CALYPSO CORAL SECRET GARDEN - #2 IN THE SERIES

The other night when I had my first play with the new Calypso Coral Blendabilities, from Stampin' Up!, I coloured several flowers from the Secret Garden stamp set.

Here's a card I made, after stamping the gorgeous flowers onto a die cut piece I had lying around on my desk.  I've used Crystal Effects in the flower centres, and love how it gives depth to the ink colour.

Stamps: Secret Garden, Bring On the Cake

Card: Crumb Cake, Whisper White

DSP: Calypso Coral Designer Series Paper

Ink: Memento Black inkpad, Crumb Cake stampin' pad, Calypso Coral Blendabilities

Other: Subtles Candy Dots, Apothecary Accents framelits, Beautiful Wings embosslits, 7/16" Natural Trim, Basic Pearls, Crystal Effects, Sponge Dauber, Essentials Paper-Piercing pack

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately,  the Secret Garden stamps and framelits, and Bring On the Cake stamp set, are all retiring at the end of this month.  If you want to check out the retiring products, and perhaps even grab yourself a bargain, please visit my online store.

 

 

 

 



STAMPIN' UP! SECRET GARDEN IN CALYPSO CORAL

I recently attended Stampin' Up!'s fabulous Inspire.Create.Share.2014 event in Melbourne; as always, our annual Convention was A-MA-ZING. I was lucky enough, along with about 690 others, to receive some of the new Blendabilities alcohol markers!!  We received a pack of the Calypso Coral Blendabilities, along with a gorgeous stamp, as an all-attendee giveaway.   LOVE Stampin' Up!'s generosity.  As a result of this gesture on their part, it's entirely possible that the Australian/New Zealand blog world, of Stampin' Up! demonstrators, will in coming weeks be saturated with images coloured in Calypso Coral!  I have new colours on the way, so will try to mix it up a bit.

I'm a bit sad to see the lovely Secret Garden stamp set and framelits on the Retired List this year; they are available to buy only until the end of this month.  Our new catalogue, which launches 1st July, does however have a new, gorgeous, floral stamp set and matching framelits, so I won't be bereft for long!

One of my FAVOURITE things about now having alcohol-based markers in our range, is that I'll be able to custom-colour rhinestones, pearls, buttons, and other embellishments.  Check out how pretty these rhinestones look, coloured with the darkest of the three markers in the Calypso Coral Blendabilities pack:

I used the Blendabilities to colour both the flowers and the rhinestones.  Here's my card, in its entirety:

 

Stamps: Secret Garden, Blooming With Kindness

Card: Calypso Coral, Whisper White

DSP: Epic Day This & That Designer Series Paper

Ink: Memento Black inkpad, Calypso Coral and Basic Gray stampin' pads, Calypso Coral Blendabilities

Other: Adorning Accents Edgelits and embossing folder, Chalk Talk framelits, Secret Garden framelits, Delicate Details Lace Tape, Epic Day This & That washi tape, Calypso Coral baker's twine, Basic Gray stitched grosgrain ribbon, Basic Rhinestones, sponge dauber, Neutrals button (retired), glue dots

 

 

 

 

STAMPIN' UP! SECRET GARDEN FOR SUO #95

There's a new challenge up at SUO Challenges, and it's "featuring flowers".  It is a bit hard to narrow down the choices, when it comes to floral offerings from Stampin' Up!  I do, however, love flower stamps that have matching framelits, so I have used the Secret Garden bundle for this challenge.

 When making this card for my dear friend, I drew inspiration from a card (I'd seen a while ago) made by Jodi Collins.  Now that I've gone back to Jodi's blog, I can't for the life of me find the card that sparked this idea, but I feel I need to give her some credit!

Stamps: Secret Garden, Petite Pairs

Card: Wisteria Wonder, Whisper White

DSP: Naturals Composition Specialty Designer Series Paper

Ink: Wisteria Wonder and Pear Pizzazz stampin' pads, Jet Black Staz-On inkpad

Other: Secret Garden framelits, Neutrals and Subtles Candy Dots, Blender pen, Wisteria Wonder chevron ribbon, Tea Lace paper doilies, glue dots

 

 

 



STAMPIN' UP! SECRET GARDEN BIRTHDAY

It's my mother-in-law's birthday today, so I thought I'd share with you the card I made her.  I try to incorporate yellow flowers on her birthday cards, as they're her favourites.

I white-embossed three gorgeous blooms from the Secret Garden stamp set, on vellum.  There's a matching framelits die to make cutting out of the flowers a breeze.  Using sponge daubers, I coloured the reverse side of the flowers with Daffodil Delight and Crushed Curry ink.  Such a pretty way to colour vellum flowers; I was inspired by the always-beautiful creations of my friend Nikki.

Stamps: Secret Garden, Label Something

Card: Strawberry Slush, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Basic Black and Vellum cardstock

DSP: Quatrefancy Specialty Designer Series Paper

Ink: Strawberry Slush, Daffodil Delight and Crushed Curry stampin' pads, Versamark inkpad

Other: White stampin' emboss powder, Secret Garden framelits, Artisan label punch, Modern Mosaic embossing folder, Strawberry Slush stretch ruffle trim, Brights, Subtles and Neutrals buttons, Bird Builder punch (foliage), sponge daubers, glue dots

 

 



JAI #200: STAMPIN' UP! SECRET GARDEN

Take a look at this gorgeous inspiration pic that Nikki has provided for our challenge at Just Add Ink this week:

... and here's my sunshiney yellow "thank you" card inspired by the photo:

Stamps: Secret Garden, A Fitting Occasion

Card: Wild Wasabi, Whisper White

Ink: Daffodil Delight, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz, Always Artichoke and Crumb Cake stampin' pads

Other: Secret Garden framelits, Daffodil Delight seam binding, Stripes embossing folder, Brights candy dots, sponge dauber, 1" Circle punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Flower Pot die (not SU!)

