by Jess Williams, crafter, creator & maker with Close To My Heart
So one of the more exciting things that happened during the time my blog ate (see previous post) was that I was part of Stampin’ Up!’s global Artisan Design Team. Again, so as not to bore you with all the details, here is a snapshot of my Artisan projects.
Jess x
You may have noticed that my blog is missing a HUGE chunk of time! Well, my blog defeated me and I’ve managed to lose a couple of years. I know. So anyway, rather than spend time re-creating each post, I thought I’d just add a visual post of the highlights. Enjoy!
I hope you’ve found some inspiration!
Jess x
Welcome to the Pennsationals team blog hop. As a team, we’ve started to do a monthly blog hop with a different theme each time. This month is a colour challenge.
We can create any type of project using Island Indigo, Blackberry Bliss and either gold or silver. I love these colours so I was looking forward to the challenge! We can also use Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Kraft/Crumb Cake and Basic Black as neutrals to complement the main colours.
My inspiration came from an unlikely place this month. I’ve been seeing Jamberry Nails designs everywhere since they launched in Australia a couple of weeks ago. One of their designs is a very geometric design with a splash of silver, so I went about recreating that look, but with our colours, into a Christmas card.
It’s loud and proud and I love it!
I used the Tree Punch to punch out the triangles and just cut off the trunk. To create the negative space tree, I simply reversed the process and cut a trunk out of the base of one triangle. I adhered all the triangles to a piece of scrap paper and got the background right before I sewed around the edges and tree.
The sentiment is from the Happy Scenes stamp set. I also used an adorable wooden Snowflake Element, Silver Cording Trim and sequins to finish it off.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my project. The next step on the hop is the very lovely Emma of Vintage Graffiti.
Happy hopping,
Jess x
Here we are at Monday again! I’ve gotta say, I am LOVING all the inspiration from all those who participate in the Global Design Project each week. If you haven’t been part of it yet, check it out by clicking the image below…
This week, GDP features a sketch challenge. My favourite!
The challenge coincided with a special occasion in my family, my Mum and Dad’s 35th wedding anniversary, so I used the sketch for my card design.
My starting point was looking up what the traditional and modern gifts are for this anniversary. I was hoping to incorporate it somehow into the card. I was delighted to find that the traditional gift is coral so I used Calypso Coral as the main colour feature for my card. One of my favourite colour combinations is Calypso Coral and Pool Party so that was a given for my accent colour. Although Stampin’ Up! has had Pool Party seam binding in the past, they no longer carry it so I just dyed my own.
My favourite part of the card are the two little silver punched hearts. I wanted them to represent my Mum and Dad so while they are both silver, I punched one from foil and one from glimmer paper so that they are different. Some sequins from the Project Life Moments Like These Accessory Pack finished it off perfectly.
Now it’s your turn! Create your own project using the GDP sketch and enter it here. You could be one of this week’s winners!
Jess x
It’s Monday and that means another fresh challenge from the Global Design Project. This week, it’s our second colour challenge.
I have to admit that colour challenges aren’t my favourite. It takes me a little bit of thought to get going but then I’m off and I’ve loved the (very different) results of the two GDP colour challenges I’ve done. This week’s card started out quite differently to my original plan but I love it all the same.
It’s a little bit of crazy which I love. I started out stamping and embossing the geometric background using Dotty Angles. Then I tinted some white acrylic paint with drops of reinker, took the background outside and literally threw paint at it. The result is lots of random splotches of fun and colour. From there, I accessorised the card with cardstock and ribbons in the challenge colours. I used my pinking shears to create the fun tiny zigzag pieces and as I’m yet to invest in the little ‘White Perfect Accent’ dots, I grabbed a vanilla enamel dot (from the Holiday Catalogue) and embossed it with white embossing powder. I deliberately left the cake black and white so that it would stand out from the noisy background.
I hope you like my fun, noisy, party card.
