STAMP CAMP AT AVALON

It has been a whole week since our Stamp Camp at Avalon with Pat Carr.  We had a wonderful time but the weekend went by so quickly.  We arrived on Friday afternoon and stayed two nights and packed up around 2pm to head back home. There were 17 ladies and one of them my mum who enjoyed herself with it being her first ever stamp camp. It was a very busy weekend and lots of interesting projects. Avalon Homestead is situated just out of Toodyay in Western Australia. It is so peaceful and the views are just gorgeous. There was mist in the valley on Sunday morning and the birds were chirping and it was just magic sitting outside having a nice cup of tea with Mum.

Delveen and Peter are the owners of Avalon Homestead and they made us truly welcome. There is nothing that they wouldn't do for us. They are always happy to help. Delveen came in with her camera to take a few shots of us busy making our projects. I managed to talk her into making a card with us when it was my turn to demo.  I am not sure if Delveen has made any cards before but she did a great job.  She seemed pleased with her efforts.  Here you see her with the card she made.

I have almost finished my projects from the camp. I brought home 5 packs that I was unable to complete on the camp.  I have one more card to make.  Here is a pic of the projects we made.  There were 21 projects to be completed. We had guest demos who showed us some techniques that most of us had not seen before. They were Andrea Buckland, Susan Joyce, Angela Ebert and myself. At the time of taking this photo I could not find my card that I did the demo on so I have substituted one I made earlier. The one I did at camp was a slider card like the one Delveen is holding in her hand. I really liked the projects we made over the weekend.  There were no real simple ones.  Each one took quite some time to finish and as I said before a lot of us took home incompleted projects to finish at home.

 

The card below is what I think Pat called Floating Flower Card. What a great idea.  You could use your imagination to do anything to this card. For a boy you could do aeroplanes, cars etc. You could do tools for the men or even beer. LOL! Anything is possible.

 

 

This is what the card looks like when you open it up. What a lovely surprise the recipient will get when they open up this card.

Well last but not least here is the group of 17 ladies sitting out the front of Avalon Homestead. This area was where we would take our cuppa out and sit and relax and clear our minds.  Its easy sitting and making cards all weekend but your head does need a little break even if you dont think it does.
Thanks to Delveen and Peter who made our stay feel like home.

Well its off to bed for me. I have been sitting up trying to decide what swap to do for SU! Convention which is only two weeks away.  I cant believe how quick this year has flown by and how quick Convention has come up. I still have no idea of what I am going to do. Perhaps something will come to me in my sleep.
Bye for now and thanks for popping by:)

Autumn is in the Air

Hello everyone! Well summer has left us and we have had some lovely weather in these past few weeks. A little bit of rain, sunshine, cloud etc.  Keeping everyone happy at some stage. Not so hot, thats what I like.
I wanted to share a card that I have made for my Godchild.  Katie is turning 21 on Sunday and I wanted to make something extra special for her as she is such a sweet and loving young lady.  I have had my eye on this one for quite some time and was originally made by Odette Kermode, a very talented lady. 
I had the pleasure of having Carolyn King visit and show me how the card is made and here is my version.  My daughter visited and saw the one I had made and said that it would look nice with Sunflowers so here it is.

 I love the colours as they are so vibrant. Unfortunately I wont be seeing Katie for her birthday as I will be on a Stamp Camp with Pat Carr.  I am sure Katie will be delighted when she opens the envelope and this little beauty pops out.

 Just a little closer to show you the detail.

 This card is one of the projects done at our last workshop.  I found the idea on Pinterest.  You can find some amazing things on Pinterest.  This one is a combination of two cards I had seen.  I love the Chalkboard effect. It is so quick and easy to do. I never knew how easy it was until I actually did it myself. All you need to do is using Versamark and White embossing Powder to your image on Basic Black Cardstock. Once you have heated and set the image then get either a tissue or cotton wool and dab it into the Whisper White inkpad and sponge it around over your image or wherever you want the chalk mark effect. I would practice on the backside first just to see how it works.

I received the Pinwheel Die sometime ago and thought I had better put it to use.  It is so quick and easy to just run the pattern off using your die and Big Shot. Unfortunately most of the ladies found putting them together a bit difficult. The trick is to bend your little wings prior to joining them all together.  This makes it easier in the long run.

