Retirement List Blog Hop

Welcome to the Stampin’ Stars Retirement Blog Hop.  If you are wondering what this is all about, a number of us (Stampin’ Stars) have put together a short blog hop to say goodbye to our favourite stamp sets that are retiring this year.

You may have started here or hopped here from Joanne’s blog, either way, welcome. I love what Joanne did with the Collage Curios stamp set and the Soda Pop Tops. If you haven’t been there already then you are in for a treat.

Details of where to hop to next are at the bottom of this blog. I’ll also give details of all those taking part just in case some of the links don’t work. In case you are wondering, there are 8 blogs in total. Don’t worry if you don’t get a chance to hop around all of them today they will still be there when you do have time.

There are quite a few sets that I am having to say goodbye to this year (sob), but my absolute favourite that is going is Just Believe. This was the first set that I bought here in the UK and it rekindled my Stampin’ Up! addiction. This ultimately prompted me to become a Demonstrator and I guess you could say the rest is history.

I thought I would spoil you today and share two projects that I’ve made using the Just Believe stamp set. The first is a project that I made yesterday (I know I left it to the last minute). I still have an awful lot of picture frames “hanging” around my craft room at the moment so I thought I’d do something with one of them.

Stampin’ Up! supplies used:

Stamp Set : Just Believe (retiring)
Ink: Basic Black
Card stock : Whisper White, Daffodil Delight and Basic Black
Designer Series Paper : Floral District (retiring)
Accessories : Basic Black Taffeta Ribbon (retiring), Elegant Butterfly and Bitty Butterfly punches, Basic Rhinestones, Glue Dots and Dimensionals

I only used Basic Black for the images but stamped them a number of times without re-inking the stamp. I love the effect this gives.

My second project and one I made a little while ago, at a class held by a demonstrator (Elaine Smith) who lives down the road from me, is a card.

Stampin’ Up! supplies used:

Stamp Set : Just Believe (retiring)

Ink: Jet Black Stazon, So Saffron, Always Artichoke and Wisteria Wonder.
Card stock : Whisper White and So Saffron
Accessories : Daffodil Delight Taffeta Ribbon (retiring), Stamp-a-ma-jig, Sponges and Dimensionals

We used Stazon Ink on this project because once dry it is less likely to smudge when sponging the other colours on top.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these and now it’s time to hop to Tracie’s blog to see what fabulous ideas she has come up with using the Raining Flowers stamp set.

You will notice that Tracie has a formal Stampin’ Up! blog. I do in fact have one too, it’s just that I’ve not migrated things to it (it’s still a work in progress). If you would like to check it out and see what’s on there ( a copy of my blog posts from here plus a few other things) it is:

http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/oakfieldcrafts/blog

Just in case you get lost hopping around the blogs here is a complete list of them all. You can always pop back here and use the link from here.

Fiona                Oakfield Crafts – You are here
Tracie               Thestampinelf
Sarah                Stampinsupplies
Nicky               Nickyjohncock
Pip                   Queenpipcards
Cary and Gill     2biggirlscrafting
Kim                  Kimfeecrafter
Joanne              Toocraftyjo