 

 

The rest of the Just Add Ink Design Team have come up with some amazing creations based on the inspiration pic - please visit the JAI site, and take a look!  We'd love to have you play along with us.

 

 



STAMPIN' UP! SECRET GARDEN FOR JAI #190

This week's Just Add Ink challenge, courtesy of Tina, is to "Just Add Masking" to your card or other papercraft project.  A popular masking technique used in stamping, is to stamp an image on card, and stamp it again on a sticky note.  Cut the image out (right on the stamped outline) of the sticky note and place it on top of the one you stamped on your card.  This allows you to ink up your stamp, and stamp it again, partially over the original image ... you lift the sticky note, and it looks like the second image is set behind the original one.  I hope this makes sense!

As soon as I saw this photo, of a beautifully dressed Maggie Beer, in the current Australian Women's Weekly, I knew what colours I wanted to use on my card:

I inked up one of the lovely large flowers from Stampin' Up!'s Secret Garden stamp set, using Tangerine Tango ink.  I covered the first flower with a sticky note 'mask', and stamped it again slightly offset to the right.  I made another sticky note 'mask' so that two of my flowers could be masked off at the same time, allowing me to stamp a third 'behind' them.  While the flower masks were in place, I stamped some foliage in Basic Gray ink.  To add a bit of bold detail, I inked up a smaller, solid, flower and stamped it over the top of each line image flower.  A Basic Gray candy dot finished off each flower.

Stamps: Secret Garden, Four You

Card: Basic Gray textured, Tangerine Tango textured, Whisper White, Silver Glimmer Paper

Ink: Tangerine Tango and Basic Gray stampin' pads, Versamark inkpad, Smoky Slate stampin' pad

Other: Tangerine Tango stampin' emboss powder (sentiment), Stamp-a-ma-jig, Neutrals Candy Dots, Beautiful Wings embosslits die, sponge dauber, Squares Collection framelits

 

 

This card ended up being 15cm square, and I was able to make a lovely co-ordinating envelope (using Tangerine Tango paper from the Sweater Weather Designer Series Paper pack), with my new Envelope Punch Board.  LOVE that tool!

 

 

Make sure you check out the other examples of  "masking", from the very talented Just Add Ink Design Team.  We hope you'll join in the fun this week!

 

 

 



FUSION #1: STAMPIN' UP!'s SECRET GARDEN ... AND MORE *BRIGHT* FLOWERS

**This is my second post for today - please scroll down to see my latest "Sent With Love" post.  Thank you! **

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There is a brand new card challenge blog on the block - it's called Fusion, and here's the first challenge:

 

Whenever there's the option of doing one challenge or the other, I feel compelled to combine them both .... so my card's all about the chevrons, and bright flowers.  It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but the Basic Black panel has been embossed with my Chevron embossing folder (you can see that in the close-up photo below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stamps: Secret Garden, Confetti, Itty Bitty Bits, Sweet Essentials

Card: Crumb Cake, Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Basic Black, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie

Ink: Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight and Pumpkin Pie stampin' pads, Jet Black Staz-On inkpad

Other: Secret Garden framelits, Boho Blossoms punch, Itty Bitty shapes punch, Neutrals brads, Chevron embossing folder, Basic Black Scallop Dots ribbon, sponge daubers, Brights button, White baker's twine, Basic Rhinestones, Bitty Banners framelits, stampin' dimensionals, multipurpose liquid glue

 

 

 

 

 

 



STAMPIN' UP!'S "SECRET GARDEN" FOR S.A. #4

This week stilladdINKtive challenges has a beautiful colour combination, and a sketch challenge - you may use either, or both, and I've chosen to use both.  Here they are:

My first thought was to try to think 'outside the box', and not use florals .... but, I opened up my new Secret Garden stamp set and framelits bundle from Stampin' Up!, and couldn't resist.  So much fun, having framelits to perfectly match stamped designs.

I have used three of the flowers from the stamp set.  I created a patterned background on the top half of the oval using one of the outline flower images;  the larger flower was embossed in Early Espresso on Bashful Blue designer series paper; and I've 'stamped off' the small solid flower on my sentiment oval.  I've used Stampin' Up!'s utterly adorable Flower Trim (also new in our Seasonal Catalogue), snipping just one flower off to decorate my stamped flower centre.  A Basics Glimmer brad secures them together.

Here's a close-up of the focal flower, that I spritzed with Champagne Mist shimmer spray:

Stamps: Secret Garden, En Francais, Made For You

Card: Very Vanilla, Bashful Blue, Crumb Cake

DSP: Bashful Blue Patterns Designer Series Paper

Ink: Crumb Cake and Early Espresso stampin' pads, Bashful Blue stampin' pad and marker, Versamark inkpad

Other: Early Espresso embossing powder, Secret Garden framelits, Ovals framelits, Champagne Mist shimmer spray (shimmer paint mixed with Isocol), Large Oval punch, Natural Trim ribbon, sponge dauber, glue dots, stampin' dimensionals