Have you ever bought a stamp set and die bundle thinking you would use it so much but then it sits there hardly used? I bought Stampin' Up!'s What's Cookin' bundle to spruce up my cook's organizer. Think only half a page was created <- click the link to see the page! lol 

To show off this Awesome Otter I went digging through my designer series paper looking for something that would inspire a card. I keep my DSP in big zipper bags in a drawer. Pretty sure I pulled out all the packs I have and didn't like any that I saw! Have you been that way? Went looking for something but then nothing works for what you imagined or wanted? No? Just me? Then I remembered the Stampin' Up! order that arrived last week with the Abstract Beauty 4" x 6" designer series paper. 

This week I'm sharing projects with a water theme. Today's card was created using inspiration from my upline, Lisa Henderson. Each month she gives her team a creative and business challenge with different themes or ideas. A great way to keep us crafting and maybe try something new! For this month's creative challenge we needed to create a project inspired by the beach using the colours Coastal Cabana, Night of Navy and Silver. For silver the Silver Foil Specialty pack was perfect to provide 3 different shades behind the image along with a strip of Night of Navy and Smoky Slate. I had a hard time figuring out where the Coastal Cabana would fit but I'm ok with it being the card base colour, I think. Sometimes its easier to roll with using a colour as the base even if you think it might be wrong. What do you think? Was Coastal Cabana the correct one to use as my card base or should I have used a different colour?

Hello! In today's Pretty Cards & Paper November blog hop you will see projects made with the Peaceful Place designer series paper. 

The gorgeous metallic accents in the Peaceful Place specialty designer series paper will help your projects pop! Included in this 12" x 12" pack of paper are 12 sheets of patterned paper: 2 each of 6 double-sided designs. One side of each has some metallic accents such as falling snow or woodgrain. Although this paper is monochromatic including Basic Black, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate you could colour in the sheets to change the look or stamp on the white portions.

Welcome to November's Global Stamping Friends blog hop. Today we are sharing projects with a snowflake theme and the best snowflake item in the Jul-Dec Mini Catalogue is the Peaceful Place Specialty designer series paper. The gorgeous metallic accents in this pack of paper makes this card pop!

Welcome to October, one of my favourite months of the year & the Global Stamping Friends Blog Hop. Today we are sharing projects that use Stampin' Up! products featuring wood grain. It was hard to choose what I wanted to use. There are a few, alright maybe many, items that I love and couldn't fit them all on one project!

To give a wood grain feel/look to this card I used 3 different products together: the Peaceful Cabin stamp set & Cabin dies (bundle), the Cork specialty paper and the Harvest Meadow designer series paper. The strip of DSP used at the bottom of the card started out as one of the Crumb Cake designs with white plants, then embossed using the Timber 3D Embossing Folder and finally inked with Crumb Cake ink.

1. Amanda Farlinger - You are here

Welcome to this month's Pretty Cards & Paper blog hop. We are sharing projects created using Stampin' Up!'s Painted Christmas designer series paper (shown below) to help inspire your creativity! To visit the other's blogs scroll down to after the video below to find a list of all the blogs.

Hello! Welcome to September's Colour Combo Blog Hop. Autumn is my favourite time of year. Doesn't this month's colour combo of Blushing Bride, Cinnamon Cider and Mango Melody give off fall-ish vibes? 

How do you decide what colours to use for your projects? Sometimes I will pull ink pads off the shelf and arrange them on my desk to see what colour combination inspires me. Or I'll check Stampin' Up!'s catalogues and see what I can find on Pinterest.

When I think of polar bears and the Arctic, I picture ice burgs and impressive skies. The Water Painters and the Fluid 100 Watercolour paper were used with Misty Moonlight and Pool Party ink refills to create the sky and water. Working with the Water Painters can be a little intimidating at first. Using them with the Fluid 100 Watercolour paper will help you because it can handle the water better than either Basic White cardstock or the Thick Basic White cardstock.

Hello and welcome to the next stop in August's Pretty Cards and Paper blog hop. My project uses the Peaceful Prints designer series paper. 

Isn't the tree design so pretty? Usually I start a scrapbook page with photos but this time I started with the designer series paper. If you're unsure of where to start with creating a layout Pinterest is a great place to start. Another option is to cut some paper and place it down, more items around a bit, or maybe walk away from the layout for an hour or two. 

Hello and welcome to my blog in this month's Colour Combo Blog Hop. Our projects for this blog hop use Gray Granite, Bermuda Bay and Gorgeous Grape.

Have you tried the Painted Texture 3D embossing folder before? It was available in the Jan-Jun Mini Catalogue and has carried over to the Annual Catalogue. I went digging through my embossing folders yesterday wondering what one I should use. It was hard to pick between the Painted Textured and the Tasteful Textile embossing folders. The best thing to do when you cannot chose between which embossing folder to use is to make a sample of both in the colour you will use. Then you can put the embossed cardstock down and place the items (without gluing them down) over top to see which one you prefer. Add the piece you don't use to your stash so that it's ready to go or make a 2nd card using it while you have all the items out. Then you'll have a few cards ready to send out for the time when you need it!

Welcome to August's Global Stamping Friends Blog Hop with our theme of animals. From penguins, to polar bears and deer, the Stampin' Up!'s catalogues have some adorable and realistic images for us to use to create our cards and scrapbook pages.

Do you love to colour? The Beautifully Penned designer series paper is designed for you to add colour! Or you can leave it black and white. You're choice. On this card I've used a piece of the polka-dot design and coloured the whole piece using Pool Party ink and a Blending Brush. The striped piece across the center is from the same pack of designer series paper that I didn't colour in. If you would like to see how to create this card watch my Instagram Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CSNrYRJH_b0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link. I was going to try colouring it with Gorgeous Grape ink but thought the purple might be overpowering! What do you think, would the purple be a good addition or not?

You can find the Hand-Penned Petals bundle, the stamp set and dies used to create this card, in the Annual Catalogue on page 105 along with other items from the Hand-Penned Suite. While I do like the coordinating Hand-Penned designer series paper, I wanted to share that you can choose which designer series paper (DSP) you want to pair with any stamp set. Using DSP that is designed to work with a stamp set or bundle is an easy way to recreate project seen in the catalogue or create your own designs. But sometimes the DSP is either not in our favourite colours, design or perhaps there is already some DSP stashed in your crafting supplies? No, that last one cannot be the case! shhh, I won't tell. I have lots that I haven't used too!

Hello and welcome to July's Paper Pumpkin Blog Hop!

The Adventure Begins Paper Pumpkin kit is gorgeous and I'm loving the outdoorsy designs! The cards in this kit are a three fold design. You can use them as designed or trim off one of the folded pieces to use with some additional cardstock.