Vellum and Embossing

Do you use vellum cardstock? Do you emboss it at all? I think doing this is my new favourite technique :) I have had the pleasure of making a few wedding cards lately and have been embossing on vellum for elements in each one I have made. Will I ever recover? Lol!

Here's a sneak peek at some wedding cards I  made:

If you want to see more, you can at PaperCraftCentral.com! And of course, if you see some supplies you would like, just place an order on SusanSalutations.

Happy crafting!

My Digital Studio (MDS)

I am a hands on papercrafter. Or I thought I was. Now My Digital Studio (MDS) has come out, there are so many new and cute projects being made by savvy digi scrappers I just had to try it! You can make so much more than scrapbook pages with it. You can make cards, elements to cut out and use any way you want, 3d papercraft items, banners, cupcake flags, invitations, and more!

And if you DO make scrapbook pages, you can have them printed at places like Harvey Norman's.

Here's a little video to inspire you to try the free download, or purchase the program outright.

• MDS software: It's easy enough for beginners, but includes a variety of tools for advanced designers too. Anyone can try it FREE for 30 days! You can download it straight from my store (item 130910).  
• Downloads: Check the store every week for new artwork to build up your digital library. 
• Print Products: You  can choose from a wide variety of high-quality print products (not available in all markets).  
• MyDigitalStudio.net: Check out our online community with forums to answer questions, videos to train techniques, and regular blog posts to provide inspiration and the latest product line information.

Let me know when you start making things with MDS!

Explosion Box Album

I went to a class this week (yes, I attend classes when I get a chance too!) run by a fellow demonstrator. Lesley had made some lovely kits up for us to make and complete an Explosion Box Album, all in a few hours. I had made these pretty little boxes before but had never filled one completely with photos. Do you know, I could fit 24 pictures in it and on it? And I wound up with such a beautiful, decorative item that I now have on display in my living room. It's a great reminder of our trip to Thailand, so easy to show guests and visitors :) Thanks, Lesley! It was a lot of fun. (We girls got a lot of talking done too! Lol!)

If you want to make and Explosion Box album of your own, I have some instructions for you on PaperCraftCentral, or you can contact me for a kit. Remember, all the supplies you need are available for purchase at SusanSalutations.

More About Colour Refresh - Spoiler Alert!

Stampin' Up! is going to change out their colours! Here's what they say:

Announcing our Colour Refresh! We love colour and we know that you do too. Colour is fundamental to who we are and what we offer. It's important for us to stay up-to-date with colour trends so we are thrilled to share our updated line of colours, and hope you will be as excited as we are by the new possibilities!
Why now? In 2010 we did a big colour renovation and shared our plans for smaller colour refreshes every three to five years to keep our colours on trend. Well it has been three years and we are excited to announce that the upcoming 2013-2014 annual catalogue will include 10 new colours (most of which are returning In Colors from previous years)! We are welcoming back some of your favourites, moving some colours around, and introducing three brand-new colours, so take a look!

Beginning on 4 April 2013, all retiring/discontinued colour products (i.e. ink, paper, ribbon, accessories, etc.) will be available only while supplies last so get your favourites before they run out!Just go to SusanSalutations and place your order today.

Here's how the new colours will look in June:

PS: Yes, it can be sad to farewell a favourite colour, but I am looking forward to the exciting colours coming in the 2013-2014 annual catalogue too :)
 

Sewing on Papercraft Projects

Do you ever sew on your paper projects? Faux stitching is great for adding quick accents (you can see some great paper piercing templates and paper piercing equipment on page 181 of the main Stampin' Up! catalogue) but sometimes I just want to stitch around a whole layout! I really like having a sewing machine for that. I am fortunate that I have an older sewing machine that I reserve just for such times :)

Do you sew? If not, why not? Lol!Here's a layout I where I doubles stitched a wavy border around the main stripey mat (this photo brings back so many good memories too!):

If you like this look and do not yet have a machine, you might like to look at some of the best sewing machines for beginners at my friend's new website. You might find other things you will like there, too.

Happy stitching!

