Vintage Christmas

Hi there

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to you all.

Today I am sharing with you my Vintage Christmas gift box and card which was my class on Thursday. My ladies really liked this one and even those who don't usually like sponging/distressing liked the effect it created on this particular project and they also loved the Early Expresso and Cherry Cobbler combination. At my suggestion some ladies just added the sticky strip to the areas needed for putting the box and lid together but didn't actually remove the backing so the whole thing can be easily stored flat until Christmas when they will be ready to use it. This will work really well if you want to make a few of them and don't have an enormous storage area in your craft space.

The next Christmas class is a wooden shadow box picture and the class is on Thur 30th June. If you are interested in taking part in this class on that date or an alternative date please do get in touch as you will need to book your place in order for me to get your frame.

Gift Boxes

Hi there

Today I thought I would share one of the items I made for my recent church fete.

I had these papier mache boxes left over when I did the Clock and Gift Box class last year and have been meaning to do something with them ever since. When I decided that I WAS doing the fete I spent a day making up a couple of clocks and the rest of the time decorating these gift boxes. I used a different decorative paper and cardstock on each and did the stamped tag and flowers to match. Thanks must go to my downline Sheila who worked with me to get them all done in time.

I have had a couple of my ladies express an interest in my repeating the clock class as they didn't get to attend the class last time around so who knows if I do get enough interested parties for a full day class it may well convince me to offer it out. If you are interested please get in touch.

Challenge for May

As you know my upline Jenny offers up a challenge each month to all of us in her team. We don't have any pressure to play along but a growing number of us ARE joining in each month and I think it is a brilliant way to get us thinking creatively.

Some months Jenny's challenges have us all scratching our heads to come up with a card that fits the bill and other months it comes to me immediately. This month Jenny set us the task of doing a card with a different fold than a usual run of the mill opening. I had no hesitation in the fold I chose to do and it was lovely to re-visit one that I haven't even thought about for a year or so. I also wanted to use my new Wedding Wheels stamp ( I love the quirkiness of this image) I decided to keep the actual card design fairly simple so as to not distract from the unusual explosion card fold. I therefore used Vanilla and Crumb Cake papers from the Elegant Soiree set and Crumb Cake ink and I think it pulls the card together in a nice understated way.

Please let me know if you like this little card

Thank You cards for April and May

Hi Everyone

Yet again I find myself apologising for a lack of posts, sorry there has been nothing new to look at for a little while.

I had a stall at the church Summer Fete on Saturday and I have spent the last couple of weeks preparing goodies for that in addition to my usual weekly classes so I have not had a moment to spare for my blog. The fete went well, I had a lovely sociable day and a big thank you to those of my class ladies who called by to support the event. Hopefully I may have some pictures to show you later in the week if my nephew's photo's come out okay ( guess who forgot to take her camera with her)

The cards I am sharing with you today are the simple thank you cards that I make for any of my ladies who place an order with me each month. The tiny Baby Blossoms card was for April orders and the Stength and Hope Butterfly card is my card for those who order during May ( my Stampers 6 and 10 ladies have already received theirs) Rather than writing on the inside of the actual card I write on a post it note inside and this has proved popular with all my ladies as it gives them a little "usable" thank you card to pop away as a stand-by card in case they need one in a hurry.

Anyway I have Thursday's Greenhouse Garden class to prepare today so I had better get my finger out and get to work. I do still have a couple of places left for the afternoon session this week so if you are interested please give me a call or email me to prepare a class pack for you.

Last weeks Christmas Class

Here is a picture of my Christmas Card class from last Thursday.

My ladies wanted to use the gorgeous Stampin' Up set "Lovely as a Tree" and I decided to go for a fairly modern look using Basic Grey, Real Red and Whisper White. The Whisper White against the grey cards looked very crisp and with just a hint of Dazzling Diamonds glitter it finished off the frosty look perfectly.

The most important thing is that my ladies loved them, they thoroughly enjoyed this class and we have now already completed our first 4 months of Christmas Card classes this year and therefore have 4 very different sets of Christmas cards done ready for December.

The next Christmas class at the end of this month is in the Vintage Style so will be very different to last weeks. If you would like to take part in this class or any of my other weekly classes please contact me asap to book your place.

