Birthdays are like hairballs….

I made this card with a special friend in mind, actually I bought the stamp set with her in mind! I know I’ll get plenty of use out of it, actually, I have already used another one of the stamps for a Thank you card.

Stampin' Up! Giggle Greetings

I need to work out the white balance on my camera when trying to photograph Watermelon Wonder, for some reason it turned everything else pink! However, you get the picture!

I love this stamp set, its only a set of four stamps, but they are such cute images and great sentiments, I couldn’t help myself, and I’m so glad it’s still in the Annual Catalogue. Have you got your copy of the latest Annual Catalogue yet by the way? If not (and you’re in the UK) I’m still sending them out, so just leave your details HERE!

I stamped in Stazon Black ink onto shimmery White Card Stock, and then remembered I wanted to heat emboss this ready for water-colouring, so I pulled out my Stamp-a-ma-jig to ensure correct alignment and stamped over it again in Versamark, and heat embossed in Clear Stampin’ Emboss powder. I added water to the cat, and dropped Tip Top Taupe into the water with a paintbrush. I did a little bit of blending, but really not very much.

The layers are matted off set towards the top, something I think just makes this card just a little different, cute huh!


 

Stampin' Up! UK July Technique Class 2015 An Open Heart

 



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

Cardmaking 101 – Types of Stamps

Stampin' Up! UK Cardmaking 101 types of stamp

Cardmaking class UK free

I can’t believe we are already at week 3 of my Cardmaking 101 series; saying that, I have a heap of posts in the planning for you! I can see this series lasting a while, please feel free to drop me a message or leave a comment if you have any card making questions, and I will do my best in answer them in a future Cardmaking 101!

This week I thought it might be helpful to discuss the different types of stamps. Now, before we getting into the post proper, I just want to remind you that I am a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, and so I will be discussing there products!

Wood Mount Stamps

Ok, so Wood Mount – this refers to Red Rubber stamps mounted onto wooden blocks. There are some real advantages to these stamps; the main one being that the blocks are pre-mounted, no scrabbling around searching for the perfectly sized block each time – they are already there! Stampin’ Up!’s Wood Mounted stamps arrive as a sheet of red rubber stamps, a series of wooden blocks, and a sheet of stickers. Before you can stamp you must pop the stamps out of the sheet and work out which stamp matches which block (I’ve made this sound complicated, its really not – its usually pretty obvious which stamp goes with which block). The stamps are pre-glued, and you peel the backing paper off the stamps and stick them onto the blocks. The stickers are then stuck onto the other side of the wooden block for identification.

I love my wood mount stamps, however, they are more expensive, and they take much more space to store – although they do sit next to your clear mount stamps on your shelf.

Clear Mount Stamps

Like Wood Mount stamps, Clear mount are our classic red rubber. I am totally a red rubber girl – I just love the quality and feel of red rubber stamps. Clear mount stamps require Clear blocks to allow you to stamp, you mount and un-mount them at each use. Stampin’ Up! clear mount stamps also come with a sheet of stickers, however, I find that they affect the cling if not perfectly applied to the stamp meaning that the fall off the blocks half way through stamping! So I tend to just put the sheet of stickers inside the slip cover on my stamp cases and leave them there! Saying this, I am a Clear mount person – I love the red rubber, and the value of the clear mount wins every single time!

Photopolymer

Stampin’ Up! Photopolyer stamps are fantastic! They are the same quality as the classic red rubber, but allow you to see through the stamps for perfect alignment every time! I recommend Photopolymer for layering stamps and sentiments. Some sets are available only in Photopolymer, however, more and more sets are available in all three options. Photopolymer stamps are generally packaged in our DVD sized clear mount stamp cases, although if there are lots of stamps they sometimes come in the bigger Wood Mount cases, but they still sit nicely with your other stamps on the shelf. Photopolyer stamps are a great price, and come between two sheets of Window Sheet. Be warned though, Photopolymer stamps have a habit of ‘wondering off’ your desk and into the bin as they get stuck to things and can be difficult to see! Photopolymer also tends to stain over time, particularly if you use red/pink ink, this doesn’t affect the stamp and will not transfer to your next project.



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

Freshly Made Sketches #191 – It’s Your Birthday

Stampin' Up! UK Freshly Made Sketches Endless Birthday Wishes

Oh yes, It’s that time again! Playing along with Freshly Made Sketches again this week with #191!

