Techniques

Mini Chocolate Jars

| Hullahbaloo

In the past, I haven’t been the biggest fan of the packaging that Stampin’ Up! has sold. Not because I felt the packaging was rubbish or because I didn’t like it – but because I felt I could make my own. However, Stampin’ Up! then decided to release cute packaging like these jars that form part of the Life’s a Peach suite – they are really, really good for last minute gifts and do fit a surprising amount of treats in them.

From the image in the catalogue, you would think these treat jars are tiny but they are a good size – which you will see in my video below.

Mine are going to be used as thank you gifts to pop on tables in my workplace, but you could use them for absolutely anything. I have seen other demonstrators pop jam, curd or marmalade in them and add a Designer Paper Series lid. They are cute in every instance.

What would you put inside yours?

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

Watercolour Friendship

| Hullahbaloo

Being a crafter means you explore different techniques as a way of finding the best finish for your project. I haven’t done much of this lately, so decided to branch out into water colouring by ordering some Fluid100 paper and some water painters, and diving straight in. The great thing about Stampin’ Up! is you can use the ink pads or refills as paint. Pop a bit of ink onto a block and use that with your water painter to create a water colour look – it’s messy but fun!

I wasn’t too sure what I was going to produce when I first started, but felt a floral set was a good place to begin. Flowers of Friendship has a lovely large floral piece in it, so I kicked off by creating a watercolour background that would help the flower to ‘pop’.

Experimental playing then produced the card on show today, it was fun and I would certainly recommend it! You might just see more watercolour cards from me in future. Or perhaps I will push the boundaries and experiment with other techniques cos I’ve been bitten now.

What is your favourite technique?

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

Printed Welcome

| Hullahbaloo

Now isn’t this a fabulous sheet of patterned paper? I’m not a massive fan of pink (or animal print), but this piece of Designer Series Paper (DSP) really stood out to me when I flicked through the packet. The best part? This is a sheet from a pack of paper that you can earn for free with Stampin’ Rewards.

Stampin’ Rewards are earned when you spend £150 or more on a single order via my online store. Once you hit the £150 value, you get 10% of your order back in rewards. For this particular pack of paper (called Pattern Party), you need £17 of rewards to redeem – that means a minimum order of £170. Which, let’s face it, is easily done on the Stampin’ Up! store as the items are so lovely and the quality is amazing.

I hadn’t used vellum in a long time, so decided to pull out a sheet and add that onto the card too. Thrown in with a few of my favourite embellishment – the bumblebees and you have a bit of a different card, a little quirky but fun nonetheless.

Now did you spot the Playful Alphabet dies? Have you got them yet? If not, why not? They should be a staple part of every crafters stash. They’re listed below on my supply list, grab yours and fall in love with them just like I did!

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Supply List:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

Gothic Elegance

| Hullahbaloo

I’ve always had a bit of gothic streak, stemming from my teens and whilst it isn’t as prevalent now, I still love the gothic style and some of the flourishes that form part of it. The Simply Elegant suite caught my eye the first time I flicked through the new Annual Catalogue pages and it hasn’t disappointed me on bit.

The background of the card can be made in one of two ways – the way that I made is using blending brushes and ink after random stamping the large motif or you could get a similar finish by random stamping using the tone on tone technique. I preferred the blending brushes as I wanted to have areas darker around the edges and add shading.

The Ornate Frames dies really tie in with the gothic theme – don’t they? With some added ribbon and a double layered heart, I think it has completed the gothic theme really well. And the best part? I still have another three card fronts so can make more to go with this one!

Whilst I chose Rich Razzleberry, which colour would you have used for this? Let me know in the comments.

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Supply List:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

You are so turtle-y loved!

| Hullahbaloo

Whilst I love teeny tiny small project, I do love it when I can create a large project – something that requires multiple pieces of card and can fit plenty in it. As you can see from the picture, that’s certainly what today’s project is – it barely fit in my photobooth! But I felt I had to create a large box as I wanted to show off the FREE hostess reward paper Pattern Party.

Pattern Party is gorgeous paper and whilst it is a reward choice, it is a large pack with 48 double sided sheets. One side is colourful, a mix of patterns and colours which are bright and cheerful. The other side is monochrome – black and white – and allows you to work with it in whatever way you please. I chose to blend some of mine with ink that co-ordinates with the cardstock.

You’ve seen me use this stamp set already and before I made the box I knew I wanted to feature these cute little turtles on it. I hadn’t used Evening Evergreen much, so chose to make that the feature of my first box (the second in the video uses Soft Succulent) and to say I wasn’t overly keen on the colour when it was first announced, I have loved using it – the matching ribbon by the way is so easy to work with, makes the most gorgeous bows!

…and these little guys, well it goes without saying that they’re just the cutest. Bit of a note here – the punch only cuts out the larger turtle. To make the smaller ones, I stamped the images and then fussy cut around them – totally worth it!

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Measurements:

  • Designer Series Paper = 6 x 6 inches
  • Belly Band = 6 x 11/2 inches
  • Scrap for stamping & flowers

Scoring:

  • Notch @ 2, 3, 4 inches on all four sides.
  • Join the notches each with a score line diagonally (see video)

Supply List:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

Etched in Ombre

| Hullahbaloo

I love trying out new techniques, but then I also have a set of techniques I like to keep going back to as part of my card making. As part of an event that Stampin’ Up! held in April for Demonstrators, we had to make a swap with the stamp set ‘Etched in Nature’. I loved the sketchy nature of the stamps, but wanted to make a card focused around the butterfly.

