World Cardmaking Day

Welcome to our World Card Making Day Blog Hop! This is such a fantastic way to celebrate this event with lots of amazing inspiration for you. You are currently visiting my blog - Bec Ross in Australia and you will be visiting lots of different places in your hop today. There is a list at the end of the page which will help you to move along from blog to blog so you see up to heaps of different projects.

The card I'm sharing with you today is actually very simple.  That's because it is part of my World Card Making Day "Card Buffet"!  My team and I are hosting an event today where our customers and friends can come over for an "all you can stamp" card buffet.  Since they may be stamping lots of cards in a short space of time, we wanted our cards to be easy but cute.

The perfect stamp set for easy and cute is Cookie Cutter Christmas!

Paired with a simple red and white colour scheme it makes for a simple Christmas card that you could make lots of quite easily.  Do you send a lot of Christmas cards? Or just a few?

The striped piece going across the card is actually washi tape from the Candy Cane Lane collection in the Holiday Catalogue.

Stamps: Cookie Cutter Christmas
Inks: Basic Black Archival ink pad, Read Red ink pad, Basic Grey marker
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White
Accessories: Candy Cane Lane washi tape
Tools: Layering Circles Framelits, Blender Pens

Thanks for visiting my blog today, there are so many amazing ideas and inspiration you don't want to miss. Remember that currently you are at my blog - BEC ROSS - so check the blog hop line up list to see who is next in the list.


To celebrate World Card Making Day, Stampin' Up! have some amazing deals on!  You can check them out in my ONLINE SHOP.  Every order this month will be rewarded with an extra free gift since its my 10 anniversary with Stampin' Up! :-)

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Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop - September

Hi everyone, bit of a long time between blog posts for me, whoops! 

Welcome to the Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop for September. This month our theme is the Thankfulness as it is our last hop for the Mediterranean Trip. Next month those that have earned the trip to Thailand in 2017 will be hopping each month. 

You may just be starting the blog hop here at my blog (Bec Ross) or may have come from the person previous to me in the list. If you get off track at any time, the full lineup below will help you move along from blog to blog so you see all the projects. 

I have a lot to be thankful for in my life - a happy and healthy family, a fun job that takes me on awesome holidays, loads of wonderful friends I've met through my time as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator... lots be grateful for.

I'm super grateful to have wonderful demonstrators in my team who are also enjoying their hobby and businesses.  This past week I sent out some extra little" thank you"s to them.  Without them I would not have achieved my goal of earning the 2017 Grand Vacation to Thailand!  

I sent them some of our super cute Metallic Enamel Shapes and a little thank you note. I used Petals & Paisleys DSP for the striped accent pieces and the stamp comes from the "Better Than Email" stamp set in the Annual Catalogue.

Another thing I am grateful for is how easy Stampin' Up! makes my life!  I love all of our kits for when I need cards in a hurry or don't feel like making up my own design.  

Designer Tin of Cards is pretty cool - I love how simple they are to make.  

I always need Thank You cards and often need them made in a hurry so I copied the Thank You card from the kit! Can you spot the difference??

The top one is my copy, the bottom one is from the kit.  I simplified by leaving off the embellishments but I think it still looks pretty good!  I've used the Moroccan designer series paper and the Designer Tin of Cards stamp set to complete the look.

Thank you for visiting my blog - I'm grateful for your visit!  I look forward to sharing more with you soon as I get back into the blogging habit :-)

Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop - Baby Love

Hi everyone and welcome to the blog hop for April. Our theme this month is Baby Love.

I was very excited to win the Baby Bear stamp set as my prize at the recent On Stage event on the Gold Coast. This event is for demonstrators only and it was a great weekend. We were given an advance copy of the next Annual Catalogue as well as some cool new product!!

So here's a sneak peek for you of the Baby Bear stamp set with my project:

Isn't he cute?  Baby Bear is a 3-step stamp set - there are 3 layers of stamping to make this bear.  I find it MUCH easier to stamp in reverse order - i.e. start with the darkest colour first and work back towards the lighter colours over the top.  It is much easier to see through the stamp this way.

You do need to be quite precise when stamping with these types of images, otherwise you can get a blurry image.  So just take your time and have a  few tries on some scrap paper first to get the hang of it.

