AWHT Monthly Blog Hop - Nov 2019

Pentagonal Treasure Chest Keepsake Boxes 

with Band Together and Butterfly Gala

Thanks for dropping by. The Art With Heart Team are back with another inspirational Blog Hop. I hope you are enjoying hopping along with this November 2019 Blog Hop.

This month we are featuring Gift Bags and Boxes, just in time for the Christmas gift giving season. The featured bags and boxes 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 if you want to reproduce these beautiful projects.

Earlier this month Stampin' Up held "On Stage", it's regular conference for demonstrators. Events were held around the world, with 2 events held in Australia, one in Sydney and the other in Perth. I attended the Perth event and extended my holiday to see some of WA's beautiful sights. I created some pentagonal boxes and filled them with Haigh's Christmas chocolate baubles as gifts for friends I met. I had already given some away before I remembered to photograph them for tonight's blog hop. Here are the remaining 3 Pentagonal Treasure Chest boxes - photographed in my Perth hotel room.

When you've browsed through Stampin' Up's 2019 Holiday Catalogue you would have seen this style of box on page 50 but it was decorated differently.  The Stampin' Up Design Team had CASEd (which stands for Copy And Share Everything) one of Sam Hammond's early projects first shown by her in a video in August 2013. Sam is the top UK Demonstrator for the UK & European market. She remade the box again this year and downloaded her video in September as #10 of Pootles Advent Countdown 2019. You can search Utube for this video if you want to see how to make her gorgeous Pentagonal box.

Here's some details about the individual boxes that I am sharing with you:

The box was formed from a trimmed A4 sheet of Night of Navy cardstock and glued together with Tombow Liquid Glue. The Belly Band was cut from the Brightly Gleaming Speciality Designer Series Paper and adhered with tear 'n tape so as to minimise the possibility of glue oozing out and accidentally sticking bits incorrectly together. The filigree backing to the sentiment was cut with a die from Detailed Bands out of copper foil and glued with dots of liquid adhesive with the centre section raised on dimensionals. The greeting was stamped using a stamp from the Stamp Together stamp set with Celestial Copper Delicata Metallic ink and the oval cut using another die from Detailed Bands. The butterfly was made using vellum and stamped using the Butterfly Gala stamp set & copper ink; cut out using the Butterfly Duet punch and finished with a pearl (Pearl Basic Jewels) coloured with a Dark Night of Navy Blend.

This box was created with the same products as the Night of Navy box apart from a change in colours and Designer Series Paper, that is: the box itself was made from Petal Pink cardstock; the Belly Band created with Magnolia Lane DSP; and decorated with a vellum butterfly stamped in Petal Pink ink and finished off with a small white pearl (uncoloured).

This box was made out of Soft Sea Foam cardstock; the Belly Band created with Garden Lane DSP; and decorated with a filigree background cut with a Detailed Bands die out of Gold Foil and a vellum butterfly stamped in Soft Sea Foam ink and finished off with a small gold Metallic Pearl.


Thanks for calling by and taking time to check out my Valley Inspirations blog. I've loved sharing with you 💕🐾

There is more creative inspiration in this month's Art With Heart Blog Hop.  The very talented Sujatha Harding is next. Click here to visit her blog or click on the arrow below.  

  

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop midway through the participants, you can also view all the talented paper crafters below by clicking on their names and the link will take you to their blog. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing everyones' creations.

Rachel Palmieri

Sharon Davern

Rebecca Jacovou

Kathryn Ruddick

Catherine Proctor

Vicki Boucher

Andrea Sargent

Sujatha Harding

Rachel Woollard

Tina Gillespie

Kate Morgan

Kathryn Mangelsdorf

Art With Heart “Heart of Christmas 2019” - Week 15

Light & Peace with Colouring Techniques

Hello, welcome to Week 15 of the Art with Heart Team's Christmas Blog Hop. Only 4 weeks till Christmas - so hard to believe - how the weeks are just flying by.

So glad you have dropped in to Valley Inspirations with Andrea as you hop along and check out the gorgeous Christmas projects by my fellow blog hoppers.

