Sale-a-bration is here!!

Exciting news folks, sale-a-bration starts TODAY!!

For those of you who haven't heard of the promotion before, it means FREEBIES for EVERYONE. There is a selection of four stamp sets and a beautiful pack of papers up for grab, for every £45 you spend you can claim a free set (spend £90 and claim 2 sets etc).

These are in addition to any hostess benefits that you might earn with your order. Host a workshop with sales of £300 and you'll qualify for an additional set - I've got a wishlist from the mini to purchase so that I can earn them all ;) If you'd like to take advantage of the wonderful offer, then please do contact me to place your order/book your workshop, I only have one date left in February! The projects below feature products from Sale-a-bration, and I'll be listing some bundle suggestions using them on my blog next week. A copy of the promotion leaflet is available to view online here. And here’s some eye candy featuring the SAB products.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late – my new job has started, which I’m spending lots of time travelling and adjusting to my new role and full-time work in general. Something’s had to give and for now blogging is it.

I’m aiming to post once a week from here on in, although I’ll be back at the weekend to showcase some projects using the fab SAB products which I made as samples for a recent training event – I cant get enough of the yummy papers!!

In answer to some of the emails I’ve had recently, yes, I am still an active demonstrator, so do feel free to contact me with your extensive wish lists and I’ll be happy to place your orders and run workshops for you. A class programme should follow later in the year when I’ve worked out how to balance it all!

Passionettes Spring Mini Blog Hop

Morning All! and welcome to my stop on the Passionettes' Spring Mini blog hop. Hopefully you've arrived here from the lovely Debbie's blog. Today I've got a card which was actually made by my friend Sarah the other week when we had a playday. She was playing with some of the fabulous new goodies which had arrived that day whilst I was still trying to finish my Christmas projects - I WILL be more organised next year, so that I can play with new stuff in December too! Anyways, enough of the babble, here's the card she made using one of the fabby new sets which will be released on 4th January!!

Isn't it beautiful? It's intended for a Ruby wedding anniversary. I can't publish the name of the sets yet, but here are the details for the items I can publish. All supplies Stampin' Up! unless otherwise stated :

PAPER: Cherry Cobbler, Brushed Gold & Whisper White cardstock.

INK: Baja Breeze, Crumb Cake & Cherry Cobbler ink and markers

STAMPS: New Mini Catalogue set and retired level 2 hostess set ‘Occasional Quotes’.

TOOLS: Timeless Type Junior Alphabet dies, Small Heart Punch & Corner Rounder Punch.

ACCESSORIES: Antique Brads, Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding, Basic Pearls.

That's all I have for you for the moment, I might get another card photographed and uploaded today, but then I'm on with some samples for next month. In the meantime I'll leave you in Claire's capable hands - pop on over and see what she's been up to with some of the new goodies, and be sure to follow on the rest of the blog tour!

The 12 Days ‘til Christmas–Day 5

Well, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, I’ve been on a training course for my new job all week this week, which means that the house is somewhat of a tip and needs some TLC. so, food shopping, tidying and cleaning are the order of the day, although I’m itching to get some inky time too – particularly as a big box of new goodies has arrived – wohooo, Merry Christmas to me . SO, here’s my card for today, a very simple card with minimal layers, featuring the majestic dasher. This was one of the cards I used for my recent Christmas club.

Dasher is stamped using Soft Suede ink onto Shimmer cardstock. I’ve used a red sharpie to colour in a Rhinestone and add it to the end of his nose. The sentiment, again stamped in Soft Suede, is from Season of Joy. I've layered the panel onto Soft Suede cardstock and the horizontal panel is a strip of DSP from the retired Christmas Cocoa DSP stack. I’ve finished the card with a Real Red satin ribbon. This is based on a design I found somewhere in blog land, but I’ve been searching and can’t find where I originally found it – don’t you hate it when that happens?

Right, the washing pile and Dyson are calling me, so I guess I’ll be seeing you soon!

12 Days ‘til Christmas–Day 4

Morning Folks – welcome back! I’ve got another Christmas card today – this one was inspired by my treat pouch from my last class, and is a cute little Christmas Pudding.

The base card is a folded circle, with the base cut off to help the card stand up. I’ve then cut a circle from Chocolate Chip cardstock, embossed using the polka dot embossing folder and decorated with ‘icing’ which was a Whisper White circle cut using the scalloped circle die. The holly was made using the large oval punch and 3/4” circle punch. The sentiment, taken from Perfect Pairs, was stamped using Real Red ink onto Whisper White cardstock, punched using the small oval punch and then layered onto a small Real Red oval. I’ve got another card tomorrow – see you then!45

12 Days ‘til Christmas–Day 3

Only 9 more days until Christmas Eve and 10 more sleeps until Santa! I’m back with one of my Christmas cards for this year, which features the sledging silhouette from Welcome Christmas in a side step scene.