I am just loving these Photo Realistic stamps.  If you like this look, another great stamp set I can recommend is the Picture Perfect stamp set currently available in the Occasions Catalogue.

Stamps: Baby Bear (will be available from June 1st in the new annual catalogue)

Inks: Crumb Cake and Soft Suede

Paper: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede and Soft Sky

Accessories/Tools: Lucky Stars embossing folder and Banner Framelits

Another Botanical Card Sketch

This was a fun sketch to follow:

I've used:

Paper - Cajun Craze, Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey, Botanical Gardens DSP

Accessories: Expressions Natural Elements, Rhinestones

Easter Carrot Treats

I just wanted to quickly share these fun Easter Carrot treats with you today.  These were a bit of a last-minute creation as I had actually forgotten that I'd purchased the Polka Dot Cone Cellophane Bags from the Occastions Catalogue!

So last minute that I didn't have time to go very far looking for orange treats to go inside my carrots.  Best I could come up with was a couple of bags of Darrel Lea "jaffas" and a giant bag of Smarties from which I picked out all the orange ones! LOL!

Then my eldest child reminded me that carrots can be purple too so we picked through the Smarties and made a purple carrot as well.

The bags are tied closed with Cucumber Crush lace and a little tag popped on, stamped with the And Many More stamp set.

Simple Sketch with Perfect Pairings

Here's another very simple card I made on the weekend retreat:

I've used Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey and Whisper White cardstock, Botanical designer vellum, Perfect Pairings stamp set and Mossy Meadow ink.   I also used the Project Life corner punch.  That's it! Super simple and easy to make lots in one go.

Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop March

Welcome to another Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop - our theme this month is "Wedding Dreams"

My eldest child's former teacher got married last weekend and since she was his teacher for 2 years in a row, we really wanted to give her a congratulations card.  When she returns from her honeymoon he can take this card to school to give to her.  She is such a sweet young lady and we loved having her as his teacher.

Since she is young and trendy, I didn't want to go too old-fashioned or shabby chic etc.  I wanted to keep it clean and simple and include some bling!
I also didn't really have too much in the way of specific wedding stamps so I actually did NO STAMPING on this card! OMG!

I've used the Expressions Natural Elements for the sentiment.  I tried out a few different options for colouring it and adding some sparkle. I settled on the bottom option - emboss with Whisper White embossing powder and then add Clear Wink of Stella over the top.

It is a little difficult to capture the sparkles on camera - always much prettier in real life - but hopefully this photo below gives you an idea of how each option looks.

The materials and tools I used for this card were:

* Shimmer White card stock (card base)

* Gold glimmer paper (layer and heart)

* Botanical Gardens Designer Vellum Stack (earned free with a $90 sale-a-bration order)

* Mini Treat Bag Thinlits dies (for the heart - the sweetheart punch was too small for what I wanted)

* Expressions Natural Elements (sentiment)

* Whisper White craft ink and embossing powder

* Heat Tool

* Clear Wink of Stella brush

I hope you enjoyed my project. Enjoy the rest of the blog hop!

Botanical Gardens - Card Sketch

Just recently my team and I spent a lovely weekend away at our annual team craft retreat.  I'm never sure what I'm going to make at these weekends so I take ALL my stuff (well, just about!) and just see what happens and what mood takes me.  This time I mostly created cards using sketches for the layouts.  I'll share them all with you over the next few posts but here's one to get us started.

It's a very simple card using just stamps, inks and papers.

I've used the following supplies:

*Mossy Meadow card stock

*Whisper White card stock

*Botanical Gardens DSP

*Perfect Pairings stamp set (sale-a-bration item)

*Mossy Meadow ink

*Cajun Craze ink

February Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop . . . One for the Guys

Welcome to the Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop for February. This month our theme is One for the Guys. We are sure that you will find some incredible inspiration from the projects that you are about to see. 

You may just be starting the blog hop here at my blog or may have come from the person previous to me in the list. If you get off track at any time, the full lineup below will help you move along from blog to blog so you see all the projects. 

At the moment you are visiting Bec Ross. 

I have a feeling most of the other blog hoppers will be doing masculine cards for the grown ups in their lives but I really needed to make some kids cards this week!  So I've gone with a project suitable for the little guys in my life :-)  I have 2 boys aged nearly 8 and 10 and of course they have friends who have birthdays so I'm always in need of some "boy cards" for them.

