Nearly time to get your Occasions and Sale-A-Bration products

In between my gift wrapping and Christmas shopping, I have been planning on what classes and events will be happening in the new year and getting ready to add these to my calendar!

Starting on the 4 January, we have tons of brand-new products for you in our Occasions catalogue and Sale-A-Bration brochure. I have been able to take advantage of the preorder and have managed to also pre-earn Sale-A-Bration products for FREE, so now I can start prepping for all of my events in the new year.

Chalkboards: Not Just for Teachers

The popular chalkboard technique is super simple and will wow your friends when you give them a card done with this technique.

Take a look at the video as Andrea, one of our Stampin' Up! trainers shows us how to do this classic technique, and make your next card for someone extra special.

If you would like to attend a class on this technique, then stay tuned as I will be planning to use it in one of your upcoming classes!

An Unlikely Pair

When you first look at the Be Jolly, By Golly Stamp Set and Swirly Scribbles Thinlits Dies, the coordination isn’t totally obvious. But when you experiment with the two, you’ll find lots of options.

Try it out and see what creative combos you can come up with.
Haven't got it then head on over to my Online Shop so you too can get in on the fun !

Hostess code W4KTS7R4

Not sure what to add in a card? What about....

Seed Tiles...

I had a lovely conversation with a lady down in Canberra just now. She is a volunteer at a place called Paperworks Inc Canberra I had ordered some seed tiles for myself when I got to thinking, what a wonderful gift for someone. They would make perfect Teacher gifts, much better than chocolate (oops what am I saying, nothing is better than chocolate haha)

Well I decided to give them a ring and see if I could double my order and get it all put on the same postage. What a great conversation this turned out to be, she (Kathy) is a volunteer for this organisation, she was saying most of them are volunteers so that the full time jobs can be given to people with disabilities. She made me feel warm all over, what a lovely person.

Anyway I think I now have  decided on Christmas presents. I can see these seed tiles inside a cute box made with the Envelope Punch Board and a card using the Stamp Set called "From the Garden of"

Oh, oh hang on a minute!! I've just had another thought, great for birthdays too and I could use the Stamp Set that has that Happy Bloomin Birthday sentiment.

Ooohh I am very excited. Who would have thought I could be excited about something more that Stamps, Ink and Paper? If you want to give a present for someone who has everything already, why not think about these. They can even be grown in containers so would be fine for anyone living in a unit. Now off you go and buy some of these seed tiles and if you need an Envelope Punch Board to make the boxes, guess who can get one for you. BIG SMILE!!!!




Here is a description from their website...
The seeds are attached with a natural starch to a paper tile made from recycled 100% cotton denim jeans.  The denim paper will decompose in the soil and assist with water retention in the soil near the seeds.

Seed tiles make it easier to handle and plant tiny seeds. It was developed as a planting aid to help those that have lost dexterity in their hands or need to practise their fine motor skills, enjoy gardening.

What is inside:

Bloom Buddies cut flowers: 1 x pack of mixed African Marigolds and 1 x pack of mixed Zinnias

Vegetables: Cool and Hot Bountiful Buddies with a variety of 12 types of vegetables suitable for small spaces or containers

Backyard and Bug Buddies: Australian natives and a Wild cottage garden mixture to attract all the good bugs to your garden.

Full planting instructions inside each pack.

Just another reason why I love Stampin' Up!

They give back, I found this video on one of my Facebook Feeds this morning. It is not the only way they give back. Did you know that they give us donation boxes for all our charity events here in Australia. Every year the Paper Angels has huge Christmas Card Workshops at several different venues reaching from the Gold Coast to as far north as Cooroy and at each venue the raffle prizes all come from these donation boxes. They actually do believe in Making a Difference in peoples lives.

Looking back at my favourite tool

The Envelope Punch Board is still the best tool in the Sampin' Up!catalogue. Each time I look back over items I have made with it in the past, I still get a thrill.  Look at these darling Bon Bons, guess how long they take to make! Score, score, score, punch, punch, punch, glue, glue, glue. Done.

Well maybe a few more scores and punches, but they are super fast to put together.

Brayer background

I love techniques and the Brayer offers a chance to make some lovely background on cards. If you look closely you will see two techniques using the Brayer. The sky came together by brayering layers of blue, getting lighter and lighter. The river was created using the brayer with fine cotton wound around it. Do you recognise the punch I used for making the railing?
My little lady was hand drawn and then cut out and put back together after I coloured and dressed her. Now what else can I look back on?

Did you recognise this punch as the railings?

Still looking back

I made this card for my grand son who was turning 13. He was so excited when he got this card, he loves getting my hand made cards and always looks forward to them, soon he will be 14, how am I going to top that?

Time to look back

Now that Christmas is fast approaching and the New Year is just around the corner, I thought I would take a little journey back over the year at some of the projects that I made.  hope you enjoy the journey with me.

