Pop of Petals

Hello, Crafters.

My rather large order arrived from Stampin' Up! on Wednesday 

at 8.40am - how lucky am I?  - and I spent the day getting 

everything organised and filed away. This is quite a big job as far 

as the dies are concerned because I have to remove the 

sticky adhesive from the back of each die, make die cuts of 

each, and set up a new wallet for each, label the magnetic sheet 

and also label the stamp set with the name of the co-ordinating die set.

 Next I photocopied the front covers of the stamp sets for my new

 Stamp Reference File! Then I cleared all my stamp sets off the shelves 

so I could put them back with the new ones in alphabetical order. 

Although it took me all day, and most of the evening, it was a lovely

 feeling getting it all done in one day. The only job that had to

 wait until yesterday, was photocopying the front of each die-set 

wallets, so I now have an up to date Die & Embossing

 Folder Reference File. 

 I don't normally go to all this trouble every year, but my files 

were getting rather untidy, and I was in the mood for a total

 revamp and, went for it. (Normally I just take out the 

photocopies of retired products, and slip the new ones in). 

The good thing about yesterday was that I had some time for 

crafting! One of the stamp sets I bought is the Pop of Petals (page 47)

 which is on offer as a bundle with a co-ordinating punch. When

 the retirement list came out recently, I was really disappointed to

 see the Flower Shop Stamp Set and the Pansy Punch were both

 retiring - I have used those two products trillions of times!

 So when I saw the Pop of Petals bundle, I knew it would be in 

my first order! What I hadn't noticed until yesterday, was that one

 of the "flowers" is actually a butterfly!! So this bundle also 

goes a little way to make up for the two butterfly punches and

 the butterfly stamp set which retired last year. 

Although it isn't sold as two-step stamp set, that's how I used it

 for today's card. If you look at the picture below of  the Pop of Petals, 

I stamped the first flower in the top row using Poppy Parade Ink. 

Then I used the second stamp that's the third stamp in the first

 row,  stamped off once using the same colour ink! I can't 

wait to try other combinations! There is just so much in

 this bundle it's amazing.

 The other product I wanted to draw your attention to is the 3D

Dynamic Embossing Folder called Subtle (page 223), because

 the design really is so subtle, you can hardly see anything

 in the catalogue. I used it to partially emboss my top layer

 but just leaving enough plain so I could stamp my sentiment 

straight onto the layer (albeit a bit too high really!).  

 Finally, did you notice the bundles that Stampin' Up! have

 put together on page 2 of the catalogue? You'll find full details

 for each bundle on the pages referred to there. This is a first

 for SU to do this and is particularly useful for beginners, and 

it's also very helpful if you want all those products, you can

 order them with just one product number! I hope you like

 these mini "reviews" - they were too good not to share 

them with you.

That's it from me today! I'm off to make my video for Sunday. I

 hope you have a lovely day, and happy crafting!

JanB.