For loads more inspiration, be sure to visit the Global Design Project page where you can see more projects from the design team. Why not also create your own project and upload it to the main page, plus make sure you also add it to the Global Design Project Pinterest page. You’ll be sent an invitation to join as a collaborator once you’ve uploaded your challenge project.
Hope you’re a winner!
Jess x
P.S. Happy Birthday to you Emma ❤
This week, The Stamp Review Crew is showcasing the stamp set, Happy Scenes. This was one of the first sets I bought from the Holiday Catalogue. It’s very versatile with a few different seasonal scenes along with all sorts of different sentiments and extra elements. It also goes hand in hand with the gorgeous Hearth & Home window shaped thinlit.
I had an idea this week to make a sort of viewfinder project, similar to the card Yapha made in the last hop. My viewfinder project is actually a calendar with changeable images depending on the season or occasion. Here’s what I mean…
One of the great things about this project is that it’s also suitable for both northern and southern hemispheres. The winter image above suits a northern hemisphere January, but I would have mine set to the summer scene just by moving the dial at the back.
In between the cardstock base and dial (with seasonal scenes), I’ve added an acetate dial as well with various ‘occasion’ extras. Here’s a sample…
My autumn scene on the top left has plain acetate in front, the top right scene has a spiderweb in the corner for Halloween and the scene on the left has pumpkins for Thanksgiving.
There are loads of different options with this stamp set!
I hope you’ve been inspired to try something new with Happy Scenes. Why not hop along to Shana Gaff to see some more inspiration?
If you’re heading backwards along the hop, you’ll want to visit Betty Traciak, or click here to return to the SRC blog for a full list of participants.
Jess x
This week at CASEing the Catty, we’re scoping out all the gift tags in the Holiday Catalogue. There are loads in there so that should make it easy to choose one right? Well, not so in my case. There are so many cute tags to choose from and in the end I changed my mind several times before settling on the most unconventional one.
I was late to the party with the Holly Jolly Greetings stamp set and Christmas Greetings thinlits but I kept seeing such lovely creations that I treated myself to the bundle recently. I love the samples for this bundle and I am quite a fan of the crafty/rustic star tag.
So I grabbed a nice stick and my trusty Gold Metallic Thread and went about creating my star structure. It was actually quite easy and I didn’t even secure my thread, just wrapped it enough times and in different directions to prevent it from unravelling.
I decided to recreate the sample so used vellum, Gold Foil, Gold Glitter ribbon and stars to embellish the star. Here’s my finished rustic star tag.
I just love how it turned out. So pretty!
Next I decided to change it up a little and create a similar tag in traditional Christmas colours.
OK, so I’m a massive fan of gold at Christmas but this project has got me thinking about a red and green Christmas this year. So gorgeous!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my tags. Want more inspiration? Make your way around all the CASEing the Catty blog hop participants, starting with Julia Quinn, or click here to see a full list of blog hoppers.
Jess x
I loved CASEing Louise’s card so much for the Global Design Project design team, I decided to do it again when I made some tags for orders yesterday. I always attach a personalised tag to customer’s order bags from workshops and this week, the orders arrived from my Create Your Christmas event.
I decided that Louise’s original wreath was pretty perfect so I went about copying most of her ideas but changed up the colour combo. I used the same stamp set, Wondrous Wreath and the colours, Marina Mist, Night of Navy and Real Red for a Christmas colour combo. I added gold glitter to the tags as well just like Louise did in her original card. After all the stamping, I added some Real Red berries using my Stampin’ Write Marker. There is a stamp with berries on it but I decided I wanted mine to be super fine and delicate – just a tiny pop of red against the blue.
I mounted the wreath on a tag cut from Whispaer White cardstock using the Lots of Labels framelits and added a sweet Real Red heart to the centre. Some Gold Cording Trim (guess who will be going through about 50 rolls of this stuff this festive season – I ADORE it!) finishes off the tag.
Here they are all ready to deliver.
