Got to Love Holidays

Wow it has been so long since my last post. We had a fantastic Christmas and New Years and we are all enjoying our family holiday at Port Stephens! I have come back to Sydney for a day to see my Orthodontist and then going back up. Our holiday doesn't end until the 24th of January.
The first week we were away it rained all day every day which although didn't stop the kids from swimming was starting to do my head in. Once the sun came out it felt like we were actually on Summer holidays.
We have had a wonderful time swimming, playing on the beach, fishing and skiing. I don't actually like going fishing but I did have a go of water skiing, my first in many years. I surprised myself and got up on the second attempt but my poor old body isn't what it used to be and I have had to have a few visits to the physio after pulling the muscles in my shoulder. Looks like I have to spend the rest of my holiday relaxing and sipping cocktails!!! What a terrible outcome (ha, ha).
I have decided not to take any stamping products away with me this year and although I have had a few days of withdrawl it has been a nice break.
Take care and enjoy the rest of the holidays and I am looking forward to our classes returning and catching up with everyone.

Bad Blogger

I have been a bad bad blogger of late. I really don't like wishing time away but I am really looking forward to the day after Boxing Day. I will then be officially on holidays in Port Stephens for a month of R & R.
The past two weeks have been flat out with my customer Christmas Party last Tuesday night and then the Stampin' Up! team that I am lucky enough to be part of on Friday night both at my house. They were both fantastic nights and I totally enjoyed both parties. I also did a workshop on the Thursday night.
I have my son's Year 10 formal tonight which I still can't believe he isn't in Year 7 anymore, where did those years go.
As usual I am running behind schedule and still need to make my own Christmas cards which I will hopefully get done along with my tax return this weekend. Luckily I don't have any overseas ones to send or they would be more like Valentines cards. I am hoping that I have a stash of cards somewhere I have forgotten about that will get me out of trouble.
I am hoping to get a few more posts done in the next week or so but I won't promise anything.
Perhaps while I am laying around sipping cocktails over the holidays I can get some work done for next year so I can at least start the year ahead of myself.
Back soon hopefully!!!!!

Summer Mini Is Live!!

Finally the Summer Mini is active and you can now see all the fantastic goodies available. You can never have enough gift tags on hand and these gorgeous little card holders are ideal to store them in.

The blue folder is made from Tempting Turquise and matching paper. The cards use Tempting Turquise and Green Galore card stock and the co-ordinating papers. The words are from Short & Sweet and of course I have added bling with Dazzling Diamonds. The punches are the new 1 3/4" circle punch, Word Window, Full Heart and Scallop Edge. Two of the cards have some faux stitching added as a highlight.

The yellow folder is made from Barely Banana card and matching paper. The cards use Pixie Pink and Barely Banana card stock with co-ordinating papers. The words are from Short & Sweet and Best Yet Hostess Set. The punches used are 1 3/4" circle, 1 3/8" circle, 1 1/4" circle and the Full Heart. Once again I couldn't resist adding a little Dazzling Diamonds.

If you missed the Blog Hop yesterday, you can still take a look at the fantastic creations. Just follow the links in my post from yesterday.

I would love to hear what you think so please take time to leave a comment.

Bring On Summer!!!

Welcome to the Stampers Anonymous SU Blog Tour! You many have just come from Jennifer's blog, but if you are starting here, don't worry....you can make the complete circuit just by following the links at the end of each post. There are 14 stops along the way and we hope you will visit each one to see the gorgeous creations we have to show you!

For our first tour we decided to showcase the beautiful new products in the Summer Mini, available from December 1st. At the end of each post there will be a link to take you to the next stop on the tour. Feel free to "share the love" and leave a comment! So sit back, relax and enjoy!

I was drawn to the freshness of the Kaleidoscope Designer Series Papers. After winter it was nice to see such vibrant colours. I also loved the quirkiness of the Sweet Treat Cups.

The photo's don't do the colours justice, not sure if it is the camera or the photographer - but hope you enjoy these!!

CARD:

Kaleidoscope Papers (Mini)
Tempting Turquise & Gable Green card
Tempting Turquise ink
Large Oval Punch
1 - 3/4" Circle Punch (Mini)
Sweet Treat Cups (Mini)
Sponge Daubers
Trendy Trees (words)
Jelly Beans - one for the card - two for me!

GIFT BAG:
Kaliedoscope Papers (Mini)
Tempting Turquise & Gable Green cardstock
Butterfly Punch (Mini)
Scallop Edge Punch
1 -3/4" Circle Punch (Mini)
Crop-A-Dile
Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon

I hope you enjoy these creations and you will visit again over the next few days to see more projects.

Well that's it from me. Now your off to enjoy the wonderful creations of Robyn. Thanks for stopping by.

Blog Hop Countdown

I have some exciting news! On November 30th I will taking part in my first Blog Hop along with some other very talented ladies from the Stampin' Up! team I am part of. 14 of us will be show casing the wonderful new products in the Summer Mini that goes live on 1st December.