I’ve used a colour scheme of Night of Navy, Bashful Blue and Whisper White. The background trees are from Lovely as a Tree and the sentiment from Curly Cute embossed using white embossing powder. I’ve finished the side panel with a few die cut snowflakes. That’s all for today, I’ve got another of this year’s Christmas cards for you tomorrow.

12 Days ‘til Christmas–Day 2

Morning folks! I’m back with another Christmas themed project. Today I’ve got the gift boxes which I’ve made to hold some Hotel Chocolat chocolates – yum.

The box is another template by Lauren Meader, which perfectly holds one of the trays of 6 chocolates. I’ve used Real Red and Wild Wasabi cardstock to make the boxes and topped them with Holly Berry Bouquet DSP.

The tags have been embossed using the oval designer frames embossing folder. I’ve then stamped the pine cone image from the Pines and Poinsettias stamp set onto Very Vanilla cardstock, punched it out using the extra large oval punch and layered it inside the frame. The boxes are finished with a length of Real Red satin ribbon.

I’ve got a meal out tonight with a number of my downline – I’ll have to share the gifts which I’ve made for them later in the week (assuming I get them finished in time, as I’m on a training course for the rest of today!) I’ll be back tomorrow with a Christmas card or two.

12 Days ‘til Christmas – Day 1

Morning all! Well here I am with the first of my projects for the 12 days ‘til Christmas. I’m not sure how we’ve got to the 12th December already, but I’ve been busy beavering away in my craft room trying to get everything ready for Christmas day. The present shopping was finished a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been in full swing making 100 cards, 20 gift boxes plus tags and wrapping paper. So I’ll start today with the projects we made in class a couple of weeks ago, featuring the Tags ‘til Christmas stamp set. I wanted to demonstrate to the ladies that the set doesn’t just have to be used to create gift tags.

We used the Holly Berry Bouquet DSP and a colour palette of Real Red, Wild Wasabi and Chocolate Chip. The first project was a Christmas Pudding treat pouch.

It’s a simple 5-sided box inside made from Chocolate Chip cardstock and sandwiched between two puddings, which were circles cut from Chocolate Chip cardstock, embossed using the polka dot embossing folder and decorated with ‘icing’ which was cut using the scalloped circle die. The holly was made using the large oval punch and 3/4” circle punch. The sentiment, taken from Tags ‘til Christmas, was coloured using markers and stamped onto Whisper White cardstock. It was then layered on to a scalloped square punched from Holly Berry Bouquet DSP. The handle is a length of Real Red satin ribbon, secured with two mini brads.

The second project was a design I found whilst browsing google images, there are a number of variants out there, but I CASEd this one from Cindy Lawrence.

The card has a blushing bride base, with a Whisper White beard embossed with the Vintage Wallpaper EF. His moustache is made using two birds from the bird builder punch.

I used a side plate as a template for the curvature of his hat. I’ve added a line of dazzling diamonds around his hat using tombow. The holly was again created using the oval and 3/4” circle punches and I completed the design with the sentiment from Tags ‘til Christmas, stamped onto Real Red cardstock using Whisper White ink and punched out using the curly label punch. The nose is punched from blushing bride cardstock using the small oval punch and his eyes punched using the various small circle punches from Whisper White, Marina Mist and Basic Black.

The third project was borrowed from my lovely friend Val Moody. It’s a gift box made from Wild Wasabi cardstock using the petal cone die. Decorated with a belly band made from Chocolate Chip cardstock, Holly Berry Bouquet DSP and Real Red grosgrain ribbon. The tag from Tags ‘til Christmas was coloured using markers, stamped onto Whisper White cardstock and punched using the decorative label punch, then attached to the belly band using dimensionals.

The snowman ornament card was made using the snowman tag stamp, selectively coloured using markers and then layered in a treat cup. The branch is from Lovely as a Tree, and the sentiment from Season of Joy.

And finally the gift card holder, which is always a useful project to have on hand at this time of year! I CASEd this design by Heather Summers, and adjusted the measurements slightly for UK card stock, then adjusted the colour scheme.

Well, that was one mammoth post! I’ll be back tomorrow with some photos of the gift boxes which I’ve been making. Until then