bright images.

Again, on the inside I kept the decoration simple with a strip of DSP on a layer of the same Bermuda Bay card which adds depth to the card front.

Aren't they cute! 

I can't wait to do a bit more with this product suite. I can see myself needing another packet of the Designer Series Paper really soon!

Did you know you can earn a free Sale-a-bration item if you order this Product Collection. Ask my more about it today.

Talk soon,

Kathryn

Who doesn't love a versatile soft pink which goes with everything??

It's Kathryn here, and I am excited to share that this week's AWH Colour Creations Showcase is Petal Pink!

In our January to June Mini Catalogue we have the cutest product suite - Snail Mail. The Snail Mail Designer Series Paper is loaded with beautiful bright colours and for this week's showcase I decided to introduce Petal Pink as the base colour and bring in the colours out of the suite, using fussy cut and die-cut images from the paper and a little bit of background stamping.

One of the first things I love to do with new Designer Series Paper that has coordinating dies, is sit and cut out a heap of shapes that I can then use on cards or other projects. By the time you have cut a dozen or so, the ideas are flowing.

I thought all these cut out shapes really loaned themselves to a couple of simple fancy fold cards so after cutting out a stack of shapes, I made a very straight forward "Z" fold card - Petal Pink as the base and Basic White panels.

Then it was just a matter of adhering the die cut (and a few fussy cut) images to the card. For the front panel I also stamped the toadstool image in Petal Pink and used the white Watercolor Pencil to add a couple of highlights.

The big toadstool on the front right of the "Z" fold hides the snail that appears only when the card is open. You can see that I also stamped the toadstool image on the "Z" piece.

Next I made a basic easel card with more of the pieces I had cut out earlier.

All of the die cut shapes are cut from the coordinating Snail Dies set in the same catalogue - I often add other dies to the mix, but I didn't need to with this amazing product suite.

I ended up making two more cards from all the pieces I had cut out of the paper! I will leave them for another day - because by the time I took full photos and close up photos I had about 20 photos. I don't think my blog platform will like it if I do a blog post with 20 photos in it! LOL

Anyway, you see how well the Petal Pink goes being used as a base card - kind of a substitute neutral colour on these cards. Feel free to pop back in a couple of days to see the other two cards - they are standard cards, not fancy fold - and I whipped them up in about 10 minutes each just using the leftover pieces. Got to love that!!

I hope you enjoyed looking at my Snail Mail projects, and if you would like to see how the rest of the Art With Heart ladies have used Petal Pink, please hop over to Cathy's blog where she has all the links for their posts.

See you soon with ink on your fingers!

Kathryn Ruddick

Product List

Snail Mail Suite Collection [155986] $121.00	Petal Pink A4 Cardstock [147009] $15.25	Petal Pink Classic Stampin' Pad [147108] $13.00
Snailed It Cling Stamp Set [154472] $33.00	Snail Dies [154327] $52.00	Snail Mail Designer Series Paper [154577] $20.00
Real Red A4 Card Stock [106578] $15.25	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay [131286] $15.25	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad [147084] $13.00

Hi! It’s Kathryn here!

It's been a while since I joined in with the Social Stamping group, but I couldn't resist this month’s theme, as we recently got the exciting news that we are going to be grandparents for the first time early next year!

Gorgeous Kelly is our blog host and you may have arrived here from her blog where she has the full list of participants, or you may be starting here. Either way, welcome! To get back to Kelly’s blog and see the rest of the Baby creations click here.

I think that I am pretty bad at coming up with ideas for masculine cards, but I don’t seem to have troubles with that when we are talking about babies. Stampin’ Up! has such gorgeous pastel colours for traditional or modern baby colour schemes.

I don’t have many baby sets, but I recently got Moving Along, because I know I will use it next year!

This is a two-step stamping set - there are outline stamps and blocks of colour for filling the images. And lots of cute other stamps to create cards with individual images or make full scenes. I think this stamp set would make awesome diorama cards, but today I have just gone for a standard fold card but with lots of layers.

I love how the block stamps fill in the colour on the outline images so nicely. For the image colours I've used Seaside Spray, Mint Macaron and Crumb Cake, and the same for the scallop layers under each of those stitched squares.