This week has been hectic as I tried to catch up after my recent holiday in the West.  It also included my card class on Monday morning where we focused on creating Christmas cards and tags.  Given my busy week, the Christmas card I am sharing with you tonight is pretty simple. I've used two different and easy colouring techniques to focus on the delightful angel from Stampin' Ups Light and Peace stamp set.

I heat embossed this sweet, gentle angel using Stampin' Up's Shimmer White emboss powder on to Vellum cardstock. (Stampin' Up's Vellum copes really well with heat embossing and doesn't wrinkle with the heat.) The angel was coloured using Blends - Stampin' Up's wonderful alcohol markers. I used Ivory with touches of Bronze to lightly colour her skin, Light & Dark Crumb Cake and Light Soft Suede for her hair, Light & Dark Smoky Slate on her wings, Light & Dark Seaside Spray with touches of Light Night of Navy and Light Pretty Peacock on her flowing robes; colouring on the other side of the vellum, which softened the colours. Vellum was chosen to give the angel more of an etherial mood. The card front directly beneath the vellum was Whisper White coloured with a sponge roller using both Seaside Spray and Pacific Point ink pads. The Vellum has been cut a tad smaller than the graded coloured cardstock, which shows an edging of the colour blending. The colouring is darker at the top and the bottom blending to a light tinge in the middle. This was mounted on Night of Navy cardstock which was in turn mounted onto a card base of Balmy Blue. I find colour interplay fascinating and love experimenting. Blending Seaside Spray with Pacific Point altered the effect of the individual colours which meant that Balmy Blue cardstock provided a better colour combination as the card base.

After mounting the various pieces together, I decided something else was needed and was about to reach for my So Many Stars Bundle when I remembered a friend had borrowed it. Hmm, so what could I do? I noticed some of the Star Designer elements on my work table - but they were copper, which would not blend well with this card. Not to be deterred, I pushed one of the stars gently into a Versamark ink pad and sprinkled some Shimmer White emboss powder over and heat embossed it. To finish the card I heat embossed the sentiment onto Balmy Blue pre-coloured vellum.

The centre of the card used another of the sentiments from the stamp set, which was stamped in Night of Navy. To tie the card centre with the card front the sponge roller was used to gently colour the top and bottom of the Whisper White centre.

The photos don't show the shimmer and colouring effects well - it can be difficult for a camera to pick up some of these nuances, which certainly add to the overall effect of the card. While recognising this, I still feel something is missing or could be executed differently. I'd love to hear any thoughts you may have of how the card could be improved. I would really appreciate you taking the time to add a comment below. After reviewing all your ideas, I will remake the card and add it to this post.

That's it for me for this week's blog hop, however, there is so much more inspiration to be found. The lovely Michele Taylor is hosting the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop this week – to check out the team’s festive creations you can visit Michele’s page, Taylor Made Designs by clicking here where she has links to all this week's blog hoppers.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my blog. Hope to see you next week. 💕🐾

Art With Heart "Heart of Christmas 2019" - Week 14

Christmas Time Is Here - Well not quite, but its just around the corner!

Holiday Happenings:
Home again now after 2 weeks in WA. I had a marvellous time in what seemed like 2 seperate holidays. I started my holiday with an Elijah House conference that was held at Paradox Church in Baldivis. Folk had gathered from around Australia as well as 3 coming from international places. It was a great conference and lovely to get to know the other 5 SA delegates as we shared an Air BnB. The second part of my holiday started Sunday week ago, when a fellow crafter - my up-line and a lovely lady, Kathryn Mangelsdorf, flew in and we traveled down to the beautiful Margaret River for 4 nights. We then spent 4 night's in Perth to attend Stampin' Up's one-day conference - On Stage and do some sightseeing.  On Stage was such a wonderful time, catching up with crafting friends and making new friends; getting our hands on the new Mini Catalogue early, being given some of the new products plus so many hugs, laughs and inspiration. That's enough of my holiday ...

