New Class: Sail Away Papercrafting

Papercrafting Class

In July we will be taking to the Sea! We'll be making a naval themed home decor item and 2 cards using the fabulous Sail Away with Me Product Suite.

Price for this class is £20 and includes all materials to make the home decor piece plus a Stampin' Up! Sail Away Memories and More card pack (56 preprinted cards in assorted sizes plus stickers).

Coffee, tea and water will be provided and basic craft tools are available for use.

Location: Avon Way Hall, Portishead (south west of Bristol)

We start at 10 and finish 13.00. Wheelchairs access and plenty of parking available.

To sign up please email Sonja Gortzak at sgortzak@yahoo.co.uk

Come Stamp With Me: Colourful Cards Workshop in Portishead

It is with a lot of excitement and some trepidation that I'm sharing with you that I have booked my first workshop in the UK:

Sunday June 16th

Avon Way Hall in Portishead, North Somerset. Just south of Bristol.

It's a Papercrafting Workshop where we will be making 2 cards and 1 decorated notebook in a relaxed and fun atmosphere. Open to new and experienced crafters. We will be using a range of stamping and colouring techniques.

All materials for making the projects are included.

Coffee, tea and water will be provided.

We will start at 10.30 and finish at 12.45

Costs £12.50 incl. materials and drinks.

Plenty of parking space available and an access ramp.

Sign up by sending an email to sgortzak@yahoo.co.uk

Hugs from Shelli - Paper Pumpkin Card Kit video

It's here! The Special Global Edition of Paper Pumpkin, a paper crafting kit from the US. Usually only available to North American crafters but this one is available to all markets.

It's a beautifully curated kit to make 12 cards in 4 different designs. It includes stamps, adhesive and envelopes as well. You just need a clear block and some free time to get crafting🤗 To my great surprise it has not yet sold out so I when my kit was delivered I decided to do a little unboxing video:

Beautiful isn't it?

If you live in the UK, NL, DE, FR or AU you can order your kit with me:

More Sparkle: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

One of the sweetest stamp sets that will be retiring on June 3rd is the Twinkle Twinkle set. It's brilliant for making Baby Cards:

I started by making a water color background on some Shimmery White Cardstock. This paper is just that bit more resistant to water than regular Whisper White and whiter than water color paper. When the background had dried I used the Twinkle Builder Punch to make a stencil through which I applied some Shimmery White Embossing Paste creating a subtle sparkly background:

I stamped the sentiment on some Whisper White and punched it out with the Everyday Label Punch. I attached the sentiment with ribbon and attached it all to a Whisper White Card base.

LAST CHANCE: Retiring Products

The current Annual and Spring Summer Catalogue are coming to an end. This means that a number of stamp sets, punches and dies as well as all Patterned Paper, 2017-2019 In-Colors and most embellishments will be discontinued as of June 3rd. Some may sell out before that date. So be sure to check the website to see which ones are "retiring" and make sure you get them before they're gone.

Mothering Sunday - A bit of history and a splash of colour

Having lived the majority of my life in The Netherlands I was used to Mother's Day falling on the 2nd Sunday in May as it does in many countries around the World. But not in the UK... I've lived here almost three years now so I have become used to it but I was always wondering what the reason was for a. a date so different from the rest of the world and also the slightly different name: Mothering Sunday. A few weeks ago I finally learned why as I was leaving through a book about seasonal celebrations: Festivals, Family and Food by Diane Carey and Judy Large. It turns out that Mothering Sunday always comes halfway during Lent (the Christian period of fasting leading up to Easter) and originates from the times when young girls were working in the large houses and estates, away from home. Halfway through Lent they'd be allowed to go home to see their mother and it became known as Mothering Sunday. I also read that they would sometimes bake something impressive to show off the new skills they'd learned while away from home. Great story isn't it?

Well, my mother lives in The Netherlands and she will be getting a card in May but I do have a Mother-in-Law living here so I did get to make her a Mother's Day Card.

If you follow me on Instagram you'll notice I used a similar design as the Nesting Bird Easter Card I posted there earlier this week. For this card I started by applying two colours of ink onto some Shimmery White Cardstock using an Aquabrush. I chose not to used Watercolor Paper as I really wanted this to be a white card and the watercolor card is always a bit more cream. On top of it I added a bit Gold Metallic Thread, a Swirly Die Cut from the Swirly Scribbles Thinlits Die set and some cut out stamped flowers and leaves from the coordinating Swirly Bird Stamp Set. I heat embossed Happy Birthday in Gold and that was it!