Oh Hello

I had a little time this afternoon so made up a thank you card for a man. I used the Oh Hello stamp set  and Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede and Pacific Point inks on Very Vanilla cardstock. The arrow shape is coloured with some of my Many Marvelous Markers. I hand cut the arrow shape but punched out the clear heat embossed sentiment with the Decorative Label punch. The dp is International Bazaar and the ribbon is Daffodil Delight too. I hope the three little rhinestones don't make it less masculine! Oh and I also coloured the arrow again and stamped it on the envelope to match the card.

Supply List (can be ordered from my SusanSalutations website)

Oh Hello Stamp Set 130733 clear block, 130730 wood mount
Decorative Label punch  120907
 International Bazaar designer series paper 126920
 Daffodil Delight 1/4" (6.4mm) stitched grosgrain ribbon 126872
 Basic Jewel Rhinestones 119246
Daffodil Delight inkpad 126944
Pacific Point inkpad 126951
Soft Suede inkpad 126978
Very Vanilla cardstock 106549
Clear embossing powder 109130
Many Marvelous Markers 119806

New things from Stampin' Up!

Stampin' Up! has been putting out so many new things lately! I like the new way they will batch their colour families, for instance, and the new colours coming out soon (in the new catalogue die to be released in June). Some colours are retiring so make sure you order some of your favourite ones before they disappear.

I LOVE the new storage box ideas for wooden stamps. But you can use them for so much more! Here's a little video showing some ideas for using them:

  You can order directly from my site now, by the way. That is yet another innovation by Stampin' Up! Just go to any page on SusanSalutations and click on the 'Shop Now' tab at the upper right of the page.
  Have fun and happy crafting!

Cards for Troops 2013!

Aren't these snowmen cute? I made them with Stampin' Up! Circle punches and Stampin' Write markers. There's some felted acrylic behind them for texture and to add to the 3d effect.

I gave this card to one of my sweet girlfriends for Christmas.

Christmas? Did you see me type Christmas? Yes! You did! And it's only April! Why would I do that?

Well, it's because my annual Cards for Troops drive has started again :) That means anyone who wants to cheer our Troops on deployment overseas where they cannot buy seasonal greetings for their family and friends can start making cards to send to them. I'd love you to join in too. There are lots more details about how to do this on PaperCraftCentral.com so let me encourage you to go on over and find out more.

Happy card making!
PS: A huge thank you to everyone who has helped with the Cards for Troops drive in the past ♥

The Open Sea

My niece is getting married in May! I am so happy for her. She sent me the cutest wedding invitation. It was a message in a bottle, partly filled with sand and exquisite little shells, then the invitation was rolled up and tied with raffia. The raffia was long enough to come out of the top of the bottle and be captured by the cork, so I could just haul out my invitation. It was all mailed in a sturdy mailing tube so arrive absolutely intact. Clever girl :) It's going to be a beach wedding.       

   

I just had to make a reply card that matched my niece's seascape theme. The Open Sea stamp set seemed perfect for the job.  She had chosen sand colours so I got our my Very Vanilla cardstock, and some Crumb Cake cardstock too. I embossed the background piece then mounted my stamped, sponged and heat embossed image on top. The owl punch made some cute little hearts to add, and I tied a piece of Crumb Cake netting with some gold cord and added a little bronzed fan accent.

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Hope you have a fabulous day, sweet niece :) xxx

Chalkboard technique

I've been seeing this technique all over the 'net so was delighted when a friend's class (thank you. Lesley!) focused on this technique. Here are a couple of cards we produced at Lesley's class. She had set up the stamps on a large acrylic block first. We used our embossing buddies to swipe the black cardstock first and give it a 'just erased chalkboard' feel. Then we stamped and embossed in white. I drew lines around my image in white gel pen, then we mounted the image on Stampin' Dimensionals, on Island Indigo cardstock and Sycamore Street designer paper, before tying a bow in Island Indigo ribbon. Cute, cute, cute!

Baby Bundle Fun

This week I got to play with my punches again :) I love punch art. Maybe you noticed? I seem to have a 'run' of paper punch projects at times. This time I made baby cards for a swap I joined. The brief was to make baby cards without using blue or pink, and you had to include a handmade embellishment. Enter, punches! Lol!

