Hi everyone,
Didn’t that week go fast!  Well it did for me, anyway.  I’m back with another team blog hop!

Today I have two projects again for you, both featuring the Butterfly Basics stamp set from the Occasions catalogue.  This is a gorgeous collage-style set that I plan on getting a lot of use from now and in the years ahead – I think it’s a keeper!  The thing that sold me on this set at first was the coordinating set of Butterflies Thinlits dies – I am a huge fan of Monarch butterflies (we have lots of the caterpillars and chrysalises in our garden right now) so I HAD to have these!  Of course now I love the stamps just as much.

The first project I’m sharing is a covered notepad that I put together and taught at one of my classes. I love how we can take an inexpensive, boring notepad and dress it up so pretty!

I used our Kraft cardstock to cover the notepad, using the Honeycomb embossing folder as a stamp with Crumb Cake ink.  I die cut a piece of Naturals White cardstock using the Deco Labels die collection and stamped it with the Butterfly Basics stamps (colours used were Coastal Cabana, Pistachio Pudding, Crushed Curry and Crumb Cake).  I die cut the gorgeous butterfly from Gold Foil and overlaid it with another butterfly die cut from our cardstock vellum that I’d sponged with Calypso Coral ink.  The butterfly is actually on top of a 1″ circle of cardstock that’s hiding a hand-made spring, so the butterfly actually ‘flutters’ when you move the notepad!  Here’s a side view so you can see the layers a little better.

The finishing touch was a nice length of thick baker’s twine in Coastal Cabana (from the main Stampin’ Up! catalogue).  Some of the colours I’ve used (Coastal Cabana & Pistachio Pudding) are scheduled to be retired when the current catalogue ends in a few months, so be sure to grab your ink refills and extra cardstock and twine in those colours while they’re still available!

The second project I have to share with you today was made by my team member and good friend, Ann.  She doesn’t have a blog so she was happy for me to show off her fabulous work.  She’s a ‘clean’ style stamper, and sells a lot of her creations at local markets as well as teaching her own classes in Papakura.  (A big hello to Ann’s class attendees, in case you are visiting me today!)

Ann used the same stamp set that I did but her magnetic bookmark has a very different look doesn’t it?  It shows you how versatile this set is – lots of different images to play with and you just change the colours and you have a very different project altogether!

Thanks for joining us on the blog hop today.  Please do post a comment to let Ann and I know what you think of our projects!  We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us.

Next on the blog hop is Paula, so just click the ‘next’ button to see her fabulous work.  Or if you’ve come directly to my blog today and haven’t been to see Jacque’s work yet, you can click ‘previous’ to see her Occasions blog hop post.  The full list of all of my demo friends on the blog hop is below, in case you get lost on the way!

  

Happy Stamping,