Sprinkled Expressions, Fresh Vintage

Happy Sunday everyone!  I had a brilliant workshop last Friday, meeting with a group of lovely ladies (most of them are my regulars – so I felt quite at home) and my Hostess earned a shopping spree of H£65 plus two full priced items at 50% discount! If you haven’t hosted a workshop before, Sale-a-bration is the ideal time to do so because with every £45 spend, you get a FREE stamp set or a pack of 12″ x 12″ Designer Papers exclusively designed for Sale-a-bration. If you would like to book a workshop between now and before 31 March, when the promotion ends, email me elaine.harding@googlemail.com .   

Okay, on to one of the cards I demonstrated. 

I got the inspiration for this card from the boxes Stampin’ Up! sends their goodies in.  There’s usually a smaller box of goodies packed inside the big carton which comes with each order, and they always seal the box by tucking each flap into one another, so I thought why not make a “faux box” and duplicate it.  Here is the one I demonstrated, featuring the Bigz Clear Square Scallop die and Stripes embossing folder.

For the Make & Take, this is the one we made, designed by my upline, Amanda Fowler who shared it with us during our last Quarterly Meeting.  So you can see how the design process evolved from Amanda’s card, I stuck to the same materials, but just changed it a little by adding more layers.

The beauty of the Bigz Clear die is that the housing for the die is clear, and there is a finger hole in the centre so you can pop out your cardstock or designer paper easily.  It also means that you can position it over a photo you want to crop, or a pattern in your designer paper which you want to feature.

By folding your paper in half and placing it just shy of the scallop cutting edge, you can create a card using Designer Papers.  The Designer Paper on its own is a little flimsy, so I strengthened it by adding a matted layer, a stamping layer and topped it off with a butterfly die cut from the Bigz Beautiful Butterflies (code no. 11450)  die on page 123 of the main catalogue.

This is the inside of the card.  I’ve used another Sale-a-bration stamp set called Fresh Vintage.  I didn’t take a photo of the one I gave my Hostess.  As I’d prepared it earlier, it was much better version of the one I demonstrated.

Here’s another way you can use  the square scallop die.  The plain layer was cut from the die, but the smaller scalloped Designer Paper layer had a punched border all round.  By pinching the opposite corners together and securing it with ribbon, you can use it to pop some candy in it.  The tag is from Elementary Elegance, another Sale-a-bration set.

That’s not all!  You can see this teeny weeny box I made with it for little mini cards here in my previous post. 

Finally on to something not craft related – last Wednesday hubby took me to see Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker” which is celebrating its 20th anniversary – I was bowled over by Bourne’s imagination as a choreographer and his ballet still looks fresh 20 years on.  He’s taken dance to a different level! 

These are the marshmallow girls from Sweetieland!  Say no more?*!  I won’t spoil it for you in case you ever go to one of his shows.  Well that’s all from me folks.

Enjoy your Sunday!  Hugs, and thanks for stopping by.