Bargello…

 

Have you heard of the Bargello Technique? No? Well it originated in needlework, but has been adapted into paper crafting. It is a great way to use up strips of your favourite Designer Series Papers (DSP) to make a really interesting background. You could also make your own background papers by stamping with various stamps onto cardstock and then follow the instructions.

In my stash (I have way too much) I have a lot of pieces of DSP 6” x 3” (15cm x 7.5 cm) which was ideal.

All you need to do is cut the paper into strips. For mine they were 2cm wide by 15cm long.  The papers used here are from the very gorgeous Paisley Petals Designer Series Papers.  Did you know that these were designed to match in with the Paisley Petals stamp set on page 51 of the current Idea Book & Catalogue?

Glue the strips on some thin paper in a consistent design with sides touching and the edges even. Then cut several strips in the opposite direction. Play with the strips to create a design.

Glue the strips in the pattern of your choice directly onto the card base or another sheet of thin paper to make a layer.

The Bargello background can also be cut with a die for a shaped background layer, in my case the wonderful and very well used Top Note die.

For the greeting layer, I punched a scallop circle out of Wild Wasabi and bound Linen Thread around it in the Spirelli technique style.

I stamped the scallop circle greeting from the Hostess Stamp Set - Happiest Birthday Wishes, twice in Early Espresso ink on Whisper White and Marina Mist cardstock. Punch one out with the 1 3/8 inch circle punch and the other with the 1 inch circle punch. Layer these using Stampin' Dimensionals and attach it to the Wild Wasabi circle with a Stampin Dimensional.

The banner is from the Petal Cone Die but you can easily make one from a strip of card and cut a V in at one end. The greeting is from For My Family stamp set.

Attach the greeting to the back of the Scallop Circle and mount directly onto the Top Note Die Cut.

Don’t forget that everything that you see here can be purchased through me.  Drop me an email at sassystampers@gmail.com if you would like to know more on how to order.

Take Care & Happy Crafting!

Welcome to the Blog Hop!

 

Hi and welcome to the ILWS (In Love With Stamping) Retiring Blog Hop.

Just dropped by? Not sure what a Blog hop is? No worries, I’ll explain….. A blog Hop is where a group of people all join in collectively to set up a post on their blogs to go live at the same time on the same day giving you, our fabulous visitors, some pretty awesome projects as you hop from blog to blog. In a second you’ll see the details for who is before me in this blog hop and at the end of this post you’ll see the details of the next person in the Blog Hop. Hopefully you’ll make your way round everyone who was involved picking up some fabulous projects, tips and ideas along the way.

I’ll also post at the end the entire list of Blogs involved just in case a link is broken along the way and you can come back here to find the next one in the hop.

Hopefully you have joined me from the lovely Julie’s Blog?   I’ll be off blog hopping later today to check things out too. I’m so excited to see what everyone has made!
Our blog hop as you’ve probably guessed was inspired by the retiring products from our current catalogue. Now hopefully the projects that you see will inspire you to purchase those goodies that you have wanted for ages but have just not got around to purchasing, or perhaps will give you some inspiration to using that particular stamp set or papers that you have in your crafty stash but are yet to use.

Right let’s get on to projects shall we?

First up is geared around my most favourite time of the year…Christmas. I love Christmas. I love everything about Christmas. My saddest part of the holidays is when the decorations come down as it means it’s over. But until then I can make lots and lots of fabulous projects & cards.

The three projects you can see all use papers found in the Jolly Holidays Designer Series Papers. They are just gorgeous.

First up is the Origami (Kirigami) Christmas Tree Card. It’s so simple to make and so adorable! The trunk of the tree is just a piece of Chocolate chip card with some lines drawn on using the Chocolate chip marker pen.  I mounted the tree onto a Top Note die cut of Cherry Cobbler and stamped in Cherry Cobbler with the Sanded background stamp.  I just love the texture that this retiring stamp gives. Some gold brads just for that bit of bling.

                 

Next up is a very simple decoration, one that you can get the children making.

For this I used the gorgeous Jolly Holliday Designer Series Paper. All you do is start off with a square of Double sided Designer Series Papers.  Mine was 3 inches x 3 inches.   Fold diagonally corner to corner, then again to make a triangle. cut 3 lines up from one diagonal to the other BUT leave 5mm at the other side.  Open it up and alternate opening up the cut lines and glue.  If you make 5 of these you can then attach them together to make a 3D snowflake.  There are ton’s of tutorials for this on the web.

And lastly in the Christmas goodies is the paper pinecone. All you need for this is a polystyrene ball or egg, 1 sheet of 12x12 Designer series paper cut into 2” x 1” strips, some short pins (Sequin pins) and some ribbon. Oh and a thimble!!!  Believe me, you really need a thimble.

            

Moving away from Christmas are a couple of other projects for you, using retiring stamp sets.

