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

[email protected]

Just a really quick post today, to share a rebuild of an old favourite!

When the latest Stampin' Up! annual catalogue came out in June, I think just about every demonstrator pre-ordered Swirly Bird Stamp Set and Thinlets.

I've seen a few variations of this card now, and this is the 4th or 5th one I have made, but it never ceases to be a fun card to make, and to get a great reaction from the recipient.

Welcome Swirly Bird Minnie!

Featuring Flirty Flamingo Designer Series Paper and Ruched Ribbon, Petite Pansy Punch and Bow Builder Punch, this is a fun card to make, and easy to do with the 8-12 year old girls who would probably most love it!

Give it a try today!

Buy Swirly Bird Online Here.

Stampin' Up! Merry Mice Gift Bag of Cards

During the recent school holidays I hosted a class of 10 and 12 year olds who made a cute gift bag with three matching cards inside.

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the cute Designer Series Paper Bag-in-a-box gift bags that my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator in the UK, Caroline Hallet created a great video for.  I have made heaps of them now with all different themes and styles.

For the class, I decided to use up some of last year's Designer Series Paper Christmas patterns - because I hadn't met any of the girls before, and wasn't sure how they would go, and since I had a fair bit of this paper, I could cut extras. I love the size of these bags, because you get 3 bags per 12 x 12" sheet of paper.

We stamped the images just in Black Stazon Ink and added labels in Cherry Cobbler.

Because the class was just for two hours, this is as far as we got, and the girls were instructed they could either colour the images themselves at home, or they could give them as a "Colouring In" gift to a friend.

They liked this idea!

Later on, I came back and coloured mine and sent them photos on their phone.

In keeping with the very simple style of the cards, I limited the colouring to just three colours - Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green and Marina Mist, all applied with Blender Pens.

They really are very sweet, right?

The Merry Mice stamp set is available in Stampin' Up! quality red rubber in the wood mount or clear mount.

You can find it in our online shop buy clicking on the image below.

Don't forget to check out my classes and events for everything that is happening in fourth term, in the lead up to Christmas. The link is at the top of my blog.

See you soon!

Kathryn Ruddick

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So, I DID promise to tell you a bit about where on earth I have been since late March, and why I haven't been on here telling you all about the end of Sale-a-bration, and the end of the Weekly Deals as we know it, and the Retiring Products and end of our 2016 catalogue.

Well, in the lead up to my husband's first full Ironman event, we decided to take a long weekend and head across the ditch to catch up with some family. Since his dad passed, we have felt it more and more important to stay in touch with the New Zealand side of his family and re-connect with his roots.

And the Kiwi's are SO hospitable!

It was very much a flying visit, but I think we caught up with about 30 relatives in under four days!

And we managed to fit in some recreation and inspiration at the same time.

We went with his gorgeous cousin and dear aunt to a garden centre for lunch - and I have to say, I was REALLY, REALLY taken with this beautiful wall art!

How stunning is that? And SO many Stampin' Up! colours in there! I can't wait to make something inspired by it!

After our lunch, we had a wander through the garden centre shop and OMG! Look what the heck I found!

Now, for some reason I seem to have collected a few of those exciting new adult colouring in books, but I've never coloured in any of them, however, this got me really excited! Ha ha! Have you done any colouring yet?

We managed to find a time slot to have a swim in the stunning new Millenium Swimming Pool, which was quite a miracle since every amazing swimmer in New Zealand was there trying to qualify for the Rio Olympics. We also got to see Tony's young cousin play a couple of awe-inspiring water polo matches in the same pool on the Saturday.

We wanted to fit in a long run (for the Ironman training) while we were away, so we headed north to the Orewa Lagoon and did a lap of the lagoon and half a dozen laps of the gorgeous beach, clocking up 23kms in the stunning conditions. If you're ever in the area, the beach is lovely and a walk around the lagoon would be a beautiful way to pass a couple of hours!

When we arrived back in Melbourne, I really wanted to make a thank you card for each of the households who hosted us or went out of their way to catch up with us over that weekend. I had a bit of a search on Pinterest and found some punch art Kiwi cards, which I thought were very cute, so I decided to create a handful of similar ones.

To start with, that's a lot of circle punches, and lots of "eyes" from the Owl Builder Punch.

There's also a little bit of guess work in cutting the beaks from Word Window Punch shapes.

I used the "A World Of Thanks" stamp for the background and the grass image from "Wetlands" stamp set.

Each card was just ever so slightly different, depending on the placement of the eyes and beaks of the kiwis. So much fun and I love how they came up!

I got some lovely response from over the ditch too, so how nice is that - to have ones creations appreciated!

I felt we were no sooner back from Auckland than I headed to Sydney for a long weekend for the Stampin' Up! On Stage event where we had our Product Premiere and new Catalogue Launch. I'll be back to share some of that excitement with you in a day or so!

Kathryn

R.S.V.P. to 0418 361 931

or email [email protected]

During 2014 I was involved in a Mystery Box Swap with a group of my fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrators.

We had a list of projects to make through out the year, and many of us picked a theme to work with. I chose a colour theme - Black & White.

For each months' given projects, I made them mostly using or featuring Black & White. This worked really well because at the start of the year, the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue had a packet of

Designer Series Paper (DSP) called Modern Medley

which was a selection of Very Vanilla and Basic Black prints, and then when we got the new catalogue in July, there was a gorgeous new DSP pack called

Back to Black. 

