Posts Tagged ‘dsp’

Today is my sweet baby girl’s 11th birthday!  Hard to believe it was 11 years ago that Miss Emily came into the world – and in a hurry too I might add!! Just over 2 hours labour – eeeeek!  It all seems like yesterday – well ok maybe not yesterday but not that long ago!

Emily has always loved the Garden Whimsy stamp set so I went straight for that set to create her card.

When I had the thought of those butterflies I thought them flying through the grass would be a nice effect and I thought what better stamp for grass than the one from Inspired by Nature.  I added a bit of sponging for the grass and added some sponged clouds using the scallop circle punch.

As I had a Stamp A Stack here yesterday I gave hubby the task of doing birthday shopping – brave I know!  He did quite well and just goes to prove he can buy birthday presents after all!

It was then my task last night to create the gift bag to fit the presents in.  I found a tutorial by the lovely Makeesha and just did some tweaking with the measurements to fit the presents in. So two sheets of Sweet Always Designer Series Paper and some ribbon later and we have a bag for the presents!

I just stamped some more butterflies, cut them out and popped them on and whallah

I hope she has a wonderful day today as she’s going to bed early tonight after one of her friends slept over last night … well not sure they actually slept so maybe we should call it a giggle-over!!

Sorry for my absence – I’ve had the lovely Tanya Kitto visit me for a few days so we spent alot of time chatting, laughing and creating.  It was wonderful to finally meet in person and to spend some stamping time with her. Thanks to Robby and the kids for letting her come all this way for a few days.

Just before Tanya arrived I came across these gorgeous little bags using the Scalloped Envelope Die and the booful Big Shot.

I found a video tutorial on Chic n Scratch and just followed that … they are so super easy to make.  They are going to make an awesome make n take for my Open House on 17th September – so mark that date in your diary!

With Tanya visiting we had a couple of friends come along for a ‘play date’ as they knew Tanya as well and wanted to meet her in person. So I showed them how to make these delightful bags and this is the one we made.

Here is a close up of a couple of the bags showing the greeting – oh look its a set from a previous Mini thats going to be in the new 2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalogue (which my copy arrived today and its just delishamon!)

Arent these bags just the cutest little things??  They are even better when they come with a Mint Pattie or Golden Rough inside and they happen to fit perfectly!  You can also fit in two Freddo Frogs or several little Chocolate Eclairs – yummo!

Welcome to the ESAD Christmas in July Blog hop!!

I do hope you’ve come prepared for a wonderful ‘Christmas’ journey so if you havent got your cuppa and some biscuits you’d better go get some now … I’ll wait till you get back to continue.

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators and it is an online group just for Australian and New Zealand demonstrators for Stampin’ Up!®

We so love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors but we share our love for what we do with each other as Demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know how and cyberstamps and we are always there to help and support each other when its needed. There is also the online chat networking that is available whenever youre online.

So if you are a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group.

You should have come here from Clare’s blog but if you havent dont worry … just keep hopping until you get back to me.

Now, like all good bloggers, we all LOVE comments so please be sure to leave us a comment as we just thrive on them!

I have had one of these Simply Scrappin’ “I Wish” kits for eons – maybe even last Christmas and I hadnt pulled it out to use so I thought I’d better take this opportunity and use it before its retired.

Here is what I created ….

We have ….

• A Christmas planner
• A Gift box with toffees inside
• A Gift Bag
• 6 Christmas Cards with matching Envelopes
• 8 Christmas Tags

Now all of these things I made with just half of one of the kits – oh and I had quite a bit left over that I didnt use including adhesive die cuts, cardstock and patterned paper.

So I could still make a bundle more cards, tags and even a scrapbook layout if I wanted to – or I might even dress up a canvas for the Grannies for Christmas.  So just imagine how much you could make with a full kit!

The Christmas Planner

I love the idea of these planners so when I was making projects for this blog hop I thought I’d love to make one of these so I went looking online for ideas and maybe a tutorial.