First up is this adorable matchbook pocket calendar.

               

I just love it. Made in Chocolate Chip, So Saffron and Pretty in pink.  The stamp set used is the wonderful Simply Said.  It is so girly and just perfect for this type of project.  These are great stocking fillers, teacher or family gifts and so easy to make.

And lastly using the same colour combo as the Matchbook Diary is a lovely “We’ve Moved” card made using just the “Neighborhood” Jumbo Stampin’ wheel.

 

            

I used Basic Black to stamp the row of house onto a piece of Whisper White card, and again on to a spare piece.  I picked out one house on the spare piece, coloured it in and cut it out,  mounted it onto the other using Stampin’ Dimensionals.  A little bit of Old Olive for the grass and shrubs and mounted all this onto So Saffron and Pretty in Pink matting.  Finally mounted onto a Chocolate Chip card base.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your time on here, now off you go to the next one. Up next is the wonderful Sandra’s blog http://www.kraftybiker.blogspot.com/ 

I can not wait to see what Sandra has in store for us.

Bye for now.

Elaine x

Full Blog List -

1. AlisonP http://craftyalisoninlyon.blogspot.com/
2. Twintrouble (Erika) http://twintroublescreations.blogspot.com/
3. Lauralou http://airingcupboardstamping.blogspot.com/
4. Sarah (IOW Sarah) http://www.stampinsarahiow.blogspot.com/
5. Theresa M http://my-next-chapter.blogspot.com/
6. Rozelle (LittleMoo6) http://thepapercraftsessions.blogspot.com/
7. Valerie (valmoody) http://stampingwithval.wordpress.com/
8. EmmaH http://emma-letsstamp.blogspot.com/
9. Donna (DonnaM) http://www.head-over-heels-by-dlm.blogspot.com/
10. Julie H (The Crafty Bug http://the-crafty-bug.blogspot.com/
11. Elaine (Sassy Stamper) http://www.thesassystampers.blogspot.com/
12. Sandra (Sarnie) http://www.kraftybiker.blogspot.com/
13. Natalie http://www.natalieoshea.co.uk/blog.html
14. Kimf http://kimfeecrafter.blogspot.com/
15. CarolineSkinner http://stampinupandbranchingout.blogspot.com/
16. VickyLou http://www.vickylouscorner.blogspot.com/
17. Michelle (ShellieStamps) http://michellescraftypaper.typepad.com/
18. allyf http://www.serendipitypapercuts.blogspot.com/
19. Maggiemae http://thefineartofstampin.blogspot.com/
20. Evy C http://www.evyscraftycreations.blogspot.com/
21. Niki http://www.mygroovystampinup.blogspot.com/
22. Sarah-Jane www.cardsandacuppa.blogspot.com
23. Tina( Tina Faghy) http://littlewhitehousecrafts.blogspot.com
24. Sally (Pink Sky) http://pinkskysu.blogspot.com

Tombola Prize Crafty Goodies

Hello again,

Wow I seem to have quite a few posts for you recently!  What's going on? Well as you’ve probably red my son is leaving Nursery to go to Big School in September.
Just before the start of the summer holidays they have their end of year Sports Day, Graduation & Summer Fete.  So in true crafters style I made some little crafty bits to go into the Tombola Prizes.  I decorated some little Tea Light Candles and boxed them up into a little set of 4 and I covered a few little jotter notepads with our gorgeous Designer Series Papers (DSP)

Here are the little sets of candles.  A friend of mine gave me the boxes a while ago and they were just perfect for them.  I out a piece of coordinating cardstock in the base, a little tissue paper in between and tied the boxes up with our stunning ribbons or Seam Binding.

The images on the candles are done using an image stamped onto tissue paper.  Punch a hole in the middle of the image for the candle wick to go through and punch the image out to the right size.  Put over the candle wick.   Heat up your heat gun until it is nice and hot (this will stop you from burning or melting the candle too much) and then very carefully and quite quickly melt the candle.  Don’t hold the gun to close and you’ll see the candle start to melt and soak into the tissue paper.  You only need to melt the top a little until all of the tissue paper has been soaked in the liquid wax. Once it has cooled down the wax resets and the image looks fabulous!



The jotter notebooks were very inexpensive from that store where “Every little helps”   I covered them in some DSP, a little cardstock at the top which had been trimmed with the Scallop Punch and added the letters to spell NOTES from the Broadsheet Alphabet Stamp Set.

The DSP’s cam from (Left to Right) – Lap of Luxury, Greenhouse Gala and Jolly Holiday.

I just love the alphabet letters as they are all so different and make up such lovely images when used together in your words. You can use them altogether as I have done here or you could use one as your starting letter of a word leaving the rest all plain from another stamp. A great way to do that is to only colour the second letter onwards with your Marker Pens so Happy Birthday becomes “appy irthday” but use a H and a B from the Broadsheet Alphabet to give it that WOW!

