Happy Christmas to you

That's it for me this year.    Have a great Christmas with family and friends, stay safe and I hope Santa is kind to you.  Thank you for visiting my blog, and  see you back here again in 2016.

Wedding Thank You's

I offered to make some wedding thank you's for one of our neighbours, and these are some of the final batch.  When I originally took the photos they looked just right on the screen, but now that I have handed over all of the cards and attempt to put them on here, the colours don't look right - again.  Grrr!  I really need lessons to get this right.  

So, you will have to use your imagination.  The colours are Crumb Cake, with white embossing and Melon Mambo flowers with pearls.  They looked so much nicer in real life that it is kind of disappointing putting them on here.  Laura's is a fan of Crumb Cake and the invites and place settings were all done in this colour.  The bridesmaid's dresses were a lovely shade of hot pink, so that's why we added the splash of colour.  The embossing folder used on these cards was one picked up in a "junk shop" for $4-00, and already I have gotten my money's worth from it.  Sometimes cheap is good!

Inside Laura and Matt have a beautiful wedding photo as a thank you to their  guests.  

60th Birthday present

As promised, pictures of the Frame I made for my sister's 60th birthday present.  Once again, I forgot to take photos before I wrapped it, so pictures aren't that great. 

 

   

I quite like making these frames for people.  One of the hardest decisions though is finding and deciding what stamps to use, and also what colour to chose.  I chose the colours because they are a bit beachy and these colours are quite prominent in her house.  I also try to match the stamps to suit the person who is going to receive it.  Bit hard sometimes though when you just don't own the right stamp.  So for this one, turtles because she lives by the beach, flowers because who doesn't like them, the saying just suited her and the parasol just because, postage stamps about travel because she and her husband love travelling all over the place, the compass and waves because they own their own boat, the hedgehog because it has a trumpet and her husband plays one (as well as a few other musical instruments), work of art because we all are works of art, teddy bears because she is a grandma, and the centre just because too.  

I think it was well received.  

My sister's 60th card

Now that my sister has received her birthday card, albeit a little late because of various reasons, I can post it on here.  

Some of you may recognise a card similar to this in Stampin' Up's newest Occasions Catalogue which you can purchase goods from after 5th February.  One of the perks of being a demonstrator is that we get to see the products before the general public, and also have the opportunity to pre-order too.  Number of Years is the set that stood out for me in the catalogue.  There are large numbers, a few greetings and a leaf stem with flowers which can be added separately.  There is also a set of dies to cut out the numbers and two different banner dies, and you can buy them both in a bundle, saving a little bit of money.  This was my first purchase from the catalogue, although I'm not entirely sure why as I usually don't like putting numbers of cards - I know I don't like to be reminded of my age, let alone other people knowing it!  But, 60 is a bit of a milestone, so here is her card.  

 

And the inside too.

For those of you with the catalogue already, check out Page 10 and see how we compare.  I was really pleased with the way it turned out.  I used the same colours as in the catalogue, but added little yellow Enamel dots to mine (another new product out soon).  The colours aren't really true - these seem a little flared out.  I suppose that's what happens when you only remember to take photos after you have already given away.  The lighting in clubs just isn't designed for photography. 

Will show you her present on Thursday. 

Happy New Home

Finally, a Christmas card .... of sorts.  One of the ladies who I work with asked me if I could make her a Christmas card to give her daughter to celebrate her first year of marriage and first Christmas in their new home.   

Below is the card I came up with.  This is Version 3.1.  The others were rejected (by me - I am my worst critic).  Colours are Pool Party and Smoky Slate.  Hope she/they like it.    

 Now to work on my Christmas cards.  No wait, there's a birthday card I have to do!

Male Birthday card

Apologies for my absence last week.  I have been sewing and my desk has been overtaken with a machine and material, and also lately I have been lacking the inspiration and motivation to create.  That has to change soon because I have Christmas cards to make and send out.  Help!!

I found the photos for this card while I was scrambling to find something to post.  I did CASE this one from someone, but at the moment I can't remember who it was.  Apologies to the original creator.  The stamps are from Amazing Birthday, all have been stamped and cut out.  The birthday cake circles have been flooded with Glossy Accents for that extra bit of shine.  

The last projects from Saturday - Gift Packaging

The next project from Saturday was packaging.  I am not sure I achieved this the way intended, but here's what we did.  

Not sure if you know this, but when demonstrators receive their goods from Stampin' Up, it's all packaged in a brown box (affectionately termed BBB - the first B for Big because usually the boxes are MUCH larger than what is really needed) and we have layers of brown paper crammed on top to stop everything moving around too much when being delivered.  Long explanation, but I usually keep this, refold it all up and use it to wrap presents throughout the year instead of buying wrapping paper and killing a tree in the process.   So I tried to find a way we could re-use some of this.  My first attempt is this little gift bag.  I used double layer paper for strength but was limited with the size I could make.  I decorated the bag with a poinsettia flower and attached a little gift tag. 

