Distraction….

August 31st, 2010

Am I the only one to be distracted by all the wonderful technology in our lives?

Here is one that kept me away from my craft desk recently, Pete loves it – it is very clever….

Nirvana and Rick Astley Mash Up

Now back to that Stampin’

Bye bye Pretties Kit…Sob!

August 30th, 2010

I think the one thing that I was the most upset to see on the Retiring List was the Pretties Kit.  I love it!  I love the hat pins that are just impossible for me to get anywhere else.  I love the beads.  I love the flowers and pearls.  I have seen the new Catalogue and I know that I can still have the flowers and pearls BUT what about all those other beauties????

With that in mind I would like to share some projects with above mentioned items…

I recently got some lovely happy mail from a Demonstrator in New Zealand.  I thought it was a lovely gesture, not only had she sent a card but she had also organised for 10 other women in her team to contribute cards/notebooks and sent them over.  To say thank you I made each of them a bookmark but also a Stepper Box and a few other items just for her.

IMG_0925The Stepper Box, covered with DSP Candy Lane, and some Felt Fusion flowers, they have a Rhinestone Brad through the centre.

Once you take the lid off the box opens out and this is what it looks like on the inside:

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Inside was some earrings (Stampin’ Up! aside from the metal jewellery bits):

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Some scissor/mobile phone charms:

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And the bookmarks that use the Scallop Square Punch along with ribbon and beads:

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Happy Stampin’

Quick party bags!

August 30th, 2010

Hello!

Part of my slackness with my blog is our busy social commitments around this time of the year.  Within our extended family I would estimate that 70% of our birthdays are clustered between June and September, with 3 of our kids birthdays in June and July.  There are many different ways that Stampin’ Up! featured in their birthday celebrations, here I would like to share the party bags I made (at the last minute) for Paige and Lily’s party.

IMG_0996My nephew Callum holding a masculine version in Mellow Moss (soon to be retired), it has been stamped with Bugs and Kisses.  Callum loves card making and has informed me that he is better at making cards than Nan and I, dontcha just love the honesty of children?  It actually was in fun and not as precocious as that sounds.

IMG_0997And here is my niece Bianca holding up the bag that all the girls received.  Made with Lovely Lilac (also going to retire tomorrow night).  It has been stamped with Garden Whimsy.  This bag is a design from Makeesha Byl and is super easy to put together.

Last but not least I wanted to be a little cheeky and share the following piccie.  My husband Pete is a supportive person, and appreciates (but maybe not always completely understands) my love of Stampin’ Up! and most especially the value of giving me some craft time.  Added into that was that this project was for his children’s party so really he was quite happy to help.  The problem was that he was tired, it was getting later and later, and he knows that often this job leads to another etc etc etc.  Getting the idea?

IMG_0975 Anyway after setting him all up I walk out of the room and upon returning moments later this is what I find….

What you may not be able to tell is that he is thumping those stamps so hard that I was surprised that the image is not permanently etched into the table! His gorgeous face is squashed into his hand, which has become the only thing keeping him upright!  Just because I couldn’t help it I asked him “so honey don’t you just love stamping, I find it is so therapeutic”, he grunted but then I’m happy to say we both had a chuckle and got them done in record time.  The funny thing is that his stamping was excellent, the images were so crisp, the poor little stamps were probably too frightened to smudge!

The White Winged Warrior

August 30th, 2010

Hey there Stampers!

My Dad retired at the beginning of the year and it is lovely to see a lot more of him.  I am very lucky to have my parent’s help, especially with babysitting on the day that I work.  While they are here they tend to get busy, it is amazing how much they get done.  I will often come home to a clean house, empty ironing basket and dinner! (No you can’t have them).  Dad has also nominated himself a “Mr Fixit” and potters around doing odd jobs. One of his projects has been enhancing the lives of our chooks, and he now refers to himself as “The White Winged Warrior”.  After a recent installation of some fabulous new nesting boxes I made him this card (cased from Tanya Kitto):

IMG_0737It seems you either love or hate this stamp set, “Rustic Rooster” from our nearly retired Catalogue.

The colours used here are Riding Hood Red, More Mustard and Bordering Blue.  I love the tearing, I think it suits the rustic style of the stamp, but once again I know a lot of people don’t like that look.

Thanks for looking!

Bad Blogger!

August 29th, 2010

Hi all!!!

Well after I have jumped onto my blog and deleted the 140 spam messages waiting for me I FINALLY have a post to share!

I am sorry about my absence, lots of boring excuses, I’m looking forward to a much more productive time ahead.  Our new office is getting some use, in fact Pete and I are sitting out there right now!  We are both completely in love with the new space and the fact that we have our bedroom back (for the last couple of months I was pretty much standing at our doorway and lunging for the bed as the path to get into bed was getting more and more narrow as all my craft stash was in there!  We are going to touch up the ceiling and some more electrical work needs to be done but I hope to have it to the stage of a launch party very very soon.

Anyway back in July I had a birthday, Pete gave me an iPhone that I had been nagging him for for ages.  I love it and as expected it has enhanced my life as much as I thought it would.  I got lots of other lovely bits and pieces that will feature in my office that I will share as they get placed/hung but I can share Linda’s gift.

july-photos-112The gorgeous packaging and card (I stole the piccie from Linda’s site).  Actually I have been turning the room upside down tonight to find the gift!

