Circle Celebration and a Blog Hop!

 Happy Monday! I hope you had a good weekend. Here in Ontario we have a long weekend...a perfectly-timed, much-needed break from the classroom for me!

Today marks the 15th of the month, which means it is time for another Stamping Symphony blog hop! This month we are featuring products from the January-June Mini Catalogue and Sale-a-bration, which gave me the chance to pull out a stamp set I hadn't yet inked up...Circle Celebration.

Now, if you've been around Stampin' Up! for a while, you might remember a stamp set called Circle Circus. It was one that stuck around for several years. I absolutely ADORED it and was so sad when it retired.You can imagine how thrilled I was to see a similar set in the new mini! I had SUCH FUN playing with this set over the weekend...so much so that I decided to feature it all week long, including my Live @ Five video tomorrow! Check out this pretty card...

I think my favourite thing about this one is the colour palette! Here are the colours I used:

So yummy!! To create my background collage, I began with a piece of Purple Posy card stock and then added Highland Heather and Gorgeous Grape inks along the left side with my Blending Brushes. (It you haven't tried those lovelies yet, you NEED to...they ROCK!). Then I stamped several of the images from the Circle Celebration set, starting in Highland Heather, then Gorgeous Grape, Magenta Madness and Night of Navy. The final step was to heat emboss the wreath image in white...love the added depth that final step provides! Here's a closer look:

The sentiment is from the Happy Thoughts stamp set and is stamped in Night of Navy ink on a die-cut Stitched Rectangle. I added some Playing With Patterns Navy ribbon and a few Flowers for Every Season Gems to add a bit of texture and shimmer. 

On the inside of the  Gorgeous Grape card base I added a Basic White panel on which I stamped more of the images I used on the front. Isn't it amazing how different they look stamped on white, as opposed to the Purple Posy??

I demonstrated this card and two others with this stamp set in the video below...

Thanks so much for stopping by this week. Now hop on over to Sandy's blog to see what she has to share:

1. Leena (You are here)

2. Sandy

3. Barb

4. Jennifer

5. Leigh

6. Laurel

Product List

Circle Celebration Photopolymer Stamp Set [154440] $23.00	Happy Thoughts Cling Stamp Set [154507] $29.00	Basic White 8 1/2" X 11" Cardstock [159276] $13.25	Purple Posy 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [150881] $12.00
Gorgeous Grape 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [146987] $12.00	Highland Heather Classic Stampin' Pad [147103] $10.25	Gorgeous Grape Classic Stampin' Pad [147099] $10.25	Magenta Madness Classic Stampin' Pad [153117] $10.25
Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad [147110] $10.25	Versamark Pad [102283] $13.00	White Stampin' Emboss Powder [109132] $8.25	Heat Tool (Us And Canada) [129053] $41.00
Blending Brushes [153611] $16.25	Stampin' Cut & Emboss Machine [149653] $163.00	Stitched Rectangles Dies [151820] $48.00	Playing With Patterns Ribbon Combo Pack [152468] $14.25
Flowers For Every Season Gems [153645] $8.75