I'm excited to show you some of the projects I made for the 2014 Mystery Box swap - keep in mind that as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, I generally show you projects containing only products that are current - you can order them now - however, for the Mystery Box project, we were able to use products that were current "At any time" during 2014. So some of the products you see may no longer be available to order.

Boys Will Be Boys Stamp Set

I love the funky retro robot from Boys Will be Boys Stamp set and some of our Designer Series Paper prints are perfect just for adding that cheerful background to really step up quite a simple card.

The Robot is stamped in Momento Black Stazon Ink and coloured with the Blendabilities.

We had to make three kids cards to include in the Mystery Box, and I loved the robot so much, I decided to make another using it. This one had a little more work involved.

Yep! It's MAGIC!! Don't you love it!

I have to say that I admire with the utmost respect any cardmaker who has successfully made one of these magic window cards - as it took me lots of goes and lots of wasted cardstock to get it right! Well done to all you talented ladies who get it right!

My third card in the Black & White for kids was much simpler! A bit of happy heat embossing, and a cheerful colour combo.

Again, the DSP in this case just lends itself to a happy, funky background to make the stamped image pop. Don't be shy to test out those printed papers for the layers of your cards!

I'll be back in a day or two with more Black and White gorgeousness for you!

Happy Stamping!

Kathryn

My Stamp Club ladies asked me to show them how to use the new Stampin' Up! Blendabilites. They are a new product in this year's Annual Catalogue. Have you seen them yet?

I hadn't done much playing with them, so it was great to do a bit of research and plan some projects for the Stamp Club. 

I chose the Life in the Forest stamp set, as the images are quite small and simple - which is good when you have 6-8 ladies all waiting to use the same stamp and the same markers.

We made three cards, all of them inspired by ones I had found on google images and adapted to suit the Blendabilities instead of other methods of colouring.

For this first one we kept the card really simple, stamping the background with Lovely as a Tree stamp set and then just lightly sponging the green and blue. The card which inspired this was watercoloured all over.

We stamped the fox from Life in the Forest direct onto the card and sponged around.

The second one was much the same again, no background stamping, but the same sponging, accessorised with the polaroid framelit from On Film Framelits set and a couple of other finishing touches that added texture and colour, inspired by a card from Maria Willis.

For our third practice run of colouring the fox with the Pumpkin Pie Blendabilities, we really stepped up the card - again inspired by one on Google Images which unfortunately didn't have a legible name on it and I've not been able to find again, but a really lovely card - we all adored how the black layers underneath made the other colours pop.

By this time the Stamp Club ladies had coloured the fox three times for practise and also coloured the trees and the mushroom, so it was a great introduction to the Blendabilities.

This coming Saturday is World Card Making Day and I will be having a casual stamping get together in my stamping room from 11 until 3 (finishing at 3pm sharp).  If you've not coloured with the Blendabilities before, come along and give it a go.  I am also planning on trying out a couple of techniques I've not done for a while, including Brick Wall and Faux Tiles.  Let me know if you can come along.

World Card Making Day specials - from 1st to 6th October, Stampin' Up! are offering some discounted items, including ink pads, A4 card stock, some envelopes, Fast Fuse and refill and several stamp sets. Pop back tomorrow to see the full list and the link to my online store.

Catch you soon!

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Button Buddies - more old favourites!

Welcome to our final ESAD blog hop for the 2013-2014 Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogue, especially if you are coming to me from Andrea Buckland's blog - welcome.

These retiring products have been among our favourites, so we thought we’d give them another good bash before they are no longer available for sale.

Which retiring products am I going to miss?

I've picked out three of my favourites from the last catalogue year - Betsy’s Blossoms Stamp Set, Bug Me Stamp Set and the really gorgeous Simply Fabulous Simply Sent Kit.

But, before I show you more of my Bug Me Betsy Blossom Cards, you may be wondering :

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.

I've had these little frames in my collection for a while and decided to fill them up with cheerfulness - I've loved Bug Me and Betsy's Blossoms stamp sets and will be keeping them in my stash as they are so useful and cute!

Can you imagine these grouped on a nursery wall?

Or even without the frames, they'd make a super cute pack of note cards for someone special.

If you've left me a comment and are ready to continue on the blog hop, click on her name here to go to Sally William's blog now.

Here's the list of participants in the blog hop. If you get lost or disconnected, you can always come back here and copy the next persons link in to your browser.

1.  Narelle Hoggard

www.handmadebynarelle.wordpress.com

2.  Emily Campbell

www.tinykiwicards.blogspot.co.nz

3.  Kelli Gordon

www.kelliskards.blogspot.com.au

4.  Kelly Kent

www.mypapercraftjourney.com

5.  Andrea Buckland

www.creatingcardswithandrea.blogspot.com

6.  Kathryn Ruddick - YOU ARE HERE

www.katlodesigns.com

7.  Sally Williams

www.sallystampingdelights.blogspot.co.nz

8.  Keryn Campbell

www.kerynscards.com

9.  Yvonne Walker

www.yvonnescreativecorner.blogspot.com

10.  Richelle Fletcher

www.stampingwithrichelle.blogspot.com

11.  Teresa Leggo

www.teresascreativecards.blogspot.com

12.  Clare Mcilhatton

www.crafty-cow.com

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