The 2-Step Stampin Blog Hop is here!

Hello and Good Morning to all of my visitors today!

Todays entry is a contribution to the blog hop to publicise the new August Stampin' Up! promotion, and has been organised by the lovely Sarah on In Love with Stamping who has the first blog on the hop today.

If you have just arrived here from Karin's blog, welcome, and at the end of this post, I will be sending you on to see what the uber-talented Bekka has for you. If you are starting with me, I invite you go round and look at the lovely things the other 9 demos have produced using the stamps which are on offer this month at a whopping 20% off the usual prices - when you get back here - you are done for the moment - but you won't have to wait too long to see more  as there is another hop on the 16th August featuring 10 more lovely ladies.

Anyway - enough of the blether - let's get on with the pics of the projects I am sharing today!

Unusually for ILWS, the hop today is featuring SCRAPBOOKING, something I really love doing, but with a roomful of stash large enough to start my own shop - I must admit I have never really thought about using my Stampin' Up! goodies on my layouts - until today!!

Here is the first page I created.......

On this one, I used a 12 x 12 sheet of Basic Black cardstock (110031 - £5.95) as my base, and added various pieces of black and white designer papers from the gorgeous limited edition Night and Day speciality paper set (116768 - £8.75), with my photo mounted on the largest piece. I added a length of 1 1/4" Striped grosgrain ribbon in Old Olive (117385 - £8.95) tied in a big bow - then I got stamping using the beautiful Greenhouse Garden stamp set (113824 - £22.95. This set is absolutely gorgeous as it features FOUR beautiful flowers which are given dimension by adding details using a second stamp - aligned over the first impression using the Stamp-a-ma-jig (101049 - £9.50).I have used all 4 flowers on this page, using pale and dark inks from the colour families to produce them. These were then cut out and sprinkled around the photograph, interspersed with leaves punched using the extra large 2 step bird punch (117191 - £13.50) from Old Olive Cardstock (109991 - £4.50). Some are raised on Stampin' Dimensionals (109923 - £2.75) and they are finished off with Clear Rhinestone Brads (113144 - £7.75) for the centres. The title was cut on the Cricut in Pink Passion cardstock (109970 - £4.50).

Now for the second page.....

This romantic page features the lovely spotty acetate sheet from the Night and Day paper pack, mounted on a sheet of whisper white cardstock (110038 - £5.95) using 4 small gold brads(110023 - £4.95) . I used an offcut of paper from the last page , and cut a large heart from Rich Razzleberry (one of the new colours) cardstock (119981 - ££4.50). These were glued down, and then I mounted my photograph on a piece of Basic black card, but I left the margin slightly wider on the bottom and left to allow me to add some of the lush Rich Razzleberry polka dot grosgrain ribbon (115613 - £8.95) . I punched leaves with the bird punch, and cut my title from Old Olive cardstock. I lightly drew a circle on the page (around 8" diameter) and  attached the leaves and the large and medium sized flowers stamped using Melon Mambo and Rich Razzleberry inkpads ( 115656 and 115658 respectively - £4.25), again raising some on dimensionals and finishing off with crystal brads.

I used a lot of classic inkpads (Pixie Pink. Pink Passion, Pale Plum, Dark Plum, Blush Blossom, Apricot Appeal, So Saffron and More Mustard)  for the stamping - these are all £4.25 each, and you can find their order numbers  in the online catalogue linked to the right! If you fancy mini versions which are easy to tote around - you can get these as 1" square Stampin Spots available in colour family sets for £17.50 for 12 (but you will need all 4 sets to copy my page exactly! LOL!!)

Now - for my final offering - I give you - a trifold shutter mini album - the basic design comes from a template by Andrea Walford - but I have done in it my own favourite colourway - yes the red black and white combo strikes again!! Seriously though - the reason I use this a lot is that at the moment we can only buy SU 12x12 cardstock in single colour packs as long as we want black, white, vanilla or kraft so that is why I use these colours a lot in my projects!! I buy the A4 packs to use for accent colours.

Here is the front of the album.....

Again it uses the Night and Day papers and acetate, but this time I have added Real Red cardstock (109968 - £4.50) and ribbon (110130 - £6.25) to the black and white card and crystal brads used on the two scrapbook pages. The flowers and swirls were cut using the Cricut as was the title.

Untie the ribbon and the book opens up to the left and right giving you a gorgeous way of showcasing 3 large and 4 small photos. If you look carefully, you will see that I have used three of the stamps from the Tiny Tags stamp set (118091 - £18.95) along with the matching Medium Jewellery Tag punch (117190 - £ £8.50) on this one.

If you like what you see here and want to order any of the products I used please get in touch on 07973 969153 or via email on ExStitch@aol.com. Any orders placed during August which include either of the stamp sets I used will get free postage from me (worth a minimum of £3.95) in addition to the 20% discount offered by Stampin' Up!

I hope you have enjoyed your visit here today, now if you are playing along in the hop - you are now off to visit Bekka at Feeling Crafty.

Goodbye for now and hope to see you again soon - feel free to leave a comment before you leave - thanks!