Back in the blogging world!

Hi everyone,

Well we've finally got our internet connected at the new house so YAY I can get back to blogging! Not that I manage to do it terribly often as my regular visitors will know, but that's not because I don't want to, it's because I lead a pretty full life and that gets in the way sometimes!

Anyway, as promised, here's a couple of pics of the items I decorated to use as my door prize at our Creative Inkers Extravaganza on Saturday. On the left is a covered Post-It note pad and I decorated a small jar that I later filled with silver cola ball sweets (they're not my favourite in terms of the way they taste, but they look fantastic!). I took these photos before I packaged them up in cellophane with ribbon to tie it closed. I was thrilled that one of my lovely customers, Rachael, won my prize (yes, we have the same name, how cool is that?!). Rachael I hope you like it!

To decorate these I used the gorgeous Raspberry Tart Designer Series papers with the Sweet Stems stamp set, and the Best Yet hostess stamp set for the greeting, punched with the Designer Label punch. Best Yet is my favourite hostess set this year! I love embellishing my projects with something a little special - so with the jar I used a silver hodge podge frame that I bent around the jar so it fit snugly, tied on with Pretty In Pink grosgrain ribbon. That's the beauty of those frames being metal - you can bend them if you want to! On top of the jar I used a couple of gorgeous felt flowers and a rhinestone brad to finish off, I've taken a pic of that from a different angle so you can see how pretty it looked from the top.

I love making gifts like these - if you'd like to learn how to decorate everyday items like the jar and notes to give as handmade gifts (or keep them for yourself!), contact me to discuss class options, click HERE. I'm happy to design a class exclusively for you and your friends - heaps of fun and you'll have some great gifts to take home at the end! If you would like to place an order for any of the products I've used, drop me an e-mail and I can arrange that for you too.

Until next time, happy stamping!

Technical Glitches

Hi everyone,
Just another quick post to say I'm still here - thanks for bearing with me! We moved house, but after 10 days still do not have our internet connected at home, so I'm unable to do a decent blog post with any pics! It just means that I'll have to post later with the fun stuff I've been making for our events.

If you came to our Auckland Creative Inkers Extravaganza on Saturday, thank you so much for helping to make the day a fantastic one! These events are eagerly awaited by my customers and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. And yes, I was pretty exhausted by the end (having made my door prize after midnight!) and fell asleep on the couch at 7am that night. But true to my reputation, I was up again in an hour or so, and pottered around until late in my new craft room!

Right now I am gearing up to showcase Stampin' Up! at SENZ here in Auckland in just under two weeks' time. I still have 4 spots available in each of my classes (see details in the previous post), so if you're interested, please call me on 09 272 4255, since I can't receive e-mails at the moment!

Hopefully I'll be back soon to show you some pics of what I've been working on!

A Quick Post

Good morning everyone!
Just popping in to let you know that I'm still here, just a little bit busy at the moment. I spent a fabulous weekend at the Dunkleys show here in Auckland, I'd like to thank all the wonderful ladies (and gentlemen!) who came to our stand to see what Stampin' Up! is all about. I am working my way through my share of the door prize forms, as are the other wonderful ladies who worked at the show with me, so you will hear from one of us soon!

We did some cute little make n takes, I demonstrated stamping on your scrapbook layouts and I had a lot of fun working with my team mates at the stand. Thanks to Patrice, Heather and Sara - you're fantastic! It was lovely to see some of our fellow Demonstrators come and visit our stand too - it was great to catch up with you. (Big Hi to Linda!)

This coming weekend I am moving house, so please forgive the lack of blog posts for a while. But in the meantime I wanted to mention that I will be teaching classes at SENZ, which is a papercrafts expo being held at the Telstra Events centre in Manukau, July 17-19. Please click HERE to go to the SENZ website for more information about the event. I still have a few spaces left in my classes, so do let me know if you'd like too book in! Here are the details:

Quick & Easy Masculine Cards $50 - Friday 9am, July 17
Come and create four fun masculine cards suitable for the young and the young-at-heart! You’ll learn how to use a variety of Stampin’ Up!® products to make these unique cards created especially for this class. The class fee includes the fabulous “Starring You” stamp set and templates so that you can recreate the designs at home. Suitable all levels.

Sweet Always Boxed Stationery Set $60 - Sunday 9am, July 19
Create a fabulous box which unfolds to reveal coordinated stationery supplies - 4 cards and envelopes, 4 note cards, 4 tags, a mini notepad, decorated pen and more! This “wow” project featuring the gorgeous Stampin’ Up!® “Sweet Always” Designer Series Paper would make a wonderful gift that your recipient will treasure! Class fee includes the “Wow Flowers” stamp set. Suitable for Intermediate level.

Please click here to e-mail me and book your space! You will need to have a pass to attend SENZ to get into the Friday classes, but let me know if you don't have one as I can help to arrange that for you.

Have a wonderful day!

Kristina's Colour Challenge #54

Hi everyone!

Can you believe this - three posts in a week? It must be a record for me, even if one of them didn't have a project for you to look at! Anyway, I'm glad to say I seem to have found my mojo again - suffered from "crafter's block" last week so I'm relieved to have inspiration coming back to me easily. Online challenges really do help!

I simply couldn't resist creating a card to enter into Kristina's latest colour challenge tonight, even though I have lots of other stuff I should be doing, like replying to e-mails or packing up my house to move... I saw the challenge earlier in the evening and knew exactly what I wanted to make. And then once it was made, I couldn't not post it, could I? I've always wondered how so many fabulous stampers manage to post up their creations so quickly - you just don't go to bed early! Sorry about the photos, I used my photo box and OTT light, no natural light around at this time of night I'm afraid! I'm thrilled to be one of the first 10 to enter, anyway.

