AWH December Blog Hop: Add A Little Sparkle

Hi!

Welcome to the final Art With Heart Blog Hop for 2019. Getting in the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations, this month our theme is ‘Add A Little Sparkle’. We have a huge range of sparkly  projects to share with you featuring products such as Glimmer Paper, Rhinestones, Delicata Ink, Shimmery White cardstock and much more. All of these products are available from Stampin’ Up! and any of these lovely ladies would be happy to assist you.

I'm still in Christmas card mode, and so my sparkle was some Glimmer Paper on my card. I hadn't used this Santa hat DSP from the Night Before Christmas pack, so it was well past time to chop into the paper. I cut one piece in half, which was enough for two card fronts. I then added a narrow strip of Poppy Parade cardstock in between the DSP and the Silver Glimmer Paper.

The sentiment, from Greatest Part Of Christmas, fits so nicely into a new die from the Painted Labels Dies, available from January 3rd.

I finished the inside with another couple of strips of the Santa hat DSP. I like how it copies the design from the front, just much more simplified.

I said earlier in my post that I cut one piece of DSP in half, and so I made another card. I couldn't decide if I wanted to use Silver or Real Red Glimmer paper, so I made a card with each!

I made one other change - this time I flipped the ribbon to be sentiment side up! Which do you prefer - Silver or Real Red Glimmer paper? I can't choose!

Have you had enough sparkle yet? I hope not! Now you off to the very sparkly blog belonging to Rachel Woollard!

If you have a broken link or have come to this blog hop midway, you can view all the participants below:

Tina Gillespie

Rachel Woollard

Catherine Proctor

Vicki Boucher

Rebecca Jacovou

Andrea Sargent

Kathryn Ruddick

Caroline Manwaring

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH Blog Hop: Boxes and Gift Bags

Hi!

The Art With Heart Team are back with another inspirational Blog Hop. This month we are featuring Gift Bags and Boxes, just in time for the Christmas gift giving season. The bags and boxes featured are all made using current Stampin’ Up! products and any of our wonderful team members are happy to help you with the supplies you will need to reproduce these beautiful projects.

It took me a while to work out what I was going to do for this Hop - for the longest time I had 'Boxes and Gift Tags' in my head, not Gift Bags. Oops! Back to the drawing board!

I ended up making this cute little gift box from one of the Old Olive Scalloped Notecards. Have you noticed them in the Annual Catalogue? I hadn't, until recently. For the very low price of $14.00, you receive 20 cards and 20 envelopes, 5 each of Balmy Blue, Old Olive, Light Pink and Terracotta Tile. I like making something unexpected from our products, and this fit the bill nicely!

I love how the scalloped edge of the Note Card gives a cute little finish to the opening of the box. It really feels like cheating to use these to make a box!

I used some Night Before Christmas DSP on the top of the box. I couldn't resist adding some Wink Of Stella to the Pine Tree shape, although it's hard to photograph. I love that this paper makes the tree look decorated without any extra effort on my behalf!

Here's some instructions on how I made the box:

I cropped 1 1/2cm from the straight edge of the card. I then scored at 1cm all the way around the edges, as well as another score line 1cm from the pre-scored line in the card, on the side of the scalloped edge. Did that make sense? The extra line is basically under the l and e of Gillespie in my watermark. I then snipped the corners as shown, and folded and glued the straight edged side of the card to form a box. To close it, the side flaps fold into the box, and the scalloped edge stays outside of the box. You might be able to see that I trimmed a tiny bit off the side flaps to make them easier to fold into the box.

You can see that the box is very thin, but it would be perfect for a gift card or voucher, or maybe even cash. The box could be made to be deeper, but you would lose width and length.

That's all from me for this month's Blog Hop, now it's time to jump on over to Kate Morgan's blog to continue the hop.

If you have a broken link or have come to this blog hop midway, you can view all the participants below:

Rachel Palmieri

Sharon Davern

Rebecca Jacovou

Kathryn Ruddick

Catherine Proctor

Vicki Boucher

Andrea Sargent

Sujatha Harding

Rachel Woollard

Tina Gillespie

Kate Morgan

Kathryn Mangelsdorf

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 15

Hi!

Hello, and welcome to the second last Heart Of Christmas Blog Share for 2019. I've really enjoyed doing these blog shares again, as it's a great way to increase my stash of Christmas cards. And I get lots of inspiration from my Art With Heart team members. Winning!

This week's card was an attempt to use more of my Christmas DSP before Christmas. I selected paper from the Night Before Christmas pack. I love the 6 inch packs, as you get a bigger variety of papers than the 12 inch packs, but you end up with a lot more smaller pieces. I made sure I used as much of the sheet as I could on this card, starting with a full card front sized piece of the baubles paper. I think this is one of my favourite patterns from the pack.

I chose Poppy Parade card to complement the DSP, and used my Ornate Frames dies to cut a frame for my sentiment, which is from the Hostess set, Greatest Part Of Christmas. I really love that font! And yay for the dies carrying over to the new Mini Catalogue!

