Retiring Products Blog Hop

Well it's been a while but I'm happy to join in this Retiring Products Blog Hop today!  This retiring products BLOG HOP features soon to be gone stamp sets, colors and accessories.  The project I am featuring was one that we made in April's monthly classes.

This is actually an easy and quick fun fold:

To create the base of this card start with an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of  Elegant Eggplant cardstock.  Score it in half both directions (portrait position at 4 1/4" and landscape position at 5 1/2").  Then cut the page diagonally from one point to the other crossing the center scoring marks, you now have 2 card bases.  Fold on the score lines and your card base is ready to be embellished!  Use 2 - 4" x 5 1/4" layers of Whisper White, one for the inside panel and the other is cut diagonally to fit on the outside panels.  Next using the Flower Shop stamp set we stamped 2 flowers in Elegant Eggplant and 3 flowers using Sweet Sugarplum and punched them out with the Pansy Punch.  Arrange the punched flowers onto the front of the card so they just about interlock.  I found it was easiest to place a dimensional on the card front and then place the flower on the dimensional so I didn't adhere the card closed.  Any sentiment would work for this card, we decided to make it a birthday card and used the non-retiring Perennial Birthday stamp set and stamped it with Elegant Eggplant ink.

I hope you are enjoying the fantastic projects all the demonstrators from around the world offer in this blog hop.  Thank you for visiting today!

Catherine Steele, in Pinetop, Arizona

Mix & Match

Thank you for visiting my blog on this Mix & Match blog tour.  Our challenge this time is create something that mixes the spring Occasions catalog with the Annual catalog!  

I chose to use the big bold flower from the Beautiful Day stamp set in the Occasions catalog (page 26) and the sentiment from the Ribbon of Courage stamp set in the Annual catalog (page 96).  

The card base is made of the Thick Very Vanilla cardstock.  I just love the thicker weight for my base, don't you?  The color of the ink and cardstock layer is Fresh Fig.  The awesome coordinating 1/2" Finely Woven Ribbon is from the Annual catalog.  Also found in the Occasions catalog is the very versatile Tailored Tag Punch.  It is a great size for so many sentiments!  I punched one tag from the Fresh Fig cardstock and cut it in half lengthwise and placed one on top and one on the bottom behind the Very Vanilla tag to give a little better definition for the sentiment.  This is such a quick card but very striking in the monochromatic design.  

The inside repeats the flower and included a sentiment from the Beautiful Day stamp set.

Enjoy the rest of the blog tour!  I hope you will get some wonderful ideas from all the fantastic projects.

Catherine Steele

RemARKable Ink Big Blog Hop

Hello!  Thank you for stopping by today!  I am happy to participate in the RemARKable Ink Big Blog Hop, this time the theme is Valentine's.

At my monthly classes this month we made Valentine cards and I would like to share this one with you:

The stamp set is called Hedgehugs and it is so sweet!  This project was inspired by the sample on page 38 in the 2018 Occasions catalog.   I changed it up a bit, using a strip of Rose Red card stock that was run through the Big Shot diagonally using the new Simple Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  Also stamped the cute little flower all over the card front base and included the sentiment on the inside with a scalloped circle of Rose Red backing it.  That card base is Crumb Cake, the focal piece is Whisper White, we used Soft Suede to stamp the cute hedgehogs and gave a bit more color using the Crumb Cake blends.

Hope you enjoy the blog hop and are inspired by all the amazing Valentine's projects!
Catherine