Freshly Made Sketches 191

This sketch scared the pants off me! So much white space! I love white space, I really do, and most of my cards feature expanses of white space, but to see a sketch with so much white was just frightening!

Stampin' Up! UK Freshly Made Sketches Endless Birthday Wishes

I’ve had a stack of card stock sat out on my shelf this week, and the Real Red piece shouted at me for this card. As soon as I saw the two little strips on the sketch I knew I wanted to use some Designer Series Paper, so I pulled Typeset – I love this paper, its so pretty but I hadn’t used it on a card before! I know, its shocking, but putting DSP on cards is something I struggle with – I am a total stamper at heart.

Initially I grabbed Guy Greetings for my sentiment, but I quickly changed my mind to the lovely new Endless Birthday Wishes. I uses a ruler and pencil to draw a line across the piece of Very Vanilla card stock, and I stamped the sentiment in Real Red on the line. Sometimes I find this way to get a straight line quicker than pulling out my Stamp-a-ma-jig!

I almost thought the card was finished, but it just felt a little too clean! I’ve been playing with the Birthday Blossoms preparing for my Stamp-a-Stack for July, so pulled it again for these awesome flowers punched with the Pansy Punch.

Thanks for stopping by today, see you again soon

x



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

I Think You’re Great!

Stampin' Up! UK I think your great ink smooshing

I have been playing with ink a lot recently, making a great big mess, but having loads of fun too! I get a lot of inspiration from watching some of the wonderful card makers on YouTube (Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner are two of my all time favourites!) and I recently spotted this super cool technique, Ink Smooshing (I haven’t done a tutorial for this one, but check out this great video from Kristina)Stampin' Up! UK I think your great ink smooshingTo create this card I first heat embossed that great sentiment from I Think You’re Great using Clear embossing powder.

I used three colours of ink; Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, and Melon Mambo. I use either my ink pads or re-inkers to put ink onto a large clear block or the glass of my desk top, an add water using an water spritzer. One colour at a time I make my ink / water mixture and pick up the mix using the clear sheet that comes with our Photopolymer stamps – you could just as easily using a piece of window sheet or other packaging – and smoosh the ink onto the watercolour paper. I added the Crushed Curry first, then repeated the process with Melon Mambo, and finally Bermuda Bay.

One of the great things about Stmapin’ Up! inks is how they work with water. Not only can you water colour with them, but also once your ink has dried you can drop water onto the ink, and wick away some of the colour – creating this great effect.

What’s your favourite technique at the moment?



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

 

June Online Workshop! Butterfly Basics…and a fancy fold!

Stampin' Up! UK Butterfly Basics Corner fold card

Hello!

Welcome to another Free Online Workshop! I am loving doing these, and am hopefully going to do one every couple of months. Let me know what you think and what you would like to see featured in these longer tutorials using the comments section at the end of the post

Stampin' Up! UK Free workshop

This time I have focused on the Butterfly Basics stamp set, I was so please to find it had carried over into the brand new Annual Catalogue! You can find it in the Artistic Expression section, page 124, where it is featured with the Butterflies Thinlits dies in a great bundle that saves you 15%!

Both the cards and the tag here use the brand new In-Colours; Mint Macaron, Delightful Dijon, Watermelon Wonder, Cucumber Crush, and Tip Top Taupe. These new colours are great additions, to the current range of colours, filling in gaps in Bright colours, and adding a wonderful new neutral. In-Colours change every year, and run for 2 years, adding 10 wonderful colours to our line, and giving your more options for projects.  In Colours are available on a great deal too! You can purchase all the ink pads and a multi-pack of card stock for the price of just the ink pads – that’s free card stock folks! Awesome!

Stampin' Up! UK Corner Fold Fancy Fold card butterfly basics free workshop class

Before you get to the workshop, I just wanted to mention the great joining offer this month from Stampin’ Up! Get 2 free stamp sets with your starter kit, just for signing up! Have I mentioned the great deal that is the starter kit – If you have a wish list of over £100 I urge you to think about becoming a demonstrator, there is no pressure to sell anything, you are more than welcome to be a hobby demonstrator and just get the 20% off! But if you have a wish list of over £100, you can pay just £99 and get to pick £130 worth of great products (anything from the current catalogue!), and those two free stamp sets of your choice! how cool is that!

