Kylie's International Highlights Top 10 Winners Blog Hop

Welcome to this special blog hop. I am Lou Kitzelman and I live on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Everyone in today's hop were lucky enough to be voted as the Top Ten Winners in Kylie Bertucci's April International Highlights. My big surprise was that I received the highest number of votes. Thank you to all who voted for me (and I know not all of you are family!). I really appreciate your support and you taking the time to look at my blog.

Today's hop has the same theme as the highlight - weddings. I thought I would look at a few ideas for table decorations for weddings today. Wedding budgets soon blow out of control and a great way to keep costs down and add a personal touch is to make some of the different design elements yourself. Speaking from experience it is really special to have your handmade decorations at your own wedding.

One of my favourite product bundles in the new Stampin' Up! 2017/18 Annual Catalogue is Daisy Delight. It has a fabulous punch and coordinating stamp set. As soon as I saw this I thought of making gerberas for a wedding. There are so many ways to enhance these flowers such as watercolouring them as I have done here or adding some embossing as I have done for my samples today.

I simply stamped 2 flowers for every gerbera on some of the new Powder Pink cardstock in Versamark, added White Embossing Powder and melted with a heat tool. To add a bit of depth I used my Aqua Painter and some ink from the lid of the new Berry Burst Ink Pad. You can make 6 double layer gerberas from 1 A4 piece of cardstock. I cut mine into 3 x 7 cm strips.

Then it was as simple as punching out each flower and gently curling the petals (I used the barrel of my stylus). Use a paper piercing tool to poke a hole through the centre of one and secure some wire with glue dots through the hole. Adhere together, offsetting the 2 layers. A faceted gem in the centre of each was the finishing detail. The great thing is that you can customise the colour to suit your colour scheme. Stampin' Up! is sure to have a colour to match!

Once you have the flowers made you can use them in so many ways. (As usual I had so many ideas but so little time..... just need 30 hours in a day!). How about a simple serviette holder? You could even add a name card.

Pop them in this cute crate (isn't it the cutest?) and use as table decoration/number signs. I placed a piece of Styrofoam in the base to stick the wires into. Some shredded cellophane helps them stay in place. I can think of so many uses for this crate from the Wood Crate Framelits.

I die cut a numeral from the Large Numbers Framelits set and adhered to wire. I added a shadow and a numeral on the back to cover the wire. Too cute!

Or use as a thank you for your bridesmaids, Mother, Mother-in-law, florist, cake maker, guests as a favour....the list is endless. The Wood Words stamp set coordinates with the Wood Crate Framelits. I love the tags you can make.

And while you are at it, punch out a few more for your thank you cards! You can come more detailed ones for the very special people you have to thank.

And you can also grab a pack of note cards and envelopes and whip up these simple yet elegant thank you cards for your guests.

These decorations and card ideas would also work well for a Christening, Baby Shower, Bridal Shower, Birthday, Get Well .... well anything really! I hope I have inspired you to think about making your own design elements for a wedding or some other significant event.

Thanks for stopping by. Make sure you hop around to all of the top 10 by using the participant list below. Next up you are heading over to the UK to see what amazing creation Jay Soriano has in store for you.

 Lou




Product List:

• Daisy Delight Stamp Set - 143669 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Daisy Punch - 143713 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Faceted Gems - Clear - 144142- Available from June 1, 2017
• Berry Burst Classic Stampin' Pad - 144083 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Powder Pink Classic Stampin' Pad - 144084 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Powder Pink A4 cardstock - 144251 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Powder Pink Finely Woven Ribbon - 144134 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Wood Words Stamp Set - 143928 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Wood Crate Framelits - 143730 - Available from June 1, 2017
• Wood Texture Designer Series Paper Stack - Available from June 1, 2017

White Stampin' Emboss Powder [109132] $8.75	Aqua Painters [103954] $20.00	Versamark Pad [102283] $15.00	Embossing Buddy [103083] $10.00	Heat Tool [129056] $50.00	Big Shot [143263] $159.00	Glue Dots [103683] $8.00
Tear & Tape Adhesive [138995] $9.00	Large Numbers Framelits Dies [140622] $54.00	Whisper White Note Cards & Envelopes [131527] $10.50