Springtime Vintage Suite with Baby Blossoms

As you know from previous posts, my lovely upline Jenny sets us a team challenge each month and this months challenge was to make something using products from one of the new "suites" in the Stampin' Up Mini Catalogue.
Well my absolute favourite has to be the "Springtime Vintage" so I knew I would be using the Baby Blossoms stamp set but I had none of the matching items from the suite.............. well that was until late last week when the lovely vintage papers arrived. They are gorgeous and the only difficulty I had was in deciding which ones to use first.
I decided to make a slider box containing 4 very simple cards which I have left blank so they can be used for any purpose. You would be able to make three of these sets using just one sheet of Designer Paper and I think they would make a lovely little gift set to give to a non-crafter.

Hope you like my simple offering for today.

New Classes on offer

Hi there Apologies for the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks or so. I have been beavering away on a heap of new classes and they have taken all my attention. For such a long time my regular ladies have been asking for more classes and I have finally worked out a timetable that will allow me to do a regular Thursday class. I will be doing the class at 12.30pm and then again at 6.30pm for those ladies who cannot make the daytime class. The new timetable of classes commences on Thursday 28th April with my "Lovely as a Tree" class ( this is our regular Christmas Cards class which will now be set as the last Thursday of each month) Please book your places in good time as space is limited and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. Please also advise if you would like to be at the afternoon or evening session.

The next 5 Classes are as follows;

28th April Lovely as a Tree Christmas Class

5th May Clearly for You Wallet and Cards

12th May Baby Blossoms Box and Cards

19th May Greenhouse Garden Fancy Folds

26th May Vintage Style Christmas Class

For those of you who have expressed an interest in classes for you and your own group of friends please contact me for further available dates. I am happy to discuss your individual requirements with you and I will seek to provide alternative dates where possible.

Spring All Day Event 2011

I have just realised tonight that owing to the excitement over the new mini catalogue I only showed you the card box from my recent Spring All Day event and not the contents. So I thought I would share a picture of the box AND the 6 cards that all my ladies had to create to go inside. I loved these flowers and most especially as I water-coloured them with "In Colours" markers and they just speak "spring" colours to me. Mind you here in Lancashire we have had awful gale force winds and rain and on top of that it is really cold tonight so it doesn't feel at all Spring -like.

(I have to say that my ladies were worn out with not only all the stamping and water-colouring but all the cutting out so perhaps a little less cutting out will be the order of the day for my next Event "Christmas in July")

I will hopefully be back soon with a few creations using the new goodies from the mini catalogue

Stampin' Up! 2011 Mini Catalogue

Well what can I say ???????

The new Mini Catalogue from Stampin'Up! goes live today and it is simply the best yet. The most exciting NEWS of all is that we now have the Big Shot die cutting machine and an amazing collection of dies which feature Stampin' Up! EXCLUSIVES including the best selling SU die of all time the "Top Note" In addition to the cutting dies we also have a range of textured impressions embossing folders, sizzlets, medium sizzlets and Embosslits dies. I have been waiting for the day when we could lay our hands on the wonderful Stampin Up Big Shot machine and accessories and I just know that it is going to open up a whole new world of creativity for all of us. I have not yet taken up ownership of my new machine but rest assured it will be with me shortly and then there will be no holding me back.

In addition to all the excitement surrounding the Stampin Up Bigshot launch here in the UK I have to say that the new mini catalogue is, in my opinion, the best we have ever been given. We have gorgeous new stamp sets, designer papers, ribbons, buttons and many other accessories. We also now have the oooohhhhhh sooooooooooo cute 2-step Owl Punch, a fantastic Blossoms Petal Punch with matching stamp set and a stunning Decorative Label frame punch with a set of 4 matching stamps too.

To sum it all up we now have a Mini Catalogue with 32 pages of goodies that are begging to find their way onto your wish lists as they have found their way onto mine.

I have not yet had time to play with my new goodies as I have just got back from a mini family break to Amsterdam but I shall endeavour to create a few samples over the weekend to show you next week. If you wish to place an order or have not received your catalogue from me then please do not hesitate to contact me. I am also gathering people for the start of another Stampers 6 group this month so if you are interested in joining in with one of my monthly groups then please get it touch asap.

