2017 Occasions Catalog Countdown: Urban Underground

Tomorrow is the day that the 2017 Occasions Catalog goes live! How excited are you? That means we're on our next to last day of the countdown. Today we are featuring the Urban Underground Suite. 

I love this suite because our school colors are black and gold, so I was instantly drawn to it as soon as I saw it! I used two patterns from the Urban Underground Speciality Designer Series Paper. The darker piece I embossed with the Hexagons Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. I added a star from the Urban Underground Embellishments. 

The stamp is from the Tin of Cards set and then I used the Stitched Shapes framelits. 

Head over to Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration to see other ideas for the Urban Underground product suite. See you tomorrow for our final day of countdown! 

Hats off!

Tomorrow is commencement day at our local university. One of my co-workers is finishing his MBA, so I made this card for him.

Our school colors are black and gold, so my color theme for this card was easy to figure out. The card base and banner are Tip Top Taupe. The Congrats is from Tin of Cards, which I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with Gold Embossing Powder. The Large Numbers framelits and some Gold Glimmer Paper provided my focal point; while the Lucky Stars Embossing Folder and Basic Black Cardstock provided the finishing touch.

Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration is featuring framelits today. If you would love to see a variety of cards with different framelits for some inspiration, head over for Framelits Friday.

The Hop Is Flowering

Hello! The April Showers didn't really show up around here, but the May Showers have brought May flowers! The Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration gals wanted to brighten your day today with lots of flowers.

As you hop along, please show some love and leave comments for each of our designers. We are always excited to hear from our followers and what you love! You should have just left stop number 1 on the Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration Blog Hop - Diana at Stampin' Fun with Diana. If you get off track or a link doesn't work, the entire blog hop list is at the bottom of this post. Now how about some flowers?

I got so into the flower spirit when looking at my stamps, and I just HAD to play with new products, so I made three cards to share with you today.

I can't pick a favorite, so I'm going to tell you about all three.

The Shine card features the flower stamp from Crazy About You, which was punched with the coordinating Flower Medallion punch. I stamped it in Flirty Flamingo ink on Whisper White Cardstock. Next I used the Sunburst Framelit on Pool Party Cardstock. I layered that over a piece of DSP from the new Playful Palette paper stack. The Shine greeting is from Sunburst Sayings. I stamped in it Sweet Sugarplum on Sweet Sugarplum Cardstock. Then I used my Gold Wink of Stella pen for the first time (can you believe it?). I didn't let it fully dry before I took the picture, therefore it looks a little multicolored, but it's not. The final touch was a Basic Rhinestone Jewel in the flower center.

The next card features the calla lilies from Remarkable You. They were stamped in Sweet Sugarplum on Very Vanilla Cardstock and cut out using the Lots of Labels framelits. I layered that over another pattern from the Playful Palette DSP stack. The greeting is from Garden In Bloom, which I stamped in Emerald Envy. I added two Blushing Bride Subtles Candy Dots. The card base is Sweet Sugarplum embossed with the Polka Dot embossing folder. My final touch on this card was to color the stamen of the flowers using a Blender Pen and Hello Honey ink.

My final card features the Bold Butterfly and Botanical Builder framelits. The DSP is once again from the Playful Palette stack. The happy birthday can be found in the Tin of Cards stamp set, which I stamped in Emerald Envy. You'll never guess that the large flower is Sweet Sugarplum Cardstock! The smaller two are from the same DSP stack and were scraps from my first card. The Bright Candy Dots and Botanical Garden Jewels finished off this card.

I'm certain that you can guess what my favorite 2016-2018 In Color is! If you're not a demonstrator, you can start getting your hands on the yummy new products on June 1st! Now, let's see what Kim (and baby Micah) has in store for us today! Just click on that Next button.

Blog Hop Participant List:

1. Diana at Stampin Fun with Diana
2. Darcy at Dj's Stampin Place
3. Kim at Stamping with Kim
4. Darla at Stampin with Darla
5. Heidi at Stuck on Stampin'

New Catalog Countdown: Day 3

Look at that. Day 3 of our countdown falls on the 3rd. Do you know what that means? Less than 48 hours remain before you can order from the Occasions Catalog AND get a FREE Sale-A-Bration item of your choice for each $50 that you spend.

In case you are just dropping by today, the ladies at SSINKspiration have been featuring new products since Friday. We love sharing our INKspiration with you!