As you can see Linda has used Vintage Vogue (I’m so happy that this stamp set has made it to our new Catty so I will be able to keep using it for at least another year).  Linda has been using this combination of Certainly Celery and Pink Pirouette quite a bit lately, it looks fabulous.

IMG_1194 And here is my beautiful gift from Linda, that her Mum Sandra made.  I love it and have wanted one of these for ages – a stylish place to put all those bits of rubbish that you accumulate during a decent papercraft session!

Happy Stampin’

Bec.

Lucky girl…

August 7th, 2010

Hi fellow stampers!

Just a quick one to tell you what the Postman dropped off yesterday….my brand new Catty!  It is even better in “real life” (as demonstrators we can already access the PDF).  Do you want one of your very own to cherish?  There are three ways to preorder your very own (I hope to have my boxes of catalogues by the end of the third week of August);

1. Book into our Catalogue launch to be held on September 4 at the Virginia Golf Course (as your registration fee includes a Catalogue)

2. Preorder one from me  (12.95 plus shipping if required) OR

3. Book a party with me and recieve your copy for FREE.

Happy Stampin’

Bec.

Last Chance List

August 1st, 2010

Ok don’t fall over, yes I am posting on my blog!

I know it has been ages but I am barely getting time to do what I have to do, let alone what I want to do!  As I realise that would pretty much be the case for all of you reading this I will stop whinging and let you know that the Stampin’ Up! Retiring List was published today!

All items are “while stocks last”, so if you want something I would suggest that you do not delay in placing your order.

All information is here: http://www3.stampinup.com/au/ena/7696.asp

Happy Stampin’

Bec.

Drumroll please….

June 30th, 2010

balloonI have known the figure for our Red Nose Day Fundraiser for a couple of days but it just seemed to be too good to be true….anyway, I can’t think of anything that I have done wrong so without further delay….Steph, Linda, Lou, Pennie and I (along with our generous donations)  raised 

$2406.04

 

The girls and I donated a lot of our expenses, so that is part of the reason the figure is so high, the other reason is because of our wonderful customers and their interest in our fabulous donations.  Thank you again to all involved.  A great result for a great night.

Happy Stampin’

Our projects from our Fundraiser

June 28th, 2010

I’m up bright and early this morning (not really sure why, I usually love a sleep in, maybe I’m just excited about the school holidays!)

I don’t have any photos from our actual event on Friday night yet, so I thought I would share what I do have and that is the photos of our projects.

I’ll start with mine….

red nose day becOur guests just did the one card of this design, to keep the costs down I got as much DSP from the one pack that I could, therefore half the cards were made with one pattern and the rest with the other, does that make sense?

On this card we have the Pun Fun and Think Happy Thoughts Stamp Sets.  Plenty of punches with Scallop Circle, 1 3/8 circle, 1 1/4 circle, Boho Blossoms and Scallop Border Punch being used.  I have used the Riding Hood Red DSP, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White and of course some more Riding Hood Red cardstock.

Linda and Louise encouraged me to stay with the red theme for our cards, and I’m so glad they did as it really worked well for our night.

This card is a case of one that I saw on Becky Robert’s site. Actually  ever finding Becky’s site is a little bit of a liability for me as I end up just spending too long blog surfing and dreaming – you would not believe how long I just took to find the card agred nose day louain and stop looking at all the other super duper stuff on her site!!! Yikes!

Then we have Lou’s card:

Lou used the fabulous Fifth Avenue Floral Stamp Set, one of our best sellers, and it is easy to see why.  The sentiment is from the set On Your Birthday.  Real Red, Rich Razzleberry and Whisper White are the colours used.

You can mask the flowers when stamping this card if you want them to overlay, the other way to do it is as is done here, with some cutting out around the flowers to sit them up on dimensionals.  Love it.

 

 

 

steph cardHere is Steph’s card.

The Stamp Sets Wanted, Sanded and Teeny Tiny Sentiments have been used. All the sponging really adds such a lovely touch to this card.  This card also uses a sheet from the Riding Hood Red DSP, along with Chocolate Chip and the controversial paper “Naturals Ivory” found on page 130 of the catalogue.  This paper caused a stir as Steph was waiting for the paper from her order to finish cutting the rest of her packs for the night, in the meantime I asked Linda and Louise if they had some for back up and none of us had really become familiar with this paper and certainly didn’t have any!  We are now all in love with it and no doubt its sales will go through the roof! :) Would not be the first time Steph has cost me money!

 

 

linda 3d red nose dayHere is Linda’s 3D project.  The template is based on Keesh’s card folder, our clever Linda just made hers a little wider (and therefore a little narrower to keep it still a A4 cardstock requirement) so that envelopes would fit also.  Circle Circus has been used, along with some Riding Hood Red Taffeta ribbon.  Pink Pirouette is used (Linda rarely makes a project without some pink!).

Happy Stampin’

Bec.

Paint the town red!

June 27th, 2010

RNDnationWe had a wonderful night on Friday night at our Red Nose Day fundraiser. Thank you so much to all who attended.

I’ll be back with piccies and fundraising totals soon.

Happy Stampin’

Bec.