Pinkies Team Training Swaps using Birthday Blooms Stamp Set

Sunday 7 February 2016


Today I am off to the Village Hall in Croughton for the Pinkies Team Training Event. I can't wait to catch up with everyone and make some lovely things. We have a special guest joining us today too, Paula Gorry the UK Country Manager for Stampin'​ Up! How exciting!

When we all get together, we always make swaps. Usually we all make a card or 3D project using Stampin' Up! products, we would make enough for each person attending (we have 47 attending today). We then would spend 30 minutes or so swapping our makes with each other and talking about what each other has made. Its great as you get inspired with new ideas and techniques and we also then have samples of stamp sets or designer series papers that we might not own ourselves that we can show to our friends and customers.

For this event Michelle wanted us to try something different. What we had to do was put our name against stamp sets Michelle had chosen from the Spring Summer or Sale-a-Bration catalogues. There were 6 slots under each stamp set and I chose the Birthday Blooms stamp set. Our task was to make 6 swaps using our chosen stamp set and other Stampin' Up! current products of our choice. We then had 5 cards to swap with the others in the same group and one to keep for ourselves. I can't wait to see what everyone has made!


There are so many wonderful cards on Pinterest using this stamp set (click here to have a look) and I could have easily CASED one (copy and share everything) but I wanted to come up with something original. 

Now I'm not the greatest colourer in (okay I know that's not a word!) and I definitely am not the best fussy cutter so I spent a couple of evenings in my craft room this weekend thinking of ways 'outside the box' on how to use this stamp set in a way that might not have been done before. By using just black and white in my project, this stamp set suddenly has a whole different look. What do you think?


This photograph really doesn't show just how sparkly the centre of the card is, so I'll describe to you how I made this section.

The oval is made up of three different layers. The bottom layer is vellum cardstock and I've used the clear Wink of Stella glitter pen to colour in the vellum for a sparkly but subtle finish. The next layer is an oval piece of window sheet with the flower stamped from the Birthday Blooms stamp set in black Staz On ink. I used my embossing buddy on the window sheet first so that the stamp didn't slip when it touched the window sheet. Stamping on the window sheet allows you to flip the image over to create a mirror image of the flower. The final layer was an oval border cut from basic black cardstock. I used two of the ovals in my big shot machine, to hold them in position I simply placed a post it note over the dies. I then used my clear wink of stella pen to give the border a glitterly finish.


If you want to check out what we are up to today, download the Periscope App on your smart phone or tablet and search for Michelle Last. Michelle is doing a live broadcast at 12:30pm!

Also, make sure you click here to subscribe to my blog updates as I'll be posting pictures from today including the five swaps I received.

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