Christmas Time is Here - a card to share:
In last week's blog hop I was inspired by many of the team's cards using the Christmas Time is Here Bundle, so I just had to give it a go this week. The bundle includes a double stamp set, one in cling red rubber that stamps a line drawing of a gorgeous spray of Christmas roses, pine leaves, rose leaves, pine cones and berries. The 2nd set has photopolymer stamps to be stamped over the line drawing to add colour and shading. Of course you can also use a range of other methods of colouring, but today, I used the distinctive stamps. Here is my Christmas card:

It was love at first sight when I saw the Christmas Time is Here bundle. The whole suite is only available for a limited time - until it's sold out! If you love it like I do, please don't wait - it could sell out at any time. I would love to help you if you would like the Christmas Rose stamp set, Roses dies, Gold Shimmer ribbon or Gold Glitter Enamel Dots. You can buy them individually, or the stamp set and dies also come as a bundle with 10% discount. Also available is gorgeous Speciality Designer Series Paper that includes touches of gold in many designs.

I really like that this Christmas design with roses is not fully traditional. Traditional colours can be used for a more Christmas feel - or non traditional colours also look great, depending on your preference. I have used traditional colours in inks (ie Golden Glitz Delicata Metallic ink for the line drawing, Merry Merlot for the rose, Poppy Parade for the berries and Mossy Meadow for the pine and rose leaves, and Soft Suede for the pine cones, but added some Sahara Sand card stock to the Whisper White and Gold Foil as a little twist. I have seen a range of colour combinations with this stamp set making both Christmas and non-Christmas cards - you can't go wrong with this beautiful suite.

The roses spray was die cut using the Roses dies and raised up on Dimentionals. Both pieces of the background card stock have been embossed, the top piece of Sahara Sand was embossed with the Tufted 3D embossing folder, while the Whisper White card stock was embossed with the Subtle 3D embossing folder after stamping the greeting in Golden Glitz ink. This embossing folder is fan...tastic and I have used it over and over again on so many projects as it adds texture without distraction.

I added some golden bling with a little gold filigree cut from Gold Foil using a die from the Roses dies; two pieces of the gorgeous Gold Shimmer ribbon have been tucked under the roses spray and 7 Gold Glitter Enamel dots were distributed around. You may have spotted the gold dot on the rose. It was added because a drop of water accidentally dripped onto the rose nearing the end of the project and left a washed out spot. Embellishments are such a blessing when you need to hide an accident or smudge!

The photopolymer stamp set for colouring the image is disINKtive. This is a special stamp design technique created by Stampin Up, which provides a multi-demential image in one stamp and by inking the stamp once with a single colour. You can see the effect on the roses. To gain this effect with other stamp sets you would need to undertake multistep stamping with a number of colours. It is really amazing.

The image below shows the centre of the card. I mounted the Whisper White card stock on a slightly larger piece of Sahara Sand card stock, stamped one of the greetings from the Christmas Rose stamp set in Golden Glitz ink and added a tiny stitched heart under the greeting that had been cut using the Stitched Be Mine dies. This little heart was on my work table, left over from another project and I thought it would add the perfect touch of gold.

That's it for me for this week's blog hop, however, there is so much more inspiration to be found. The talented and lovely Sharon Davern is hosting the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop this week – to check out the team’s festive creations you can visit Sharon’s page by clicking here. She has the links to all this week's blog hoppers.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my blog.  💕🐾

Art With Heart “Heart of Christmas 2019” - Week 13

Wrapped in Plaid

I just had a bit of a heart flutter - only 6 weeks to Christmas. Where has the year gone?

I'm still in Western Australia. The conference I was attending concluded Saturday. Then I met up with a friend who had just flown in from Adelaide and we travelled to Margaret River. In the last few days we have gone whale watching, caught up with Stampin Up friends in Busselton, toured a range of Margaret River sites and businesses, including Cape Lavender Tea House, Chocolate factories, wineries & breweries, galleries, places that craft beautiful soaps and so much more. It's been wonderful.