I just love the Boys will be Boys stamp set (but I use if for girls cards too!!) and so that one jumped out at me today.

My team member Hannah did a super cute card with embossed Silver Foil card and brought it to our team meeting - loved it! So I decided to do a similar thing on my card today.

I stamped the robot in Versamark ink and them heat embossed with the black powder.  I coloured him in using ink from the lids of my ink pads and my aqua painter brush.

The sentiment come from the same stamp set but the frame surrounding it comes from the Number of Years stamp set. It's a perfect fit!

Product List

• Boys Will Be Boys Wood-Mount Stamp Set [134135]
• Silver Foil Sheets [132178]
• Pacific Point A4 Card Stock [116202]
• Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pad [126951]
• Tangelo Twist A4 Cardstock [133684]
• Tangelo Twist Classic Stampin' Pad [133646]
• Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad [131179]
• Versamark Pad [102283]
• Black Stampin' Emboss Powder [109133]
• Heat Tool [129053]
• Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549]
• Aqua Painters [103954]
• Ovals Collection Framelits Die [129381]
• Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [129378]
• Number Of Years Photopolymer Stamp Set [140653]

A special birthday card

A friend has asked me to make a special card for her mum this week.  I'm not sure if this will be the final version or not but here's what I've come up with so far:

I've used the Large Numbers Framelits with the Gold Glimmer paper to create the number 80 and the belly-band is just a strip wrapped around the card.

The card is a "gatefold" design and the Simply Scored tool with the Metric plate comes in very handy for that.

The patterned paper is from the Pretty Petals DSP stack. The card stock colours are Very Vanilla and Mint Macaron.

Here is the inside of the card. I've also lined the envelope to match.

January Mediterranean Achievers Blog Hop . . . All you need is LOVE!

Welcome to the Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop for January. This month our theme is All You Need Is Love. We are sure that you will find some incredible inspiration from the projects that you are about to see. 

You may just be starting the blog hop here at my blog or may have come from the person previous to me in the list. If you get off track at any time, the full lineup below will help you move along from blog to blog so you see all the projects. 

At the moment you are visiting Bec Ross. 

You know,  think I might be just about the only Stampin' Up! Demonstrator who didn't purchase the Love Blossoms suite of products from the Occasions catalogue! So when it came to this "All you need is love" themed blog hop, I had to look elsewhere for some love themed stamps. What I discovered is that almost all the other stamps that I did purchase could work really well for a Valentines card. Many of the sets in that catalogue can cater for a variety of occasions within just one stamp set!

I decided to go with the Balloon Builders stamp set once I spotted the heart shaped balloon.  The set even has a great love themed sentiment.

When it came to colour choices I decided on Rose Red in an effort to show that colour some love after a long period of 'neglect' - I think it has been well over 6 months of not being used on my projects! Oops!  I teamed it up with Soft Sky as well as Sahara Sand - a great neutral colour. 

Although the Balloon Bouquet punch coordinates with the Balloon Builders stamp set, it doesn't punch out the heart shape so I hand-cut those with my paper snips (best scissors ever for that sort of work!)

Do you like the spotty background? I sponged some Soft Sky ink onto the Color Me Irresistible Specialty paper - since I didn't have any ready-made soft sky patterned paper, this was a good alternative and a fun technique.

Something that I have found to be very beneficial when using photopolymer stamps is the Stampin' Pierce Mat underneath the Card stock that I'm stamping onto.  I have found this makes a huge difference in getting a nice clean image.  If you ever have trouble getting your photopolymer stamps to stamp nicely, try that mat underneath - I'm sure it will help.  I have one mat for piercing (so its full of holes! lol!) and the other one I keep for stamping only, so its nice and smooth for a good result.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Thanks for taking part in our blog hop, there are so many amazing ideas and inspiration you don't want to miss. Remember that currently you are at my blog -Bec Ross - so check the blog hop line up list to see who is next in the list

Bright Balloon Builders!

Loving these brightly coloured balloons! So much cute. :-)

I tried a new way to watermark - on my phone!  But I think I like the one I do via my computer better...

