May 31, 2010 | Uncategorized |
Morning everyone,
Oh wow have I got a deal for you! Stampin’ Up! have announced that during June, we’re going to have “deals of the week” where we can get up to 50% off fabulous products from the Idea Book & Catalogue, how cool is that?!
This is the first week’s deal:
For one week only, you can purchase any or all of these large punches for just $23.37 each, plus shipping (which will be 5% of your total order), these are normally $35.95! Check out the first three on page 152/153 of the catalogue (click on the picture in the sidebar to view it online).
– 112081 Scallop Square punch
– 109183 Trio Flower punch
– 110711 Boho Blossoms punch
– 114889 Scallop Oval punch (this was in our Spring Mini catalogue, and is still available!)
If you don’t already have the Idea Book & Catalogue, be sure to contact me as I still have copies here – I might even be persuaded to give you one for FREE when you’re one of the first to place an order for one or more of these punches… but you’ll need to be quick as the offer closes on June 8th! Click here to e-mail me now!
Now it just so happens that I used the Boho Blossoms punch on my Convention swaps, and I’m finally revealing them here! I used it to make the little flowers that I layered up to embellish some little boxes. Me being me, I wanted even more detail – so I used my paper snips to cut between each of the petals. I made 100 of these boxes to swap at Convention, and more than one person has said to me “I can’t believe you did that”. The things we do to share what we love, right?! I made these boxes over a few weeks, so it wasn’t all done at once, and I had a little factory line going whenever I sat down to work on them. Usually it was in front of the TV! The flowers were the first thing that I put together, actually, and that was one of the fastest bits! Oh, I must mention and thank my fabulous friend Denise, who did spend a few hours helping me make these. She did all the embossing with the Polka Dot embossing folder! Thanks Denise, you’re a gem!
So here’s the box closed:
Here’s a close up of the embellishment on the top. Lots of detail and layering. I admit after punching out 200 of those leaf stem things, I did have a bit of a sore arm!
And here it is open so you can see how it folds flat(ish). I wouldn’t have fit them in my suitcase if they hadn’t been able to fold like this!
And here’s what 100 of them all together, ready for swapping, looks like. Well in fact you’re looking at 101 here, as the one that’s on the top is the first one I made, and is the only one I still have in my possession!
Finally, here’s the recipe (everything from Stampin’ Up!):
Stamps: Tiny Tags (from the Autumn-Winter mini)
Cardstock: Rich Razzleberry, Orchid Opulence, Whisper White, Old Olive
Ink: Old Olive (not much stamping on these boxes, just the tag!)
Punches: Medium jewellery tag, XL Two-step bird punch, Boho Blossoms, 1/16″ hand held punch, 1/2″ circle punch
Other: Big Shot & Curly Label Movers & Shapers die with Holiday Windows set, Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Cottage Wall DSP, Linen thread, Silver Brads, Paper piercer, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Sticky Strip
Hope you like them! Gotta have that Boho Blossoms punch now, don’t you??
Have a fabulous day!
May 30, 2010 | Uncategorized |
Hi everyone!
OK, so I’ve been lazy since coming back from Convention and haven’t blogged about it yet. I’ll do that… later! I’m busy trying to tidy up my craft room at the moment. I’ve come back from Convention all inspired – but so that I don’t get back on that treadmill of making a huge mess when I’m preparing for classes, and then wasting SO much time trying to find things in the mess, I’m going hard out trying to get myself organised properly first, and form the new habit of tidying up as I go. We’ll see how well I do!
I know I haven’t shared my Convention swaps with you yet. I’ll do that. In the meantime, I have to blog this card first. It’s the only one I’ve made in the past week (shock horror!) and I made it specifically to enter Heather’s sketch challenge. I only have a couple of hours to get this in, oops. I made it on Monday and just didn’t get around to posting it earlier! Those of you who have followed me for a while, know that I love sketch and colour challenges. It’s been too long since I took part in one, so I’m really pleased to be able to do that today.
Heather is one of my favourite Canadian demos, she is amazing! And boy is she fast, if you watch the videos she posts sometimes on her blog, wow! She does fabulous work too. Check it out – click
here.
For my card I used the Autumn Days stamp set and the Autumn Traditions DSP in our current mini catalogue. I’m very happy with the card, except for the bow. I just couldn’t get the middle of the Soft Suede ribbon to be the polka dot side. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing, what do you think?
Come back soon, as I’ll be letting you know about the fabulous things coming our way in June… for now, my lips are sealed! But if you have any questions about my card, current promotions (the starter kit is 20% off right now, how cool is that, so if you want to join my fabulous team, now is a fantastic time!), my classes or anything else you see on my blog, click
here to send me an e-mail! Don’t forget you can also check my official Stampin’ Up! website for the latest promotions too, click
here to visit that.
May 19, 2010 | Uncategorized |
Hi everyone!
I’m now in Sydney, Australia, having a little holiday before Stampin’ Up!’s Convention officially starts on Friday morning. I have a shopping date with my cousins tomorrow and then I’m checking into the hotel I’m staying at with some of my team-mates. I’m excited to see my room-mates as it’s been months since I saw either of them, since they are non-Aucklanders! We are guaranteed to have loads of fun and not very much sleep in the next few days. I did take a little detour in duty free today to get a wee bottle of something to share 🙂
Ooh and tomorrow night I get to go to the Manager’s reception, and catch up with Shelli (Stampin’ Up!’s co-founder and CEO). That will be fun, I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us at Convention this year. The sneak peeks at Memento mall so far have been great – I’m sure I will be coming home with a heavy suitcase!
