Sale-A-Bration is coming

It's nearly that time of year again... Sale-A-Bration 2010 from Stampin' Up! after Christmas is all over there is something else to look forward to! Earn free stamps for spending money you were going to spend on stamping supplies any way!

There are 4 great exclusive stamp sets to choose from. Vintage Label, Whimsical Words, Happy Moments & G00d Neighbours. I've picked up Vintage Labels from our Demo Sneak Peak Pre-order. I love this versatile set of 3 frames and 3 sentiments. There's the Curly Label an Oval and Circle frames with 'For You', 'Best Wishes' or 'Happy Birthday' to stamp inside.

I've made the card above with the Curly Label stamp from this set and using the Brayer Technique of Emerging Colour to make my own background, finished off with some Whisper White Grosgrain.

So how did I make the background? You randomly stamp one or two images in 1-2 colours over a piece of Whisper White. You then stamp a larger, bold image in VersaMark clear embossing ink and emboss with clear embossing powder. Ink up your brayer in a darker colour and go across your whole sheet. Buff off the colour from the embossed parts with a piece of tissue then mount.
Done!

We made this card at tonight's paper crafter's club along with 2 others using brayer techniques.

Last Minute Christmas Gifts

There are only 17 days to Christmas and 22 days left of the Stampin' Up! November/December promotion. Download the gift giving guide on the right to take a look at what's on offer. Spend £45 in the Gift Giving Guide and receive a free tag punch!
There are some great gift ideas for Scrapbookers and Cardmakers and still enough time to get them in time for Christmas!

Just email me to place an order.

Wish List and Gift Registration

Last weekend I handed lovely hubby my Christmas wish list and let my friends and family know he had it. They gave him the money and he picked items off my list for me from them, I then logged him on to the Stampin' Up! website and pointed him the right direction for placing an order.

The reason I'm telling you this is I thought what a fab idea for my customer's! You give me your Stampin' Up! Wish list and give your family & friends my details, they then contact me and let me know how much they want to spend on you. They send me their payment by cheque or Pay Pal and I take something off your wish list, wrap it and send it to you with a hand made note card to let you know who the pressie is from. I then found out this isn't an original idea and I'm not a genius LOL.

Not to be deterred by my discovery, it only proves it is a good idea if other SU! Demos have been doing it for a while, I've decided to set up my Gift Registry service.

It is cutting it fine for Christmas, last parcel posting day is the 15th so I'd need orders by the 9th December to get your pressies to you by Christmas, but there is plenty of time for other halves to shop for Valentines day! There's always your birthday, anniversaries, Mother's day or any other occasion you may celebrate.

As well as your gifts from your friends and family they'll be a little gift from me depending on the amount your friends and family spend in total. If their collective total spend reaches £150 you will also receive the great hostess benefits.

So, have something coming up and a long list of must have things from the catalogue then email me to register your wish list and get more information for your friends & family!

Tis The Season

So who's got their Christmas cards all made yet? Not me! I spend weeks playing with different designs then run out of time and buy them!

I love the versatility of Stampin' Up! products and the co-ordination that means you're not rummaging round for the perfect thing to go but occasionally I like to use my stamps with other things from my stash to make use of those things that have been languishing in my craft room (or my hard drive) for a while. I also love using dingbat fonts as embellishments.

So the inspiration for this card comes from 2 challenge blogs.

Firstly, Crafty Cardmakers have challenged it's readers to make a Christmas card not using Red, Green or Gold... well I think I've seceded there!

Secondly, Mojo Monday has another fantastic sketch to get our creative juices going, go take a look.

I have used a dingbat from a delightful site that has lots of lettering options and papers from another of my favourite digi element sites. The large circles are cut with Nesties and I sized the dingbat sentiment to perfectly fit inside the SU! 1 3/8" circle. Colours are Chocolate Chip and Tempting Turquoise with Whisper White ribbon. Oh and of course the main stamped image is SU! Scandinavian Season.

The worlds gone brayering mad!

If you are anything like me you've had a brayer languishing in the back of your craft cupboard for many years after picking it up at a craft fair cos the lady demoing it was a genius and you thought 'I can do that', only to get it home and discover you can't! And if your anything like me you've discovered the wonderful Barbara on that shopping channel who makes it look oh so simple and creates amazing works of art that I just could never recreate!

Well after watching Barbara I dusted off the brayer then abandoned it again as it just wasn't working for me! Then I realised I had one of those hard red rubber ones and if I bought a speed ball things might be different. So on my next Stampin' Up! order I got my hands on a soft brayer and some full sized in pad and created lovely hubby's birthday card which didn't quite go according to plan!

After discarding the photo paper and getting out the Whisper White I think I've finally got it, and even managed to show my fellow SU demo how to successfully brayer. I know I'm still getting the tram lines but I think it adds to the mood, they look like rain!

I used Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie & More Mustard for the sky and Gable Green, Green Galore & Old Olive for the grass. I stamped off the trees from Lovely as a Tree before stamping onto the card to give the background a faded, distant look then stamped the large pine in the foreground.