Hope you like these

Back Soon

Elaine x

Sale-a-Bration Blog Hop

Hello & Welcome to the Sale-a-Bration blog hop. Taking part are over 40 Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators. A huge thank you to Pat (Cupcake) for organising us all. Grab a cuppa sit down and enjoy.

If you have been blog hopping already you’ve probably come here via Erika’s Blog http://twintroublesjourneythroughlifex2.blogspot.com/ .

There are four groups in total and each one starts with a different blog, leading you through 10 or more blogs. Here they are


Group 1 Sara

Group 2 Theresa

Group 3 Keren

Group 4 Kirsteen


Welcome to my part in the Sale-a-Bration Blog Hop.

If you’ve not visited anywhere else yet, welcome as well. Just make sure you either blog back to Erika’s (Twin Trouble) blog or forward onto Jeanette’s blog. http://jeannettespages.wordpress.com/ so you don’t miss out on the rest of the hop.
The object of this blog hop is to bring you many wonderful, stunning creations using Stampin’ up!’s fabulous Sale-a-Bration Stamp Set. Well here’s my contribution... Enjoy!

My first item for you is a Mini Magazine Holder and matching cards using the fabulous Punch Bunch Stamp Set and So Happy for You Stamp Set. I’ve also used the In Colors ™ Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz and Peach Parfait cardstock & Ink and Pear Pizzazz ribbon. I have also used the Two-Step Bird Punch for the braches for the little owl’s to sit on and gold brads on the holders tag. The lovely spotty paper is from the In Colors ™ Designer Series Papers Stack.





Next up is a perfect little Post-it Note ™ Holder in the same colours as before. The moon behind little own is made using Textured So Saffron Cardstock and the 1 3/4 “ Circle Punch. These make great little thank you presents for friends and family.



And lastly I just couldn’t resist a neat little 6”x6” scrapbook page of my 2 little ones taken about a year and a bit ago. Aw!!!



The main Page is Pear Pizzazz, with Blushing Bride dotty paper from the In Colors ™ Designer Series Papers Stack. The photo mat is Concord Crush. One of my favourite colours!

The gorgeous flowers are from the SAB set Sweet Summer. I stamped them in Concord Crush on to Blushing Bride cardstock and cut them out. I just love this set and have used it loads since I got it.



The So Happy tag is from the So Happy for you SAB stamp Set, which I coloured just the first part of the set with my Concord Crush In Colors ™ Stampin Write Marker. I then punched it out using the Modern Label Punch. I took the edges off by punching the edges through the modern label punch and then mounted it onto a Concord Crush Modern Label.
A few of the Basic Pearls Jewels later and there you have it.

Don’t forget you can get any of the items I have used for my projects from the Idea Book & Catalogue. And the Sale-a-Bration stamp sets you can earn free for every £45 you spend on goodies from the Idea Book & Catalogue.  If you’d like to know more about the Sale-a-Bration promotion and how to obtain the products here please contact me.

If you have time before you go, why not leave me a message and let me know what was your favourite project of mine.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list for news on workshops, classes and fabulous promotions.

Now make sure you hop on over to Jeanette’s blog. http://jeannettespages.wordpress.com/ for the next step of the Blog Hop.

Have fun & see you again soon

Elaine x

Sale-a-Bration–Punch Bunch For You!

 

With all the wintery weather everyone has been having or has had I thought there was a need for a cheerful card in some fabulous sunny colours.

I’ve used Poppy Parade, Whisper White and Daffodil Delight cardstock with a piece of Sunny Garden Designer Series Paper. I used Pear Pizzazz teamed up with the Scallop Circle punch.

The “For You” image is from the fabulous Sale-a-Bration (SAB) set – Punch Bunch.  I am loving this set as there are so many fabulous images that will allow you to make some truly wonderful cards, scrapbook pages and other paper craft projects.

Add a little Daffodil Delight Grosgrain ribbon and there you go!  A sunny card to cheer up someone's day.

Hope you like it.

Back Soon

Elaine x

Envelope Scrap Album

This is such a fun project to make.  And such a great way to show off photo’s.  It’s a great present.

 
If you took lots of photo’s of the children over Christmas ready to send the grandparents, aunties & uncles or even Mummies or Daddies posted overseas then what better way to do it than with an Envelope Scrap Album. 

                         
All you need is 3 straight flap envelopes (Stampin’ Up! Whisper White  or Very Vanilla) , 3 fabulous photos, 12 x 12 papers (I've used Stampin’ Up! Sunny Garden Designer Series Papers (DSP).  You can add Ribbons and any other embellishment's that you want. I’ve used brads from Stampin’ Up! Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware Collection.
You may want to strengthen the joins where the envelope flap sticks to the next envelope with scored cardstock.

  

Why not have a go.    Would love to see your creations. Send me your photo’s and I’ll post them up on here for you!

Elaine x