You had grand plans in July to make cards for all your loved ones, family and friends and now you’re thinking that perhaps you may have left it a little late for the grand production number that you had sketched out in your head.  Okay, now it’s time to spring into action to make something simple, stylish and Christmassy.  How’s this for an idea ~

It’s pretty simple, but it lets you know it’s Christmas.  I’ve cut Riding Hood Red A4 length-ways with the fold at the top (so when it’s hanging up on those Christmas card-string-things it’s the right way up and everyone can see it and go “ooooh” ). I’ve then stamped it with the wonderful-oh-how-I-love-it ’En Francais’ background stamp and sponged the edges. A strip of DS Riding Hood Red Paper (with 6 patterns on 12 sheets, both sides can be used and there will be some variety amongst your cards too!) and then a Rudolph from ‘Winter Post’ punched out with the 1⅜” circle punch and layered on a Kiwi Kiss Scallop-punched circle.  Stick it all down, pop it up on dimensionals and voilà! ~ you have a Christmas card.  Very easy to replicate mass-production style, if you so desire. Swap the colours over for Baja Breeze, add some twinkling Dazzling diamonds for another option.

Come and join me at the Endeavour Hills Neighbourhood centre this Saturday to Stamp-a-Stack of  Christmas cards (1-4pm) or at Chelsea Heights Community Centre on Sunday (1-3pm) to make a card with a difference – Contact me & let me know you’re coming and I’ll have a kit all ready for you.

Hope to see you there,

Michelle

These are some of the little prizes/gifts/ thank yous I took to the workshop on the weekend. A 2-4-6-8 box (or if you’re metric 5-10-15-20) filled with lollies (not in this picture, I think I was still deciding if I would rather eat them first ), a mini pizza box with four 3″ x3″ gift cards and a little cube called a ‘Sevens Box” (thank Marelle for the wonderful idea) filled with Caramel Eclairs (peeking out through the hole framed with the oval scallop punch ~ oh my I love that punch! The Sevens Box was won by Ailisa who was going to hide a Pandora Bead in it for her daughter’s birthday that they were celebrating that night.  I hope she got a lovely surprise!

The colours here are So Saffron and Riding Hood Red and a touch of Pumpkin Pie. They were all very simple and easy to make and it’s always so much more fun if you’re making them for someone else.  Why don’t you try one today?

Till next time,

Michelle

My mum came down to join me at a workshop that an old nursing friend of hers was hosting.  It was such a lovely day and the chatter went on until the dinner guests arrived (that’s a hint that it’s time to go!).  This group of ladies had some very old hands at card making and a couple of ladies who had never done any stamping at all.  The nice thing is watching every one chatting and sharing.  Oh, and the cakes . . they were pretty special too! yummmmm

As the new Mini has just been released (have you got a copy yet? Email me with your details and I’ll shoot one off in the post for you) I decided that we should play with all those gorgeous goodies.  Forest Friends, or Bambi & Co, I like to call it

Now as much as that looks like Tempting Turquoise, it’s really Bashful Blue.  That’s what happens when you play with the image software trying to get your whites whiter than white. Originally, I’d taken my colour inspiration from the Washington Apple DS paper.  Mind you, I think that I would  like a Bold Brights version of this card! Hmph! You never know where colour inspiration will hit.  Speaking of which, I’ve shown you my “A-Ha!” book haven’t I? No, it’s not a book about a Norwegian band, it’s the place I put all my colour inspirations ~ like this . . . .

 . . . . then I jot down the colours to remind me what I was thinking at the time.  I had grand plans to have colour chips to stick in the book, but you can see that hasn’t happened. Onto the other sample I made using ‘Great Friends’ from the Spring Mini catalogue . . . .  .

Again, the colours have been changed in the colour adjustment, a bit like when you run a phrase through Babelfish (the translation site not the Norwegian band – no, I am not obsessed with Norwegian bands . . honestly!) The squares are the flip side of the Washington Apple DS paper used on the first card and the other colours used are: Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, Riding Hood Red.  Really, trust me, they are.