After spending half a day (I kid you not!) of looking and not really finding what I wanted I sat down and decided to design one myself!  So I did and I love how it turned out!

The Planner takes one sheet of 12×12 cardstock to create then I’ve just added pieces of the Designer Series Paper and adhesive die cuts from the kit to decorate it.  Easy!

Here are a couple of shots inside the planner ….

Then we have the cards ….

These cards were actually made using the Stampin’ Up!® Notecards.  Using the Notecards made them so quick and easy to put together and they come with envelopes so I just stamped some snowflakes from the Snow Swirled Stamp Set and I was done! Easy!

A Box for the special someone with the sweet tooth!

How cute is this box?  These Acetate boxes are so easy to make and you can put anything in them from toffees to candles!  Oh if you are buying someone a gift card you could pop that inside and then fill it up with toffees or Werther’s Caramel Chocolates – now I did buy a bag of those but they umm disappeared … well one does have to do quality control do they not?? I do know that hubby took two of them – the hide of some people!

A Gift bag …..

How nice is this little bag?  Now you could put just about anything in here too … a CD, stamp set, punch, set of car keys, toy car even (being a replica of the new one in the drive-way maybe? please Santa???)

Not forgetting … the gift tags ….

Now these were fun to make and I will probably make a few more – but how cute is that Penguin??  I do so love Penguins   I’ve been eyeing off this Punch Pals set for a couple of years now and thought why not?? My customers need new stamps for their Christmas Stamp A Stacks!

Wow .. .I apologise this post is so long!  I didnt mean for it to be so if you’ve got this far I thank you from the bottom of my Christmas heart!  It does happen to be my favourite holiday and its a shame its all over so quickly.

Now before I go I do have to tell you that if you do happen to see those Werther’s Caramels to grab one bag for you and one bag for me cos they are D-I-V-I-N-E!

Now that you have got this far its time to hop onto the next ESAD Blogger in the Blog hop being the gorgeous Gardenia Pepworth

Now dont forget to leave everyone a comment

I’ve had a few birthdays the last few weeks and wanted to use my Tote-ally Tess stamp set.

After deliberating for what seemed like hours (which was really about 20 minutes or so) on what papers to use I finally gave in and went with the gorgeous Cottage Wall Designer Series Papers.

As much as I love the Tote-ally Tess set and ‘had’ to have her I’ve struggled to use her in cards.  So I’m challenging myself  to use Tess more so I hope you will see a few different “Tess” cards over the next few weeks.

Why dont you make a card with Tess too and pop a comment with the link to your blog post or online gallery?

This one is simply a “Birthday Tess” carrying a little cupcake. Looking at the card now I could have added a little gift bag as well – I might even still do that and send through a photo once its done.

Recipe:

Stamps: Tote-ally Tess, Short and Sweet
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Orchid Opulence, Whisper White, Cottage Wall DSP
Inks: Basic Black, Rich Razzleberry, So Saffron, More Mustard, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Ridinghood Red, Going Gray.
Accessories: Big Shot, Lots of Tags sizzlits, White Taffeta Ribbon, Aqua Painter, Stampin Dimensionals, Snail Adhesive, Mini Glue dots.

One of my favourite ways to colour is to use my Aqua Painter and the ink pads to water colour and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Certainly Celery top went with the Rich Razzleberry pants. 

So who’s for a cupcake?

I could go one right about now!  Why not treat yourself to one today and why not grab a Latte at the same time to wash it all down! In honour of all the birthdays we’ve had lately of course

Hello and welcome to another Sketchy Saturday!

My apologies for posting late (sorry Carol) we had a spanner thrown in the works last night with a call to let us know that an ambulance had been called for my Mother in Law.  She has had a bad cold and ended up with chest pains last night so everything was just dropped while we attended to her.

Here is this week’s sketch from the lovely Carol.