This little baby in a carriage was made with different sized circle punches, a border punch, some Baby Bundle stamps, ribbon and brads. I hand drew the little face. The carriage is popped up on Stampin' Dimensionals and in real life, the Lucky Limeade and Always Artichoke colours were brighter. That's Daffodil Delight ribbon, so I really need to work on how to balance my photos!

Hmm. That may be why I signed up for a photography course starting this weekend :) Hope I can improve my photo quality. Stay tuned!!

Liebster Award

How sweet is this? Vicki Hodgeman of Cards on the Table gave me the Liebster Award:

Wasn't that nice of her? Thank you, Vicki.

As part of "spreading the love" I now have to award this to 5 other blogs.
So here they are in no particular order:

1. Shirley
2. Alz
3. Frenchie
4. Melissa
5. Shanni

Do go see what these girls can do with paper :)

I'll be back with another project for you soon too.

Tea Shoppe Birthday

It is raining hard here again today so instead of taking a car trip like we planned, we stayed home to avoid the flooded roads. I thought about cleaning the house but guess what I wound up doing instead? Yep, crafting! Woo hoo!

I have a friend who is having a birthday in a few days (Shh! She isn't a crafter so I am pretty sure she won't check this blog, but you never know! Lol!)  and we have spent many enjoyable times together over a cup of tea. When I saw that Stampin' Up! has cute little Tea Time Trinkets in the new Feb - June seasonal catalogue, I just had to have some to make a card for her. They come with cute little lobster clips and split rings for you to thread on your favourite trinket. I chose the tea pot in this case but there are a couple of mugs and a teacup and saucer to choose from as well :) AND they go beautifully with the Tea Shoppe stamp set!

How cute are they!!!

This card was made with a Very Vanilla  card base.

See how shiny the main tea cup image is? It has been heat embossed with gold embossing powder, then cut out and popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I used the Vine Street embossing folder (from this year's Sale-A-Bration) to make the oval background out of More Mustard cardstock. I cut that out with my oval framelets using my Big Shot.

There's Summer Starfruit stitched ribbon wrapped around the bottom of the oval and I used Chocolate Chip  Baker's Twine to add the charm, finishing with a little tied bow.

I mounted the oval on a piece of designer series paper from the Spice Cake series, on Very Vanilla and then on Old Olive cardstock.

I made the background by stamping an En Francaise image in Soft Suede on Very Vanilla cardstock, then popped that up on the Very Vanilla card base.

At the last minute I added the sentiment (also from Tea Shoppe and stamped in Old Olive and Soft Suede), a quilled yellow daisy and some Pearls. Oops! I see the little tea pot has flipped over in this photo! Sorry about that! My friend will be able to detach her tea pot charm from the card and use it as a phone dangle or to adorn any other item she so chooses. Or she can just leave it on the card.

I embossed a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock with the Tulip Frame embossing folder for the inside of the card, and stamped Happy Birthday inside the frame with the retired Well Scripted stamp set. Then I adhered it to the inside of the card and wrote a special message to my friend on it (which is why there's no photo - forgot to take one before writing the personal stuff! Sorry!) The extra piece of cardstock helped to balance the weight of the card out since I already had a few layers on the front there.

I really like how cute this card turned out. I can't wait to give it to my friend!

Coordinating Co'ordinations

Did you know that Stampin' Up! now has Co'ordinations cardstock in some of their own colours?? They do! Lol! I found a video made by Shannon today that explains a little abotu the cardstock and tools you can get from Stampin' Up! and shows a couple of cute projects to try with them. Here it is:



As always, let me know if you would like to place an order for any of the Stampin' Up! products, and do remember that theSale-A-Bration special is still alive and well too, enabling you to earn FREE products!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The other little project we made at February Craft Class was a cute Valentine's heart full of Hershey Kisses! I'm about to give this one to my hubby.

I got the design from QBee's Quest blog. Thanks so much for your instructions, Brenda!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone xxx

Swallowtails and Valentines...

Yesterday we had such a great time getting together to stamp and craft, eat and chat! I missed seeing everyone :) Glad we have another event planned for next month already!!