I hope you’ve already had the opportunity to join in on the GDP fun this week. Perhaps you’ve already done it twice like I have. Here’s a reminder of the challenge this week. You can also click on the picture for more details and inspiration!
Jess x
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Welcome to #GDP004! Are you having fun? I have really been enjoying these challenges and this week is no exception. The task this week is to do a little CASEing!
This gorgeous card by Louise offers so much inspiration. The layout, stamp set, colour combination. For me there was only one direction to go in.
My favourite stamp set, Timeless Love, just fits right in with this challenge so out it came. I first stamped a wreath using my stamp-a-majig for perfect placement in Jet Black StazOn ink. I used StazOn because I then used Hello Honey, Night of Navy and Mint Macaron inks to watercolour the wreath. I’ve been wanting to try a little abstract watercolouring for a while but haven’t had the opportunity until now. I feel like that style suits the Timeless Love stamps perfectly because they’re so rustic and vintage. To achieve this look, I first painted on some bold ink in an approximate area that I wanted coloured. I then lightened the ink a little by adding water and then filled in any remaining gaps. It didn’t matter that I went out of the lines on places. That’s all part of the look this time.
Once the wreath was finished, I cut a little heart from the centre using the small heart from the Baker’s Box thinlits set. Then I used my paper piercing tool and guide to pierce the holes for the thread. I backstitched some Metallic Gold Thread through the holes and secured into place. You could use a sewing machine instead of hand sewing, but I didn’t trust myself to get the machine stitching straight. I tied a little gold thread bow at the top of the wreath.
I decided to try a little experiment next. I really wanted some navy glimmer coming through the heart. I know that people have used alcohol markers to colour glimmer paper but I wasn’t sure if it would work to just use our water based stampin’ write markers. Guess what? It does. I did several layers of colour because it does lift off and fade a little but the end result looks great.
Lastly, I stamped a sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes and mounted my card.
On the inside I replicated the watercolour on a small strip and mounted it with my coordinating colours of Night of Navy and Very Vanilla.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my project. Be sure to visit the rest of the Global Design Project international team for inspiration. Which part of Louise’s beautiful card inspires you the most? I hope you’ll make time to play along with us this week. You’ll find all the details on the GDP site.
Jess x
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More Timeless Love projects here…
Surprise! The CASEing the Catty blog hop has now moved to Sunday nights. We hope that gives you a more relaxed time of hopping through the inspiration from the design team. As always though, we would love you to join in. All you need to do is CASE (Copy And Share Everything) a project sample from the Stampin’ Up! catalogue, share it on your blog/Pinterest etc and post your URL in the comments here. We’ll then add you in to the official hop!
This week, we’re focusing on the Home for Christmas suite through to page 21 of the Holiday Catalogue. One of my favourite catalogue samples is part of this section so it wasn’t hard to choose what to CASE this week.
So pretty. I just love this colour combo for Christmas. It’s also a shaker card, containing Dazzling Diamonds glitter for the snow!
I kept mine very similar but did change the image for the even more wintery one from the Happy Scenes stamp set. There’s a sentiment in that set that says ‘Happy Winter’. I’m sure there must be some out there that love winter but I am not one of them. In fact, I struggle with winter. I struggle with the grey, the constant drizzle, the lack of sunlight and the cold. Oh, the cold!
So, I decided that this week I’m dedicating my card to all of you winter strugglers in the Northern Hemisphere. While I’m beginning to enjoy the glorious spring sunshine, I know you’re heading into winter time and some of you are dreading it. I know how you feel. I’m with you!
So instead of making a true Christmas card, mine says, Thinking of You. Because I am.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my version of the catalogue sample. For more inspiration, head on over to visit Elizabeth Gross or head back to CASEing the Catty HQ for a full list of blog hop participants.
Jess x
P.S. If you’re a winter struggler and you need an extra pick up, check out this quote by Hal Borland I prettied up. There’s even a free printable version for you 🙂
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