Heating embossing with white and then blending over the top is just a gorgeous look, no matter what stamp set or colours you use. It picks how the detail on the butterfly really nicely – isn’t it gorgeous?

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, the stamp set used on this card has since been withdrawn (perhaps only temporarily) due to quality issues. Stampin’ Up! believes in only selling items that continue to meet their high standards.

The background is blended from Misty Moonlight, Magenta Madness & So Saffron to create the gorgeous ombre effect seen. My inspiration being a sunset in a tropical location – just as the sun is disappearing below the horizon.

And to pop the sentiment away from the background, I use my ever faithful white embossing on black with just the most beautiful sentiment “When being together is more important than what you do, you’re with a friend”, which I think is very poignant given the past 12 months the world has been through.

What is one of your favourite techniques on a card? Tell me in the comments below.

Best Wishes,

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Details below are for the colours and products used in my project today. Please remember, if you purchase from my store to add the host code (displayed in the top right sidebar) for orders under £150.

Colours Used:

Supply List:

Please take the time to follow my blog, subscribe to my Youtube channel or visit me over on Facebook at Crafty Hullahbaloo, where you can share your inspiration too.

Blended Butterflies

| Hullahbaloo

Welcome to my Butterfly Bouquet spotlight week – this week will feature 7 video tutorials posted back to back to spotlight this early release collection from the 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue. The collection is made up of several components – Stamps, Dies, Designer Series Paper (DSP) and Specialty Paper.

It’s time to get a bit messy / creative as today I have been blending with brushes using a mask. I was inspired by this idea following a craft session making tomorrow’s box. A leftover section of tomorrow’s project works really well as a mask, but needed to be a little bigger so I set off making another. Using the dies from the Brilliant Wings set (which forms part of the Butterfly Bouquet collection), I used the largest butterfly to make my mask – be sure to make it large enough that you don’t risk blending off the mask like I did (see my video).

On Monday, I used my blending brushes with three colour – Magenta Madness, Misty Moonlight & So Saffron, so I stuck to that colour choice for today’s project too. They go together so well, so as they say “why fix what isn’t broken?”. The colours blend beautifully together and get a lovely sharp edge thanks to the mask.

Finishing off the card with some contrast by heat embossing a sentiment in white onto black cardstock gives it a great finish, with some matte black dots of course! I love it…and the best thing about it? You will never get two cards the same because of the blending technique used.

In my video I did a bright version and a more subtle version, which did you prefer?

Best Wishes,
Suzanne

Supply List:

Happy Saffron

| Hullahbaloo

Welcome to my Butterfly Bouquet spotlight week – this week will feature 7 video tutorials posted back to back to spotlight this early release collection from the 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue. The collection is made up of several components – Stamps, Dies, Designer Series Paper (DSP) and Specialty Paper.

One of the best creative techniques I have learnt whilst stamping / crafting along with others, is the tone on tone technique. I love how just having one colour ink and the matching card stock creates such a subtle, but beautiful decoration on any project. Inspiration for today’s card was taken from the colours featured in the Designer Series Paper (DSP) in the Butterfly Bijou paper stack.

So Saffron is such a gorgeous colour, I’m not a massive fan of yellows but the subtle nature of So Saffron gets past my yellow barrier and I just couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work with that pretty large butterfly or the Natural Touch Specialty Paper.

As the Butterfly Brilliance stamp set does not feature any sentiments, I have teamed today’s project with the Pretty Perennials stamp set. I cannot stop using this large happy stamp and fussy cutting it to sit on my projects. You’ll see that it features a few more times this week!

As always, if you like my projects and enjoy my videos, please pop over to my Youtube channel and subscribe to keep up with my crafty makes. You can also find me on Instagram or Facebook.

Best Wishes,
Suzanne

Measurements:

  • So Saffron Cardstock = 57/8 x 81/4 inches
  • Natural Touch Specialty Paper = 3 x 3 inches
  • Basic White Scraps
  • Die Cut Butterfly from Butterfly Bijou Designer Series Paper

Supply List:

Bright Birthdays

| Hullahbaloo

As part of the joining offer during Sale-a-Bration, you can earn a FREE set of Designer Series Paper (DSP). When I say set, I mean 5 PACKETS!!! of yet to be released paper from the upcoming Annual Catalogue in June. That’s right, you can get them ahead of everyone. Even demos can no longer get their hands on these, as the pre-order time period is over. So if you join my team before 28th February 2021, you can earn the paper that made this card.

Of the five packs, I chose to go with the Brights collection. I usually fall into the trap of sticking to the Subtles or the Regals, so took a bit of a lane swerve. I love the colours that I chose, they go together so well; Pacific Point, Gorgeous Grape, Granny Apple Green and Daffodil Delight.

I wanted to match the stamping to the strips in the background, so used the same technique seen yesterday on my Simple Sunday series by using Stampin’ Write markers to colour sections of the sentiment. Which I think stamped rather well!

Have you seen the joining offer and been tempted? Ask me how before it’s too late!

Best Wishes,
Suzanne

Colours Used:

Supplies: