Hello & welcome to my blog,
My name is Alison & I live in beautiful Melbourne, Australia. For those of you who have previously visited my blog & are now returning, thank you. For those of you who are here for the first time, welcome!
Here's a little bit about me. I love creating cards & gifts for my loved ones & this blog will show you how to create something special for those you love. I blog twice a week, once on a Sunday where I mainly showcase a stamp set or dies, embossing folders, projects & sometimes special DSP and Wednesday evenings when I highlight a technique, fun folds or tools & tips. I would love to hear from you if you have any questions or suggestions & my email address for that is craftedbyalison@gmail.com.
This week has been a busy week for me as I have been prepping for 2 World Card Making day events!
The first one was yesterday on World Card Making day itself which was a free event hosted by Stampin' Up®. They shared 5 cards created with their new Ephemera packs as well as a cards & envelopes pack as well as a sneak peek at some additional cards that could be made with more of the Ephemera packs. These will be shared later in this post as well as my Midweek blog on Wednesday. It was fun to follow along & a very quick & easy process.
As this post goes to air I will have been creating for around 4 hours with the Online Stampin' Retreat hosted by Lisa Curcion & Gina Curcio-Hawley from America as well as Kylie & Bruno Bertucci from Australia. The team have held 2 or 3 events each year since 2022 & I have attended each one, learning lots of new fun folds & techniques & boosting my creative confidence. You will see some of this in future blogs. During this retreat I will have to leave to attend an open day at a wedding venue with my daughter & her fiance as she had clearance from her surgeon as there are no further surgeries needed at this stage & can move on with her wedding plans. Exciting times in our family right now! Looking forward to helping them plan their wedding for mid year next year. 😍
But first of all, lets get on with this post...
Stampin' Up® launched their new Annual Catalogue in May & it's a beauty! It's set out quite differently to previous catalogues but there are benefits to that. They now have sectioned it to have beginners, which is a step by step collection of materials in kits, then there is quick & easy where you select base materials & packs of pre-printed or diecut materials plus some stamp sets then there is create your way where you choose all the materials, stamps etc yourself & create your way! In the quick & easy section Stampin' Up® have also provided some inspiration with a colour wheel & information of various ways to use colour combinations. There is a section explaining 4 different ways to vary your colours - Monochromatic, Complementary, Analogous & Triadic. It's a wonderful tool to help with creativity & I shared my first post using it in my midweek blog of 29/5/24 & also in my midweek blog of 24/7/24 but it's not what this week's post is about, that is something I will explore more in future blogs.
This week I am CASEing some projects from the Annual catalogue. CASEing is when you Copy And Share Everything from some work you have seen. It's a great way to create when you need some inspiration or just have to make the project yourself. I have chosen two cards from the Thoughtful Journey suite which includes Thoughtful Wishes stamps & dies, Thoughtful Designs specialty DSP, Thoughtful journey DSP & the pretty Adhesive Backed Pearl trio. Here are the cards from the catalogue...
... and here are the two cards I created based on the scenic card at the top right & the square card at the bottom right...
My creations are based on the ones in the catalogue but I tweaked a few things to 'make them my own'. Here's how...
For the scenic card I used a Copper Clay 15cm x 15cm square base. I kept the cut out edge, the white heat embossed images & raised it on dimensionals as per the original but used the larger Copper Clay base as I wanted to keep as much of the beautiful scenery of the paper as I could. As I played around with the design I also fussy cut the slightly larger, base layer of DSP.
As you can see in the photos above, there is some tone on tone stamping of the reedy image & the white heat embossed images tie in with the images of the DSP.
The sentiment is stamped in Night of Navy directly onto the DSP & the only extra thing added are a few Basic Gray & Smoky Slate Pearls.
As I like to decorate the inside of the card & envelopes, I stamped on the insert with Whisper White ink, adding clear embossing powder so that it appears that there is a watermark.
The second card has a Pretty Peacock base with a DSP matte then a layer of Very Vanilla, embossed with the Twigs & Sprigs embossing folder. I then used one of the Thoughtful Wishes dies & more of the Thoughtful Journey DSP to create a pretty detail behind the sentiment.
For the sentiment I went a little left field by using one of the new Christmas Labels dies as the base with a gold heat embossed sentiment from the Thoughtful Wishes stamp set.
The leafy image was heat embossed in gold before adding a little Pretty Peacock & Wild Wheat with a water painter. This gives a lovely soft finish to the colours.
The final addition was a few Pretty Peacock Foiled gems.
