Monthly card class - October

Tonight was my monthly card class, and this time I did a mixture of Christmas and non-Christmas projects!

The first card uses the Starburst/Sunburst technique - a great way of using up scraps of patterned papers. These papers are the Season of Style Designer Series from the Autumn/Winter catalogue.

The second card features the 'For the Birds' stamp set.  The ladies had free choice of all the stamps in the set, but they all chose the Christmas bird!

These were stamped with black stazon ink (a permanent ink) onto watercolour card, and then coloured using the aqua pens and ink.

The next card really got us into the festive spirit!! This uses the Festive Flurries stamp set which I have fallen in love with and can't stop using! We heat embossed some of the snowflakes with silver embossing powder to make them shine, and the rhinestones in the centres add a bit more sparkle!

Lastly we made a love bird card and I let the ladies choose their sentiment.  I thought this would be great for an Anniversary, Engagement, Wedding or just for someone you love!

The birds are punched out from the Natural Composition Speciality papers.

This month's cake was Delia's spiced apple muffin cake with pecan streusal topping, warm from the oven and made with apples from the tree in my garden!

Kylie x

A card for Ollie

Here's a recent card I made for my nephew's birthday. I really love the papers which are from the Birthday Basics designer series pack. I know these are going to get used a lot, especially for kids birthdays!!

Ollie's name was stamped with the Noteable Alphabet stamps and the 3 was cut using the Typeset Number dies on my Big Shot.

I added a little scrap of paper inside the card.

I also used the simply scored tool to create an embossed zig-zag effect.

 Kylie x

Monthly Card Class - September

I'm sorry this is a little late, but I wanted to share the photos from last month's card class!  I had four lovely ladies join me for crafting, tea and cake and these are the cards we made...

One of the favourites of the night was this card which featured the Kind and Cosy stamp set. I showed the ladies how they could use marker pens to colour their stamps to get multi-coloured designs.

The second card - a clean and simple design I CASed (Copy And Share!) from pinterest. The scored lines not only help with placing the circles in a straight line but add an extra something to the design!

The third card we made showcases two techniques even I hadn't tried before - the baby-wipe technique, and another technique called 'rock n roll'! If you search for videos on YouTube you'll get a better explanation on how to do these than I can give you!  The stamp set is an exclusive hostess set called Morning Meadow.

The final card was another clean and simple one, this time featuring Summer Silhouettes and some paper-piercing!

We used the essentials paper piercing pack to create the scallop design at the bottom of the card. Simple but effective.

Here is an action shot of the crafting in progress!

My home baking went down well too. This month I did a raspberry bakewell cake - a new favourite!

My next class is this Thursday 10th October where we'll be doing a mix of Christmas and non-Christmas cards. I have space for one more if you want to come along - please contact me in advance!

Kylie x

Stampin' Up! Creative Tour Leeds

A couple of months ago I was really flattered to be asked to join Stampin' Up!s design team for their Creative Tour events in September.  They phoned and asked me if I would create a small display using some products from the new Autumn/Winter catalogue - which they would send to me.

I waited eagerly for my parcel to arrive, looking forward to seeing what I had been given to work with!

When the items arrived I was surprised to find it was a Thanksgiving stamp set (Harvest of Thanks) and some lovely autumnal designer papers (Sweater Weather), I had imagined it would be something christmassy, but I set to work thinking of lots of things I could make for my display.

I fell in love with the papers straight away, and knew I wanted to use these to create a whole bunch of flowers with the pansy punch.

The stamps were a bit more of a challenge - I've never made anything with a Thanksgiving theme before! I started off small - making three note cards.

Then the ideas started to flow and I had fun designing cards and 3D projects that used coordinating products and different textures.

Some ideas and techniques I tried for the first time here. The paper feathers I had seen on pinterest and were really easy to make. I also heat embossed over the woodgrain embossed card in gold embossing powder which really highlights the raised pattern.

The vintage-style turkey looks great in full colour! I coloured the stamp using markers.

I decided to do a seed packet gift set using the Harvest of Blessings stamp.  I replaced the wording on the stamp with 'SEEDS' using the simple type alphabet stamps. I made a matching label stick too.  The packet for the seeds was based on a template I found online.  There are actually real sweetcorn seeds inside!

My last project was a little favour box/bag. I used the apothecary accents framelits to cut two of the larger shapes and scored and glued together. I made a window using the circle punch so you could see the contents (some chocolate raisins!)

And this is me with my display at the Leeds event! I think it surprised a lot of my Stampin' Up! friends who came to the event to see my name on there - because I'd had to keep it a secret! I got lots of lovely comments and Paula and Kelly from the Stampin' Up! UK office thanked me with a gift of a stamp and simply created kit. My display, along with the other displays, travelled with Stampin' Up! on their tour of six locations - hopefully inspiring demonstrators across the country.

Hope you are a bit inspired yourself, it's great to challenge yourself sometimes and do something a little bit out of your comfort zone.

Kylie x

Special Age Cards 30, 40 and 80

Hi again.  I have had loads of special birthday cards to make over the last few weeks - some were for my my friends and family and some were 'commissions' from work colleagues!

Here are a few of the ones I have made. I had fun making the rosettes which feature on most of them - these are really simple to make using the score board.

The 30th Birthday card uses some recently retired papers as well as silver glimmer paper.  The sentiment is Perfectly Penned and I heat embossed this with black embossing powder to get a raised finish.

The 40th card followed the same style but this time I used the Quatrefancy papers in the new catalogue.  the colours are so bright and cheerful!

The 80th birthday cards were for a work colleague to give to his dad - he wanted one for him and one for his son.  I used up some more retired papers for these, including Mocha Morning, and the stamps are Memorable Moments - which I embossed on black card with white embossing powder to get a chalkboard effect!

Class With Polka Dot Pieces

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I have some time to relax after a hectic few weeks and I thought I should catch up with some blogging!

Yesterday we had a fantastic crafty afternoon at our Summer Papercraft Class. Fiona Cullen and I taught 14 lovely ladies how to make 3 cards and a gift box using their very own set of stamps - Polka Dot Pieces - a brand new set in the Annual Catalogue. I think this one is going to be really popular - it's got flowers, butterflies and birds all in one set and a cute sentiment too!

With it being so new, there isn't a lot of photos online yet of cards and projects made with this stamp set. So my usual source of ideas and inspiration for my class projects was quite limited. But the stamps are really easy to work with, especially using the coordinating punches too, so it was fun coming up with a range of designs for the class projects.

Here are the 4 projects we designed for the class.

The first card used the bird. We coloured the stamp with markers and punched it out with the bird builder punch. The flowers are made from the Simply Pressed Clay and molds - we made these in advance of the class. The papers are the Gingam Garden Designer Series Papers.

The second card was a simple one with butterflies and the sentiment from the set.

The third card was an explosion of flowers and a sentiment from perfectly penned in the centre!

Finally a simple 2-4-6-8 gift box decorated with butterflies.

Some picture of the ladies in action, and some of their cards where they had come up with designs and ideas of their own...

Everyone got their stamps to take home in a goody bag which contained an extra treat...

We even decorated the bag and treat using the same stamp set to give everyone more ideas for how they can use the stamps to make more projects at home.

This was Fiona's first class since becoming a demonstrator in my team in May. She did brilliantly and everyone enjoyed their afternoon of crafting so no doubt there will be more!

For details of my upcoming events and classes, click here

If you live closer to east Leeds then check out Fiona's classes

Kylie x