I shall go and check my colour adjuster and get back to you with some realistic colours . . .maybe . . .

Till then,

Michelle

After the news from Pamplona this weekend just gone, I thought this was quite apt ~

’nuff said.

Onto some cards n’ stuff. I mentioned that I had been making some cards for upcoming classes, so I better make good on my promise of some show n’ tell otherwise you will think that I am slacking off by just posting other peoples fun. Okay then, my first bit of fun was making my bling tin.

tin for bling

Don’tcha just hate it when you think that you’ve had an original(ish) idea and then when you’re just casually surfing the web you see that not only has someone else had it before you, they had it much more stylishly  *sigh* (hi Marelle!).  Anyhoo, before I knew I wasn’t being original, I went on my merry way and embossed my new ‘bling tin’ by first stamping the Wild West Alphabet set & Eastern Blooms  on the tin with Versamark ink and then, just to tart it up a bit, I used gold embossing powder.  I figured if it was going to house all my sparkles it would need to sparkle on the outside too! Lessons learned today ~ Lesson 1) use Embossing Buddy very liberally so that EP doesn’t stick everywhere. Lesson 2) Tin stays a lot hotter than paper for a lot longer after using the heat tool Lesson 3) Clear desk before taking photos that show the whole wide world how messy you really are (well, the couple dozen of you that I know read regularly!).

Okay, get your sunnies ready 8), the next card will be bright!  One of the cards my class will be doing next term at Chelsea Heights Community Centre will be a tri-fold card (not sure why it has that name,  it has 4 folds but I suppose as 2 of them make triangles we should  go with that ~ ok?) So here’s what will be perched on the front ~

Yes a wee blue bird – tweet! He’s a  chubby wee lad from the On Board So Tweet accents that I have covered in Versamark  ink, then Heat & Stick powder .  Once I heated it with the trusty heat tool (so it went ’stick’), I dumped it into my blue Supanova glitter so that it was super covered, then one more blast with the heat tool and voila! One very blue, very sparkly bird (I just love, love, love that glitter) .

And here he is tarted up and stuck on my trifold card ~

Bright huh? And the triangles?, I hear you ask (you didn’t? – oh well, here they come anyway) They are the part folding under the bird ~ see..? 

And I have honoured our left-handed friends today by making the ribbon tie up and the card open on the left rather than the boring old right hand side.  That’s what everyone does.

See you tomorrow with some more show and tell (no sunglasses required).

Michelle

I came across this picture while looking for a ‘proper’ hot chocolate recipe and was inspired by the colours.  If you get my newsletter, you would already know this picture. MMMMMMMMMMM Hot chocolate.  Anyway, back to the colours – I see  Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Baja Breeze and Very Vanilla. What do you see? mmmmmmmmm chocolate.  This is what I came up with ~

  I’ve used the ‘Always’ stamp set and  ’thumped’ the heart to get a few different colours, which aren’t too clear here – the 5 minutes of sunshine when this photo was taken has lightened it up a bit!  I was happy to keep some sunshine in the picture as there has been so little lately! 

For my second card  I used ‘Circle Circus’  (our ‘convention stamp set’) that didn’t quite turn out how I imagined in my head – maybe I need to turn it on it’s side , maybe less circles ~  It’s one of those ones where an ink smudge became an embellishment opportunity and I may have run with it too far… hmmm.. Maybe I need to get a hot chocolate and think about it some more… mmmmm marshmallows          I’d love to see if these colours have inspired you – if you’d like to share, please leave a comment with a link to your blog when you’ve posted it.

Oh, by the way, you can find a great hot chocolate recipee can be found at this site.  I also like to shake a little cinnamon on top with the extra chocolate ~ mmmmmmm.

Till next time ~

Michelle

Baby girl growsuit card

. . . . I thought that I would try to modify it (other than just the colour) so that it was more ‘boyish’ and suitable for a card for a ‘little man’. It was one of the cards that we did at the Chelsea Heights Community Centre workshop last Saturday and everyone really enjoyed it. And I think it’s pretty cute too!  The scraps from there the neck and legs were punched out were used for the pocket and buttons (or the bear’s face, according the Raych…..)

