Hi and Welcome to Stampin Stars Retiring Products Blog Hop.

This is a Blog Hop that will showcase some of the stamps and other retiring products from the outgoing Idea Book and Catalogue 2012-2013 to make room for some new and exciting stamp sets and colours!

You will probably have come from the delightful  Sarah

For a full list of the participating Stars see below. I hope you will enjoy what you see and it will inspire you to 'have to have' that retiring product. In which case contact your demonstrator or Shop Here

'Toolshed' is one of the few masculine images SU have, and its going to be retired!

It is a large stamp, so you can use the whole or just a part of it.

I have used the whole stamp and I stamped it twice so I could cut out some of the images and layer them on my card. I used another retiring stamp set, 'Word Play' for the sentiment.

I layered these to a Sahara Sand (you guessed it- retiring!) card which had been partly embossed with the Woodgrain embossing folder.
I went a bit crazy and made matching gift bags and tags.

For the above card I used Crumb Cake and Black. I made it a Fathers Day card and added World's Greatest and a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Sentiments. see post April 25 for the inside of this card!

A more colourful rendition using an old favourite Lucky Limeade which is going. I have teamed it with the woodgrain embossing folder and some DSP from Tea for Two. I have sponged some Daffodil Delight, Lucky Limeade and Pretty in Pink on the stamp and the DSP. The sentiment is from Word Play.

 I had a bit of fun with this one. Staying with the Tea for Two paper and the colours I wanted to add some feminine touches.So I added some Vanilla flower trim which I ran a couple of markers across to give the flower some colour and I added Delicate Details Lace Tape.

The Flower trim and the Lace tape are in the Spring/Summer Catalogue which will end 30 June.

I hope you have enjoyed what you have seen so far  on your blog hop. Please leave a comment, as it will be much appreciated.

Next on your search for inspiration is Pip  Enjoy!

Nicky



Stampin Star Blog Hop

Fiona Whitten  
Tracie Gledhill  
Sarah Bond  
Nicky Johncock
Pip Todman
Cary Buckham
Kim Gibbons Fee  
Joanne Penney

We have a training session this Saturday and have to make swaps. This is my swap.
I had a lot of fun doing this. I used as basic cardstock Primrose Petals. The stamped images are from 'Fruit and Flowers' and the flower from Blossom Party Orignals die cut. I stamped in Primrose Petals and Crumb Cake and used Primrose Petals, Bashful Blue and Vellum for the large flower held together witha button from the Vintage Faceted designer Buttons.

The sentiment is from 'Word Play'.

I wanted to share with you some  colouring that I have been doing lately.
This is using the Swallowtail stamp from the Spring/Summer catalogue. It is one of Stampin Up!s 'big' stamps, so you can use the whole stamp or just a part of it. I coloured these with SU markers. I love to just sit and colour sometimes, it is so restful.

I have put the three images into a box frame and added some of the sentiments from Creative Elements, available in the Idea Book and Catalogue. What do you think?

Another example of using the Swallowtail stamp, this is a direct case from  Mary Brown aka StamperCamper and if you click on it you can see her original. I didn't have the same DSP as  she has, so I substituted Comfort Cafe DSP. I love the way you can colour the flowers to match your papers. The sentiment here is from 'Word Play'

Depending on how saturated you want your flowers to be, depends what you use to colour them. If you want a really deep saturated colour, press directly onto the ink pad, if you want a subtle effect use your marker to lightly brush across the Flower Trim, available in the current Spring/Summer catalogue.

I am going to leave  you with something very colourful that my daughter Cassie did yesterday using crayons. It is Crayon Art and after sticking the crayons with a hot glue gun to the canvas, out comes the heat gun and  they start dribbling!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

I hope you have a loved one who will spoil you today. However if we were really truthful we would like to be spoiled everyday and not just one day in the year!

so I am going to spoil you with a selection of Valentine cards...

This is created with the Scallop Envelope die and the sentiment is from the stamp set Word Play.  I cheated with Sent with Love as it is computer generated.

I have embossed these punched hearts with the Perfect Polka Dots, Adorning Accents and Petals a Plenty. The ribbon is the new Striped Organdy ribbon in Melon Mambo from the new Spring/Summer Catalogue

Small punched hearts using paper from More Amore DSP in a noughts and crosses design and the sentiment is Teeny Tiny Sentiments

En Francais stamped in Crumb Cake and LOVE cut out from the Natural Composition Specialty Paper using the Typeset Alphabet dies, then a small heart and rhinestone embellishment.

Lastly some punched hearts pleated to look like 

 balloons with the sentiment from Delightful Dozen.