Last but not least is a favourite as I love using Crumb Cake, Whisper White and Basic Black together. This one I have actually made into a Double Slider Card for Pat Carr's camp with the card going long ways instead of across.  I love the Floral Fusion Die. The flowers are so cute. For this card I have used the Silver Glitter Paper for the centre of the flowers using an office punch instead of using Rhinestones. I found it quite effective and it really glistens in the light. I have also used the HoneyComb Folder, Window Frames Die and the Finishing Touches Edgelits.

 

Well I am off to Pat's Camp this afternoon (Friday) and wont be home until Sunday. I am so looking forward to it. My mum is also coming along with me and I am looking forward to her spending some time away and doing something she really loves. Mum has never been on a Stamp Camp before and I just know she is going to really enjoy it. We are going to be spoilt as we are staying at Avalon Homestead near Toodyay.  Its a lovely setting and our hosts are just lovely.

I had better go and get ready so I will be back with some projects that we will be making.

Bye for now and thanks for popping by :)

More Products?

Between  15 April and 30th May you can earn more products for sales of $400 when you host a party. You will receive an extra $60 in fact. How great is that? You may already have something in mind but with that extra $60 it sure is going to help you get more.
Also if you join Stampin' Up! between these dates you will also get an extra $60 to choose in your kit. You may have been tossing up which last product to choose while choosing your kit. Well now you can have that extra product/products.
Contact me for more information.
Happy Stampin'

Its Baby Time!

Hi there! Its been impossible to get to my blog in the past three weeks.  Life has been so busy and there are just not enough hours in the day.  I guess if there were more hours then I would be more tired. What I really need is to split myself in two. That would work.
Anyway I am here now and I thought you would like to see what I have made for my niece and her husband on the birth of their new little bundle of joy. I sat up till 2am on Sunday morning to try to get this finished but had to get up early to finish it off the next morning.
I bought the frame from Ikea for $14.95.  Each background piece is 5.5 x 5.5cm. The actual pictures are 5 x 5cm. I have used various stamp sets and I am sure you will recognise that most of them are discontinued.  There are others that I could have used but all too big. I hope they like it.

This card is actually a copy of Alisa Tilsner from Port Lincoln, South Australia. I found the idea in the Australian Cardmaking Stamping & Papercraft magazine in Vol 19, No 1.
Alisa has coloured her flowers in using SU! Rose Red.  I love the technique Alisa has used.
What you need to do is stamp your image using Whisper White Craft Ink Pad and then using White Embossing powder to emboss the image. Using your Aqua Pen along with the Whisper White Ink, colour in the whole image trying not to go out of the lines. Once that has dried you then need to clean your Aqua Pen and I used Baja Breeze ink to colour my flowers starting off lighter and then darker highlighting the areas I wanted darker. I love the image all coloured in white too. Very delicate.
I have used Crumb Cake Cardstock and the stamp sets I have used are Bordering on Romance and Loving Thoughts.

The next card is the one I am using for Ngaire Anderson's Stamparoo swaps.  The theme is the new mini catalogue. I have used Cherry Cobbler and Midnight Muse cardstock. Cherry Cobbler stamp Pad for the image. The DSP is called Parker's Patterns. The stamp set is Just Thinking. A very simple card and the girls will be pleased tonight as I have prepared everything so they only need to piece it together.  We usually have quite a few swaps to make on the night so it can get quite late. I quite like the colours of this card and nice to have one that you can use as a masculine card.

I made the next one for our grandson whose birthday is next Tuesday. I found a card online that had 16 cupcakes in the pop up inside. I started to make this card but thought it was too difficult for my workshop on the weekend so I designed one that had only four. I have made the gift box pop up card before but I found this needed a little more effort.  Because I used three different coloured glitters and due to the pop up section I decided to prep this one a bit more. The girls only had to make the cupcake on the front. I thought too much different coloured glitter would be too much floating around. One of my girls does not like working with glitter and lucky this time she was unable to attend due to a course she was on. I have used Window Frame Framelits for this card. The Create a Cupcake Stamp set and the punch to go with it. On my original card I used Crystal Effects on the cherry but omitted it from this card. Might do it later.  My daughter always wanted a pop up book when she was little so she will appreciate this card for her son.