Prior to heading to WA I made a card for this blog hop. As time was limited, I CASEd a card design from one of the Artisan Team members, the talented Stesha Bloodhart. I really loved her card but have altered a number of aspects of Stesha's design to individualise it. Here is my card:

The feature of this card is beautiful Wrapped in Plaid Suite by Stampin' Up - check out pages 12 - 14 of the Holiday Catalogue, which features delightful products for Christmas. There is a panel of the gorgeous Speciality Designer Series Paper (DSP) Wrapped in Plaid, which has a number of stunning tartans using Cherry Cobbler, Shaded Spruce, Night of Navy, Whisper White and gold. One of the features of Stampin Up's products is the way the colours match across products, for example the DSP shown on this card features Cherry Cobbler, Shaded Spruce and gold, so I was able to pick up those colours in the card stock together with Gold foil paper. I mounded the DSP on Shaded Spruce card stock and added a strip of die embossed gold foil. I used the same card stock plus Cherry Cobbler to cut 3 different sized circular discs, layered and positioned to the LHS. 2 of the discs were cut using punches and the 3rd used a die from the Stitched Shapes dies.

The trees were stamped on Whisper White card stock using the Perfectly Plaid stamp set, one with Shaded Spruce and the other in the Delicata Metallic Golden Glitz ink. This metallic ink is so so gorgeous and is only available from Stampin Up during the availability period for the Holiday Catalogue. In addition to the gold ink there are delicious copper and silver ink pads. Don't miss out trying them out - they are brilliant! The greeting is also from the Perfectly Plaid stamp set and was stamped on Cherry Cobbler card stock die cut with one of the Stitched Label dies.

The card centre is fairly simple. The greeting came from the same stamp set and was stamped using the Golden Glitz ink. As you can see, stamped and punched trees were adhered to the lower LHS. Though not seen fully in the above photos, another stamped and punched tree was adhered to the envelope front so that it would complement the card.

That's it for me for this week's blog hop, however, there is so much more inspiration to be found. The talented Judy May is hosting the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop this week – to check out the team’s festive creations you can visit Judy’s page by clicking here. She has the links to all this week's blog hoppers.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my blog.  💕🐾

Art with Heart “Heart of Christmas 2019” - Week 12

Toile Tidings & Repeat Stamping

Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and Week 12 of the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop. So glad you have dropped by to check out more Christmas card ideas. It’s hard to believe we are now in November and Christmas is next month.

It’s been a hectic week for me including travelling interstate for a four day conference south of Perth, which began today. As I've been so busy, this week I'm sharing a simple card that was created for a class to show Stampin' Up's positioning tool in action. The tool is called the Stamparatus.

This card uses repeat, hinged or step stamping which is a speciality of the Stamparatus as the plates that hold the stamps can be lifted out of the hinge and moved a step upwards or downwards. The word "Happy" from the Merry Christmas to All stamp set, has been stamped 5 times in Real Red ink, moving the stamping plate each time. The beauty of using the Stamparatus is that the repeated word is always parallel and spaced evenly apart. This would be so much harder to achieve with stamping using a block.

A panel of Toile Tidings Designer Series Paper was mounted on Real Red cardstock. "Christmas" was die cut out of Red Glimmer Paper using the Merry Christmas dies. Three Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels were added to give a little extra sparkle.

The inside of the card is simple, with a thin strip of Real Red cardstock added to the right hand side. The greeting also was stamped using the Stamparatus. This enabled the wording to be positioned straight on the card and could be used by everyone in the card class to gain the same result. I do love my "Stamparatus". It certainly makes it easier to gain a good result.

That's it for me this week - I'm tiring fast after flying from Adelaide to Perth and squeezing another 2 1/2 hours into the day. It feels much later than it actually is.

The lovely Claire Daly is hosting the Heart of Christmas 2019 blog hop this week – to check out the team’s festive creations you can visit Claire’s page by clicking here. She has the links to all this week's blog hoppers where you will find so much inspiration.

Thanks for dropping by and taking time to check out my blog. I so appreciate you. 💕🐾