Live, laugh & Love Scrapbook Pennants

I CASEd the layout from somewhere on the web (apologies I couldn't find the link back when I went to look for it), but I changed the papers, stamps, colours & modified the layout a bit too........I have to make a matching page for this as this was just a single scrapbook page I made a few weeks ago and just haven't made time to make it a mate yet (I have a personal aversion to single scrapbook pages unless they are the title or end pages in my album). I love the al a carte stamps and in particular the Triple Treat Flower - not the least for which there are three handy punches to make layering it effortless, but in the Summer mini catalogue there is also matching designer paper - how cool is that?? Like many projects, I took the card stock and ink colours directly from the designer paper that I chose to use, Bring on the Cake. The page is designed to have only a single photograph on it - on the Poppy Parade section, which is hopefully large enough to leave a nice coloured boarder around the photograph to frame it nicely.

The pennants are all popped up on Dimensionals and threaded onto Early Expresso Bakers Twine, also from the Summer mini catalogue. The centre of each little flower on the pennants is highlighted with a small Basic Pearl and the scallop strips along the bottom were all cut with the Tasteful Trim die and the Big Shot. 

Stamps: Triple Treat Flower, Field Flowers, On Your Birthday, Pennant Parade

Card Stock: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Eat Cake DSP, So Saffron, Poppy Parade.

Ink: Poppy Parade, Baja Breeze

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Big Shot, Five Petal Flower Punch, Petite Pennants Builder Punch, Fancy Flower Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, 1/2" circle punch, Antique Brads, Tasteful Trim die, Big Shot, SNAIL, Dimensionals, Early Expresso Bakers Twine, 1/16" handheld punch, 

Open Sea

My favourite stamp set in the Summer mini catalogue is Open Sea, I love the colours, the co-ordinating designer paper and the new Bakers twine in three different colours  *happy dance* this was one of the first cards I made with this set as it was one of the cards made for the RSPCA fundraiser in December (did I mention I was behind on my blogging?) and it was just basic masking, tearing and sponging to give texture and dimension to the card.

Stamps: Open Sea, Happiest Birthday Wishes
Ink: Not Quite Navy
Card stock: Crumb Cake, Nautical Expedition DSP, Cherry Cobbler, Basic Gray
Accessories: Dimensionals, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, Cherry Cobbler/white Bakers twine, stamping sponge, mini silver brad, paper piercer

Sale-A-Bration Commences

Yay - my favourite time of the year has arrived - Sale-a-bration!!! Yes freebies for all be it customers, hostesses and if you join - even more freebies *happy dance* These stamp sets, paper and accessories are only available as a bonus (i.e. you can not purchase them - well if you are demonstrator you could have purchased them as part of a pre-order perk....) and they are only available until the end of March. To see the brochure, you can either click the link on my sidebar or click here, or email me and I will pop a brochure in the mail to you. 

PCL Floral Treat Box

I got a super cute box template from the Paper Crafters Library this month and decided to to make it up - super easy as the template prints directly out onto the card stock and then it's just a case of decorating it! It features more of the divine FREE hostess paper Cheerful Treat and a hostess stamp set. I changed it a bit as I didn't have the die cuts that they used and decorated mine with flowers rather than the Valentines theme in their example.

It features an acetate window that you can see the treats through (but mine is still empty for the minute) and a neat little velcro closure on the top tab (the original design from Paper Crafters Library has a slotted closure, but I changed it).

Stamps: Happiest Birthday Wishes, Array of Sunshine

Card Stock: Concord Crush, Cheerful Treat DSP, Melon Mambo, Pink Pirouette & Whisper White.

Ink: Old Olive & Concord Crush

Accessories: Boho Blossoms punch, Circle Ice brads, 1/16" circle punch, Sticky Strip, scallop circle punch.

Cheerful Treat Array of Sunshine

Goodness we really are in the middle of summer with such hot weather of late, I did make some time this week to take part in another challenge over at Craft Project Central and thought I'd combine their sketch challenge with a personal challenge/desire of using some stamps & papers that are new and I haven't made time to play with yet!

The sketch was this one.....

I'm not entirely sure if it was their use of pink on the sketch or what set my brain off, but this was my card:

I took the colours for the layout from the hostess DSP Cheerful Treat and the two stamp sets I used are also exclusive hostess ones (I am so loving the new hostess rewards - the choice is awesome). It took some fussy cutting and layering with Dimensionals to create more interest with the flowers and a bit of shine from the basic pearls didn't hurt either. I do apologise that the Melon Mambo ribbon I chose is now retired, but you could easily substitute it with the Melon Mambo scallop dots ribbon for a very similar effect and to be honest the scallop ribbon would probably suit this card better than what I have used!

