Cherished Roses

I am blessed to have so many crafty friends, relationships that I would not have unless I started cardmaking and joined the Stampin’ Up! family, I say it often but Stampin’ Up! is so much more than ink and paper. I feel like I have found my tribe, I belong to many micro-groups within the Stampin’ Up! community. I went through a stage in my twenties when I drifted away from my social group and could not relate to all my school/college friends any more, I was young and ambitious and work became my whole life.

My sister had started scrapbooking and dragged me to classes her, I still remember (way back in 2006) the first time I saw Stampin’ Up! products, I was googling for a stamp company called Stamp IT when I clicked on Stampin’ Up! a new direct sales craft company in Australia. I was taken with designs of the stamps and the fact everything coordinated mainly the ink and cardstock as that was one of my greatest frustrations that I could never get anything to match. I went to work the next day and it was all I could think about, I wanted everything in the catalogue so I looked into joining to get a discount. I joined that afternoon and placed my first order that night.

To my surprise, I had people wanting to start ordering from me and even learn about how to make cards. At the time I was working in a non-creative management role, so I was not really looking to have a side hustle, I mean I joined just to get 20% my orders. Within a year I had weekly classes with regular customers and was starting to build my team of demonstrators, I am coming up to 13 years with this amazing company and I am so grateful for the people, opportunities and enjoyment it has brought into my life.

Why am I posted this long tale about myself? I think because I made so many friendship cards and how most of these relationships are related to Stampin’ Up! and I am so grateful.

I promise from here on it is all about my card! This very bright and colourful card, which I have used a little masking on (watch an old video SU video showing masking to learn more). I have stamped a flower and would add a mask over the flower to then stamp the leaf and repeat. The stamp set I have used is To A Wild Rose and I adore that is set is good for watercolouring and comes with two more images for two step stamping, I have a card next week that will show this set with the extra layers. The greeting is from Strong & Beautiful stamp set.

This card feels a little more extravagant as I have used the Frosted & Clear Epoxy Droplets, they look amazing! I have used Stampin’ Blends to colour the background, Mint Macaron, Daffodil Delight, Mango Melody, Old Olive and Mossy Meadow. Following that, I added texture using the Subtle 3D Embossing Folder. The label behind the greeting was watercoloured with the new Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper and Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin’ Ink Refill, and the label die came from the To A Wild Rose Bundle.

Inside the card, I stamped and coloured one the flowers from To A Wild Rose Bundle and cut it in half then attached to the greeting like shown below.

I just want to add if you have a really long wishlist of Stampin’ Up! products and think a base discount of 20% off would be nice, stampin’ Up! have a joining off throw until the end of August. You would receive a bouns $45 to spend on your starter kit which means you pay only $169 and you receive $280 worth of products! (instead of the usual $235)