Fancy Fold How To:

I love this corner fold card, I have to give credit to Dawn Griffiths, I have resized the card to fit A4 card stock 🙂

Cut a piece of A4 card stock in half, and fold in half to create your card base

Unfold your card base and insert, long side at the top, into your Stampin’ Trimmer. Cut at 13 cm from 2 to 8 cm using the trimmer attachment as a guide

Turn your card base so the short side is down at the top, and cut at 8 cm from 2 to 8 cm

Fold down the corner of the card, leaving the cut corner flat.

Inside pieces:

Watermelon Wonder – 14.2 x 10 cm

Whisper White – 13.8 x 9.5 cm

Outside pieces:

Watermelon Wonder – 6 x 6 cm

Whisper White – 5.5 x 5.5 cm

Stampin' Up! UK Butterfly Basics Corner fold card


As I mentioned in the tutorial, any order placed using the Hostess Code will receive a card kit with all the card stock pieces ready for you to make these 3 projects

4REM7CHQ

Thank you for supporting StampinByHannah

Please note this is a different code to my Code Club Code! Chose your code carefully!



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

 

Week In Review

Stampin' Up! UK Weekly Deals June 2015

Hello!

I’m live blogging again today, at 10:30AM my monthly online workshop will go live here on the blog, and on YouTube, please let me know what you think, I have great plans for these workshops (and am hoping to do one regularly!).

Weekly Deals

Stampin' Up! UK Weekly Deals June 2015

What a great selection again this week! I used the Decorative Dots Embossing folder in yesterdays project! and I may just go back and order some more! The And Many More stamp set is a great addition to your stamp collection with really useful sentiments for all occasions from birthdays to valentines, mothers day to graduation.

Classes and Workshops

Have you checked out my latests Classes and Workshops? I have 3 events in July, my usual Technique Class – each month we feature one stamp set, this month we are using An Open Heart – A brand new Kit Class – making that wonderful Perpetual Birthday Calender – and a Stamp-a-Stack – a brand new class where we make 10 cards in two hours (2 of 5 designs) this months theme is Birthday!

Stampin' Up! UK July Technique Class 2015 An Open Heart

All my events are listed on Facebook and my Stampin’ Up! Web shop – please RSVP by the date shown, email me for more information or to arrange payment

Family Life!

This week has been super busy here at crafty towers! We are now 7 weeks away from our wedding, so at the weekend I headed to Alton Towers with some friends for my Hen celebrations! We had such a great day even if it did rain continuously! But that just meant no queues and more rides.

I only have 2 days off from the day job this week, today and tomorrow as so am cramming in some much needed crafty play time with some brand new products that landed on my doorstep last night, as well as some much needed wedding planning time; orders of service and table plans are the order of the day I think!

Can’t wait to speak to you all again next week!

Happy Stamping!



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

Ink and Embossing

Stampin' Up! UK letterpress ink Embossing folders

I have been loving playing with lots of techniques recently, and you may remember a few weeks ago I shared a great stamping technique using your embossing folders. Well, I’ve been doing it again, but this time I’ve added my Big Shot!

Stampin' Up! UK letterpress ink Embossing folders

 

This card uses the Large Polka Dot Embossing Folder, along with the Crazy About You stamp set. I am so pleased this set has carried over into our Annual Catalogue, It has a great collection of words and phrases to create some great sentiments, and it will be featuring on my Father’s Day cards this year (Nope, I still haven’t made them yet! Eeeek!). That Crazy About You set also includes  that lovely flower image, which coordinates with the Flower Medallion Punch (another carry over item!)

Instructions:

Cut your card base and Whisper White (Or Very Vanilla) matt layer.

Grab your chosen Embossing folder, and ink up the side which presses down into the card stock when you run it through your Big Shot – in this case, I inked up the Polka Dots side of the folder. Run your ink pad carefully across the embossing folder as not to get ink on the sunken areas

Insert your card stock layer into the embossing folder, closing the folder carefully so not to move the card stock inside

Run this through your Big Shot using your normal Embossing Folder sandwich

Stampin' Up! UK embossing folders decorative dotsThe ‘Thanks’ was stamped on Whisper White, and punched out using the 1 1/4″ circle punch, and layered with the Flower Medallion with dimensionals.



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

 

Telford Make and Take

Stampin' up! UK training team

I have been meaning to share this card for ages! You may remember I attended Stampin’ Up! UK Regional Training back in May, where we had heaps of fun learning about the new catalogue, getting up close and personal with new products, meeting loads of other demonstrators, swapping projects, and generally having a great time!

Well, I made this card then! I know, I know, I should have shared it before, but life has been a little crazy over the past month (and it ‘s about to get crazier in the final countdown to the wedding in August!) and I completely forgot about this lovely card!

