Scrapping April now!

 My scrapbooking is going well... we are up to April now.

Here is the girl after the Easter hat parade holding her winning raffle prize of chocolate Easter eggs.

It was her dream come true... being handed a basket of chocolate by a 6 foot tall white rabbit on stage in front of all her friends.

The eggs were pink, blue and gold...and the Quick Accent sticker kit just keeps giving.

And not a single stamp was used creating this page!

January Scrapbook page

 In January we went to the Japanese gardens. Jessica's dress is in blue and white with a pale pink necklace.
I do like how these colours go with soft suede and white.

 More stickers, with a piece of torn scrapbookng paper in blue
 and a pretty in pink tafetta ribbon ... tied in a bow with pearls.

Scrapbooking memories album

 Do you remember the scrapbooking Memories album to inspire me to do some scrapbooking?
Well I discovered that I am even further behind in my scrapbooking than i thought. I have serious scrapping to be done. The 6x6" page is a good place to start.
I found this great photo of Jess throwing a pebble into a rock pool at the beach last December.

I was able to start scrapbooking really quickly using a scrapbooking sticker pack.

 They are so pretty in pinks and soft blues.

 I was going so well, I stamped the roses from elements of style and ...

       ... watercoloured them.  

 I cut out a stamped bird in Bashful Blue and Marina Mist (I know it is not a seagull or a Pelican)

 but the words do say:

 Dream of the Possibilities.

A little bit of pretty pink tafetta ribbon and a few pearls...

The Stampin' up stickers are very thick and layer on top of each other to create lovely medallions.

Are you ready for the next page?

Simple Male card

 There are males and there are males, all different but when it comes to cards they are few and far between that look forward to a nice card on their birthday!

Its what's inside that counts - The brief for this one is:

Keep it simple and we did.

 The stampset is called "Happiest Birthday Wishes".

From a stampset of 11 stamps I have only used two.

With two colours and white.

For a man who likes red motorbikes and blue jeans it seemed to suit...

Card Recipe:

Stampset: Happiest birthday wishes

Cardstock: Marina Mist, Poppy Parade, Whisper white.

Ink: Island Indigo, Poppy Parade.

3.5cm Square punch.

A real red Thank you gift.

 I have a brand new embossing folder .... the hounds tooth pattern. It is very special on Real Red card stock and I can't wait to try it out on a few more colours... like black and white, soft suede, Early espresso.
I have teamed it with the Fun Flower die and the Boho Blossoms punched flowers for the centre.

It opens up as a gift folder that has 4 pockets inside.
For Christmas I have added some Christmas tags, a magnetic book mark and post it notes.
It fits anything you really like: chocolate, T-bags, chocolate, a gift card, or even a piece of jewellery too.

If you are looking at buying the big shot for Christmas, this is the month to buy it !
The Big shot bundle is 10% off and so are many of the big shot dies, embossing folders and Embosslits.
So what will be under the tree for you on Christmas day?

Christmas Houndstooth and buttons challenge

I have borrowed two challenges this weekend to inspire me to make a card.
The Elite Challenges have 3 new challenges every month and Paper Pals Arts have one.
So this is the card I made this morning.

 The Elite challenge was by way of a sketch (If you turn to page 116 in your Stampin' Up 2011 catalogue you will see the layout that I got this from).
And the Paper Pals Arts challenge was a photo inspiration. I just took some of my colours from there and the fun flower was already cut and on my table.

 In real life the Real Red, Pear Pizzazz and Poppy Parade are very vibrant together. They are a little paler in these pictures. Perhaps I need to tweak the colours in my browser.

Featured products I have used are:

Houndstooth embossing folder

Buttons Embosslits no 5. (on sale 10% off - Don't miss the Big shot special this month)

Fun Flowers Die

Two Tags Die

Pear Pizzaz seam binding ribbon

Ice circle Rhinestone brad.

Timeless Type alphabet dies

corner rounder, sponges and

'Heard from the heart' stampset.

 Enjoy!!!

How to tie the Perfect bow... one more time.

I've been asked how to tie a perfect bow. It is something every card crafter has to master at some time!

Fortunately, its easy once you know how.

These instructions are "slightly" different to the last tutuorial I did, so here goes.

 1. You will need to cut a piece of ribbon about 32cm long.

If in doubt use more, because you can always cut the excess off later.