For the larger layer underneath I have used Just Jade for the scalloped layer. Notice the gorgeous embossing on the larger white layer? That's the Dainty Diamonds 3D embossing folder which is in the Stampin' Up! annual catalogue.

I'd love you to leave me a comment and let me know what you think, and if you would like to see a list of all the products used, they are right at the bottom of this post. To continue on blog hop and see the rest of the gorgeous creations, please click on the next image below and it will take you to Julia's blog to see what she has made.

See you again soon!

Kathryn Ruddick

(Melbourne, Aus)

Product List

Just Jade Classic Stampin' Pad [153115] $13.00	Mint Macaron Classic Stampin' Pad [147106] $13.00	Seaside Spray Classic Stampin’ Pad [150085] $13.00
Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad [147116] $13.00	Moving Along Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) [152496] $30.00	Just Jade A4 Cardstock [153084] $15.25
Stitched Rectangles Dies [151820] $61.00	Layering Squares Dies [141708] $58.00	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708] $10.00

Card Making Ideas - Alcohol Markers

When the new range of Stampin' Up! Alcohol Markers - Stampin' Blends - came out in November last year, I couldn't wait to get my hands on them and give them a go.

I have a couple of favourite stamp sets for colouring with them, and one of those is Bella and Friends, the cute little puppy set in our Annual catalogue.

How adorable are these cute little guys?

This is a super simple card - the main item requiring more than a a couple of minutes was the colouring which is so therapeutic! 

You can easily see all the Blend combinations available online in my shop by clicking on the thumbnails below.

 Product List

Old Olive Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack [144597] $15.50	Bella & Friends Clear-Mount Stamp Sets [141870] $35.00	Smoky Slate Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack [145058] $15.50
Pumpkin Pie Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack [144599] $15.50	Crumb Cake Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack [144601] $15.50	Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack [144598] $15.50

Have you tried the Stampin' Blends yet? Why not order a couple of different colours today and have a play with colouring your favourite outline stamped images with them?

Hey there papercrafters!

I promised some friends I would add a few details of my latest project here to the blog, so hopefully you can get enough information from it to give this project a try yourself.

My project inspiration came from a gorgeous album I saw on Instagram. You can see it here.

Start with Chipboard for your covers - 3 pieces, front, back and spine.

Connie's album is 9.5 x 9.5 cm. I found chipboard which was 11 x 15.4 cm so I decided my album was going to be 11 x 11 cm so I'd only have to do one cut in each piece with the steel ruler and craft knife. The off-cut of one piece then also became the spine, so there was little wasted.

I selected the piece of designer series paper which was going to form my cover  - I had a stack of 6" x 12" pieces from my team product share - and I laid the chip board pieces on it to see if it would wrap around like when you are covering school books.  It was pretty much the perfect size leaving about a 2cm fold on all four edges, with about 1/2 cm between the pieces to allow the covers to fold in. If you butt each piece of chipboard hard up against the next one the DSP will tear when you try to close the book - you need to leave a gap so it's flexible.

I applied double sided tape all over one side of each piece of chipboard then placed them sticky side down on the DSP. Then fold in the edge pieces, sticking them down as you go exactly if you were covering school books. You can see a bit of what that looks like in the photo below.

Next up was the concertina fold which forms the mechanism of the spine. The pocket pages are each attached to one of these tabs.  I made the tabs 1cm deep and 0.5cm apart.  In effect that meant scoring the Whisper White card at 4cm, 5cm, 6cm, 7cm, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10, 11, 12, 12.5 . . . or at intervals 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm, 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm, 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm etc until you have as many tabs as you need. I could have easily fitted one more in this spine so I had 7 pages, but I was happy having the extra 1cm on each end.

Attach this into the cover with Tombow Mono Liquid Glue or Tear'n'Tape.

I then attached 2 lengths of Poppy Parade ribbon to the inside of each cover and cut 2 squares of Poppy Parade card to cover the make sure the spine mechanism is more strongly attached to the cover. I then added a diagonal DSP pocket to each cover using that gorgeous flocked striped paper from the Santa's Workshop Designer Series Paper pack. It is such heavenly paper!