 The last card is one that I made for our niece's baby.  I found this one online Creations by AR here.  Adela has made up a tutorial where you can buy it for $5.00. Her card is a very tiny one which measures 11x9cms closed.  I enlarged my pattern to 16.5x14cms. Where Adela's card will fit onto an A4 size cardstock all in one piece, mine does not.  I made the join at the bottom and just extended the button up part to the back which form the part that does not open. The card opens at the top. All you need to do is life the collar out from the Brad and walla! there you have it. The tiny ones that Adela made are just gorgeous. Adela also does a little Gift box pattern which is included with your purchase. There is also a gorgeous baby girl card with tulle. There are different designs of jumpsuits as well. Go ahead check her site out. You may find something else you like.


Baby jumpsuit card closed.

Baby jumpsuit card open.



 

Well thats about it for now. Remember Sale-A-Bration ends this Friday 22nd March so if you need anything and you spend over $100 you will be entitled to a free gift. Thanks for popping by:)

 



25 YEARS! ITS A PARTY!

Yes thats right. Stampin' Up! are in their 25th year and boy is it a time for celebration.  We have our new Seasonal Catalogue out at present which runs from Feb 1st to June 30th 2013.  It has lots of ideas and as usual lots of great new products.  There are too many to mention as there are 39 pages for you to browse through.  Click on the icon on the right of the screen to see what products are available. Remember once June 30th arrives you may not see these items again.  Occasionally one of your favourites end up in the new Annual Catalogue but we never know which prouducts. So get in quick to secure your order. 

We also have our annual Sale-A-Bration catalogue which has been running from 22 January to 22 March 2013.  There is not much time left so go the the bar on the side if you wish to see what little goodies you can receive for free.  All you need to do is spend $100 and you get one free product or if you like you can spend more and more free goodies. For every $100 you spend you will receive 1 free product from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue.  Below you will see what products are available.

 

Well have a browse of the catalogues and I will be back with some more projects I have made. It has been a busy start to 2013 but hopefully I am on track now.

Thanks for popping by :)

Christmas Ideas

Here I am once again after realising that I need to use Mozilla to be able to bring my photos through to my blog.
Gosh its been a warm day today. First of all it was raining and then I heard it was 90' humidity.  I wondered why my feet were kind of sticking to the floor.

Here is a Christmas Cracker which I cased from Andrea Walford. This was also my Secret Santa gift when the Stamparoo's met for a Christmas gathering at San Churro's in Hillarys Boat Harbour.  I have used a toilet roll for the inside but if I were to put something in it I would have used a kitchen roll of some type. I have decided to use this one as one of the decorations on my tree so have left it empty.  You need some red tissue paper, some DSP and ribbon. I have looked online to see if the tutorial is still available but I cannot find it. To view it you will need to be a member of her Paper Crafters library. I cannot seem to find any tutorials anywhere for this cracker so I will give you a quick run through of how the tissue paper part is done.
For the ruffles on the end you will need to pull out one sheet of tissue paper. Fold it in half so that you can find the centre. Unfold it and then fold one side of the long side toward the middle to the midline. Do the same to the other side. Then fold in again to the midline on both sides. Do this one more time until your tissue paper is about 3" wide.  You will then need glue down one side to keep them together while cutting little strips about 2/3 way, careful not to cut to far. This forms the ruffle. You will need to do this twice as you will need one for each end. Its quite a tedious job but if you have one of those scissors with the three or four blades on it you will be finished in no time.

These cards were also cased from Sue Madex Creations.  The original  card featured the Snow Flurry on the front with the Silver Glimmer Paper. I decided that you could only get 9 flurries from 1 sheet so I used the Ornament Keepsake Dies instead.  I have Stamped the Snowflake Soiree (holiday catalogue) image onto the Whisper White and embossed with White Embossing Powder.  I then used the Emboss Resist technique and went over with a dauber with Bashful Blue, Marina Mist and Not Quite Navy ink.  The card is folded in half and then the front part is folded in half backwards toward the spine of the card. Be sure when writing your message it is not visible when the front of the card is closed.  The Whisper White card that you can see has been embossed with Northern Flurry Folder. The Ornament Keepsake baubles are one with Silver Embossing Powder and the other with White Embossing Powder. I decided I liked the White better. I have kept the card very simple with no sentiments as I feel it does not need anything else. Check out Sue Madex website to check out her lovely card. She also gives the dimensions for the Z Fold.

