Sincerely Santa Project Kit & Signs of Santa

Good Day Crafty Friends,

I have a quick post to share today. Its a Christmas Card with a little difference. The Wood Texture DSP completely changed the look I was initially going for but I liked so I ran with it.

The Red/White Candy Striped Gift Tag comes in the Sincerely Santa Project Kit, as does the Gold Foil banner, Gold Foil Stars, and Doily which has been coloured with a Stampin' Blend. 

The Wood Background has been adhered to a layer of Whisper White and then Real Red card stock before attaching to the Whisper White Card Base.

The sentiment from Blended Seasons has been white heat embossed onto Black card stock and fussy cut before adhering to the white circle die cut.

Mrs Claus is from the Signs of Santa stamp set (page 19 - Holiday Catalogue). She has been coloured using Stampin' Blends and fussy cut before adhering to the card front with mini dimensionals.

I absolutely adore the Mrs Claus and Santa images from this stamp set. I love that I could colour her dress in Pink as I definitely wanted a few Christmas Cards in my stash that had some pink. This makes me happy lol

As I write this post and look at the date it is scheduled for, I am instantly reminded what day it is tomorrow.......Its Onstage time!!!!!!! All over the world, thousands of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators are gathering to celebrate Stampin' Up! and their 30th year birthday anniversary. I am so envious, especially of those that are flying all the way for the big three day celebration in Orlando, Florida!!! OMG, imagine that, a 3 day convention jam packed with loads of loveliness and all those theme parks, not too mention, yummy food, all the other destinations that have been on my bucket list since I was a child. 

If you follow any of the Demonstrators attending one of the many conventions around the world, be sure to check out their posts over the next few days, they will be sharing loads and loads of pics of their awesome events, including all the new products!!!! I cannot wait to see what is coming and to get my hands on that new catalogue. The suspense is killing me LOL

Thanks for stopping by today. Until next time, stay awesome and stay crafty

AddINKtive Designs August Projects - Pocket Cards

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to this months AddINKtive Design Team Projects. As a Design Team member, I have the privilege of using any of the wonderful tutorials that are available to purchase from the AddINKtive Designs Store - including my own lol. I am still totally addicted to Pocket Cards and decided I would create two for August. The tutorial for this style of card can be found here.

The first card is an adaption of the Pocket Card Tutorial available in the AddINKtive Designs Shop. It uses the same base template with the Envelope Punch Board but instead of a pull tab insert, I have included a tri-fold card and adhered to the base. There were even more panels to decorate with this version of the Pocket Card plus the exterior envelope.

I kept the envelope exterior fairly simply, decorating the top flap with some Tropical Chic DSP and a Gold Foil die cut created with the Colour Your Season Framelits. Some ribbon, a bow and gold sequin trim were used to close the card, finished off with a gold heat embossed sentiment attached with gold metallic thread. 

The inside panels have a subtle colour palette inspired by the pastel tones in the Tropical Chic DSP. Blushing Bride, Daffodil Delight and Soft Sea Foam were used to colour and stamp the images with hints of gold foil strips on the top two panels. The bottom panel has a layer of Blushing Bride card embossed with the "Tufted" Embossing Folder along with the panel that holds the heat embossed sentiment. I love this greeting from the Postcard Pals stamp set, and really wanted it to be the focal point when the recipient opened the card, so I cut it up and adhered the four lines with spaces in between each line of the birthday sentiment.

The second Pocket Card marks the first of my Christmas Card stash. We celebrate the festive season in the Summer months here in Australia so I am instantly drawn to the Christmas stamp sets that have fun, summery themed images. The So Santa stamp set is one of the sets I had to have from the new Holiday Catalogue. 

The Surfin' Santa is my favourite image of the three, and so fitting for friends and family back in NZ. I grew up in a small sea side town where almost everyone spends time at the beach during the Christmas - New Years holidays. We had Surfing Santa's! They would hand out tubes of Sun Block and create havoc up and down the beach with swarming kids attracted to the Lollie Scrambles.

How cool is his Pineapple Cocktail! Love his Poinsettia/Holly print boardshorts - too cute! The Tropical Chic DSP was perfect for the card I wanted to create - something not too floral or girly, more on the masculine side of tropical and with a hint of Christmas. 

The Pocket has been created using Granny Apple Green card teamed with Black, Whisper White and a little Coastal Cabana. The Tropical Chic bundle was used to create the Black card foliage.

There are so many awesome sentiments in the So Santa stamp set, I used one of my favourites for the Pocket Insert "Wishing you a season of warm memories and sunny smiles". 

Thanks for stopping by today. Don't forget to check out the AddINKtive Designs Blog Post for this months highlights. We have such a talented team of Designers sharing projects regularly, with most creations collated into one blog post at the end of the month.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty!

ESAD Colour Your Season Blog Hop

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to the ESAD Colour Your Season Blog Hop. You are currently visiting Jackie Aitken in Western Australia.

I am excited to be hopping with the talented ESAD crew today, as we show the amazing verstaility of this fabulous bundle. I love this bundle soooo much, the stitched framelits have to be my all time favourite and I can see them living in my craftroom forever!

I have made quite a few floral themed cards using this bundle and decided it was time to create some Christmas Cards with the cute Holly image.

I love NON TRADITIONAL Christmas colours - I prefer bright, vivid colours over the traditional Red, Gold and Greens. My Christmas Decorations colours are close to Melon Mambo, Lemon Lime Twist and Tempting Turquoise with Flamingos and Palm Trees.

For this Hop, I decided to challenge myself and create a few cards using Reds and Greens. The first card has a teeny weeny strip of Red LOL The Holly images have been Gold Heat Embossed, Water Coloured and Fussy Cut.