This morning before I raced off to the airport I wanted to blog, but wouldn’t you know it, my keyboard had died. There’s only so much you can do with a mouse – cutting and pasting letters from somewhere else to write a post didn’t appeal! Thankfully my cousin has a working computer so here I am tonight. Phew!
I am so excited to start swapping and see all the fabulous samples on display at Convention. I would show you my swaps, but of course I didn’t get to edit the photos with the computer this morning so you’ll have to wait until I get home to see those, sorry! In the meantime, here’s a recent team swap that I made, using the fabulous Fox & Friends stamp set from the Autumn-Winter mini, and one of my favourite designer paper series – Sweet Always. Oh and I used the Curly Label Movers & Shapers Bigz die to cut the aperture in this card, and the sentiment from the Best Yet hostess set is stamped on Whisper White cardstock and punched out using the curly label punch. Z-fold cards are fun, don’t you think?
I did hand-cut the monkey and the fox out for this card – there I go again, hand cutting when I really don’t like it – I just love the effect too much!
Hopefully I’ll find somewhere at the hotel where I can access my blog for the next few days, so will see if I can keep you updated as to the cool stuff I’m doing! I’m not going to be doing the Make n Take session until Saturday morning, so that will be three full days with no stamping by the time I get there… yikes I’m sure I will be having withdrawl symptoms by then!
Until next time, keep stamping for me!
May 10, 2010 | Uncategorized |
Hi everyone,
OK,OK, I know, it’s been a long time! I’ll be honest, I’ve not been in the mood to blog for a while. Sometimes, there are just too many other things to be done, you know?
I do appreciate you coming to check up on me, and thank you to those of you who’ve sent me gentle reminders (wink!). Yes, I have been busy crafting, and those of you who’ve come to see me recently (or will be seeing me this weekend!) will be seeing some of the fruits of my labours soon. Some of it may show up on here, but remember that I do save some of my creations for my real-life visitors!
You might not know it, but we’re in the middle of International Scrapbooking Month. I confess – I’m not really a scrapbooker. I used to pretend I was, but scrapbookers actually scrapbook, don’t they? They don’t just sit and stare at photos and drool over all the lovely papers and embellishments they have to play with. They actually create scrapbook pages, which I haven’t done for quite a while!
I do have a new purchase to show you though, and this has had a number of ladies squealing when they see it. I’m not kidding! One of the reasons I don’t often scrapbook is the hassle I always had in putting titles together. I’ve had some of you tell me how good I am at hand-cutting shapes. Well, I might be good at it, but it doesn’t mean that I LIKE doing it. I’ll do one or two shapes and then I get a little tired of it. I especially avoid hand cutting letters out. If you don’t have letters you can move around, it means you have to stamp them in just the right spot. Me the perfectionist – even with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, I still stress about botching it up. So I don’t end up scrapbooking. But with my new alphabet dies, I can’t use that excuse any more can I?
Just take a look at this set! The Stampin’ Up! Timeless Type sizzlit alphabet comes packaged in this fabulous case for perfect storage. That black bit at the back – that’s actually a bit of cardboard that you can remove and that gives you space for more dies in the case. How cool is that? 
The set comes with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and a few shapes and symbols. Everything you need for fabulous titles! It’s a gorgeous classic font I reckon that will never be out of style. At the bottom of this post, there’s a special offer for you when you order this set from me before the end of May, so keep reading!
OK now on to a couple of projects for your viewing pleasure! I haven’t die cut a title for a scrapbooking page yet. Small steps! I started with some tags, just one letter at a time, and then I moved to a card. Maybe soon…
Here’s the tags I made for some of your orders recently. I just LOVE the Fox & Friends stamp set. These tags were so fun to make. I just die cut some circles using the Big Shot (love that machine!) and the Circles #2 die, stamped the images from Fox & Friends on them and added a die-cut initial on top for the finishing touch. I love how the animals sort of look like they are peeking out from behind the letters. These were really well received – at least one husband (other than my own!) was very impressed too!
Second, this is the card that I made for my Mum for Mother’s Day. It came together pretty quickly – it uses the Bella Rose DSP, I die cut the word “Mum” and used the word window punch with the Teeny Tiny Sentiments stamp set (also a recent acquisition!) for the sentiment. The flower was simply made by making cuts into a couple of shapes punched with the Scallop Circle and Boho Blossom punches. I curled the petals a little (it’s hard to see that from the photo so you’ll just have to trust me) and layered them over some die cut “Little Leaves”, how awesome is that Sizzlit die! I added some Riding Hood Red striped grosgrain ribbon, a Rhinestone brad to add a little bling, and voila! a card that Mum was very happy with for her special day.
If you’re still with me – thanks! Here’s my special offer for the rest of May. When you order the Timeless Type alphabet die set through me by the end of May ($175.30 including shipping), I will throw in a sampler pack of DSP and matching ribbons, free! You’ll receive a 6×6″ piece of each of the designer series papers from the new Autumn Winter mini, so that’s 12 pieces altogether (six from Cottage Wall and six from Autumn Traditions), plus samples of coordinating ribbons. If you’ve been admiring the papers but you’re not sure if you want to purchase a whole pack yourself, this is a great chance to try them out. And you could use them with your new dies – titles cut from DSP are gorgeous! Click here to e-mail me and place your order.
If you don’t have a copy of the Autumn-Winter mini yet, send me an e-mail and I’ll get one out to you pronto. (Offer only available if you live in NZ, thanks!)
Thanks for visiting!