Stamps: Array of Sunshine, Happiest Birthday Wishes

Card Stock: Concord Crush, Cheerful Treat, Whisper White, Melon Mambo, Pink Pirouette.

Ink: Melon Mambo, Concord Crush.

Accessories: Basic pearls, Polka Dot Melon Mambo grosgrain ribbon, Dimensionals

Newsletter sign up

Well in the melee of school holidays and everything else I have finally remembered to add a sign up link for my newsletter to my blog sidebar - yea my list of things to always takes me a while to get to! Anyway I normally email one newsletter a month with Stampin' Up! news, classes, events, hints & tips and of course some ideas too! You can now opt in and out of it as you chose via the link here or on the sidebar.

Sale-a-bration is coming!!!!!!

Are you excited in a little over two weeks Sale-a-bration will be here!!  If this is your first Sale-a-bration you are going to be super excited. This is the most exciting time of year, it's Stampin' Up!s way of kicking off crafting for the New Year and goodness they do it in style as this is the best time of year to be a customer, hostess or new demonstrator! Sale-a-bration commences on January 24th and ends on March 31st.

Customers: during Sale-a-bration for each $100 spent (before shipping and handling) you can choose an exclusive FREE gift from a range of six items including stamps and accessories and there is no limit to the number you chose - for a $200 spend you chose two FREE items on so forth.

Host a party: in addition to the awesome hostess rewards available, a free Idea Book & Catalogue, free make & take for everyone and a gift from me, you also get to chose a FREE item from the Sale-a-bration range with workshop sales over AUD$600. So if you have been thinking of working on reducing that wish list or spending those gift certificates, now is the perfect time to get some friends together for a free workshop and earn yourself some bonus rewards for it! 

Join my team: if you join my team during Sale-a-bration you get TWO extra rewards in addition to the myriad of others! Firstly you can chose an EXTRA FREE stamp set of any value in the current catalogue(s) when you purchase the starter kit - this is in addition to the stamp sets included in the starter kit and can be of any value even the $77.95 alphabet stamps (note there is no shipping charges on the starter kit either!). During Sale-a-bration the price of the starter kit will be reduced by $40 to just $249 - yes that's over $690 worth of Stampin' Up! products for just $249 which is a total bargain!! 

Tempted by any or all of the above offers?? Want me to send you a Sale-a-bration brochure? Want more information about joining my team and all of the benefits associated with it? Contact me today for more information or to book a workshop party and get some gorgeous stuff for FREE!

What colours are hot in 2012

Okay so I'm no fashion diva, but I do check out what colours are in fashion mainly out of curiosity, but also so I can incorporate them into my crafting and lets face it with 50 colours in the the Stampin' Up! arsenal - some of them have to be "in" fashion! Although I confess to using some colours a lot more than others, not sure if that is just my colour comfort zone or colour preference or I'm just too lazy to challenge my self to move outside my comfort zone!

Having a read through some blogs and articles of late I found that the "hot" colours for 2012 are all bold, bright colours - definitely no shrinking violets or classic black this year! The top 10 Pantone fashion colours for 2012 look remarkably like Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party, Blushing Bride, Concord Crush, Melon Mambo, Wisteria Wonder (?), Crumb Cake & Basic Gray (?).

Interesting how a fair number are in the "in" colour families - guess it means that Stampin' Up! definitely is keeping up with the trends! The only two I was a bit uncertain about was the Wisteria Wonder and Basic Gray - maybe because I keep seeing them as being closer to some retired colours or the colour calibration of my monitor might just be off!


So you can mix and match within the ten "in" colours or if you go to your Colour Coach you can check out what colours accent each of these ten "in" colours for 2012. Which are your favourite colours for 2012??

Sunny Fun Class

Happy New Year!! No doubt by now you're all used to it being 2012 and have either made or ignored New Years resolutions. I didn't make any myself, but I am endeavouring to be more organised, especially as my day job got re-newed me for another year. I have put up all my classes for term 1 onto my website - I still have to confirm the dates for the crop nights and craft sale and as soon as I know those I will add them as well. Of course if you want to do a class at a different time slot, get four or more friends together and contact me to arrange a time.

The first card class of the year will be based around the stamp set Sunny Fun and involve making 5 cards with envelopes (3 different designs) all materials including adhesive, if you want to join us for this - please RSVP via the website or email me direct.

Free Stampin' Up! Digital Download

Have you ever liked Stampin' Up! on FaceBook? (if you can't find it - click through my FB link here and there's a post about it there) to celebrate Stampin' Up! getting +100 000 likers they are giving away  a free My Digital Studio download RRP US$14.95 that contains a set of 12 papers, embellishments and a tonne of gorgeous brushes. Although we don't have the My Digital Studio available in Australia (yet) you can use the images in any editing program including Photoshop. It's only available to download for free until the 10th of January, so don't miss out!