 Next step is the pages and Oh Happy Day! because I made the album covers 11cms, I could get away with cutting my A4 card stock in half lengthwise so I had two 10.5cm x 29.7cm pieces. I used Garden Green, Poppy Parade, Coastal Cabana, Crushed Curry and Gray Granite.

Score at 10.5cm, and 21.1cm, then trim off the end so you just have a 2-3cm flap for joining the piece in a loop.

The fun part was coming up with the decorating and I knew I wanted to use lots of the cute images from Santa's Workshop DSP and also from the Memories and More card pack.  Rather than trying to plan each page out one at a time, I find it easier to just cut a stack of images and coordinating papers then mix and match them.

Out comes the trusty Big Shot, because guess what!! Yes, the DSP is designed so that the images also fit the set of Santa's Signpost Framelit Dies which in turn matches the stamp set - HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!!

How Awesome is that!! Depending on how you line them up on the platform, you can cut up to 6 images at once!

I used matching pieces of patterned paper from our 6"x 6" Designer Series Paper Stacks - Crushed Curry, Poppy Parade, Coastal Cabana and Garden Green and also added a couple of ovals of Whisper White cut with the Layering Ovals Dies and the Stitched Shaped Framelits.

This shows you just how simple it can be.

Next I selected Memories and More cards to be the basis of the pull out tabs would be hidden inside each of the pocket pages, matched them up with card stock to make them 10cm x 9cm and punched a tab for each one.  I also went back over each page and insert tab to see if there were any glittery die cut stickers in the Memories and More kit that I could add to the each page to embellish it without over-doing it.

With the pages all finished it was time to attach the pockets to the spine of the album. I run a thin bead of Tombow Mono Liquid glue on each side of one tab (one at a time) and slide the pocket page over the tab, centering it vertically in the album, then hold it in place for a minute or so until the glue grabs, before moving on to the next one.

I then let is sit overnight before inserting my pull out tabs into each pocket too.

And Voila!

Last night I created a Facebook Live presentation of the finished album on my Facebook Business page. If you would like to see it, click on the photo below.

All of the products in this project are currently available through my online shop, to shoppers anywhere in Australia.  Click on the thumbnail images below to go straight to the item to order your own, or contact me if you need help. 

Product List

Santa's Workshop 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper [147809] $24.25	Santa's Signpost Framelits Dies [147911] $56.00	Santa's Workshop Memories & More Card Pack [147905] $17.50
Poppy Parade A4 Cardstock [121694] $14.75	Garden Green A4 Card Stock [108605] $14.75	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry [131288] $14.75
Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana [131302] $14.75	Poppy Parade 1/2" (1.3 Cm) Textured Weave Ribbon [147813] $13.00	Gray Granite A4 Cardstock [147008] $14.75

Thanks for reading all this way!! Remember, if you need help with this, check out the video for a closer look, and send me a message if you need more information. Talk soon!

Kathryn

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

As a member of Stampin' Up!'s Global Events Council team, I was delighted to get to play with prior and demonstrate the gorgeous Birthday Memories Suite of products at our demonstrator training day "On Stage" in April. Since then I have taught several classes using these super cute products, and they never fail to give gorgeous results!

Recently, I needed to do a really basic beginners class, and I switched to the Birthday Memories Suite again because it is so versatile for really easy kids card making ideas and projects.

These super simple and very economical cards are simple variations of the cards I showcased at On Stage, and my demonstrator friends will agree when I say how perfect these are to show to someone who is seeing card making, rubber stamping and papercraft for the first time.

Anyone can give these a go and create a fun card!

I don't often have time to participate in online cardmaking challenges, so I was very stoked to realise that my recent card class fitted right in with this week's Global Design Project theme #GDP095 - kids! Thanks Kylie and crew! It's so nice to share the love of our amazing Stampin' Up! products, and be inspired by the talented members of the GDP team and other participants.

If you haven't got your hands on these gorgeous products yet, click on any of the icons below to order today.

Product List

Birthday Delivery Photopolymer Bundle

[145294]

$108.00

Subtles A4 Card Stock

[131285]

$14.00

Crumb Cake A4 Card Stock

[121685]

$14.00

Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad

[126975]

$11.50

Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pad

[126951]

$11.50

Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad

[126966]

$11.50

Got any questions? Contact me!

Kathryn Ruddick

0418 361 931

kathryn@katlodesigns.com