Back during Sale-A-Bration I was so busy setting up Paper Pumpkin Clubs, designing cards for classes and becoming top SAB seller for my team, that I forgot I had ordered Gignham Gala paper and the daisy punch with intention of doing some summer cards.

Today was office cleaning day, and lo, I discover a whole unopened pack of designer paper in the back corner of the cupboard.  I had put it there for the proverbial "safe keeping" when I would "find time" to use it.  So I found time today.

Out came the daisy punch, some whisper white thick card stock, some velum paper, and some sequins.  I did make cards in all five glorious colours of the Gingham paper, and I did remember after the photos that I also had the FREE SAB coordinating ribbon pack stogged away in a drawer for "that special time when I would make those special cards...." but I thought I'd focus on two cards close up, rather than a desktop full of them at a distance.

The May Paper Pumpkin kit did not disappoint!  The blend of earthy and pastel colours is just gorgeous, and coordinates so well with the new Bird Ballad designer series paper, and many others as well. The colour palate works fantastic with old olive, petal pink, pool party, soft suede, early espresso, and very vanilla.

The stamp set has some really nice sentiments that fit many non specific occasions, like; "Huggs", "Thank You" and "Hello Dear Friend" in a mixed set of beautiful script and plain non-serif fonts.  Add in some beautiful flowers, and birds and you have a set that can be used over and over with many other kits and products.

Like always I took some elements from the kit, including the envelopes, and took them apart, cut them up and used them to make alternate designs.  In my Paper Pumpkin Clubs I present my attendees with six additional alternate designs they can make.  The picture above is what I came up with in under an hour, just playing around, and below are the 22 final cards I got from this kit.

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If you don't have any of the Stampin' Blends - AKA Blender Pens, you need to budget a few extra dollars and treat yourself to a couple with each order you place. Today I was just playing around with mine, colouring some floral stamps - AND - on some wooden elements from the Sale-A-Bration Butterfly Gala. I LOVE the vibrancy of the colours, and how EASY these markers are to use!

These quality alcohol based markers are absolutely fantastic for colouring on paper, foil, faceted gens, pearls, and more.  They are much more forgiving than regular markers, and work with a feather light touch. Their unique ability to pull colours together (BLEND) is made possible by the alcohol in the ink.  The more you colour over an area, the darker it gets.  And if you go too dark, there is a special white lightener pen that will unsaturate or lighten up the area you colour in. 

By blending together colours from a similar base, you can create almost 3D realistic shading.  By blending together opposing colours you can create fantastic fades that make it appear you have used three or more colours.  Using red next to yellow will cause orange to appear where they touch each other.  Using yellow on top of blue will create green - just like mixing paints or inks.  

They come in matched pairs of light and dark in all the great Stampin' Up! colours and cost just $6 each marker ($12 a pair).  Because they get darker the more you layer them, I suggest you buy the "light" versions of a handful of colours to start.  If you find you just can't get a particular one to go as dark as you want by layering it over several times, then buy the "dark" version of that colour.  My experience has shown me that the light pens are fine for 90% of what you will want to colour.

Head on over to the online store and check out the Stampin' Blends

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