Dungarees in "Good Morning Sunshine'

So there was this little man in my lime tree…..  hold on, there’s another one!

I used the Urban Garden Designer Series Paper for this little fellas outfit.  I think that I will be making a whole lot more of these, they are really quick and fun to do.

Now here’s a quick hint….

Remember my convention swaps production line? Well, one of the cards had a wee greeting popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals . . .

There's actually about 65 of these little labels that have been 'dimensioned'

. .  . so that was about 130 backing sheets I needed to get off.  Have you heard about the easiest way to get those wascally bits off? Use your thumbnail and give it a crease . . . .

Like this......

and it should pop up the paper on the points, making it easier to get it off. Isay should as the only times it doesn’t work is when you’re showing someone  how good this little tip is!  You can kinda see what I was doing with the labels in the top left hand corner (you can also see where I was trying to work out how many pieces of paper I was going to get out if I cut it 4 times. As it was, I seemed to be forever cutting ‘just a few more bits of this..’ and ‘a couple more of that’ ).  There was also some crimping happening there too.  I was trying to do ribbon-look-alikes and I’d shredded the cardstock, (production line approach to cutting  a lot of long thin bits of paper) but it looked flat.  So I decided to crimp it. And here’s how you crimp a whole lot of skinny strips at once…..

They go in this way.....

..... and come out looking like this!

I love my crimper… It’s just sooooo crimpy! Okay, I think that just plain og’ making up words signals that it’s time to go to bed!  But before I go, I’ve got a few of these swaps leftover from convention ~ if you would like one, please email me with your details and I shall pop it in the post

Have a great weekend and, pending photographs, I promise another post really soon (I’ve been water-colouring this weekend!)

Take care,

Michelle

Well, it’s only about 6 more sleeps till the Stampin’ Up! convention in Canberra and I’m a little bit excited! I’ll be catching up with wonderful people who I haven’t seen since last year, some who I haven’t even met yet  that I have only ever chatted to on-line (Hi Danielle, Lin Mei and all the other INKLings ~ *waving*) and some who although we live in the same state, we just haven’t quite organised that get-together (that’s you Claire!).  It will be a great long weekend with loads of fun and great ideas.  One of the great things about convention (did I mention that it’s only 6 sleeps away?), is that before you go, you make a gazillion cards (well, maybe a 100 ish) to swap with others.  It’s a great way to get inspired by what others do & a great way to learn other techniques.  I really find it amazing to see all the different things we create with the same tools. 

 This picture here is my almost-swaps.  They are still in pieces waiting to be assembled. Once they have been assembled, they will be ready to be swapped (only 6 sleeps left till I can start swapping – but’s who’s counting?).  This one has been designed on the fly, which isn’t great if you’re trying to do something production-line style! I’m also trying to design a second card using the off-cuts off this card (especially the lovely straight strip you get from the scallop edge punch, they’re just too good to waste).  I will post pics of the finished cards..which should be some time…soon…   Well, I better get cracking and get these made..They won’t assemble themselves, you know!

Have a great weekend,

Michelle

The day for those of us not-so-religious types to have (loads) of chocolate for breakfast and no-one bats an eyelid. Mind you, I can justify chocolate at any time of the day, any day of the year!  The Easter bunny has been hippity-hopping around our place and here’s a couple of bits he delivered . Looks like the Easter Bunny has some of the new In Colours too! This little ‘Pink Pirouette’ basket has been stamped with ‘Red Riding Hood’ flowers from the Good Friend set in the new catalogue and filled with crimped and shredded PP & RRH cardstock to look like ‘grass’. I wonder if EB has a number for Jim’s Mowing – - it looks like the ‘Easter grass’ has got a little out of control there!