I've been wanting to make one of these flower pot cards for a while, so THANKS Kristina for giving me the push I needed to do it! And whoa I used three of the rhinestone brads too, that's a bit extravagant for me (I'm a budget conscious crafter!) but this card was just calling out for them! They're much better off on a card than in the container anyway aren't they?! I stamped the flower pot with the Sanded background stamp to give it a little texture, and the flowers and leaves are from the Petal Pizzazz set. I love that one! One of the flowers I punched out with the scallop circle punch, but the other flowers and the leaves were all hand cut (I know, I've told my team I don't like cutting a lot of stuff out by hand, it is true, but sometimes you just have to!). A little striped Pumpkin Pie grosgrain ribbon and some dimensionals under a couple of the flowers add depth to the card. I love how the insert slides out with some of the flowers on it, whoever designed this type of card was very clever! (Thank you, whoever you are!)

Hope you like it, if you're in the Auckland area and would like to have me come and teach you how to make these, or anything else you've seen here on my blog, click here to contact me.

Well it's way past time for bed, so I'll "see" you next time. Sweet dreams!

Sweet Addiction...

Morning everyone!

I bet you thought I was going to talk about being addicted to chocolate, right? Well, I am somewhat addicted to chocolate (lately I've been eating just a little bit, most days!), but that's not what I was going to tell you today. I'm becoming addicted to Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sketch challenges! The last couple particularly have been awesome - I've had a little "crafter's block" lately but when I see her sketches, I've immediately thought of what to make. That's great when you don't have a lot of time and you want something quick and easy but effective!

For this challenge, I knew I wanted to use the Windsor Knot designer series papers - some of my team said to me they don't like these papers but I love them! They are absolutely perfect for masculine cards. So that was my starting point. Since I was making a masculine card, I thought the "dad" stamp from Greetings Eight would be a great focal point. That stamp isn't quite square and I wanted a square layer for the centre of the DSP squares, so I cut it square and added a strip of Kraft cardstock embossed using my crop-a-dile. I love Kraft cardstock - it's a "colour" that we often overlook, and is perfect for masculine projects too. Then to embellish the card I did a little piercing using the mat pack and pulled out the designer clips that I've been drooling over but hadn't gotten around to using yet. Metal hardware is great for men's cards!

So can you see why I'm loving Karen's sketches? With this one I made a masculine card (I've often struggled to design masculine cards, not anymore!), used the fabulous designer clips I've been wanting to feature, and I'm well ahead of schedule for Father's Day (which is in September in NZ, for my overseas readers)!

If you like the look of the products I've used and want to lay your hands on them, just e-mail me to place your order! Don't forget too about my retired stamps on sale - free shipping on those until June 22!

Have a wonderful day!

Edited to add: I've just remembered that my wonderful friend Karen suggested I submit this card into Janet Rossi's Corrosive Challenge so I'm just back doing that! Yippee another challenge entered!

FREE SHIPPING!!

Morning everyone!
Now that I have your attention, I have an announcement - I'm moving house! I hope to be able to start doing classes at home once I'm all settled in. But in the meantime, I need to clear out some stamps that I've been, uh, hoarding!

Check out my Retired Stamps for sale page and let me know if you'd like any of them. If you order and pay for them before June 22nd, I'll ship them to you for free! (NZ residents only please).

Have a great day!

The Sweetest Sketch

Morning everyone!

Today I have my entry into Karen Giron's latest Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge. I love this sketch, this one was a cinch to decide what to make! I'm having a bit of a thing with the "Party Hearty" stamp set at the moment (I'm blaming Marelle Taylor for "selling" me the set at Convention, she did such a wonderful job with her presentation, I just HAD to have it!) so the cupcake from that set was just perfect. And I had some strips of Candy Lane DSP on my table from a previous stamping session, so I only had to cut them to the right length and voila! it all fell into place! Great when that happens isn't it?

For the candle I used Ruby Red and Summer Sun markers to ink it up - when there's only a little bit to ink, you can get away with a different colour (the red in the DSP and in the mats is Riding Hood Red). Actually the Ruby Red marker is a pretty good match here, so I'm very happy with that. I finally dug out the much-wanted-but-previously unopened chocolate chip glitter to use as sprinkles on the cupcake, wow that stuff is fantastic! I added dimensionals under the icing (stamped in Pink Pirouette) to give the card a more layered look. The base of the card and the cupcake are Close to Cocoa.

The second thing I have to share with you today is Stampin' Up!'s latest promotion which runs for all of June & July. I think if you click on the picture of the flyer, you should be able to read the details but essentially if you host a workshop with me during June or July and the workshop orders reach $700 plus shipping, you'll get an extra $50 to spend in hostess benefits. That means for a $700 workshop, you'll get to choose either a level 1 or level 2 hostess stamp set, and choose a whopping $130 worth of product from the catalogue for free. Yahoo!! This promotion also applies if you collect up orders from your friends and place them all together with me. Or if you want to spoil yourself and order that much yourself (yes, it does happen occasionally!!) you'll get those benefits too. I'm quite booked up for June or July, but if you'd like to host a fun workshop and have me come and share my love of stamping with you and your friends, click here to contact me and we'll find a way to squeeze you in!

Have a fabulous day!