Diagonals?  What am I supposed to do with that?  So as I do I deliberated and deliberated and then …. I deliberated some more!

Then it dawned on me … pockets.

I have quite a bit of Designer Series Paper that I need to use over the next 2 months so I tried to think what paper I havent used for a while and I grabbed my Candy Lane Papers.  You dont see these pack used so much and I think its really lovely – or maybe I just dont go to the right blogs!

Here is what I came up with …

I’ve modelled this card on the Diagonal Pocket card but I’ve just used it for the pockets on the front so only used 1/3 sheet of 12×12 for the front pockets instead of using the whole  sheet as in the tutorial.  I’ve also added a bit of elegance using the Eyelet Border Punch on a piece of Very Vanilla.

Now here’s the card showing the insert.

I couldnt go past doing my “Latte Stack” on the tag with my gorgeous “Share A Cup” stamp.

I’ve left the tag mainly blank so you can put a little note or even attach a gift card for your favourite Coffee Place like Gloria Jeans or The Coffee Club.

Here is the inside of the card for you to write a message to your friend

Now I’ve added the Eyelet Border egde again with some of the stripes from the Candy Lane Designer Series Paper pack for continuation from the front.

Now I could have put another tag in the top pocket but after grabbing my little Pun Fun Latte stamp I thought what better than to put in a sachet for a Latte.  Its a nice way to say hello to a friend and give them a cuppa

I do hope you like what I made for this sketch and now all I have to do is to find someone to send it to!  Maybe you??

Now its time for you to skip along to the next Designing Diva being the loverly Ruthie Burkey so pop over to Ruthie’s blog and see what she has created for this week’s sketch challenge

Thanks for stoppin by

Hello!  I do hope you are having a lovely weekend and if you live in the same country as I do are keeping warm! It was a rather chilly Saturday today!

Firstly my apologies for being so late with my cards today (hope Carol forgives me but I did make two!)

Here is this week’s sketch – a bit of a doozy and I do think Carol had one of those “this will fix them” moments!

I really struggled with this at first and started working on a card and then half way through it decided to scrap that one and go another direction.  So I do hope you like what I’ve come up with today.

This is the first card I came up with …

I wanted to make a card that would fit in with next month’s promotion but I’m not telling you what the promotion is so maybe you can work it out from my card – and maybe not!!  You’ll just have to wait till Thursday to see if you are right

Its that diagonal bit that threw me with the sketch so once I got over that I was fine.

I do love the Cottage Wall Designer Series Papers and the Cottage Garden stamp set. We are so blessed to be the only ones to have the Cottage Garden Stamp set as it is only available in Australia and New Zealand – so we really are the lucky country are we not?

Now as I was making this above card my mind was wondering and drifted over to the lovely Bella Bleu papers and the Echoes of Kindness Hostess set and this is what I came up with …

I do love the saying in this stamp set – and I just love the colours in the Bella Bleu Papers – I am so going to miss them when they retire at the end of August.

I do hope you like my cards today and its not time to pop along to the next Designing Diva and today its the lovely Tammy Fite

With my business I like to have a Financial year diary each year so its easier to file with my Taxation records. Now being a crafter I like my ‘tools’  to be nice and bright and cheery.

If you have ever looked for a Financial Year diary have you ever noticed just how drab and boring they are? Well I suppose there is such a big choice – you can have black, black or umm black!

I always go to Big W and look there first as they are just so affordable and looking at the ones they had last week we worked out (yes I was shopping with hubby) that we could remove the insert and I could then undo the binding, make a new cover and then re-do the binding.

Once I pulled the diary out it I wondered if our spiral punch would fit the binding.

Lo and behold it did!!

So now instead of having to undo the binding, make a new cover and then redoing the binding all I have done is cut a piece of Designer Series Paper the size of the pages in the diary and use the spiral punch down one side.

To give it a little more protection I added a sheet of Acetate over the piece of Designer Series Paper again by cutting it to the size of the pages of the diary and using the Spiral punch and slotting it into the binding.

Now since uploading this post I’ve found out about the latest Challenge over at Just Add Ink. Just Add Ink is a blog run by a couple of fellow Aussie demonstrators with a new challenge each week and this week’s challenge is to ‘Just Add Patterned Paper’ and think my diary fits the challenge.

Now when I need a change or the Designer Series paper becomes a little tatty or retired I can just slot in a new piece of DSP and its just like having a new diary!

Its Saturday so its time for another Utah Diva’s Sketch Challenge from the lovely Carol.

Today’s is a little different as I’ve combined another challenge in the same card – a colour challenge from Inkspirations4U!

So I thought the title for today’s post is fitting as not only am I sharing two challenges in one card but I’m also using the very cute ‘Share A Cup’ a la carte stamp from the Autumn-Winter Mini Catalogue.

Here’s the colour challenge from Inkspirations4U …

My card was inspired by some gorgeous little cards that the lovely Bonnie Thurber (the Stamp Whisperer herself!) demonstrated.

Here is my card ….

I wasnt sure about the colours at first but then when I put them together I really like them!  I think they’d be great for boy birthdays too

I love this little stamp – it was so nice of Stampin Up! to make a stamp just for me dont you think? and then to make an actual mug with the image on it just so I could get one at the Manager’s Reception before Convention this year. So very thoughtful!

I hope you like this card as I did enjoy making it – well after I got those cups to sit right!

One definitely needs the Stamp-a-majig and a post it note for this card!

Now its time for you to skip along to the next Diva in the Saturday Sketch Design Team being the very lovely Maxine Conrad and see what she’s done with Carol’s sketch.

Have a great ‘rest’ of the Weekend!

Last week I did a workshop for some lovely ladies from my Church and as part of the Workshop I demonstrated the Simply Scrappin kits using the gorgeous Love Sparkles Simply Scrappin Kit.

I love this kit and all the elements it has and the colours and the papers – its just gorgeous! Especially for anyone doing scrapbook pages for little girls and one of my favourite little girls is my gorgeous Emily!

Emily has a huge love for anything little and particularly little furry things!

You should see her Littlest Pet Shop collection – I’m sure we have more here than you’d find in the local Toys R Us!  or Uncle Pete’s store!

Everything you see here has come from the kit – well except for the photo. The paper, cardstock, adhesive die-cuts and decorative strip were all in the kit

This is a very simple and easy 6×6 layout to do using the Simply Scrappin kit -  and it probably took 5 minutes to create.

The hardest part was working out what photo to use!

I hope you like this little layout … it was fun to make and you could get these kits to show your kids how to scrapbook too!  Its a great way to get them started!

Have a wonderful long weekend!

Good Morning and what a chilly one it is here in Sydney!  Its 9am and it hasnt even got to 8C (50F) yet!  Its times like these you thank God for giving people the brains to invent things like gas heaters!

Its Saturday again so that means another Utah Divas International Sketch from the lovely Carol.

Now it wasnt until after I’d finished my card that I realise that maybe this one was supposed to be rotated into a landscape card going on the way the bow is but hey I always change something right?

Here is my card ….

I thought too with our Deals of the Week I’d use some of the Haiku DSP in my card.

Recipe
Stamps: Asian Artistry
Paper: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Haiku DSP
Inks: Jet Black Stazon, So Saffron, More Mustard, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Always Artichoke
Accessories: Aqua Painter, Apricot Appeal Grosgrain Ribbon

I’ve had this paper for a little while and not used it so I thought that this was the perfect opportunity!

It also goes so well with the lovely Asian Artistry Hostess Set which I’ve been wanting for a while.

Dont forget this week’s deals finish on Tuesday night so if you want some of the following Designer Series Papers please be sure to ring me before Tuesday to place your order.

Now its time to skip along to the next Designing Diva being the lovely Max and see what she has created using this great sketch.