Then I thought it didn't look too exciting, but was happy with the little gift bag size.  I decorated a few other bags with stamps, and Christmas papers, but as I'm not showing you the results, you can guess that I wasn't happy with the end results.  It was too late to order SU papers, but fortunately while doing my grocery shopping at Aldi, I saw they had patterned paper stacks that looked very much like our new SU In Colours.  So even though I really don't need any more papers to store in my cupboards, I purchased a pack and on the day we used those instead of the brown wrapping paper.  Much prettier.  I wish I had taken photos of everyone else's final results, but I didn't, so I only have mine to show you. 

The size of the gift bag is about 10 cm wide and 13 cm high - no it won't hold much, but it does look cute.  One of the ladies was planning on making a few more gift bags at home and popping a few cards inside to give away as presents.  

The last project we made on Saturday was a cut little multi faceted gift box, which I found on Pinterest by a UK demonstrator Pootles,   If you wish to make your own box, you can find the measurements and a video on her website using the link above.  Sam apparently bought some Ghiradelli chocolates while in the US just because she liked the box, and when home she pulled the box apart to figure out how it was made. 

The top decoration was made using the  Bow Builder punch, the Pool Party version has a 7 petal bow and the Real Red is a 5 petal bow.  Both were beautiful, and quite easy to put together.  

And if I don't get around to posting next week, apologies, but I am trying to make some clothes to wear. 

Saturday's cards

On Saturday I had my last card day for this year.  I didn't want to do Christmas cards cause I still haven't decided what I am doing for mine yet, and asked for suggestions.  One suggestion was the tunnel card and the other was for Christmas packaging.  One was easy, and the other a little more complicated.  

This was the tunnel card, which is very similar to one I had done before and pretty much the same apart from the decorative edge.  

The next card was what I called a Tea Light card - original huh!  And in the end I did relent and make it a Christmas card just in case anyone who attended had not done one before.  

Can you see the tea light glowing behind the vellum?  You can in the picture below.  The base card was in Soft Sky and I pulled out some very old Stampin' Up papers that I found and used them, and they matched pretty good.  

 

This is a card that if you are planning to make, you need to hand deliver so you can give the recipient a tea light as well.  The card is an A4 sheet length cut to 10 cms, and then scored at 10 and 20 cms to achieve the fold.  Cut the star shape through both the paper and cardstock so it lines up perfectly, then stamp the star on vellum and emboss, and then the silver layer is just the outside edges with a square cut out centre so the vellum has nothing behind it.  Pretty!

My birthday cards 2

Here's the last of my birthday cards to show you. 

As you can see, I have certainly been spoilt with some beautiful handmade cards.  There's something extra special about receiving a card that someone has made rather than a store bought one.  

My birthday cards

I recently celebrated my (?? - it's a secret) birthday, and thought you might like to see the cards I received.  And as I don't have anything else that I can show you, that's what you are going to see.  

According to my sister, she just "whipped" this one up in her spare time.  But seriously, how fiddly would it be to put together?  All those little green carriages have to be put on by hand after it's all been slotted together.  Or is there a machine that makes it up?  Anyone know?

 

 

 

More on Thursday.

A flock of feathers

These are two stamp sets my friend lent me while she was away.  Four Feathers and Gorgeous Grunge were both on my wish list, but they never actually made it to my shopping list for some reason.  So it was great to have the opportunity to use them while she didn't need them.  

The first card was based on an idea I saw on Pinterest.  I think it needs "something" so they are still sitting on my desk while I decide what else it needs.

I actually made a few of this next card in different colours, but they seem to have gone before they were photographed.  These were just little note cards.  Can you see the borrowed dies I've used?  These are Memory Box stitched rectangles.  Hopefully I will have my own set soon, so you may see lots more rectangled cards in the future. 

The feathers are embossed in white on white cardstock, and then the background sponged to bring the feather into prominence.  Fun to make. 

 

 

Non- Christmas card

Well, not much crafting has been happening in this house lately.  The weather has been so nice that I have spent a lot of time gardening and just pottering around.  I do have a few things to share though. 

Recently on one of my crafting groups a challenge was issued to make a card using a Christmas stamp set, but the card was not to be for Christmas.  This really was a challenge, as I don't have too many Christmas sets to choose from anyway.  

I used one of the leaf images and also the asterisk symbol from Berry Merry.  The colours used were Melon Mambo, Coastal Cabana and Crumb  Cake, as that was another challenge, so I put both together and here's what I came up with.  I'm not sure I would ever give this card to anyone - it's not a saying that comes to mind often - but I just wanted something big in the space and it was on the desk.   

 

Another birthday

While my friend was away travelling around Africa, she kindly loaned me some of her dies to have a play with.  The card below is made with Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders One and although quite tricky to line up, I was happy with the end result.  

I added a Stampin' Up butterfly die and then found a die cut happy birthday to finish it off, so no stamping on this card.  These borders would make a beautiful wedding card, so maybe .....

 

Triple time Birthday

I almost forgot to blog this week, just remembered this morning.  

Have had a bit of a busy card week this week with a few birthday cards that needed making.  This is my sister's card.  She loves purple, burgundy and the deep reddish colours, so that makes my colour choice a little easier to decide.  This one is Rich Razzleberry and uses the triple time stamping technique.  There were a lot of flowers to colour after using this stamp so I decided to keep some uncoloured to save time, and I think it makes the others stand out better too.  

These type of cards take a while to cut out the different layers, but once stamped, it puts together beautifully.