New Autumn Winter Mini Sneak Peeks

I am still loving the Summer mini which finishes on the 31st March, but of course, I've found plenty to love in the new Autumn Winter 2012 Mini which starts on the 1st April!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks to whet your appetite - can you identify the new products?

last days for the Spring Mini and Sale a Bration!

Hello!  What has everyone been up to lately?  It is the last day of Term 1 for the kids tomorrow and I am so ready for the break from school!

I have been trying to scrap a few of our holiday photos - and realised the Nautical themed set The Open Sea and it's matching DSP "Nautical Expedition" in the current Mini were perfect for scrapping our Cruise.

This is an 8 x 8 " page, made with:
Paper:  Confetti cream card stock, Very Vanilla Cardstock
Stamps:  The Open Sea (Mini); Letter It (alphabet stamp set)
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Real Red, Night of Navy
Other:  Decorative Label Punch, dimensionals, paper snips, SNAIL adhesive

12 x 12 " page
It needs a title - I am not happy with this yet!
Paper:  Crumb Cake card stock, Nautical Expedition DSP (Mini) Riding Hood Red card stock, Very Vanilla card stock;
Ink:  Night of Navy, Riding Hood Red
Stamps:  The Open Sea (Mini);
Other:  Circle punches, twine, paper snips, dimensionals

 Here are these products in the Mini catalogue - I've also used them heaps for masculine projects.  And did you see the baker's twine?  Gorgeous!

A quick gift

Looky at this cute pack of gift tags I made recently; so easy with the Two Tags Bigz die and the Big Shot! The flower is from Button Buddies - it fits the scallop circle punch beautifully. Then I just decorated a topper for the bag with the Top Note die. Big Shot to the rescue again!

Gorgeous Blogger Award

The very gorgeous Leah from Stampin' With Leah has given me a Gorgeous Blogger Award!  Isn't she kind?

To receive this award there are a couple of things I must do -

1.  Thank the person who gave me this award - 

Thank you, very much!  Lovely Leah

2.  Paste the award to my blog -

Done!

3.  Link the person who nominated you for this award - 

Done!

4.  Nominate as many other bloggers for this award as you like, and post links to their blogs

So I am very happy to pass this award onto

Jan McAnulty - Card Capers With Jan

Bec O'Gorman -   Heart and Craft

Amy Waters  - Be Creative With Amy

Congratulations girls!  If you haven't already, go and check out their blogs.

Everything's Coming Up...Rosettes?

Have you noticed the paper rosette trend everywhere?  Maybe you call them accordion-fold pinwheels, or, I'm informed, Lollies?

Whatever you call them, they are easy to make, add a punch of dimension and colour, and are fun to make.

Here are a couple of gorgeous examples from the internet:

Isn't this a pretty way to wrap a present?  From Style Me Pretty

A Stampin' Up! Scrapbook Page (from the US website)

What a beautiful Christmas Wreath!  From My Groovy Stampin' Up! Blog

These paper rosettes are pretty simple to construct - you probably made them in primary school.  You simply take a strip of paper or card stock, score it every 1cm, or 1/2 inch, and fold it, accordion style before adhering both ends together to form a circle.

You'll be seeing them a lot more soon....we will be getting the Stampin' Up! Simply Scored tool in our next Mini Catalogue (Autumn-Winter) in April!  I was able to pre-order it and have a play.

If you have a stash of these rosettes handy, it is was to whip up a card at a moment's notice.  here I used some of the Letters to Santa DSP (not too Christmassy!), punched out a scalloped circle and 13/8" circle with my punches, and added one of the big buttons with baker's twine (both the baker's twine and button are in the current Mini which finishes at the end of this month).  The sentiment is from Perfectly Penned.  I also punched one edge of the DSP with the Eyelet border punch before adhering it.

Here was a quick card made with left over pieces from a Christmas Card class !  The present is wrapped with my usual recycled brown packing paper from my SU! orders, and tied with baker's twine

I am about to do some more playing with my pre-ordered products, because I need to come up with some projects for our Mini Launch on the 22nd April.

Here is the flyer for our launch:

I hope you can make it!

Pennant Party

I had a workshop in the home of my lovely customer Sarah yesterday, and she asked for a birthday card as the Make and Take project, because, like most of us, her children often have a friend's party to go to on weekends, and it is always good to have a stash of a few.

This got me thinking about birthday parties in general, and I had a lot of fun coming up with a Party hat, thank you card, lolly bag, box, place card, cupcake topper and cup that co-ordinated using Stampin' Up! products.

I used the Top Note die for the lolly bag and place card, the little turtle is from Fox & Friends, and the colours are Wild Wasabi and the Just Add Cake DSP.  The idea was that each set would be in a different colour with a different animal - even very small children would know their own cup that way.

While browsing the web I came across a fabulous blog called Oh Happy Day which was generous enough to have a free template for DIY Party Hats!  How cool is that?

Here is a closer look at the party hat - the decoration at the top is just strips of DSP curled around a pen.

Here is the make and take project we all mad, featuring the petite pennants builder punch, and a stamp set you can earn for free during Sale a Bration called Outlined Occasions:

"Celebrate" was stamped in black stayzon ink, and coloured with markers.

While I was on a roll, I made a few more cards with this versatile punch:

I used the Party this Way stamp set for the "happy birthday" sentiment; and the co-ordinating  Pennant Parade stamp set, with the white gell pen for a faux "string".

I used some of the chunky glitter from the Idea Book & Catalogue.  Fun, isn't it?

Anyway, I thought I'd show you some fairly simple designs you can whip up quickly so you are never caught out when your child says "Muuuum!  I need a card for so-and-so's birthday!"

In fact, this project was timely for me as two of my children went to parties on the weekend!  I managed to remember to photograph one of the cards before we raced off:

I should have used the Stamp-a-majig to place the "happy birthday" a little bit to the right, but I was late as usual and thought the sweet 9 year old boy it was intended for might not notice!

Sale a Bration and the Summer Mini will both end at the end of March, and I still have some vacancies for workshops next month.   Be sure to let me know if you'd like to earn free products! 

Late, but not too late to Sale-a-Brate!

To learn more, click on the Sale a Bration picture on my sidebar on the right, it leads to a PDF of the brochure so you can see the gorgeous products you can earn for FREE!

Get onto it, people!  You know it makes sense.