Tea Together Simple Stamping

For our January simple stamping challenge, I used products from the new Stampin' Up! Occasions catalog. I again used just one stamp set, one ink pad, and a coordinating card base and Designer Series Paper (DSP). For the January challenge we could also use a punch this time. I chose the Tea Together stamp set to use for this challenge. I loved the sentiments in the set, and tea cups and pots always bring to mind some special memories of times spent together with my sister Karen. The enjoyment and relaxation Karen finds in the whole process is very visible as she boils the water, chooses a kind of tea, inhales the aroma as the tea steeps, feels the warmth of the cup in her hands, and tastes the flavor as she takes each sip. When we go on family vacations, she always looks for a tea shop in the area and several of us join her for tea and scones. She has passed that enjoyment of tea on to her granddaughters, and they love nothing better than to enjoy a cup of tea with their grandmother.

In addition to the Tea Together stamp set (Item No. 148779), I used the following supplies specifically for this card:
 All My Love DSP (148576)
All My Love Cardstock Pack (148578)
Whisper White Cardstock (100730)
Lovely Lipstick Ink Pad (147140)
Pretty Label Punch (143715)

Of course I also used my normal tools as follows:
Stampin' Trimmer (126889)
Snail Adhesive (104332)
Stampin' Dimensionals (104430)
Bone Folder (102300)
Stamparatus (146276) (You could also use one of the clear blocks, but I love my Stamparatus!) Simple Shammy (147042) (You could also use a Stampin' Scrub and Stampin' Mist Stamp Cleaner to clean your stamps after you're finished.)

I chose Lovely Lipstick as my cardstock base and ink color for this card. My card base was trimmed to measure 5.5" x 8.5" and then folded in half. The patterned paper I chose from the All My Love DSP reminded me of the beautiful patterns of china cups and tea pots. I trimmed my patterned paper to 4" x 5.25" and stamped the tea pot image on it. I also stamped one of the flowers from the set inside the tea cup shape to further imitate the patterns found on china cups.

After adhering the stamped DSP to the card base with my adhesive. I stamped my "Love is a warm cup of tea" sentiment onto a small piece of Whisper White cardstock and punched it out with the Pretty Label punch. Flowers stamped at the sides of the sentiment filled in a bit of white space and framed the sentiment nicely. I found it very helpful to have the Stamparatus to position these within the punched shape. My final step was to use a Stampin' Dimensional to adhere the sentiment to the card.

As I can't seem to stop at simple stamping, I went a bit further with this stamp set. Adding a few more materials and some more tools produced the following card.

This card used a second layer of Flirty Flamingo card stock textured with the Tufted embossing folder run through the Big Shot.  A die cut tea cup, a punched shape from the patterned paper with a die cut circle containing the sentiment, some pearl accents colored with the Dark Lovely Lipstick Blends, and copper threads hoping to imitate steam rising from the cup of tea completed my card.

Both of these cards celebrate the special relationship I have with my sister Karen. Whatever your style, I would encourage you to take the time to celebrate and lift up those you love with a card or word of encouragement!