We made two projects yesterday while we were enjoying each others' company. One was a card using the beautiful new Swallowtail stamp. Man, is that stamp BIG! A normal sized card front is too small for it, but if you stamp it on the entire cardfront before you fold it, you get a lovely result. Here's one photo showing how it was used. The background stamps are from the French Foliage stamp set and all images are in Crumb Cake. This is the way Shirley decided to leave her card as it was so beautiful:

The rest of us then stamped half a butterfly on another piece of Ivory cardstock and embossed it in gold.We sponged Cajun Craze and More Mustard inks on the wing and cut the image out. Then we mounted the wing over the stamped one on the card front only. Here's Rachel's beautiful card:

Isn't it gorgeous??

We finished our cards off by dyeing a single rose in some water with some More Mustard reinkers, sponging the dried rose with Cajun Craze, and stamping and embossing a sentiment in black from the Bloomin' Marvelous stamp set (from the Sale-A-Bration cataloge). We added a Cajun Craze punched oval to the sentiment along with some leaves from the Bird punch in Old Olive. 

Some of us also used more stamps from the Bloomin' Marvelous set to finish the inside of our cards:

You can see more on PaperCraftCentral's Facebook page.

Oops is that the time? Must rush for now! Will be back another time with our Valentine project :)

Craft Class Day - Reverse Masking for You

Today I am having some girlfriends over for a craft class. I can't wait! We always have a special morning tea, coffee and tea galore, lots of catching up with each other's news, and what else? Oh yeah - we stamp and craft! Lol! I have a butterfly card ready to go and also a little Valentine heart favour. I'll be back to show you what we made after this morning's class.

In the meantime, Stampin' Up! has a nice new technique video out called Reverse Masking. I think it has lots of possibilities. If you have not tried it before, please do enjoy this little sample video :)



We're using the big, new Swallowtail stamp today, among others. And I have a new coffee maker!! Today is going to be good. See you later!

New Score Plate!

Have you seen the new Simply Scored Plate and overlay Stampin' Up! has brought out? I am going to put it on my very next order :) I love that it will be something I can use for cards, boxes, and 12" x 12" scrapbook pages.

I already have the Simply Scored Scoring Tool and Diagonal plate, which I use all the time. This new plate adds in nicely with my suite of scoring tools. What a great thing to have so many crafting options, all at once!

Here's a little video showing some of the ways the new Scoring plate and overlay can be used, and there will be so many more fun things to discover about it!



If you want to have one of these or the Simply Scored Scoring tool or Diagonal plate in your own toolkit, let me know. I can arrange an order for any Australian resident :) Here are the product codes and costs:

126192 Simply Scored plate and overlay $25.95
122334 Simply Scored Scoring Tool $49.95
125586 Simply Scored Diagonal Plate $20.95

Sale-A-Bration

Sale-A-Bration starts tomorrow! When tomorrow comes (22nd January) you can see all the Sale-A-Bration specials on my Promotions page. For every $100 you spend during the Sale-A-Bration period, you get to choose a FREE product :) One of the things i like about being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator is that I get to order new products and play with them before they go on sale. I therefore made an order and earned the Pretty Petites and the Petite Label Punch right away! Then I got to playing with it and made a small birthday card for my son-in-law. I combined my Petite images and punches with some Clockworks images (page 105 in the Idea Book and Catalogue)on the background and on the envelope too. I used Bashful Blue, Old Olive and Chocolate Chip on the card, plus a few sparkly rhinestones and some Old Olive satin ribbon. I decided to spend some time sponging the edges of things. Then I mounted it on copper metallic cardstock. :)

Happy Birthday, son-in-law!

Make Some Rosebuds!

Do you like to make your own paper flowers? I do. I found a way to make folded paper rosebuds and leaves with just a little cardstock and designer series paper. I love how I can tailor my flowers to the size, colours and patterns I want! I thought I would share how i make these with a short video. Let me know if you decide to make these and have any questions about the instructions. Oh, and I used my phone to film this. Hope it is OK: If you want the supply list or written instructions and a few still pictures, you can find them on this PaperCraftCentral page. Happy flower making!