For Christmas I decided to make some biscuits to give to my fellow colleagues at work.  All in all I made around 130 biscuits. My daughter had found the recipe and I thought it was a great idea as they were Christmas Wreaths glazed with lemon icing and dotted with red and green decorations. I have since made another two batches with the last one being tonight. My mum found the cookie maker at a market and paid only $2.00 for it years ago. She has never used it but gave it to my daughter and I borrowed it for my biscuits.


 I first made one of these boxes at Pat Carr's Cancer Council fund raising day.  Pat had actually used Be Of Good Cheer DSP.  I have used Candlelight Christmas Specialty DSP. You will need to purchase a pack of Kraft Gift Boxes from the main Catalogue, only $4.95 for a pack of 4.  I have used Very Vanilla Cardstock to cover the sides and top and embossed them with Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder. I used Teeny Tiny Sentiments for the Merry Christmas and Itty Bitty Banner Die to cut them out. I could only fit 8 biscuits into the boxes but that was enough for a tasty little treat.

Well I am off to bed now as its been a long hot day for me.  I am worn out trying to catch up on my chores and errands.
Thanks for popping by :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy New Year to you all. 

I have been missing in action as you can tell.  Christmas is such a busy time and it has been very hot here and I just have not had it in me to sit in a hot room to do my blog.
Its raining today HOORAY! You know I love the rain. It is still quite muggy though but I have my window open and can hear the pitter patter of the rain and can feel a slight breeze.  Love it!

I have just tried to download some pictures from my computer but for some unknown reason I am unable to do so. The blog thingy just wont let me.  I know one of my other SU! buddies was having a problem recently but didnt think it had done the same to mine. As you can see I can copy and paste from the website but just not able to download my cards I have made. Oh well! I have just found out the reason for not being able to add pictures. I have to use Mozilla! I will be back later with my pics!

As you know a new year has begun and there are lots of exciting things happening this year as Stampin' Up! celebrate 25 years.  I am sure we will be in for some surprises.

The Holiday catalogue ends at the end of this month so be sure to check it out here and let me know if there is anything you need and I will be sure to get it to you. You must let me know before the end of January 2013.

On February 1st 2013 we have the launch of our special 25 year celebration catalogue.  I cant show you as yet but be sure to keep watching this spot as there are some fantastic products in it.

Sale-a-bration will begin on 22 January 2013.  This is when for every $100 you spend on anything in the catalogues you will receive a product of your choice free from the Sale-a-bration catalogue. There is a wide choice this year so be sure to check that out when the time comes. I will post the links on my blog when the time comes.

My Little Valentine Promotion

Stampin’ Up!’s got a super special valentine offer sure to set your heart aflutter!

Get the Sealed with Love Simply Sent Kit FREE—a $15.95 value—when you buy the brand-new My Little Valentine Stamp Set!

Item	Description	Price
132242	My Little Valentine (clear-mount)	$17.95

14 December, 2012–21 January

We’re temporarily taking over a hundred products out of retirement with discounts up to 70 percent off retail–only while supplies last! We’ll have four different groups of products on sale during the next month.

You need to be quick with these items as they are SO cheap and I am sure there will be lots of stampers out there ready to take up the bargain. Check out the site and click on the date that you are referring to. Click this link and scroll down.

Talking Tag

With Talking Tag, you can send a gift that is uniquely you.

Talking Tag is a message label you can attach to cards, invitations, gifts . . . anything!

Personalise birthday cards, Christmas gifts or even record quick instructions for a recipe.

Now your pictures really can say a thousand words!

How to send a voice message:

1. Download the FREE TalkingTag™ App on you smartphone from talkingtag.mobi, iTunes® or Google Play™.
2. Adhere the message tag to your card or gift.
3. Open TalkingTag™ App and scan the code.
4. Record your message (recording starts immediately, so make sure you’re ready!).

You will have the opportunity to listen, re-record, cancel, or confirm your message after you’ve

completed recording it. Each label allows up to 60 seconds of a greeting, song, or product message.

To play the message, recipients will need to download the app and scan the code. Messages are saved for two years, so they can listen to it over and over.

Buy them by the sheet! You get 10 tags for just $12.95 AU/$15.75 NZ (item 129723).
Check out the You Tube site on how to use the Talking Tag and you will see just how easy it is to use.

Well I guess thats about it for now until I can find out why I cant add my photos to my blog.
I do hope that 2013 is a very special one for you.  I know my neice is really looking forward to having their first child this year.
Bye for now until next time. Thanks for popping by :)