My daughter married on a lovely river bank in a place called Bellingen.  I made this quirky little wedding card with punch art ladies. their bodies were made out of our old butterfly punch, I made them sitting on some rocks as they shared the couples big day. Hearts, repunched were their arms and the owl punch was hair for two of them and the middle gal had a lovely hat made with our retired oval punches.

Can you see the shape of the bodies?

Quota Craft and Gift Fair

I must apologise this post is a little late in coming, as all the exciting Close outs sales and retiring list had me a little preoccupied. However I did want to tell you about my first foray into being a stall holder at an event instead of being the coordinator of the event.

Each year Quota International of Carindale holds a Craft and Gift Fair to raise funds for Cleft Pals and Asperger Syndrome. I am usually one of the coordinators of this fair, however this year I had to stand down to support my husband as he underwent surgery for Stage 3 melanoma. I am happy to report that all seems to be going well.

Anyway because of this I was free to concentrate on my Stampin' Up! hobby, in between hospital visits. My team grew to 5 and what a lovely group of women they are. Having a team made me feel a little bit responsible for getting them going, so I accepted an invitation to become a Stall Holder at the Quota Craft and Gift Fair. What a strange feeling that was.  From Coordinator to stall holder, I can now see both sides of the coin. It was very exciting, some of my team agreed to come along and sell their hand made products.

We set up some lovely displays and demonstrated my favourite tool the Envelope Punch Board.

We had complimentary make and takes.

There was also a lucky door prize to be won.

Packing up for the day was interesting. Look what I can fit in my front seat!

Thank you for reading to the end of this post. This was a very exciting day for me and both of my team members that attended. We met so many lovely people and had lots of laughs, actually I think we may have been the nosiest stall there as we all seemed to be getting excited about something. I just love how crafting brings out the kid in us all.

Thank you to everyone that came and visited our stall, we really appreciate you all!

Don't forget the clearance rack

We have all been looking at the Holiday Catalogue products in the last few months and what a bonzer lot of goodies to be had. However don't forget the clearance rack and just a little reminder, the Christmas Tree punch is going so if you have the Festival of Trees stamp set which has just retired and had thought you may want the coordinating punch, then quick, quick, it will soon be gone as well.

If you order through my Online store, everything will be shipped directly to you in time for Christmas. Also if you use my December Host code I shall send you a bonus gift at the end of the month.

Hostess code W4KTS7R4

Retiring list

Only a month to go and the Holiday Catalogue will be gone. It had some beautiful products in it that I just had to have. I think the Cookie Cutter was one of my favurites and who would have thought we could make a kangaroo out of a gingerbread man!! Yep a fellow demonstrator Caronlyn Bennie has made a great little tutorial on it.

Oops I digress, where was I? Oh yes the Holiday Catalogue will be gone soon and that means some nice little discounts. So here is a list for you to peruse and see if there is anything still on your wish list that you really can't do without. If you want to order any of these items you may use my Online store and they will get shipped straight to you, don't forget to use the December Host code so I can send you a bonus gift for ordering Online

Hostess code W4KTS7R4

Just CASED the catalogue

CASED - Copy and Share Everything. I love that we all do that and I have just had the most wonderful few days at a Stampin' Up! event called OnStage Live. We CASED many cards and had so many ideas planted in our heads. It has been an absolutely mad world wind of events as I still needed to hold my classes and visit Bluecare. So to ease the burden, what better way than to CASE the catalogue.

Go see if you can find them in the catalogue and let me know what page you found them on.

These were such easy cards to create and the best part was that this last card ended up being changed at one of the classes. My friend needed a 40th birthday card and this last stamp set just so happens to have the large numbers. So after a little bit of umming and aahing we came up with this one.

The Number of Years stamp set is such a versatile stamp set. What do you think of this whipped up version.

Mum do you have a fascinator

Melbourne Cup is here again and that means dressing up and of course wearing a hat/fascinator. My daughter came down to my studio all dressed up for the days events, asking if I had a fascinator.  Um, looking around my studio I spied a decorated box among my Envelope Punch Board samples. (did I tell you I love that tool?)

 .
I removed the flower and spritzed it with some Bermuda Bay, to match her dress. Then spritzed with Smokey Slate, added a pearl. Stapled the Jute on the back, held together with a bobby pin.

There ya go. Mum do you have a Fascinator?
Yes darl, just whipped it up for you. I love my job!!

Casing the Catty Class

Tomorrow my class will be CASing the catalogue. Sometimes we wrack our brains trying to think of lovely new designs to make. When all the while they are right under our noses in the Stampin' Up! Catalogues. CASE means, Copy and Share Everything - isn't that a lovely idea.

Class details: Wednesday 2nd November 10am
Friday 11 th November 7pm
Cost: $10
You will make 3 beautiful  cards

Please RSVP with the class you wish to attend so I have enough kits prepared.

Please bring your ‘basic kit’ to each class. This includes a paper trimmer, tape runner, double sided foam tape, multipurpose liquid adhesive and scissors.

 * If you do not have a kit, there will be kits available for sale.