I have been playing with the mini-pizza boxes and thought that they would be groovy little boxes for Easter eggs too (I seem to be fresh out of mini pizzas!).  There is a great rooster in the new catalogue (he’s part of a hostess set) and I just love him! I’ve made him the guardian of all the eggs of this box ~

And as mini – pizza boxes are my new ‘thing’  (once you’ve made one, you’ll have to make 10, that’s the rules…) I made another Spring-ish/Easter themed (sort of) one.  I ‘discovered’ a new way to dye my ‘little’ pretties flower.  I wanted a really, really deep colouring and was getting frustrated that ‘painting’ the colour on didn’t seem to give me enough depth. Sooooooooo… I put the wee flower inside my SU stamp pad and closed it up and squished the lid down on the ink pad like I would to get some colour for water colouring on the lid.  Voila! An extremely Pacific-ly Point-y blue flower. It needed to be dried with the heat gun before I could use it ~ but that’s a good thing to do with any flowers that you have dyed – trust me! (hindsight is a wonderful thing!) 

 See how BLUE it is. It’s just pure colour in that little flower. A bit of ribbon and a little bit of scalloping on the belly band and there it is ~ a cute litte box of eggs (no comments about the lesser quantity of eggs between the first and second photos please.  Nobody saw anything, so you can’t prove a thing).

.Wishing you all a happy Chocolate Sunday – or should that be Sundae?

Michelle

Photobucket wants to play today, so here’s some samples that I have made up with the Fresh Cuts stamp set and Note cards.  I’ve finally had a chance to play with my new toys….

I’ve used the new In Colours Riding Hood Red & Pirouette Pink (sorry Raych, I know you don’t like red & pink together) and backed the cut out with Bashful Blue.  I’ve gone a bit bling crazy with the 2-way glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds.  The dog and I were covered in the DDs.  Not that I have a problem with that, a bit of glitter just makes people smile (not all, maybe it makes hubby go ‘grrrr’).

To try something a little different,  but very easy, I used the Fresh Cuts stamp set and embossed it in detail black on a piece of Rose Red and used that to back the cut out.  Same card, different look (not so much glitter on the pets…)

….and here’s a close up of the embossing so that you can see how fine the detail is ~

Actually you can see it in my header at the moment.. but the header could change any minute now so you could be reading this in a couple of weeks time and wonder what on earth I am talking about!

It’s Crop for Kids this weekend and I am really looking forward to a day out cropping, chatting and just spending time with mum and some friends – Are you going? If you are, have a great time & good luck in all the great raffles that they run over the day.

Back with more show and tell – but until then ~

Take care,

Michelle

I meant to mention my new header – did you notice it changed a few days ago (again)?  I’ve been trying to find the right image to have ‘up there’ so have been playing musical images. This still isn’t quite what I was after, but I was really happy with the card that this came from, so thought that it was worth giving it a run. I made  this for a friend for her birthday – I thought that the colours were very ‘her’.  

I’ve used Designer Series Paper on the background and Blue Bayou double stitched ribbon.  I had heard and read a  lot about dying flowers from the Stampin Up ‘Pretties’ Kit and thought to myself that it was too much like hard work.  But I NEEEEEEDED a Blue Bayou flower for this card to match the ribbon. Sooooo, before I knew it I was dying the flowers. SO easy, why haven’t I done this before? I actually placed the flower onto the ink pad and ‘painted’ it with an Aquabrush.  I held the centre down with, oh, I don’t know, I think it was a paint brush or pencil, or some such thing, while I  got the colour ‘up’ and onto the flower.  I was going for a darker-on-the-inside-&-lighter-on-the-outside kind of look.  I had so much fun I did it on the iddy-bitty flower too. I used dimensionals between the each of the flowers to give some lift and  attached the half pearl (from the Pretties kit too) with Mini Glue Dots.

Did you see the Bushfire Appeal total over there > > > > 

How amazing is that? Stampin’ Up! will be donating 50% of the sales of those stamp set sales until the end of March. What a great, caring company.

Till next time,

Michelle