What is a Blog Hop? Just check into my site on November 30th from 8pm. You will be able to "hop" from one blog to another until you are back to where you started. You are sure to see some fabulous creations so don't miss it.

Tree Trimmings

It is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Can you believe how quickly Christmas is coming around. I would like to have at least another month up my sleeve but haven't been able to find that magic time reversal switch anywhere.

Sticking to my plan of using sets I haven't used much I started this card with one of the flourishes from Frames With a Flourish - page 100. I can't believe that I haven't used this set much and will definately be using it more in the future. Thats what happens when you are addicted like me and have to have everything you like straight away - it takes too long to get around to using everything. One day I might learn, but who am I kidding!

The Baubles are from Tree Trimmings on page 21 of the Spring Mini and the phrase is from Best Yet which is one of the gorgeous Level 1 Hostess sets. I have used the Large Oval and Scallop Oval punch to mount the words. The Scallop Oval is also in the Spring Mini and you don't have much time left to make sure you get one of these. The catalogue runs out on the 30th November so get in quick.

The paper is from the Ski Slope Designer Series paper also in the Spring Mini. This is aimed at Christmas but there are several sheets that could be used all year round so if you like these papers grab a few packs before the end of November - once there gone, there gone!

The colours in this card are Real Red, Old Olive and Whisper White.

Crayon Resist

This weeks class was created due to a request from one of the lovely ladies that comes along every week. We did a card using the Crayon Resist technique. This is another technique I had seen many times but not done so I really enjoyed trying out different things.

I am also on a mission to use some of the many stamp sets I had to have but haven't used much or at all. I experiemented with a few sets but I settled on Seaside from page 89 of the catalogue. This is another set I purchased with male cards in mind, although it can be flexible.

Keeping with an ocean theme, I used Not Quite Navy, Sage Shadow and Whisper White. The words are from Fifth Avenue Floral.

The extra shell was tied on with some Hemp Twine which adds to the manly feel.

Wokshop Tags

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a lovely group of ladies at a workshop that I held. One of the ladies came along to the Stampin' Up! stand at the Stitches & Craft Show so it was great to catch up again.
They wanted to do some gift tags and with the potential of being a large group I thought the Fun & Fast Notes set from page 50 was a great option. This set covers so many occassions and with 8 stamps it is great value and allowed everyone to have something to go on with.
I used Bold Bright card stock and to add some colour we used the Bold Brights markers. The group got to try a little Faux Stitching, Dry Embossing, Crystal Effects, and Dazzling Diamonds.
In order to keep these great little cards together, they also made a Wallet using Whisper White and Lovely Lilac. The wallet was embellished using the Scallop Edge, Scallop Circle and two of the Circle punches and of course some more Dazzling Diamonds.

If you would like to earn some FREE products - and lets face it we all love something for FREE, why not book a workshop. Get a group of friends together and have some fun.

Faux Tiling

Faux tiling is a technique that I have seen done many times but hadn't done myself. I just kept forgetting to give it a go. When I started this card I just thought "kitchen" and I just had to use one of my favourite sets - Voila! I think the Chef is soooo cute and a lot of fun.

I used Bashful Blue and Pacific Point and Glossy White Card Stock. The patterns on the "tiles" are from Circle Circus. We used the Blender Pens to colour the Chef and he is mounted using Dimensionals.

As an added technique to this card we did a "pop-up" message on the inside of the card. Using the Glossy stock gives a look of actual tiles when the light reflects on the card.

The other card made in this class was Male orientated. I always find it hard to make male cards but the Sense of Time set from the Spring Mini is great. The phrases in this set are some of my favourites. The Spring Mini runs out at the end of November so if there is anything in this catalogue that you want or should I say need, let me know and I can order it for you.

The cardstock is Chocolate Chip, Ballet Blue and Very Vanilla. To give it a rough, masculine look I used the distresser on the Cutter Kit from page 155. The Chocolate Chip brad is from the smaller of the Jumbo Brads Neutrals Assortment on page 10 of the Spring Mini. I double stamped the clock and with the 1" circle, punched out the second counter and mounted this with Dimensionals. It doesn't come up in the photo but I used the mechanism stamp from the set and versamark to create a watermark effect on the base card.

Blog Breakdown

I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted! There has been so many days where I've thought I have to take some photo's and post them but then some little thing called "life" has stepped in and those spare minutes have vanished right before my eyes. So today I got the kids off to school, got out the camera, took some photos and now I am sitting with a cup of tea, my memory card and nothing is going to interupt me. Over the next few days I will show you some of the things we have been doing in classes and I will try and be a little more regular with my postings.

A few weeks ago we made these cute little gift cards using Christmas Classics from page 32 and Spotlight on Christmas from page 28 of the Catalogue. There are 4 cards in the pack, two of each design. The second card of each design was done in reverse colours. We used Riding Hood Red, Old Olive and Whisper White. We added some Riding Hood Red Ribbon and Dazzling Diamonds to dress them up and created a little gift bag so that they could be given as a gift or kept for some special presents at Christmas time.