Those Little Extras

As promised here is a picture of the little extras I made for my ladies who joined me for my Day Event on Saturday. The bag is simply what holds their packed lunch ( most ladies do keep these lol) the Bunny is their table place marker and the little notepad, ruler and pen is their door gift as they come in.

I also make sets of spot prizes that I dish out during the day and there is one gift for each attendee ( this ensures that everyone goes home with a prize even if they do not win in the main raffle)

Spring All Day Event

Well here I am, back at last and sharing with you pictures of my projects from my first Day Event of 2011 which took place yesterday. I had 20 wonderful ladies join me for the day and we made the two projects shown. "Spring" was my overall theme for this first event of the year so I decided to use only our current Stampin' Up! In Colours as they just speak of spring to me.

The morning was dedicated to creating a 12 month Card Organiser and we used the often overlooked "Cottage Garden" stamp set to decorate the covers. We then used the matching Sunny Garden papers for the inserts and again used the Cottage Garden stamp set to decorate the month cards on each page. The designer papers contain Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz and Peach Parfait so worked perfectly with the In Colours I had chosen to use throughout the day.

The project I designed for the afternoon was decorated cards storage box with 6 cards ( the box could easily fit 12 cards) I chose to use the very beautiful Growing Green stamp set along with Curly Cute for the card sentiments. For the colouring we used In Colour Markers and aqua brushes. My ladies were horrified when I told them they had to stamp, watercolour AND cut out almost 45 flowers, ferns and leaves for the box and all the cards but all agreed that it was worth the effort to create the finished project. It was so nice to see how unique everyone's creations looked just because each person water-colours differently.

Come back tomorrow when I will show you the little table gifts I made for each attendee along with their other little surprises.

Team Challenge for March

Once a month my fabulous upline Jenny challenges our team to create something using a particular Stampin' Up! product. This month her challenge is to use glitter somewhere in our creation.

I decided I would use my favourite of all our existing glitters and this meant I immediately reached for Dazzling Diamonds. I teamed the glitter with Heat and Stick powder and a Versamark Inkpad and this is the gorgeous effect I achieved. Although this does look sparkly in the picture nothing can really do justice to how fantastic this looks in real life, diamonds is exactly the word you need to use.

Please bear with me this week for a lack of posts. I am busy preparing for my Day Event for this coming Saturday and still have a few finishing touches to complete.

Happy Birthday card for my downline

Today one of my downline team celebrates her birthday so I need to say Happy Birthday Jill, hope it's a good one.

Here is the card I created for her birthday card. I have used one of the stamp sets that I know Jill loves and made sure I used her favourite colour blue in my design. I was very tempted to go totally mad and make her a real "girlie" card in every shade of pink I could imagine but she wouldn't have been at all impressed so I thought she would much prefer this one.

Stampin Up Artistic Etchings

I am sharing three cards with you today that I have made with my brand new SU set "Artistic Etchings" This was one of those stamp sets that you know you like but take a while before you succumb to buying it for yourself. I saw this one and had it on my wish list from October when our new cataloue came out but there were other sets that were just that bit higher on the (very long) list so I have only just aquired it. Now I know I should have bought it sooner as it is so lovely to use and so versatile. These three cards were all made within a couple of hours of opening the stamp set and that shows it is one of those sets I will love to work with. Some stamp sets just do not always work easily for me so I am always excited by those that inspire me immediately.

The black and vanilla card uses just that one image stamp but have you noticed that it is virtually the same image as one of the patterns on the Designer Paper Stacks so it would be a perfect stamp set to use with any of the colour families. I love simple don't you ?

On the Baja Breeze card I have used crystal effects on the tower image and this has made it look like a glazed sticker which really lifts this card.

Finally on the Cherry Cobbler and Early Expresso card I have used my new favourite tool from Stampin Up and that's the Spritzer tool. It is amazing and I am totally addicted to it already. I love how it softens the look of every single card you make with it. I will be using this lots lol

What creative ladies I have in my classes

I am sharing something totally different with you this evening.

A couple of weeks ago I did a class here which featured, amongst others a twisted easel card. One of my very talented ladies went home from that class and decided she wanted to go that little bit further with the twisted easel concept. So here is Vanessa's very, very clever adaptation of that card design. She has made a simple easel into a two winged version and I LOVE IT ! ! ! I was so thrilled when she brought it to show me and the other class ladies loved it too and want to copy her idea. I will hold my hands up and say that I would never have thought of adding another easel section to the other side of the card but I will be trying this now for sure.

