Christos Anesti to all you Greeks out there that happen to be visiting my blog. For everyone else, it’s Greek Easter today so instead of showing cards I’m sharing some happy snaps of the family smashing dyed eggs which is a Greek Easter tradition. Eggs, plates…. we sure do love smashing stuff!

Yep, kiddies are in their PJs as I just took these photos this evening.

Prize for the hardiest egg goes to Thomas! Yay Tommy! Everyone else got their eggs totally smashed. Hehehehehe.

Share this article:

’cause this is a bright one!

I decided to go totally bold and bright with this card and what a difference to this one which I made last week using a stamp from the same stamp set called ‘Life Definitions’. Again, I kept it really simple only this time I didn’t use any patterned papers, just some textured cardstock, plain cardstock and punches. To make this delightful yet easy card simply fold a piece of A5 Green Galore textured cardstock in half then adhere a strip of textured Tempting Turquoise cardstock to the left. Stamp the ‘delight’ stamp from ‘Life Definitions’ in black on white cardstock, cut out and layer onto Only Orange then Green Galore cardstock (both plain not textured) then adhere to the card. The stars are punched out using the large and small Stampin’ Up! star punches. The Tempting Turquoise stars are textured and the orange and green stars are smooth cardstock. Adhere the small stars to the large, insert a silver brad and adhere (or use the brad) the bottom two stars to the card and attach the top star using Stampin’ Dimensionals (double-sided foam tape).

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, yet fun enough to brighten someone’s day. I think this would be a great card for either a child or someone who has a bright bubbly and vivacious personality.

Here’s the list of products I used to make this card:

Life Definitions stamp set
Green Galore cardstock
Green Galore textured cardstock
Tempting Turquoise textured cardstock
Only Orange cardstock
Whisper White cardstock
Star Punch
Large Star Punch
Silver brads
Snail Adhesive
Stampin’ Dimensionals

All products by Stampin’ Up! and available for purchase through me at angelasargeant@gmail.com. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions, in the meantime I always love reading your comments!

Share this article:

For those without a Xyron or no desire to buy one then bear with me here… you’ll enjoy this post anyway.

Hands up if you love Xyron! I have three of them, the 510, 250 and the 150 (x-shaped) and I love them. I have heard though many people complaining about Xyron residue or ‘Xyron snot’ as it’s all known as. If you have Xyron residue issues then you definitely need an adhesive eraser. But guess what? It also erases Stampin’ Up! SNAIL Adhesive if you’ve managed to get some SNAIL where you don’t want it – such as on part of your card or scrapbooking layout or on your desk. I’ve even used the eraser to successfully remove sticky tape (cellotape) residue from fabric.

For those of you who have had problems stamping with solid stamps that are new (i.e. stamps that have lots of flat rubber areas as opposed to fine lines), try ‘cleaning’ your stamp with the Adhesive Eraser – it removes any residue left from the rubber stamp making processs and gives your stamp a bit of ‘tooth’… perfect for those who are a bit wary of using fine sandpaper on stamps. Of course this also works for any photo stamps that you might have such as stamps from Stampsmith.

But here’s the big tip – bet you didn’t know the Adhesive eraser was great for cleaning rubber stamps. Yep! If you have a rubber stamp that’s badly stained by StazOn, no matter how bad it is, then just give it a clean with this eraser… makes the rubber look brand new! So next time you’re placing a Stampin’ Up! order with me, throw one of these little beauties in – probably the best $3.75* I’ve ever spent.

Edited to add: I totally forgot! Thanks to Debra for reminding me… the Adhesive Eraser also removes rub-ons – great for if you’ve accidently gotten a bit of a rub-on somewhere on your work that you weren’t supposed to.

Another edit!:  Also great for cleaning your scissors from gunk build-up from cutting double-sided tape or for cleaning scissors used for cutting rubber stamps, especially cutting rubber that has been mounted onto ezy-mount.  Thanks to Lez & Kristie for this tip.

*Australian dollars.

Share this article:

I have to admit, although I like the look of it – I’m really not good at that clean and minimalist look that is so fashionable in cardmaking. I suppose it’s all practice and what you get used to but I find I’m much more comfortable in doing vintage style.

All images copyright Stampin’ Up! 1990-2008 – Card by Angela Sargeant

I found as I was making this card I kept wanting to keep adding stuff and I kept holding myself back thinking “keep it simple, keep it simple”… in the end I compromised with myself and added the clear rhinestone brad at the bottom – I figure it’s clear so it doesn’t count. LOL.

Now, you see that embossed border? No it wasn’t done with a Nestabilities embossing die, but very simply just my Fiskars Paper Trimmer with the scoring blade inserted. I simply started with a piece of folded So Saffron cardstock which I opened up and, working from the inside, I used the scoring blade to score a rectangle about one centimetre in from the edges of the card – closing the card up, this gave me the embossed panel you can see. I have tried using a ruler and a bone folder to do the same thing but I like the look of the scoring using the scoring blade much better.