Planning to make a Valentine's card with the heart shaped balloon from this set next, stay tuned!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Stamp Club Gifts

The first session of this round of our Stamp Clubs was held on Sunday and to welcome the ladies to this round of club I gave them a little gift:

A mixed pack of 6x6 designer series papers and a little book of post-it notes. 

The tags were created with the Watercolour Wings stamp set and the 2014-2016 set of In-Colour inks.  I also added some of the Gold Wink of Stella around the edges.  

I just love these multi-step stamp sets - its so much fun to experiment with different colour combinations and layering.  

I hope my club ladies enjoy using their papers and post-its :-)

Our next round of clubs will start in June when the new Annual catalogue comes out - contact me if you are interested in joining one of our clubs!  We make a couple of fun projects at each monthly gathering and each person take a turn at being the "host" which means they get FREE STUFF!!  Its a really great way to spread out your purchases over a few months too.

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Rose Garden "inlay" Technique

 I've used the gorgeous new Rose Garden thinlits dies with this "inlay" technique to create this fun and pretty card.

I cut the rose from the gold foil sheets and used the Big Shot Die Brush to remove all the little pieces.  Then I cut the same rose from the Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper (available as a free product during sale-a-oration right now). I glued the gold rose outline down (using the fine tip glue pen) and then laid in all the little pieces from the pink designer paper into the spaces.  It was a little bit fiddly but really not too bad!

Before I glued the rose down, I stamped the leaves from the Rose Wonder stamp set in Wild Wasabai ink.  I also stamped the sentiment in Wild Wasabi and cut it out with the matching die.  This bundle coordinates just perfectly!

My stamp club ladies will be making this card on Sunday :-)

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Have a cuppa card

The Cup & Kettle Framelits dies and the A Nice Cuppa stamp set combine to make some super cute projects!  The colour combination from the Have a Cuppa Designer Series Paper Stack is bright and happy and the Have a Cuppa Embellishments added that little something special.

Don't you just love the sparkle in the Pool Party Glitter Ribbon? I've also added some subtle shimmer on the tea cup with the Wink of Stella Glitter Brush.

My layout was inspired by this week’s Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge (MOJO430).

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It's my 15 year wedding anniversary today :-)

Here is the card I made for my husband.  He likes clean and simple rather than "fussy-la-la" so I think this card is just right.  

I've used the Going Global stamp set and World Traveller embossing folder (again!)

The banner behind the sentiment was made using the Going Places Designer series paper and the Triple Banner Punch.  

The "world" on which I stamped the sentiment was created with a stamp in Old Olive but I 'stamped off' once first to make the ink lighter and more blotchy. Then I lightly sponged some Soft Sky ink to create the water.  I used dome dimensional to layer it up.

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Birthday Blooms and Birthday Bouquet

I really enjoy simple cards. As much as I love fancy techniques, fussy cutting, heat embossing, brayered backgrounds etc, you just can't beat a simple design and simple technique when it comes to building up a stash of cards to have on hand.

This card using simple watercoloring with ink from the ink pads, aqua painter and the shimmery white card stock.  A 3x3 inch square of Birthday Bouquet designer series paper and a snippet of doily completes this simple layout.

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World Traveller - my new favourite folder!

I am so loving this new embossing folder!  What a quick and easy card this was - the background does all the work :-)

Simply use a brayer to apply ink to the INSIDE of the folder and then run it through the Big Shot. (You could also use a sponge or just swipe the ink pad directly into the folder for a bolder, more inky look)

When you are finished with your inky embossing folder you can simply run it under the tap and the ink will wash right off.

The Happy Birthday sentiment came from the Age Awareness stamp set and the designer paper strip is from Going Places Designer Series Paper Stack.

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Party Wishes for boys and girls

Once a month I run a Stamp-a-Stack class where we make multiples of 3 different card designs. Where suitable I like to offer the designs in some different colour options to suit different people. This Friday we are focussing on birthdays and what better set to use than the brand new Party Wishes?! :-)

Attendees will be able to make both options so suit their different recipients.

Stamp-a-stack classes are fabulous for building up your stash of cards quickly, as well as learning some simple techniques such as embossing and sponging as seen in these to cards.  We like to stick to simple techniques at these classes as we are making 9 cards in 2 hours.

If you would like to attend my class this week (or any other time) please visit my events calendar for more information and to RSVP.

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