The inside is where I used the rest of the sheet of DSP. I just cut it in half lengthways and adhered it to the base, before cutting a piece of Whisper White card to fit in between, overlapping slightly. And there's that cute font again! I quite like how this inside looks, so I think I'll be doing it again with my 6 inch papers.

The lovely Michelle is hosting the Heart Of Christmas tonight, so please pop on over to her blog to see the rest of this week's cards.

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 13

Hi!

I can't believe how quickly Wednesday has rolled around again! I'm very time poor this week, but I still wanted to play along with the Art With Heart team's Heart Of Christmas Blog Share. My card was quick to throw together, using all sorts of bit and pieces I found on my craft desk!

I started with the Stitched Rectangles, which were left over from this Elfie card I made recently. I cut some Night Before Christmas DSP to fit inside each rectangle, and then popped the shapes up on Dimensionals.

The 'Merry' was cropped from Red Foil, but in hindsight I probably should have forgone the foil and cut it from something darker. It doesn't stand out as much as I'd like, but it's glued down now!

I had a strip of the biscuit DSP left over from a different card, so I put it to use on the inside of the card. Done!

This week the blog share is hosted by my wonderful friend, Judy May. I'm very much looking forward to seeing her, and my other demo friends, in Sydney this weekend for Stampin' Up!'s OnStage event. Keep an eye out early next week for all the news!

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 12

Hi!

Welcome to another week of the Art With Heart team's Heart Of Christmas Blog Shares, as we inch ever closer to Christmas. My kids started writing their Christmas Wish Lists yesterday - I don't know if they are starting early or late! Probably late by most kid's standards. LOL!

For tonight's card I decided to use a non-Christmas set to create my background. Have you noticed Swirly Frames in the Annual Catalogue? It's got a heap of fun circles, squares, rectangles and lines in a hand drawn style. Great for framing other images, or just stamping randomly for a background, as I have done. I used Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler inks, both full strength and stamped off.

Once again I reached for my trusty Pine Tree punch for a focal point for my card. I think I lined up the stars in the Night Before Christmas DSP quite well in the punched shape! The star on the top of the tree is simply one of the Copper Star Elements from the Holiday Catalogue, coloured with my Dark Cherry Cobbler Blend.

I punched a second tree for the inside, with some Real Red Glimmer Paper for the star - the copper stars are a little too bulky for the inside of a card.

Time for you to head on over to Claire's Blog, where you can find the rest of this week's heart Of Christmas links. I think we only have four more weeks to go after this one!

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 11

Hi!

Hello, and welcome to the Art With Heart team's heart Of Christmas Blog Share. I'm hosting again this week, while Claire has some family committments to keep her busy. It's Week 11 this week, and we are inching ever closer to the big day!

This week I have a simple card that I made as a class sample. It uses quite a few different products from the Holiday Catalogue, so maybe simple isn't the right word! I started by cropping a Sitiched Circle in Very Vanilla, and then used my Pine Tree punch to punch an opening in the circle. I backed it with some DSP from the Night Before Christmas DSP pack. I love how it looks like lights on the tree. I topped the tree with a copper Star Designer Element.

The DSP on the base is also from the Night Before Christmas pack. I adhered a strip of Copper Foil to each long edge, and then I wrapped a length of the Christmas Very Vanilla/Copper Classic Weave Ribbon around it before I adhered it all to the base. Oooh, I nearly forgot that I stamped the tiny stars from So Many Stars on the base card using Celestial Copper Delicata Ink before adding the rest.

The inside is nice and simple, with more stars across the bottom and a sentiment from So Many Stars. It leaves a lot of room for writing a Christmas message to the recipient.

Time now to pop on over to see the rest of this week's Heart Of Christmas cards. Click on each name to take you to their blog.

Sharon Davern

Caroline Manwaring

Rachel Woollard

Claire Daly

Diane Furniss

Kate Morgan

Andrea Sargent

Catherine Proctor

Christina Barnes

Vicki Boucher

Michelle Taylor


Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 8

Hi!

Welcome to the Art With Heart team's Heart Of Christmas Blog Share. We are up to Week 8, and I am having a turn to host this week! You will find all the links to this week's gorgeous cards at the end of my post.

I decided to make my card using a non-Christmas stamp set this week. I have ummed and ahhed over the Country Home stamp set ever since it first appeared, which I think was in last year's Holiday Catalogue. I finally purchased it, and tonight's card is the first time I have inked it up.

I stamped it in Memento ink so that I could colour it with my Stampin' Blends. It took three goes to stamp it correctly, as I completely misjudged the size of the foliage stamp! Thankfully, cardstock has two sides, so I wasn't wasteful. I used Daffodil Delight, Crumb Cake, Granny Apple Green, Poppy Parade, Grey Granite and Pool Party to colour the image. I wanted to use lots of red and green to help with the Christmas theme.