The next card has LOADS of Red! Some Real Red DSP has been used to fill in the negative space left from the Stitched Framelits. Again, the Holly image has been Gold Heat embossed, water coloured and fussy cut. The sentiment was also heat embossed and fussy cut.

The third card uses the same layout as the first card. This time Granny Apple Green Spotted DSP has been used with a small strip of Real Red Striped DSP. Gold Metallic thread and a gold foil snowflake have been tucked under the Holly image, along with a few vellum die cuts.

The fourth card is my favourite. I love Granny Apple Green and it looks wonderful with Gold accents. The die cut frame has been raised with foam strips with the Holly images and strips of DSP/Card adhered directly to the bottom of the die cut frame. To finish the card, a Gold Heat embossed sentiment and two gold glitter snowflakes were added.

Need more ideas before you purchase the Colour Your Season Bundle? Check out some of the projects I have created recently for some inspiration using the other images in the Blended Season stamp set.

Be sure to follow the ESAD Blog Hop all the way through for even more inspirational ideas using the stunning Colour Your Season Bundle. A participant list has been provided below to help you along your journey. Up next in the hop is Leonie Schroder with her amazing project. Enjoy x

Blog hop participant list:

1. Libby Dyson

2. Nicole Wilson

3. Teneale Williams

4. Lou Kitzelman

5. Delys Cram

6. Fi Cobbin

7. Rebecca Scurr

8. Narelle Fasulo

9. Barbara Williams

10. Jackie Aitken

11. Leonie Schroder

12. Maree McIntosh

13. Denise Buetler

14. Jackie Noble

15. Kim Oliver

16. Sandra Mastello

17. Katrina Duffell

18. Lauren Meiklejohn

19. Megan Lenske

Thanks for stopping by today. Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty!

Colour Your Season Samples

Good Day Crafty Friends,

I have another quick post today, sharing a few more creations with the new Limited Edition Colour Your Season Bundle.

There are a few different images in the stamp set - christmas holly, falling leaves, a large floral image, a bell and some foliage. There is also six sentiments that can be used for various occasions - Thank You, Congrats, Wishing You All the Best are a few examples.

Using the Bell image for a wedding card.

The large floral image has been stamped multiple times, fussy cut and coloured using Stampin' Blends. After colouring, I have added dots to the inside edge of every petal, you can do this to any stamped image, altering its appearance and often giving it depth.

Heat Embossed Leaves and then water coloured using Daffodil Delight, Grapefruit Grove and Flirty Flamingo inks.

These two cards were stamped and die cut using the Stitched Square Framelits. The landscape version has had the entire stamped image die cut and adhered to a card base with dimensionals and tombow, altering the height of each panel randomly. The tent fold version has had the large floral image stamped onto the card front along with the sentiment. On a separate peice of card, the image has been stamped and coloured and then die cut using three different sized framelits. Die cuts have been adhered over stamped image with mini dimensionals.

I have shared this one previously, no line water colouring. Not a hard technique, just requires patience - loads of patience lol but the results are always worth the time invested.

There are only a few days left to take advantage of the amazing Stampin' Up! ink pad promotion. If you have ever thought about joining Stampin' Up!, now is the time. Not only do you get all the normal joining benefits, until the end of July 2018 you also get a set of 10 Ink Pads for FREE. Join now and remain a demonstrator until Jan 2019 without paying another cent. If you are interested in this amazing opportunity but have further questions, feel free to email me here and I will be happy to answer any queries you may have.

Just Add Ink #418 - Colour Challenge - Blended Seasons

Good Day Crafty Friends,

Welcome to this week’s Just Add Ink Challenge. We have an absolutely gorgeous colour challenge for you to play along with - Blushing Bride, Soft Sea Foam and Daffodil Delight.

Soft Sea Foam has to be one of my favourite of the new revamped colours - such a soft and subtle shade. I am also loving the new Blended Seasons Stamp set and couldn’t help myself and had to use it again for this week’s challenge. 

Onto Shimmery White card, I have stamped the large floral image several times and fussy cut. Using Daffodil Delight and Blushing Bride inks, with a small,  dryish paint brush I have coloured the lower and top portions of the petals, leaving a white ring that extends all the way around each flower. The leave were coloured with Soft Sea Foam.

A whisper white card front was cut to 3/4 of the width of the Soft Sea Foam card base and then embossed with the Subtle embossing Folder. Strips of Gold Glitter card (thicker strip on the right hand side) were adhered to the embossed card front before adhering to card base with foam strips.

Before adhering the fussy cut flowers and leaves were adhered along the right hand edge with Tombow, half a Pearlised Doily and Polka Dot Tulle Ribbon were tucked under the heat embossed sentiment. A few iridescent sequins were added to finish the card.

After taking the photo I actually cut the pink flower buds and relocated them on an angle so they wouldn't get crushed when it was posted.

Love the stamp set I have used in this card? This limited edition bundle will be available to purchase from your Stampin' Up! Demonstrator from 1-31 August 2018. If you live in Australia and purchase the stamp set or bundle from my Online store during the sales period,  I will send you the PDF instructions to create the eight cards shown in the picture below for FREE.

Be sure to stop by all the Just Add Ink Design Team members blogs for more inspiration using this weeks challenge colours. We would love for you and your crafty friends to play along, if you have a blog you can add your card to the Just Add Ink gallery here. Don't have your own blog? No problem! Just send us an email to just-add-ink@hotmail.com with a photo attachment. We'll upload it to our challenge entry blog.

Until next time, stay awesome, stay organised and stay crafty