 2. Fold the piece of ribbon in half over your two fingers that you are holding in a scissor shape.

3. Take the  back piece and wrap it upwards and hold in place with your thumb.

4. Make sure they cross over.

 5. Now take the left hand piece and wrap it over and towards the right.

 6. Wrap it completely around the back and bring the end up through the gap in your scissored fingers.

7. Let the top piece of ribbon flap forward over your thumb.

 8. Take the bottom piece and tie a little knot over your thumb. This takes two hands, but no more than three. I had to put down the camera to do this step.

 9. Slowly, Pull the ends tight.

 10. Turn over your hand and you have a perfectly-proportioned-flat-bow tied on your fingers.

Now gently, ease it off your fingers. You may need to adjust the tightness of the knot at the back.

11. Trim the ends into flag points with your sharp scissors and you have the "easy tie" bow.

Another Christmas card...

I made another Christmas card from scraps of cardstock on my table. If you have seen my table you know there is enough left over bits to make 20 christmas cards, I am sure.

 I think this may be one you might choose to take to an after 5 event with all that black and Cherry Cobbler red Ribbon.

It has some Mocha Morning specialty paper on most of the base layer, an embossed frame and a cut out flower from the Creative Elements stampset.
I love my coloured markers - This one has every colour of the rainbow on those petals and is finished with a clear rhinestone jewell in the centre.

My ribbon is the Cherry Cobbler coloured Seam binding ribbon tied in an easy bow.
Merry Christmas is just a small part of the "something for Christmas" stamp. Once again coloured with my markers and stamped inside the embossed frame.

Middle of Spring ATCs for Crafters Anonymous

 Each season this year a group of lovely ladies have swapped Artist Trading Cards with me

featuring the Four Seasons in Australia.

The ATCs are always due in the middle of each season.... so this is my Spring ATC.

Inspired by the swarm of bees buzzing around our front garden.

 ATC Recipe:

Stamp sets: Simply soft, Nature walk (bee).

Cardstock - Concord Crush, Naturals Ivory.

Ink: Concord Crush, Wisteria Wonder, Daffodil Delight, Early Espresso, Lucky Limeade.

Dazzling diamonds, 2-way gluepen.

Big Shot, Striped embossing folder,

Aquapainter, sponge.

A stack of Christmas baubles...

 Today and yesterday I made these three cards... it is a great idea for quick stamping and sponging that I saw recently by Dawn Ferguson.

 The branches are stamped with my old favourite "Lovely as a tree" stampset.

And the centres of the baubles are stamped with the "Artistic Etchings" medallion.

I have used a clear window sheet, with three circles punched out, to mask the card while I sponged and stamped the Christmas baubles on to the tree.

 And then I changed the tree branches to swirly patterns with the Creative Elements stampset.

You can stamp the baubles in different colours and with different patterns and stamps.

The Joy at Christmas stamp is from "Perfect Punches" and fits neatly into the scallop circle punch.

 It is important to remember to keep a white circle (without ink) as you sponge your baubles.
To give them that 3D appearance.

Scrapbook inspirations

 Its November, and I haven't scrapped my January photos yet!

My resolution to scrap each  month this year never eventuated ... did it.

I've decided I needed some motivation to get scrapping!

So to start I bought a new scrapbook binder and it has a great front cover:

 "Memories... we do not remember days,

we remember moments."

 It's designed to go with one of my stampsets:
Elements of Style.

And the Beau Chateau Product suite ... so I have no excuse not to scrap.

The colours are even ones I have in my collection:

Marina Mist, Pink pirouette and Soft suede!

So to start the album I have put in a page I made (one of the only ones) this year using Creative Elements stampset and some of that lovely Crumb cake Seam binding ribbon.

I "think" the photo was from January... taken at a party at the Scating rink.

Would be a good idea to start by dating my pages as I make them, too.

Looking for a cute Teacher's gift idea?

I have just finished making this cute little box on wheels.

It is a Stampin' Up Make and Take project from the last Convention.

And I was thinking it is a cute little gift.

Inside it fits 4 little cards. Like this one:

 The elephant is stamped and cut out to sit ontop the patterned paper oval.

It says Celebrate! You deserve it.

 The colours are Bright as you'd expect at the circus:

Real Red, Tempting Turquoise and Daffodil Yellow. 

The box on wheels is made using the Scallop envelope BigZ die that you cut out with your Big shot machine.

 The stampset is called "Under the Big Top".

My Lion is painted with the aquapainter brush using Daffodil, Red and More Mustard inks.

Then the ever resourceful Jessica made her own version with the off cut extras left on my table.

She's done a brilliant job, don't you think?