Oh What Fun with Fancy Foil!

Here is a lovely card that is easy to make but shimmers with holiday color.  I used the Holidays Fancy Foil Designer Vellum layered over Whisper White card stock, alternating with layers of Red Foil and Silver Foil Paper.  A bit of 1/8" Silver Ribbon ties off the package just perfectly!  I found the inspiration for this card from Jari Francis here.  You can see I added a few touches of red to spice things up a bit.  I just love shimmery red on Christmas cards!  The sentiment is from the Oh What Fun stamp set.

I had so much fun with this look that I made tags to coordinate.  One of my very favorite new sets is the Peaceful Pines stamp set with matching Perfect Pines Framelits!  Oh the possibilities with this combination are endless!!  This is one set I made.  Note the Red Foil "lights" peeking out of the tree branches.  This is done with one of the included dies to poke holes in your tree so the light can shine through!  The Scalloped Tag Topper Punch was used on the long tag and the Lots of Labels Framelits were used for the smaller one.

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my creations.

Vintage Leaves Grateful

This is a quick card to make but the lovely leaves and DSP give it a lot of impact.  The DSP is part of the Into the Woods Designer Series Paper and the leaves are stamped using the Vintage Leaves stamp set and cut out with the matching Leaflets Framelits.  Both the Vintage Leaves stamp set and the framelits can be found in the 2015-2016 Annual Catalog.  I am a huge fan of anything with leaves!  I think they exude a wonderful quality that can be fun and lighthearted or soft and subtle.  Often some of the best masculine cards are made with leaves.  It just seems to work well for men--get away from the many varieties of flowers we so love to use.

For the sentiment I used A Little Something stamp set found in the 2015 Holiday Catalog cut out with the Lots of Labels Framelits from the Annual Catalog. This set has so many cute little images that work perfectly on cards like this where the paper really is the focal point.  They also make great tags for boxes and bags, including the Square Pillow Box Thinlits Die.  You can bundle the stamp set and the dies together for an even better bargain and get 15% off!

Take a few minutes and look through all the beautiful designer series paper Stampin' Up! has to offer.  Keep in mind that the catalog really doesn't do the patterns justice.  Pick a paper you love and create a card with it!

Witches' Night

This is my truly elegant Halloween card.  The stamped images all come from Witches' Night stamp set.  Using our new Basic Black Archival Ink Pad works beautifully with these Photopolymer stamps, although I found the best way to get a really crisp image with these stamps was to ink the stamp, then placing the stamp face up on the table, put your cardstock on the stamp image and rub firmly with your hand.  It worked better than pressing the stamp down onto the cardstock, which often left me with little gaps or a blurred image from pressing too hard.

The paper used was Very Vanilla cardstock, Black Glimmer Paper, Gold Glimmer Paper, and Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Series Paper.  I used the Lots of Labels Framelits Dies to cut out the main shapes, a 3/4" Circle Punch for the "31", and the 7/8" Scallop Circle Punch for the tiny bit of Gold Glimmer Paper that shows around it.  The crow was fussy cut out and popped up on a Dimensional.  I also used Dimensionals under the Gold Glimmer Paper that was cut out with the Lots of Labels Framelits.

The only ribbon accent is the Very Vanilla 1 1/4" Subtle Stripes Satin Ribbon.  It is oh so gorgeous and elegant!  I found the original idea for this card online, but the creator didn't label it with her watermark, so now I don't know exactly who first created it.  I did change it up a bit, though.

Please leave me your comments about this card.  I love to hear from you!

Have Some Cake!

This lovely cake is made of cardstock and each piece contains our brand new Silver and Gold Thread tied up in a neat little tissue package.  The cake, stand and banner were all made from the Sweet Stack Project Kit on page 152 of your 2015-2016 Annual Catalog.  I didn't realize when I ordered my supplies that the stamp set to decorate the cake pieces was sold separately, so I had to take some creative license and used the Work of Art stamp set to decorate the outer edges of the cake pieces.  On the inside edges I stamped the dots from the Watercolor Wings stamp set to make it look like the cake layers.  The look wasn't perfect, but it worked.  The first 20 ladies who RSVP'd for my Open House in June each got to take home a piece of cake.

When you order your Sweet Stack Project Kit, be sure to include the Sweet Stack stamp set on page 66 of the 2015-2016 Annual Catalog so you don't have to go searching through your stamps to find a suitable substitute!  This kit is perfect for showers and parties.  You can fill the pieces with anything you like.

The name tags I made for everyone, visible on the left are cut out with the Lots of Labels Framelits; and the water bottles on the right are decorated with Envelope Paper and a butterfly made from the Watercolor Wings stamp set, cut out with the Butterflies Thinlits Dies.  What a fun and simple way to dress up a water bottle!  Try it for your next gathering!