I know that every blog around is talking about the newly released Eastern Palace suite so I decided to be a little different. No surprises there, I know! The difference isn’t  that I’m massively late in posting, even though it may seem that way – I’m late because I’m still fighting off a nasty upper respiratory infection. So the difference to which I’m referring is that I’m highlighting just the Eastern Palace DSP at the moment along with sets that are retiring that, in my mind, you need to grab as fast as possible. Once they are gone, they are gone. The Acorny Thank You stamp set with the matching Acorny Builder punch are just such products – I didn’t think that I needed this to begin with, not seeing much call for acorns, but once I’d ordered them after a glass of wine, I found that I used them quite a lot. They are really fun – and on sale! The punch is $12.60, down from $18 and the stamp set is only $15. Yes, I’m an enabler, but I do it to myself too – that’s presumably why I have 2 orders currently in transit!

I used the punch to cut out acorns and hats from the DSP sheets that I used yesterday and then inked up the gorgeous tranquil tide for the sentiment. Since the Eastern Palace DSP has very vanilla (a major bonus in my book) I used that as the layer. I then cut off the stalks from the whole acorns (because they are fiddly to layer and I’d punched them the other way) and glued the gold and vanilla tops on. The middle one is popped up with dimensionals. The whole layer is on a card base of tranquil tide.

Here are a few of the cards that I’ve made using the Acorny Thank You stamp set and builder punch:

I have today’s and yesterday’s cards propped up on my desk next to each other and the two together make me think of the in colors that went out last year – blackberry bliss and lost lagoon. I mourned those colours but I think I like these better. Tranquil Tide is more intense, more deeply green and makes lost lagoon (which I loved) seem almost a little pale, if not insipid. And Fresh Fig is more purple – blackberry bliss was sometimes almost too dark so as to appear black. And excitingly, the two bundles that are available to customers right now, include these 2 colours plus lemon lime twist. Or, if you join the Stampin’ Up! family, one of the perks is being able to pre-order and anything on the pre-order list is available to be put into your Starter Kit.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the Stampin’ Rewards code to get five FREE handmade cards; the current Stampin’ Rewards code is 7UYN7HEJ (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free cards). In addition, to celebrate the new catalog, if you spend $50 this month, I’ll send you either the clear or gold faceted gems FREE (let me know which you’d like). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here. For more details on my Customer Loyalty Programme, click here.

See you tomorrow (hopefully at a more normal time!),

Liz