That's all I have for you this week. Now I'd like to share some of the latest news from Stampin' Up®.
Stampin' Up® has a number of ways to purchase their lovely products. You can look through their physical catalogue or browse through the catalogues online but there are also some products that are only available exclusively online that don't appear in any catalogues. These products are called the Online Exclusives & are only available under the Online Exclusives section of the Stampin' Up® shop. Check out the online exclusives in
my online store. Stampin' Up® adds more product items to the online shop so don't forget to keep checking the store to see what's new. There are some lovely new products now available including kits, embellishments, stamps, dies & embossing folders. Something for everyone! If you would like a copy of the catalogue please send me a message at craftedbyalison@gmail.com or on my Facebook page, craftedbyalison.
NEWS & REMINDERS:
- Stampin' Up®'s newAnnual Catalogue is a beautiful piece of artwork as well as an amazing resource for crafting. As mentioned before, it's very different to any other catalogue that I've seen from Stampin' Up®. They have changed the front cover from featuring cards or supplies to a casual stamping picture as well as a radical change to the layout of the contents. There are still lots of beautiful pics of the products & ideas aplenty, it's just set out differently. I think you'll love it. If you would like a copy of the new catalogue then send me a message at craftedbyalison on Facebook or email me at craftedbyalison@gmail.com & I'll send you one.
- The brand new Mini catalogue was launched on 4th September! There are lots of gorgeous items ready to inspire your creativity. If you would like me to send you a copy, send me a message on my facebook page or email me.
- Some of you may know that Stampin' Up® purchased a quantity of scrapbooking materials when Close To My Heart folded. They have taken on any CTMH demonstrators that wanted to cross over & have slowly been including scrapbooking products into our supplies. They now have a dedicated digital mini catalogue, exclusively devoted to scrapbooking products available here at my online shop. There are a number of kits available if you'd like to start your scrapbooking journey or if you already scrap then check the kits out!
- Stampin' Up® are having a sale on their kits for the month of October with up to 30% off!
If you would like to take advantage of this offer then click
here to visit my online store.
5. Don't forget the Online Exclusive products with new products added and available now Check out my online shop here. Stampin' Up® have also released a whole lot of new items at the beginning of July. As a demonstrator I was able to order in a pre-release which is a great perk of being a demonstrator. 6. For 3 days only, from 5th October to 7th October, Stampin' Up® are having a 15%off sale of their stamps. Click here to browse all of the stamps in my online store.
Stampin' Up® have a great range of Kits including crafting, card making & gift giving. Click here to check them all out in my online shop. As Stampin' Up® have so many beautiful kits available I will be featuring a different kit in each blog so that you can see the range.
This week's featured kit is a little different. It's a journalling kit to share photos, memorabilia or thoughts that you want to record for posterity. It includes a notebook, ephemera, black & gold stickers & plenty of adhesives as well as instructions.
Here's how Stampin' Up® describes the kit...
Record memories and worthwhile moments with the A Look Back Kit! This kit includes a variety of precut paper pieces, stickers, paper pockets, and other ephemera for you to decorate the spiral-bound notebook. With bright colours, gold details, and fun plant and graphic designs, this kit is perfect for memory keeping, journaling, and more.
If you feel that you'd like to add this to your list then click
here to purchase one from my online store.
A lot of demonstrators use the special Host Code for their customers but I'm trying it this year as a new idea to see if this is what you, my customers would like to use. If you
shop with me then don't forget to use this month's host code
MJ6GQ4GS. This will allow me to pass on any hostess benefits to customers when the sales reach the required qualifying amount.
Lastly, there have been lots of great items added to the clearance rack so make sure you check them out using
this link to my online store.
If you would like to purchase any of my creations that I feature in my blogs they can be found in my FaceBook shop at craftedbyalison or you can order something unique.
If you would like me to send you a copy of the current Annual catalogue then please message me via my FaceBook page, Crafted by Alison or send me an email at craftedbyalison@gmail.com.
My next blog is on Wednesday and I will be sharing the second post on how to use the stunning Enamel Effects liquid on your projects. In Sunday's blog I will be sharing creations made with the Spotlight on Nature stamp set.
I'm really looking forward to sharing these creations with you & hope you can join me for both the Mid week & Sunday blogs.
Well, that's it for another week. I hope you enjoyed this post & come back for more next week. Til next time, take care & keep creating! XX Alison.
Here are some links to the products I used today & some craft room essentials.
Stamps, Dies, Embossing folders & punches
Cardstock, DSP & paper goods
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