So tell me, have sent out or received a Mother's Day card? When do you celebrate this day?

Blog Hop Stamp Fans

Happy Valentines Stamp Fans!

Today I have something special for you: I am taking part in a Blog Hop organised by one of my Stampin' Up! teamies in The Netherlands. So if you're looking for some more inspiration then follow the arrows at the bottom to check out all the other projects in the hop.

Our theme is red/pink to link in with Valentines day but it doesn't have to be a Valentines Card. I did, however, make a Valentines card for my son using Real Red, Melon Mambo and a little bit of Bermuda Bay to match the pink up with the red.

I started by stamping the stripey background in all 3 colours using the Incredible Like You stamp set. I adhered this to the background and punched three circles out of a piece of Whisper White Card Stock slightly smaller than the card base. I Attached this over the stripes using Stampin Dimensionals to create some height.

Next I stamped the Image of the woman hugging the child, from the Artfully Aware set, on some watercolour paper and colouored in using my water brush and some ink. While that dried I punched out a few circles from coloured cardstock and heat embossed the sentiment (from the Well Said stamp set) on some Real Red cardstock using White Embossing Powder.

Finally I adhered all the circles and the sentiment with lots of dimensionals again:-)

And inside I stamped "Love you more than all the Stars" from the Little Twinkle stamp set:

Ready for more? Follow the arrows:

Amazing Life Masculine Valentines Card

So my hubby appreciates a handmade card but not a pink one with lots of hearts and frills:-) Which is good because I realised last night that I don't really have much in the way of hearts m in my stash. So I went through my stamp sets to look for a suitable alternative: something genuine but not too mushy if you know what I mean:-)

I came across the Amazing Life stamp set that has this hand lettered feel to to it and found the perfect sentiment. I heat embossed it in white on some Wood Textures DSP and adhered all that to a white card base. It looked pretty good but it was missing something....

So back in my stash I dove to look for a die that might provide a little pop of colour. And I found it in the Everyday Jars Thinlits Dies. That set has this a little strip of itsy bitsy HEARTS! And that was exactly what this card needed: a tiny little red heart:-)

Happy Valentine's Day lovely people!

Get your sparkle on: Shimmery Embossing Paste and Decorative Mask

Recently I finally opened my jar of Shimmery (White) Embossing Paste for a birthday card. I Love embossing paste and stencils and for this card I mixed 5 lots of paste with different re-inkers and then scraped each one through one of the Pattern Party Decorative Masks using a palet knife.

While it dried I die cut the Happy Birthday die from black and gold shimmer paper. Cutting out a second sentiment from black cardstock to ensure the gold stands out from the glittery background:

Sale-A-Bration Freebie Spotlight: Precious Parcel Kit

One of my favourite Sale-A-Bration items is the Precious Parcel Kit. A gorgeous vintagy floral card kit that has everything in it to make 8 cards:

But you are not limited to cards with this set. I did a bit of searching on YouTube and found two great alternative ideas with this kit: one was by Rachel Tessman on how to turn the card into a super cute 3D mailbox ( Middle project at top photo) and the other was by Nigezza Creates and she turns 2 cards and their envelopes into a little booklet (project on the left). I made both and can't wait to send them off!

These kits are popular and stock is limited so make sure you get yours! Remember: this kit is FREE with your order of £45/€60 or more. Click on the SHOP NOW button to go straight to my shop. Not really into Vintage Florals? Don't worry there are loads of other items to choose from. Click here to check them all out.

So tell me, what would you make with this kit:

2019 Spring Summer catalogue is here!

Anyone else ready for something fresh and inspiring after all that green and red? I know I am! I know we are still expecting winter to properly kick in but I am in a bit of a Spring mood with the new  Stampin' Up! Spring Summer catalogue full of fresh new ideas, colours and products. Just leaving through it cheers me up. And remember it is also Sale-A-Bration so you can choose free items with every £45 or €60 you spend.  Pretty good idea me thinks:-)

I started the year off with some watercolouring:

I stamped the cake and sentiment from the Amazing Life stamp set onto watercolor paper with Memento Ink and coloured them in with the Watercolor Pencils. This set of 13 colours (incl. white) gives you a great range of colours for all kinds of colouring projects. Add an Aqua Painter and you never need to "change the water" ever again:-)

The black and white paper is the reverse side of the beautiful Botanical Butterfly paper you can get for FREE when you order £ 45/€60 during Sale-A-Bration. Click on the the brochure in the side bar to see what other items you can get for free.
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#stamping #cardmaking #scrapbooking #papercrafting #stampinup #stampinupdemonstrator