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

Many Perfect Pairs

This month’s workshop is in line with Stampin' Up's March promotion entitled Perfect Pairs - A stamp set and a matching punch.

I want to give my group the opportunity to use all of the promoted stamps sets and their matching punch. So to keep things a neat, I decided on working with one colour scheme throughout.

I chose a pack of the Tea & Crumpets Designer Series Paper (DSP) and worked with the 4 colours in the pack:-

Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke and So Saffron.

Here are some of my samples ready for next week’s workshop:-

This card incorporates not only all 4 colours, but also the DSP and 2 punches.  The butterfly is made by stamping Chocolate Chip onto SU White Vellum Card Stock . 

The scallop square is stamped in Always Artichoke onto white cardstock and is from the "Say it with Scallops" stamp set.

Wish upon a star, with this fabulous and very simple card. 

This is a great card for a teenager; it is simple, sassy and fun!

Something a little more classic, using the Scallop Square punch and "Say it with Scallops" stamp set.  I added a gold brad to one of the flowers on the "hi" square, punched random squares from the DSP, stamped the thank you message twice once in Chocolate chip and once in Always Artichoke. 

I added the centre of the chocolate chip directly onto the Always Artichoke stamped image. A little ribbon knot to the pink square just finishes it off.  I did cheat a little - I used one punch not in the promotion. 

Can you guess which one?

Enough Said? No Simply Said......

The one above and the one below are both from the beautiful "Simply Said" stamp set.  Both incorporate the fabulous DSP.  In the top one I have coloured in the flowers using my "Many Marvelous Markers in Pretty in Pink and So Saffron.  The little dots in between are in Always Artichoke.

This is one and the same card - the one on the left was taken with the flash, the one on the right without.  I wanted to be able to show you that in the centre of the card there is a raised heart.

The whisper white background has the flowers stamped in Always Artichoke but they are not coloured in.

I stamped the same image in Always Artichoke on to a separate sheet of Whisper White cardstock, coloured in the flowers and punched part of it out with the Full Heart Punch.  Using my Stampin' Dimensionals I raised it up before placing it over the same image on the card.

I hope you like them.