The sweet little snail in the middle is from Stampin’ Up!’s Garden Whimsey stamp set (which I got free from Stampin’ Up! I just LOVE this company!!!) and was stamped onto Whisper White cardstock using Wild Wasabi ink. The snail image was then punched out using the 1 3/8″ Circle Punch and glitter was applied simply by tracing the snail shell with a 2-Way Glue Pen and then pressing the image into a pot of Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Excess glitter was brushed off using a cheap blush brush from the supermarket – I love this brush and use it everytime I use ultra-fine glitter to dust off the excess glitter. The glittery snail was then adhered to a scallop shape punched out with the Circle Scallop punch by Stampin’ Up! (using Wild Wasabi cardstock). Underneath that is the Double-Stitched Wild Wasabi ribbon. The word ’sparkle’ was stamped in black ink (Warm Words stamp set) and a clear Rhinestone Brad was added to the end of the word ’sparkle’. That’s it… very very easy and minimalist card. I don’t know why this clean look makes me nervous but it does, LOL. The beauty of them is though that you can make lots of them quickly, you can also make a pretty set as a gift for someone by simply changing the colours on each card, the sentiment at the bottom and the image in the middle but keeping the rest of the card the same.

Here’s the list of products to make it easy to see what I’ve used.  If there’s anything that you’d like to purchase then give me a yell on angelasargeant@gmail.com
Garden Whimsey stamp set
Warm Words stamp set
So Saffron cardstock
Wild Wasabi cardstock
Wild Wasabi inkpad
Wild Wasabi double-stitched ribbon
Whisper White cardstock
1 3/8 Circle punch
Scallop punch
2-way Glue Pen
Dazzling Diamonds Glitter
Pretties Kit (clear rhinestone brad)
Fiskars Paper Trimmer with Scoring Blade
SNAIL adhesive

Share this article:

Need a quick yet elegant card? Patterned paper is the answer. Sure some stampers object to using lots of patterned paper rather than fancy stamping techniques, but I think if you’re giving a card to someone who would love an elegant hand-made card but doesn’t care about fancy techniques, then patterned paper can work beautifully.

All images Copyright Stampin’ Up! 1990-2008. Card designed by Angela Sargeant

This card uses our new colour range called InColors and features Soft Sky (the blue colour) and Wild Wasabi (love that name – Wasaaaaaabi, LOL). The base of the card is Soft Sky then layered on top is Patterned Paper from the Stampin’ Up! Spring Silhouettes Double-Sided Designer Series paper. It looks like I have used a few sheets of paper but in fact it’s just one small part of the sheet of 12″x12″ paper. The next thing I did was to stamp the “Inspire” message from the fabulous Life Definitions stamp set (a set of 28 stamps) in Wild Wasabi on Very Vanilla cardstock, layered that onto Wild Wasabi cardstock and adhered to the top left hand side of the card. The flowers on the card are from the just-released-in-Australia Pretties Kit; the flowers are all in white but can be tinted to any colour you like. The pink flower was coloured by picking up the colour from the Pretty In Pink inkpad with a Sponge Dauber and then dabbing the flower with the Sponge Dauber, like this:

Under the pink flower on my card there are two other white flowers and I just attached them together with a green Rhinestone Brad. To finish off the card and to balance it out, I wrapped some double-stitched Soft Sky Ribbon around the card then attached three flat-backed pearls (also from the Pretties Kit) onto the ribbon using Mini Glue Dots.

Here’s a run-down on the products I’ve used:

Soft Sky Cardstock
Soft Sky Double-Stitched Ribbon
Wild Wasabi Cardstock
Wild Wasabi Inkpad
Spring Silhouettes Double-Sided Designer Series Paper
Life Definitions Stamp Set (28 stamps, 26 of them being definitions such as: Remember, Together, Wish, Memories… great for cardmaking and scrapbooking)
Pretties Kit (includes 50 flowers, 60 half back pearls each in white & cream in various sizes, 45 round pearls each of white & cream, 20 round beads, Rhinestone brads, hat pins and more!)
Sponge Dauber (to colour the top Pretties flower)
Pretty In Pink Inkpad (to colour the top Pretties flower)
Ice Circle Rhinestone (come in 4 colours and 3 sizes)
Mini Glue Dots (to secure the ribbon and flat-backed pearls)
SNAIL Adhesive (adhesive for cardstock)

I hope you like this card, although it’s simple I believe it’s elegant and would work well as inspiration for a scrapbooking page. Any questions on the card or product information please email me on angelasargeant@gmail.com

Share this article:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been off sick for a few days and then away at the 2008 Stampin’ Up! Convention in Brisbane. Well I’m back and I’m posting a picture of a cute box we made at Convention.

I love this box! It was so quick and easy to make and looks so lovely in real life… a bit of cellophane shredding in it and it would be a delightful to present it to someone special with a small gift in it. Normally if I was to use chipboard I’d either ink it up or cover it with embossing powder or stamp it or completely cover it in patterned paper, but this time the chipboard was used naked and I think it gives it a nice contemporary feel.

The box was a template that was given to us at our Convention and is made with Ruby Red cardstock. Other cardstock and ink/marker colours used are Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery and White Confetting (just card). You might not recognise the dots, flowers and striped stamps used on the box but they are actually parts of the Happiness background stamp (page 92 of the catalogue if you have it, if you don’t and you are in Australia, contact me for a copy). The sections of the background stamp were inked up using markers and then the cardstock layed over the top to get the individual images. The chipboard is from our On Board Blossoms & Basics Chipboard pack. The centre stamp that says “thanks so much” is from Think Happy Thoughts stamp set and the cute clear rhinestone brad in the middle is from our hot new product called the Pretties Kit. (page 144 of the catalogue). The ribbon I’ve used around the box is also one of our new products – it’s taffeta ribbon that has a lovely sheen to it.

I’m just in the middle of making a card using more of the Pretties Kit (yep, started just before I was sick and to be finished tonight) so I’ll post that soon.

Share this article: