Saturday 30 October 2010

Almost Convention Time!

Hello Everyone

Well soon I will be off to Stampin' Up! convention, (the second in Europe and my first!) - I can't wait.

I have made 100 swaps - so I will have lots of projects from the talented demos to share over the next few months, along with my own work of course. :)

Well I am not going to give a peek to my swaps for convention, but today I thought I would share a swap I did for my sidelines and upline Amanda for one of her team training events. They are tiny little 1" pyramid boxes - each containing a mint!


I'm also posting a card I made a using Pick a Petal some time ago.  I stamped and hand cut the petals to form the tulip. The stem and leaves are had drawn and then I cut around the whole image to make it pop over the the designer paper.


Hope you like today's offerings - now how many days till convention???

Wednesday 27 October 2010

A non-festive Project!

Hello Everyone


Time today for a non-festive project from me! I know I have been a bit Christmas project obsessed this month! I will be tired of it by December :)

This was something I made a while ago for a workshop. It is a card with a tear-off bookmark made using the Cutter Kit from Stampin' Up! The cutter, among other tools, includes a perforating tools which is ideal for this project - or creating reply slips on invitations etc.




The bookmarks both feature critters from the Fox and Friends set and I used the crop a dile to fix the large eyelets to the top of the bookmarks.

Back soon with more :)

Sunday 24 October 2010

3D Ornament Card

Hello Everyone

This is a project I made for my new Stampin' Up! launch party. It uses Contempo Christmas for the main image and the sentiment. We now also have the co-ordinating punch - but these were hand cut as the punch hadn't arrived then!


Now I am not sure how well this photo shows the 3D-ness of this card! LOL! I stamped and cut the ornament 4 times, folded each image in half and then glued them together with tombow to make a 3D bauble.

The background is stamped in Crumb Cake ink, using the Sparkling wheel. I added a ribbon in Early Espresso. I manged to get my favourite new colour Cherry Cobbler in twice - with the bauble ink and the strip of cardstock along the top.

Thursday 21 October 2010

Festive Lists

Hello Everyone

Today's project is another from my October classes. We made a useful list book - either for Christmas planning or general shopping.


The background stamp in the So Swirly wheel - my favourite wheel so I am very happy it is still in our catalogue! This example uses the Joy at Christmas stamp from Perfect Punches, the bauble from Contempo Christmas layered over Fine Flourish.






Inside I we covered a plain notebook and added wide black and white striped ribbon to create a pen loop.

In case my ladies preferred a non-festive version, I had some alternative stamps available to decorate the notebooks.

Hope you like today's offering. Back in a couple of days with another.

Monday 18 October 2010

Vintage Christmas Card

Hello Everyone

Today's post is one of my class projects for October - a vintage Christmas card. It uses the masking technique and the fir cone stamp from Lovely as a Tree to create the wreath.


I distressed the edges of the layers of cardstock and daubed with Soft Suede ink. The edge of the main card I daubed over the top with Champagne Shimmer Paint, to add some subtle sparkle.

The background is stamped with the ivy image from Vintage Vogue and the sentiment was stamped over the top in Versamark ink and heat embossed in gold. I love the addition of the tiny tag too!

I did two more examples for my class ladies to see. The first is the modern variation in Elegant Eggplant and the second is my traditional sample.


I think the purple one is my favourite - I'd love to know which one you like best?

Friday 15 October 2010

Almost forgot the Robin!

Hello Everyone

I just realised that although I shared the other September class projects, I forgot to show you this little robin card we made last month.

It was very quick and easy - which was just as well because the other projects took a while!


It is made using the Soft Holly wheel, which we stamped in Old Olive on the Very Vanilla cardstock. We inked a few of the berries using the Real Red marker. (I found that it looked best with just a few berries picked out in red - when I tried doing them all it was too busy).

We daubed around the edge of the vanilla in Soft Suede ink and then punched out the bird using the Two Step Bird Punch in soft suede. We daubed the bird too. We then punched the wing shape in red and trimmed it to create the red breast for the robin. The sentiment comes from Season of Joy.

This was a fun and fast card to make - I hope you like it. Back soon with some more class projects.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

How cute are these?

Hello Everyone

Today I am sharing such a cute project. These handbags, (purses for those reading in the U.S.), are from a template by Becki Roberts. I have made some changes including the tab closures with a bit of bling in the form of a diamonte brad.




They are made in Bashful Blue cardstock, with the images, from Greenhouse Garden, stamped in Baja Breeze. The sentiment is from Perfect Punches and attached to the bags with Early Espresso ribbon.


I haven't got any co-ordinating buttons for this project, so I made some with punched circles of Baja Breeze cardstock, coated in Crystal Effects.

I love my handbags - hope you do too!

Saturday 9 October 2010

CASEing the Lillies

Hello Everyone

Today I am giving a thank you to two very talented Stampin' Up! demos across the water. The first is Sharri who first came up with this design - how talented is she? Go and check out her amazing creations.

The second is Valita who, with Sharri's permission, made a video showing how to make these flowers.

I first made these lillies to decorate my apron for my summer garden party and after many requests promised to share the technique with my sideline demos at our quarterly training. I also showed them to my lovely class ladies and customers at the new catalogue launch party I held recently.

Here are the ones made from Sharri and Valita's design:


With all the fabulous new colours in the new catalogue, I wanted to make something a bit more tropical and exotic - so I went with Baja Breeze as my base colour for my demonstrations.


I used Wild Wasabi ink for the 'veins' (is that what you call them on a flower?), and managed to find a place for Cherry Cobbler with the small markings on the petals.

The stamens, (my botany skills are being put to the test here LOL), are tipped with turquoise glitter from the Fine Cosmo glitter collection from Stampin' Up!

I won't give you any further instruction as Valita's video does that far better than I can. (I will just say that we only just got the wide oval punch in the UK, so these samples were made with the large oval - I think they look even better with the wide one - which will be arriving in my craft room soon! LOL)

Many thanks to Sharri from Canada and Valita from Australia - a real around the world Stampin' Up!project.

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Lovely as a Branch!

Hello Everyone

I have seen various versions of today's card out in blog-land. I have no idea which clever person first thought it up - but I am very grateful to them.

Once I started playing with the bauble from Contempo Christmas, I realised I wanted to 'hang' it from something, but didn't have a suitable branch stamp - until I saw this idea.


The branches are made with the fir tree from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set - don't they work well?

I used the Cherry Cobbler cardstock again, which I love so much, and daubed the edges of the card with Early Espresso ink to give a slightly vintage look.

The bauble is stamped in Versamark ink and embossed with silver embossing powder and the 'string' it hangs from was drawn with a Versamark pen.

I finished the card by embossing the greeting in black and adding a bow made with Old Olive satin ribbon.

Hope you like :)

Sunday 3 October 2010

Pretty in Blue

Hello Everyone

Today I am showing off some more of our new colours - the blues. We have a beautiful new range to choose from and trying to decide which one to make as the background of this card left me undecided - so I decided to make all three!
The blues are Pacific Point top left, Baja Breeze top right and Marina Mist at the bottom. And no I still can't decide which I prefer!


I used the tree image from Contempo Christmas, layered up on Whisper White and Basic Black cardstock and with the soft wide black and white ribbon at the side.

The background is from Baroque Motifs - and I am so glad we now have adhesive pearls in the new catalogue - perfect to add a little embellishment to finish this project. You can see all the lovely goodies in the new catalogue by clicking on the link at the top of this page.

So tell me - which blue do you like best?

Friday 1 October 2010

It's HERE! New Stampin' Up! Catalogue & Launch Party

Hello Everyone

It's my favourite time of the Stampin' Up! year - new catalogue time! You can see it online or get your own copy by clicking on the link at the top of this blog.

We have so many new things to be excited about too - a colour renovation that brings some amazing new colours to the Stampin' Up! range - and new designer papers and ribbons to match the inks and cardstock.

I am going to share a number of projects with you over the next few days - be prepared to see lots in my new favourite colour - Cherry Cobbler! Today I am sharing a fabulous new Christmas stamp set called Contempo Christmas. I am really pleased we are getting a matching punch for the bauble stamp - but as mine was only ordered today these have been hand cut. :)
Isn't that Cherry Cobbler the best? I have realised it is the feature colour in my living room, (with cream), and was also my bridesmaids dress colour - no wonder I love it!

This card was done by stamping the image first in Cherry cobbler ink, then masking those images and stamping in Versamark ink and heat embossing in gold. Finally I stamped the bauble on Very Vanilla cardstock, and embossed with clear embossing powder. I cut them out and applied using dimensionals.

Both sentiments come from the same stamp set - embossed again in gold.

I am also sharing a few pics of my launch party set up. I did it in a local hall and 22 lovely ladies came along. We had a great evening, with two make and takes, a try-me table for our new clear mount stamps, a tabbing table - so we could put page tabs on our shiney new catalogues and lots of laughter and cake of course.



I want to thank Hayley, Helen, Jane and all the other girls  for the swaps they did for me. And not forgetting my upline Amanda, who did a fabulous new catalogue training day. I couldn't have done this without you!

My lovely sister Maria helped me and worked so hard. I am really grateful for her help. She also took these pics after we had set up - but we were so busy during the party we forgot to take any more! LOL


Happy new Stampin' Up! year and I will be back in a couple of days with more projects.