I selected a piece of DSP from the Night Before Christmas pack as my background. I think that the tile-type pattern in reds also helps to keep the card Christmassy, but also country. The main image was cropped with the largest Stitched Nested Labels Die, and the sentiment with the smallest Rectangle Stitched Die. I finished the front with a twine bow using a scrap of Mossy Meadow Linen Thread from the Magnolia Lane Ribbon bundle.

I used Crumb Cake ink to stamp the milk tin and foliage again on the inside. So that they didn't take up too much space, I stamped them off the side of the card. The sentiments I have used on the card came from Merry Christmas To All - a set with a fabulous mix of smaller and larger sentiments. I also added a scrap of DSP left from the front of the card.

That's it from me, so why not check out the rest of this week's cards? So you don't have to keep jumping back and forth, you can right click on each link and select 'open in a new tab'.

Sharon Davern

Kate Morgan

Caroline Manwaring

Diane Furniss

Vicki Boucher

Rachel Woollard

Catherine Proctor

Michelle Taylor

And for her Heart Of Christmas debut:

Andrea Sargent

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH HOC Week 7

Hi!

Once again, it's that time of the week - the Art With Heart's heart Of Christmas Blog Share. Can you believe we are up to week seven already?

I received an order with a new stamp set this week - one of the Hostess Sets from the Holiday Catalogue. It's called Greatest Part Of Christmas, and has 9 different sentiments to mix and match for the front and insides of your card. I paired it with the Night before Christmas DSP. This sheet, with the trees and lights, really only needs a sentiment, don't you think?

I jazzed it up a little by adding some Shimmery Crystal Effects to each of the bulbs. It's soooo hard to photograph the shimmer, but hopefully you can see the texture that the SCE gives to the bulbs.

I also added the Shimmery Crystal Effects to the DSP I used on the inside - why not? The sentiment is another from Greatest Part Of Christmas. I'm looking forward to using this stamp set more, especially the larger 'Christmas Greetings' stamp.

Time to hand you over to Claire's blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's links.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #248: Annual Catalogue With A Twist

Hi!

Welcome to the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop! Have you started here with me, or come from Shannon's blog? It really doesn't matter, but please do continue hopping until you get back to where you started.

This week we are choosing a card from the Annual Catalogue and CASEing it using our Holiday Catalogue supplies. That sounds easy, until you realise that there's over 200 pages of projects to choose from! I ended up starting at the back, and soon came across this cute little card on page 206.

I loved the subtle DSP behind the main panel, and the way the image overhangs the circle panel. Too cute!

I started with a 4 1/4" square Old Olive card base, which I covered with a piece of DSP from the Night Before Christmas pack.

The next layer was Whisper White cardstock, cropped to 3 1/2" square. I ran it though my Big Shot in my Subtle folder. I actually placed the cardstock in the folder on a diagonal, so that the pattern runs  diagonally. I wish the camera had picked it up! The Whisper White Stitched Shapes Circle was sponged with Night Of Navy ink, fading out at the bottom of the circle. I stamped a scattering of stars in Golden Glitz Delicata ink.

My cute little elf was stamped in Memento ink and colours with my Blends - Ivory, Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler, Soft Suede, Daffodil Delight and Crumb Cake. I then used my Shimmery Crystal Effects to coat the edge of his hat, collar, buttons and bottom of his jacket. An Old Olive linen twine bow and a few shapes from the Ornate Frames Dies finishes off the front of the card.

Being a smaller card, there wasn't really enough room to stamp the elf again, so I contented myself with stamping and colouring the present and then stamping the sentiment from Elfie.

Phew, that's it from me. Do you know we have a Facebook group for our challenges? You don't need a blog to enter, just snap a photo of your card and upload it to the group. Done!

Now you're off on the next stop of this Blog Hop, which is my lovely friend and SU travel buddy, Judy!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #475: Just Add Food

Hi!

Welcome back for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Kelly has asked us to add food to our cards - not real food, just the paper and ink kind! Although, you could probably get away with including a lollipop on your card. Hmm, now why didn't I think of that sooner?

I was a bit stumped by this for a while, until I remembered this cute Kindred Stamps set that I purchased about a year ago. It celebrates National Gingerbread Day - I didn't even know there was any such day!

How funny is that gingerbread man/beast? LOL! I heat embossed the image four times on Crumb Cake cardstock using white embossing powder. I also cut a strip of DSP from the Night Before Christmas pack. I think a hot chocolate is the perfect combo with gingerbread, don't you agree?

The card base was stamped with the splatters from Waterfront using Crumb Cake ink. I was hoping it looked like gingerbread crumbs under the cookies. I then used my Subtle folder to emboss the cardstock. I totally agree with the sentiment - gingerbread tastes way better chewy (which is also a hint to the identity of the gingerbread character!).

I used my fourth gingerbread man on the inside, along wth some more hot chocolate. My kids think this card is hilarious - they don't want me to use it at Christmas. I will have to compromise by sending it to someone who will really appreciate the humour!

As we have arrived at the end of my post, it's time to pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog to see the rest of this week's Design Team cards. In the meantime, are you thinking about what food related stuff you have that you could use on a card? Can't wait to see it!

Bye for now,

Tina