These are a few of my favourite things....

So... the new annual catalogue launched this month and before my  first order of new goodies arrived, illness descended upon our house - and you'll get an idea of just how ill I was when I tell you that the delivery came and it was three full days before I even opened the box (shock horror) but Thankfully we are on the mend again now and I have opened the box, prepped all my new stamps sets and applied ink...

After my restraint on pre-order (one stamp set, one punch and all the new in-colour card and ink) I had a little fun with my first full order and I got quite a few stamp sets this time round. It was still hard to choose from all the lovely new stuff available.


I have a new clear favourite right now and that is the gorgeous Awesomely Artistic set (on page 125)
It has nine stamps in total and coordinates with  the 1" circle punch and the project life labels framelits that I already own.

I love this set so much already that I chose to use on the birthday card I made for my Mum....who loves nature and muted colour tones.

I used my ink pads and blender pen to add a light colour wash to the leaves and flowers and lightly ink edged the central panel using sponges. The finished card was a  big hit with the birthday girl!

The second set that is going to be so useful for so many projects is the Layered Letters Alphabet photopolymer set (on page 133).

This set has all the letters of the alphabet,some punctuation marks  and also comes with two solid block stamps...one is a circle and the other a rectangle and they are perfectly sized to fit the letters.

This set gives so many possibilities. In this card I chose to overlap the circles in one colour and stamp the letters in another colour, but you could opt to stamp each one differently, alternate colours, choose tone on tone... basically the sky's the limit with this one... and the letters are a good size for all manner of projects.



These are a couple of my new favourites... I will be back with some of the others in the next few days...As always if you have any questions, would like a copy of the new catalogue or if I can help with anything, please do get in touch

Bye for now

Christa   xx 

New Catalogue Launch and a little Blog Hop

It's here...the new annual catalogue launches today and always is filled from cover to cover with great products and fabulous project ideas.

As demonstrators we are lucky enough to be able pre-order a selection of products a month before the catalogue launches. This gives us time to try them out and prepare some projects to share with you all....and what better way to showcase some new products than with a little blog hop.

I always look forward to seeing the new in-colours and I always  fall in love with them as soon as I start to use them...and this years offering is no different in that respect - so I decided to focus all my projects using  the new in-colours as well as a few new products. The new in-colours are Cucumber Crush, Delightful Dijon, Mint Macaron, Tip Top Taupe and Watermelon Wonder

My first project  is this card and matching envelope...made using the new envelope paper pack. Yes...paper specifically to make perfect envelopes. Its double sided - plain on one side and patterned on the other - is 12x12 size and you get 20 sheets.

This card I made as  5x5" and the envelope was simple to make in minutes using the envelope  punch board...and I decided to use a  strip of the envelope paper on my card too.

The stacked cupcake was made using the Sprinkles of Life stamp set... this is the RMHC stamp this year and I love it. It is so versatile and you will find it on page 189 of the catalogue... its definitely worth checking it out.  It also coordinates with another great new product - the tree builder punch...Love this punch already. It punches clouds, the tree and  a couple of really cute little elements to finish your projects.

My second project uses the Sprinkles of Life set and tree builder punch again. This time I stamped and embossed the clouds in silver (to match the sentioment about clouds hvaing a silver lining) and embossed the tree using versamark ink and  cucumber crush ink on cucumber crush card.

The stamp set is photyopolymer which made stamping the grass and flowers so easy too.

For this next project I decided I would try out the new cotton paper (page 148) This comes in four gorgeous colours - three of which I have used here.  I have to admit that when I saw cotton paper I was expecting some thing that felt like fabric... but this is so much nicer. It has a soft silky feel and  while light, is quite strong.

I decided to test it out  with some dies and made some flowers by layering up elements  cut using flower fair  framelits - these I will use on top of small gift boxes.

For my final; project I used the Butterfly Basics stamp set and Butterfly Thinlits for this card.

I used watermelon wonder for the base card with a panel of very vanilla onto which I stamped the background using butterfly basics stamp set.

I cut all three butterflies from cotton paper at the same time and layered them up using glue dots along the body of the butterfly. The paper is light and so lifts and spreads easily revealing the layers beneath and making beautiful delicate butterflies. I finished them off with a row of rhinestones.

And that is about it from me for now. I hope you have enjoyed your visit. If you would like to return to the beginning of the hop or go back to the previous blog please use the buttons below to navigate your way

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As always if you have any questions about any of the products or the projects featured please do getin touch

Until next time

Christa   xx