Today I am featuring What I Love. A new stamp set that you can only get for FREE because it's a SAB special!

What I Love was the first item that caught my attention when I saw the Sale-A-Bration catalog. My first thought was, "Do I really need another flower set?" But the card on page 7 made me say, "YES!"

This is a CASE of that card. I changed up the colors and used it as a focal point on the card instead of the background, as SU! did for their card.

This set is photopolymer and has arrows on the flower stamps so you can line up the three layers correctly. For best results, stamp the outline first in the darkest color. I used Rose Red. Next stamp the larger solid image in your lightest color. For this I used Pink Pirouette. Finally use the smaller solid image; I used Blushing Bride. My card stock color is Smoky Slate. For the leaves I used Cucumber Crush, and stamped off on a piece of scrap paper for each solid image I stamped.

One other new product that I used on this card is the Bermuda Bay 1/8" Stitched Ribbon. It will be available to purchase from the Occasions catalog and coordinates with a new product suite called Have A Cuppa.

This card is a quick and easy one for you that features three new products. The first is the Going Places Designer Series Paper. You've seen other patterns from it the past two days if you've been following my countdown posts. The next is three patterns from the Botanical Gardens Washi Tape. Remember the green one that I used yesterday? There's still one more tape from this package that you haven't seen! Finally, I used three stamps from the What I Love stamp set.

For my final card today, I used the What I Love set to create my own background using the outline flower image in Perfect Plum and the leaves image in Sahara Sand. I actually created this card on New Year's Day and seeing all of my friends' outlooks for 2016, this greeting seemed perfect to use. It is from the Feel Goods set, which is current in the Annual catalog.

What I Love has so many uses, and I am certain that it won't take you long to find $50 of Stampin' Up! products that you wish to use it with in order for you to receive it for free.

See more fabulous new products by checking out the other designers' projects at Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration!

CASEing the 2015 Holiday Catalog

Do you ever look to the Stampin' Up! catalogs for inspiration? That's exactly what the designers at Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration did today!

My CASE (copy and share everything) came from page 42 of the 2015 Holiday Catalog.

It was marked as one of the quick and easy cards by Stampin' Up!, and I would say that that is an accurate statement!

• Tangerine Tango card base: 4" x 8" - scored at 4"
• Brights Designer Series Paper Stack: Tangerine Tango: 3" x 3"
• Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set
• Tangerine Tango ink
• Tin of Card stamp set
• Cucumber Crush ink
• Circle Collections framelits
• Smoky Slate Thick Baker's Twine
• 2015-2017 In Color Blossom Accents

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Stamp Set Focus: Background Stamps

My inspiration for this card actually came from Pinterest. Isn't that dahlia gorgeous?

I decide to recreate the feel of the purple edges by heat embossing the Definitely Dahlia stamp on Whisper White card stock with Clear embossing powder. Then I sponged the entire layer with Rich Razzleberry ink.

Stampin' Up! has a wide variety of background stamps in the current catalog. Stop over at Stylin' Stampin' INKspriation to see which ones the other designers used.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Garden Birthday

Ok, not to toot my own horn; but I think this might be my favorite card that I've made in quite some time. I don't know if it's the embellishments or the color combination, but it all makes me really happy!

I was kind of struggling with what I was going to do to make a birthday card; and then this one suddenly came together. I knew I wanted to use the Tin of Cards stamp set, because the fonts are so elegant. As I mentioned Monday, I am absolutely in love with the patterns of the Designer Series Paper color family stacks this year! I folded the Tip Top Taupe trim up on top of itself and it added a soft new texture to the card.

Have a lot of birthdays coming up that you need to make cards for? There's more inspiration today at Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Technique Tuesday: Bargello

When Donna suggested that we do the Bargello technique for our Technique Tuesday at SSINK this month, I had no idea what she was talking about! Thanks to Google and a tutorial I was able to play along with this fun challenge!

I used my new favorite stamp, Watercolor Wash, and stamped it in four different colors on 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" pieces of Whisper White Cardstock. Then I cut those in to one inch strips and glued them down on another piece of white cardstock. I cut those in to smaller strips and glued them in my bargello pattern on yet another piece of white. At this point I had to bust my table top paper cutter out of storage, as it was getting a little thick to cut with the Stampin' Trimmer. This definitely made a fun background that pops.

You can find a more in depth tutorial, as well as other samples from the Design Team today at Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog