Quilled paper beads for card embellishments!

Hi all! This week I've been playing with my quilling tool and some dsp scraps making paper beads! I started making coloured paper ones then decided to try using Stampin' Up! gold and silver foil and these worked out really well too, i did try the new red foil but it is a bit thicker than our gold/silver foil and doesn't lend itself to curling very easily so I just used some red dsp instead. I like to have a try at anything different and I like the idea that you can easily make some beads as another type of project embellishment. I did cheat on the christmas one though, the two silver round beads are bought ones but even then it's a nice idea that I can mix handmade ones and bought ones together for variety! The photo doesn't show that i lacquered my paper ones, I simply threaded them onto a wooden bbq kebab stick and took them outdoors and sprayed with a craft suitable laquer. The gold and silver cording trim in our Handmade for the Season catty is perfect for threading the beads onto! Enjoy the rest of your week..............cheers Sue :)

Stampin' Up! Christmas Cuties - Teepee Christmas cards!

Happy Monday everyone! I'm very happy to see some spring sunshine this morning instead of the cold, wet miserable "southerly" weather we've had hanging around for a week! Although lousy weather is always a good excuse to creative indoors! Just for something different I made some "teepee" cards with the new holiday stamp set "Christmas Cuties" (very aptley named). I love all three images and the sentiments too but I have to say the little angel is my favourite, it's very sweet! Have to add the ladies in my class all really liked this project too, both the stamp set and different card style, it really is a "super easy" card to make even though it looks a little complicated. Enjoy the rest of your day!..........cheers for now, Sue :)

Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalogue - some sample gifts for customers!

Morning everyone! So enjoying the "spring" weather we are having this week after a very long, cold winter! These are a couple of projects I made with the new product from the new Stampin' Up! Holiday Catty for my customers. The top one is a little gift bag I made with the Gift Bag Punch Board (with a gusset) in Mint Macaron card stock and embellished with some new DSP (Designer Series Paper) and some cute, new, red pom pom trim! I popped some chocolates and a few new embellishement samples in them for fun.

The "xmas pressie" card sample I made unfortunately was hard to photograph, but looks really cool in real life! Matter of fact most of my customers really liked it and a few have ordered the Merry Moments DSP, coloured foil cardstock and the new striped ribbon which comes as a set in red & green, it's lovely ribbon, to make more for this years' Christmas cards!

Hope everyone is having a good day! Thanks for looking.........Sue :)

Happy New Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalogue - Dove of Peace

Hi all! Happy Monday, first day of spring and Happy new Holiday Catalogue! When I first saw this stamp in the new catty it wasn't at the top of my wish list, but is now becoming a favourite! I actually did the god embossed one first (with one of the flourishes from the Everything Eleanor in the background) then for the top card I embossed it with black embossing powder onto Early Espresso cardstock and used an aqua-painter brush dipped in bleach (just normal everyday household bleach) to get this coloured effect. More bleach applied to the lighter areas of course, and less in other places. Was quite impressed how many different types of tones it came out with! Will also be creating these two cards with my classes so we can get going on our xmas projects! ......cheers for now, Sue :)

Stampin' Up! 2015 Holiday Catalogue Sneak Peek - Festive Flower

Happy Monday everyone! I spent my weekend having a play with some of this year's Stampin' Up! Holiday catalogue goodies which will be available to the public in just one weeks time! As always there are lots of new exciting products for the festive season and also happy to annouce there are quite a few "bundles" that will be available to purchase at discounted prices as well! I've been playing with a new stamp set called Reason for the Season which comes with a punch called Festive Flower Builder, which as you can see from my pics is not only useful for a beautiful, Real Red,christmas poinsettia flower or glitter flower but will be able to be used all year round for other occasions as you can see in the blue flower I created. I plan on using the red one in my classes as one of our first christmas projects to kick off the season with! Thanks for stopping by...........cheers Sue :)

Tri Shutter card with Pretty Petals DSP from Stampin' Up!

Hi all! We made this tri shutter card in one of my classes this week, thought we'd try a different type of "fold" for a change! My class are not beginners by any means and thought it would be pretty straight forward, as it turned out we were all laughing about the challenge of getting the "mountain and valley" folds right, I really did not expect it to pose any difficulty all! Anyhow all projects were completed correctly and everyone was happy with it. The Pretty Petals dsp is a great little product, it has lovely designs and come in one of the 6" x 6" pads which are perfect for cardmakers as they don't need to purchase in 12" x 12". I haven't used our owl punch for awhile and decided it was time to resurrect it, it's still so cute! The sentiments come from a new stamp set called Pretty Thankful which has alot of great sentiments in it as well as some cute, whimsy images. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, it was so nice to actually have a "warm" day today for the first time in months........thanks for looking, cheers Sue :)

Stampin' Up! Hello Life Kit other card ideas!

Hi all! Hope everyone is surviving this unusually cold winter (that's if you live in Australia that is). When the chill set in last weekend I got comfy at my craft desk with a blanket and hot water bottle! One of the projects I had a play with was my Hello Life Project Kit, I liked the kit as how Stampin' Up! presented it but wasn't keen on the colours just being black, white, silver and "Crushed Curry". So with just a few stamps and scraps (oh and some whisper white notecard bases) I made these 8 cards on no time and still have heaps of bits left to make more cards or use in scrapping etc. A good value kit I think for anyone needing some "quick, easy as" projects and the wire frame will be great for not only displaying these cards but I will be using it to display class projects as well. Thanks for looking in!......Sue :)

Stampin' Up! New catty sneak peeks 2015-16

Hi all! Well, I've just had a busy and exciting weekend getting organised for the new Stampin' Up! catalogue which begins on June 2. I was busy organizing "goodie bags" for downline and customers with some samples and examples of some of the new products being released and of course the most important thing, "the new catty"! The little sample cards are made with an exciting new set called "Sprinkles of Life" and not only does it have matching punch, Yay, it is a fundraiser set for Ronald McDonald House so for every set sold Stampin' Up! donates $3 to this worthwhile charity!

The top card I made is happy mail to wish everyone a "Happy New Catty" and is another new stamp set called "You've Got This" and I really love the positive sentiment in it that says "good things are going to happen"!

The "goodie bags" are decorated with some other new bits and pieces and samples! thanks for looking....Sue :)

Stampin' Up! Male Birthday card - Hexagon punch tiles

Here's another male card idea using the Stampin' Up! Hexagon punch that we did in one of my classes recently. Quite easy to make, just a bit fiddly at first puzzling the hexagons together before sticking them down but otherwise pretty straight forward with stamping the train image from the Traveller stamp set etc. I thought it turned out great for a male with the "hexagon tile" look, not girlie at all.....lol. Thanks for looking....cheers Sue

Stampin' Up! I Love Lace card ideas

Hi all and anyone that lives on the coast of NSW particularly the the Hunter, Central Coast and Sydney Metro areas is well aware of the devastating cyclonic weather we are experiencing today! Hope all are dry, well and safe!

Here's two cards I've made recently using the I Love Lace background stamp which i have found today in the Stampin' Up! retiring catalogue list (also just released today), so if you were thinking of purchasing this one best to get in while stocks last. I should have made more use of mine earlier but that's the way it goes! Anyway I mainly wanted to share that this stamp is brilliant when embossed and amazes me how the powder works with such very fine detail, I actually am surprised the details come up better embossed than just stamped with ink. So as I said this stamp set is actually retiring so if you want one best to get your order in!

By the way, the Perfect Peacock is not on this list so will be around for another year at least.

Take care if you are in the "cyclone zone"......cheers Sue :)

Stampin' Up! Build a Bouquet Kit & Tribute to my Molly

Hi all, I've been unfortunately "absent" from here yet again, so except to say that sometimes "life can give you lemons",so I'll get back on with it! I want to share this one first though, over the New Year holiday weekend I started to assemble the Stampin' Up! Build a Bouquet Kit and believe me this is a lovely project but not for the impatient, I can say if you're happy to take your time a do a bit at a time, then this project is for you. Also if you are a little clumsy with a heat gun, like me, a bit at a time will save you from having to go to a burns unit....lol. (This kit is available from the Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalogue until 2nd June)

Anyhow my story is I had started the project over New Year's holiday but very sadly had to put my lovely little 14 yr old dog, "Molly", to rest on January 3. So feeling very sad and quite devastated at the loss of my "fur baby" I occupied myself with finishing the bouquet and decided to dedicate it to her. In the meantime one of my dear friends (& customer, i love how customers become great friends!!) made me a beautiful "pet style sympathy card" and then my daughter and her Dad saw a little miniature statue that looked like Molly at the Paddington Markets and bought it for me! So now my bouquet, card and fake "Molly" have a place on one of my bookshelves...R.I.P. I think it's a meaningful tribute to my very special little friend.

Easy as "Male Age" Birthday Card with Stampin' Up! Big on You and Adventure Bound DSP

Here's an "easy as" male birthday card I made this week. I used one sheet of the nature themed designs from the new Adventure Bound paper stack, which is a smaller stack of designer papers not 12x12 (Actually it is a "pad" of papers roughly about 6" x 4") and just perfect for making male themed cards.....Yay! I know lots of us struggle with male card ideas and this inexpensive paper stack just made things easy as! So I just stamped on it and added a silver embossed balloon from the Celebrate Today set and "Bob's your uncle" a simple, not tizzy, male birthday card!.........cheers Sue :)

Happy New Year mail with Stampin' Up! new products!

Hope everyone has had a good week and looking forward to the weekend which is almost here! Here's a pic of some "Happy New Year" cards I made for some friends, customers and some of my downline and posted off as "happy mail" wishing all a good start to the new year. Naturally, I made them with new products from the Stampin' Up! Occasions catalogue and some freebies I received in the Sale-A-Bration catalogue. The Lotus Blossom stamp is very popular and lots of fun to stamp with, it's a new way of "3 step stamping" and I really love the sentiment in the Hello Life stamp set "do more of what makes you happy" which i think I'll adopt as a mantra this year!....lol :)

Stampin' Up! Giggle Greetings Birthday Card

Hi all and Happy New Year! I personally, am happy the silly season is over with now and can get back to a bit of "normal" life! Had my first class for this year yesterday and it was good to catch up with my wonderful group of ladies and get back to some fun creating together!

This card above I actually made some time ago, I love a bit of humour and the stamp set "Giggle Greetings" does just that, however I think I must have made it before we got our new Blendability alcohol markers because I can see I have coloured it with our Stampin' Write markers. Anyhow i think I might just make this card again and use the Blendies to compare the difference!

Meanwhile it's another exciting time of year with a new Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalogue full of new, exciting products (lots of different stuff too!) and best of all it coincides with the start of Sale-A-Bration which is full of "freebie" items to choose from with every $90 spent from either our Annual or Occasions catties! Hope everyone is having a great start to a new year!......cheers for now, Sue