Stampin' Up! UK Awesomely Artisitic Telford Make and Take

It uses the brand new set; Awesomely Artistic, along with 3 of the new In-Colours; Mint Macaron, Delightful Dijon, and Tip Top Taupe. I will be the first to admit – this is so far removed from my usual style of card making I was totally intimidated! I mean, that gorgeous dragonfly – well, it was supposed to be fussy cut – I do fussy cut (sometimes) but really its rare, so I just stamped it (after spritzing with water) straight onto watercolour paper.

The Thanks! sentiment comes from another new stamp set; One Big Meaning – which is definitely on my wish-list!

I even remembered to stamp the envelope! I was quite impressed with myself, and a great finish to a wonderful card and a fantastic weekend away crafting with new friends!



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

Cardmaking 101 – Tools for Cardmaking

Cardmaking 101 - tools for card making

Cardmaking class UK free

Welcome to the second in my series of Card making 101 – this week I thought we would look at some of the tools I most regularly use in my card making.

Stampin' Up! UK Stampin' Trimmer Cardmaking 101

 

Tools are so important, they say you judge a craftsman by his tools – and card making is a craft! I have used a heap of trimmers over the years, but the Stampin’ Trimmer is by far the best! I just love the wide foot-bed, this means that to cut a card base (which is what I use my trimmer for by far the most!) I don’t need to swing out the extension arm. Saying that I love that this trimmer extends to 14″ – way more that I will ever need. The blades are so easy to replace, and you get to choose between the standard trimmer blades or the rotary attachment!

A good pair of scissors is so important, and I would suggest two pair – a good pair of long scissors for cutting along the score lines of boxes and bags, and a pair of paper snips for fussy cutting, and detailed bits. A separate pair of scissors for cutting ribbon is also a good idea as paper will dull the blades and make ribbon cutting difficult. The Stampin’ Paper Snips are excellent, blades sharp right to the tip and comfortable hold.

Stampin' Up! UK paper snips

I also use my scissors for picking up jewels and pearls, candy dots and other little sticky things. But I mostly grab for my paper piercing tool for these sorts of jobs, I’m sure if you have seen some of my YouTube tutorials you will have seen me do this. A paper piercing tool is also great for adding pierced details to your cards and projects, as well as getting all those fiddly bits out of your dies when die cutting.

I think one of the most important card making tools is a good bone folder. For years I had a cheap plastic bone folder, and it wasn’t until I started with Stampin’ Up! that I changed to a ‘proper’ one, what a difference! A clean, crisp edge to all folded projects, cards and boxes. My plastic bone folder has now be relegated to re-inking ink pads!

Stampin' Up! UK paper piercing

The most random tool in my kit though must be my emery board! I use this so much, and it has several uses! Mostly it gets used when my trimmer blade needs changing, when card stock starts to cut a little fluffy, an emery board is great for sanding away the rough edges. Or for when you want that distressed look. Or when you catch a finger nail with your paper snips!


I hope you are finding these posts helpful, and if you have any questions about card making, stamping or Stampin’ Up! either drop me a message via my contact me page, or leave me a comment below

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Shop Now button-001Join my team button-001To purchase any of the items featured in my projects please use the links above. To join my team of Stampin’ Friends select ‘Join My Team’ or send me a message!

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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator

Freshly Made Sketches #190 – An Open Heart

Stampin' Up! UK Freshly Made Sketches 190 An Open Heart

I’m still playing along with some challenges this week!

Freshly made sketches 190

I have been so inspired by this sketch! I had a heap of ideas, but I am so pleased with the final card. I rarely use a sketch for card making, and as I have already mentioned, I am trying to push my card making at the moment and venture out into the unknown!

Stampin' Up! UK Freshly Made Sketches 190 An Open Heart

I have been preparing my July Technique Class this week, and so An Open Heart has been on my desk, along with the new In-colours. I grabbed a piece of Mint Macaron card stock out of my stash for that left hand piece, but it had a heart punched out. I went back into my card stock to find another piece, but when I tried it, I preferred the open heart! This piece has also be embossed using the Decorative Dots embossing folder.

The bird is stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink, stamped off once. I love the font in this set, and the Thank You was the perfect length for that banner piece. I finished this card with two further punched hearts using the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack


Stampin' Up! UK July Technique Class 2015 An Open Heart



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Hannah Wilks

Stampin’ Up! UK Independent Demonstrator