Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my blog - if you've arrived with me from another blog, you may not know me. I'm Laura, a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator from the UK. I love crafting and cats, hence The Stamping Cat!

This month's theme of the Joy of Sets blog hop is Anything Christmas Goes - which means we can show you anything Christmas related! I absolutely adore Christmas - I just turn into a big kid, I can't way to get our decorations up. I also adore sending out Christmas cards to friends and family - it's a great time of year to get in touch and catch up with those you don't speak to very often. I have to admit, I've left my cardmaking a bit to the last minute this year, so I came up with this super quick and easy card design which I know I will make a lot of!

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Hi Everyone!

I've just about come back down to Earth after an absolutely fabulous week in Dortmund attending On Stage Live.

For those who don't know, On Stage is a bi-annual event where Stampin' Up! Demonstrators from all over the World come together and have crafting fun, NEW products and presentations, along with a LOT of laughing! I've only ever attended the one day 'local' events before now so when the Live 3 day event came to Europe, I just had to go - and boy, I did not regret that decision for one second!

Usually at these sorts of events, people 'swap' cards or 3D items to give inspiration to each other. Unfortunately, life has just been incredibly busy for me lately, so I didn't have time to make any swaps. But, luckily (or unluckily depending which way you look at it), I had made some swaps for a previous team event which in the end I could not attend as I was poorly. So I decided to take those along instead! I had only made 5, but lovely demo's still gavee me a swap from them even though I had nothing to give in return - such a nice thing to do!

So, here is the swap I had made for our team Pinkies event, but I ended up taking to Dortmund:

Hi Everyone!

Wow, it has been a while since I've blogged - I am truly sorry for my absence! I've had a wonderful Summer and a very busy work life but that did mean my cardmaking had to take a back seat for a while.

I've had a lovely free weekend though where I've had a wonderful time getting all inky again! As it's been a while since I've created anything, I was feeling a bit rusty on the creative front, but I really love the card I came up with.

One of my favourite stamp sets in the current Annual Catalogue is 'Beautiful Friendship'. This is one of those clever stamp sets which has tones on the stamp to give a bit more of a watercolour effect. This particularly works well on Beautiful Friendship. My card does involve a bit of fussy cutting, but I didn't mind too much ;-)

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my blog post - if you're joining me from another Demonstrator's blog, then Hello! I'm Laura, a Demonstrator from the UK and my page is known as The Stamping Cat. If you're starting with me, then also Hello, please take a look at my project then 'hop' along to the next Demonstrator in the list at the bottom of my post.

Firstly, apologies to those who follow my blog - it has been quite a while since my last post - unfortunately life and my full time work has gotten in the way of the creative fun of late, but hopefully that will now be changing and I can have some more time to create!

My cardmaking this month was kick started by a requirement for some Birthday cards. We all know how tricky cards can be, but in particular, when the recipient is male, it can be even harder. And this week I needed two male cards (keep an eye on my blog to see the other card later this week!).

For this particular card, I decided to use the stamp set 'Praiseworthy Prose'. Now I think this is one of those stamp sets that is really easy to overlook in the catalogue - it's mainly sentiment based with nothing 'pretty' going on. BUT it is so versatile and is great for covering a variety of occasions! I teamed this stamp set with the 'Well Written' dies for the Happy Birthday. I used aqua painters for watercolour was background (TIP I also watercolour washed the sentiment before die-cutting to keep the washed effect going).


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Hi Everyone!

Here in the UK we are still waiting for Summer to come along so we can spend our time in the Sun and BBqing!

Luckily for me, despite the grey weather, I got to spend last weekend with 50 other Demonstrator's which are all part of the same wider team run by Michelle Last, the Pinkies!!!!

This is one of my favourite weekends of the year - we get together in Birmingham for a weekend of crafting, laughing, a little bit of shopping, and a whole lot of fun. Part of this weekend is swapping cards with other Demo's so we can get ideas for all of our fabulous projects.

For my swap, I decided to continue my love of heat embossing (suprise, suprise!) I've also fallen completely in love with the Woven Thread DSP so I thought I would combine the heat embossing with that. I embossed one of the fabulous background stamps from the Woven Heirlooms stamp set onto the corner of the paper and then ripped (which for me is a huge deal as I love clean lines usually!) the edges before adding a bit of Rococo Rose ink to the torn edges. I added a sentiment and some faceted gems in co-ordinating colours and there you have it.


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Hi Everyone!

I have a bit of a confession to make - I'm pretty sure I'm a little bit addicted to embossing at the moment! I've loved embossing ever since I started cardmaking - that magic moment when powder turns all shiny, it's amazing. Recently I've started using it on a lot of projects, and it really does add a little something I think.

I've recently had to make a card for a Birthday - now usually this isn't a problem, I have a stash of cards made up and hand these out. But this time, the card was for a man - and we all know how tricky male cards can be!

For this card, I decided to use one of our brand new stamp sets 'Verdant Garden'. This is a great pattern builder stamp set and can be used in so many ways. I wanted to do a bit of embossing (suprise suprise!) so thought I would watercolour a green background before embossing. For the background I used a variety of green ink pads and an aqua painter and 'washed' it on watercolour paper. TIP - make sure the card is 100% dry before you start embossing, otherwise the powder will stick to the wet cardstock.


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Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my blog - if you're joining me from another blog, then hi! I'm Laura (AKA The Stamping Cat) a Demonstrator from the UK. If you're a regular viewer of my blog then welcome back. I'd love for you to have a read of my post then hop along to the next demo in the list. 

For this month's blog hop, I wanted to share a project with you made with BRAND NEW product from the new catalogue. 

At our Demonstrator only event, On Stage, which took place in April, I was lucky enough to have a play with a gorgeous new stamp set called 'Floral Essence'. I love how this stamp set outlines the flowers, there is so much that can be done with it. When I saw the papers that co-ordinated with this stamp set, I immediately fell in love! BUT I made a promise myself to actually use the papers in my projects not just look at them and stroke them!

So for my project, I really wanted to highlight both the stamp set and the papers. I decided to emboss one of the floral images in gold directly onto the paper. I added a sentiment also gold embossed onto one of the fabulous new stitched label dies and added some co-ordinating ribbon from the Perennial Essence suite. I hope you like my card!




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