Stampin' With Michelle Pepper

Today, at my monthly Mum & Me class, we made these lovely, quite classical, mini purses. I presented the purses in the array of colours that are Stampin' Up!'s In Colours for 2015-17. Beginning from the left is Cucumber Crush, Tip Top Taupe, Watermelon Wonder, Mint Macaron, and lastly on the right, Delightful Dijon. Have you got a favourite In-Colour? Well, my choice would be Tip Top Taupe if I am looking for an exciting and new Neutral other than Black, White or Crumb Cake (all of which are my go to's so sometimes I feel I may have overdone those). But in this case, what with all the purses before my eyes, I am just loving the Mint Macaron with a hint of Tip Top Taupe: The stripes pattern pieces are from the Envelope Paper (#138312) and the Taupe pieces have been embossed with the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder (#133520). The flowers are made with the oldie but a goodie Scallop Circle 1-3/4" punch (#119854) - punch out six of these scallop circles, ...

Great little purse card we made at my May's "Mum & Me" class .The design of the card was from my upline's upline, affectionately dubbed my SU Grandma, Heather Stewart. Isn't she a clever lady to come up with her own design? Thank you Heather. Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow everyone!

These were quick to put together, thanks to Stampin' Up! Tiny Treat Boxes from the Holiday Catalogue. For just $14.50, I got 25 boxes all pre cut already so I just have to assemble together, no adhesive required. I already had a ton of red 1" circles cut out from another project I did with peeps several years ago (yup, I have kept them all these years, thinking I will put it to good use one day!). As it was pretty late at night on the 1 Dec when I put these together, I decided to just hand write the numbers in Chalkboard Pen. These boxes are all filled with 6 treats each for the 6 members of our family (sigh, little 3yr old gets them too, even though with my firstborn, he would not have been allowed sweet treats every day when he was 3 yrs old!) I think it is more exciting than the commercial advent chocolates because those are the same choccies each day. The kids get a surprise each day because the boxes are filled with different treats. The hard work is on my part, ...

I am trying hard where possible to be efficient. I needed a 1-3/4" Scallop Circle for my Hedgehog card and being ever mindful, I punched it out in such a way that the "negative" Chocolate Chip Card Stock can easily be used also. I do this often, but the problem is that these "negatives" would soon build into a stash of awkward scraps getting entangled with each other. So this time, since I already have a stash of scraps out, I quickly set to work with this negative piece of card stock. I found a small piece of this retired DSP from some time ago, which is of Real Red, Olive Green and Very Vanilla stripes - the perfect and very popular partners with Chocolate Chip. I loved it even more when I, quite unintentionally, layered the DSP on an angle beneath the Chocolate Chip. It just oozes warm times by the fire with spiced hot chocolate, hence the image from the stamp set, A Fitting Occassion. It started out as a 3x3 card, then I wanted to add the twine too, ...

It is very possible that the internet is not doing much good for my creativity in the sense that I really don't need to work things out for myself. Then again, it is good for my creativity in the sense that I am spending more time making, not just thinking. Technically, I suppose, the first is creativity, and the second is crafting. Well, I comfort my ego by noting that while I found a picture of a card Michelle Suit made, she didn't say how she made it so actually, I did have to work it out for myself. And oh, she used a punch which I don't have for the face, so I was being creative in substituting it with what I have, the now retired Full Heart punch. The end of the matter though - isn't she a cutie? And just for the record, I had to google to confirm that hedgehogs do eat strawberries - indeed they do! Tell me you are like that too - having to get the details right. Sometimes anyway :-) Special message *** This one is for you, dear Rach. With much love, M xx...

In just a little under three years since I signed up as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I have managed to collect quite a few stamp sets. There are sets that I have hardly used, and you know, about all of them, I would say I haven't used as much as I would like to. It is a little hard as my stamping time is usually restricted to a start time of 10pm. Anyway, the point I want to make is this: I am making an effort to get as much mileage as I can from each stamp set that I own. So that could mean this blog might just be very boring, always showcasing the same stamp sets. Yet it could be inspiring and helpful perhaps to show the versatility of the stamps. On the right side of this blog, there is a section for Labels. It is sorted alphabetically so if you scroll down you'll see the list of Stamp sets and next to each name is a number, which indicates how many blog posts have been tagged with that stamp set. As I write now, I am pondering whether to make the goal quite specif...

I have combined several challenges with this card. Firstly, the sketch is from Paper Players Challenge this week. The main colour Orange was influenced by StampNation's Summer Kick Off Party Day 2 challenge which was "Hot, hot, HOT!" H, being for Heat Embossing, O for Orange and T for Twine. Can you spot all the elements?  Oh, and did you notice the use of Washi tape on this card? That's a sneak peek of the new product offering in the 2013-14 catalogue which goes live on 2 July! Washi Tape TIP: adhere the washi tape on plain white coloured paper if you are going to place it over a busy background. This way, the design (in this case, the yellow gingham pattern) will be clearly visible.  When I had finished, I saw that the card also meets StampNation's Challenge #89 , which was to mix and match at least 3 different patterns on the card.  I learned from Noell Hyman a principle on mixing patterned papers. You can watch the video tutor...