I was so pleased with Vanessa's creativity and just had to take a photograph today to share it with you all. I hope you can find time to leave a comment if you like her card design too.

Team Swaps for Fareham Stampin' Up Training Day

Last Friday I travelled down to Bournemouth to join my upline Jenny and a few other ladies in our Bloomin' Buds team ready for our Stampin' Up Training Day event at Fareham.

As always swaps play a big part of any Stampin' Up event and in addition to our general swaps to share with other demonstrators at the event we also made several other swaps for our team meeting which took place afterwards. We all had a wonderful day in Fareham and I will endeavour to share some of the swaps I received with you later in the week. After the training finished we all flocked back to Jenny's for our team gathering which was a riot. Needless to say a somewhat late night followed but boy did we all have a lovely time together. Thank you Jen for making sure I got to Poole for my 8.30am train on Sunday morning to come home.

These are my three team swaps. (I added 3 clear rhinestone brads just under the sentiment on the little box but must have taken the photo beforehand)

March Frenzy is here

Stampin' Up have today announced a special offer for this month (but only while stocks last) There is a huge discount of up to 30% on selected items from the main Catalogue and Idea Book. If you would like to know more then please email me.

Sale-a-Bration 2011 is here ! ! ! !

This post will stay at the top until 28th February. Please scroll down for more recent posts

Bliss





Punch Bunch




So Happy for You








Sweet Summer

WOOOHOOO

I am so pleased to be able to tell you that the amazing Sale-a-Bration is here again which means you can earn any of the 4 stamp sets shown above completely for free. This is my own personal favourite of all the promotions that Stampin' Up! has to offer as it offers three different ways to earn rewards.

This promotion runs from now until the 28th February and the benefits are as follows:


Customers
For each £45 order you place ( before p&p) you may choose one free set and there are 4 different sets to choose from and all sets are available in either Wood or Clear Mount.


Hostesses
Host a £300 workshop ( before shipping and handling) and earn one free sale-a-bration set of your choice in addition to already generous hostess benefits.


Join Stampin'Up! as a demonstrator
If you join Stampin' Up! during the Sale-a-Bration promotion you may choose a free stamp set of your choice (excluding hostess sets) from the current Idea Book and Catalogue and that stamp set can be any value up to a whopping £44.95. There really is no better time to join so if you have any questions or if you are interested in joining my team then please do not hesitate to give me a call.

Stampin' Up! Training Event Fareham

Last Friday I travelled down to Poole in Dorset to join my Stampin' Up! upline and other members of our team for the weekend. We all attended an SU regional training day at Fareham along with 60+ other demonstrators. We all joined in the general swapping that takes place at these events and in addition we also did our own team swaps. I will try and share pictures of those throughout the rest of this week.

The picture I want to shae with you first is my gorgeous covered notebook that I received from my wonderful upline Jenny Moors. She works really hard to inspire us as a team and somehow she found time to make each one of us attending, our own unique book. These books are amazing and we will not doubt all treasure them.

When we attended Convention last November she made each of us a larger version of this and I actually use mine all the time to store project ideas, measurements etc. I have no idea yet what to use this one for but it will have to also be for something quite special. I must also try my hand at covering one myself. The second picture shows how Jenny also stamped on each one of the pages inside ( this lady's attention to detail is second to none lol)

Birthday Card for my Downline

As you all know I recently recruited new members to my Stampin' Up! team. Well today one of those new ladies, Jennifer celebrates her birthday so here is the card I made for her yesterday. I hand delivered it this morning and know she has already opened it so I am safe to pop it on here to share with you all. Although this card uses retired SU stamps, I know that Jennifer loves this stamp set as we were talking about it last week at class so that is why I chose to use these particular flowers. I cannot imagine ever parting with this set as I love it too much, it was just a shame it retired.

The colours I used were Pink Pirouette and Rich Razzleberry, Jennifer is so the type of lady who suits those colours.

Anyway I am showing two views of this card which is known as a twisted easel card. I have changed it up slightly as I wanted a larger card so I have added it to an A5 card base which also opens to show the greeting inside. The first shows it open and stood up and the second shows it closed to fit in a standard A5 card envelope.