A Quick one!

Just a really quick one, because I'm about to leave for Convention. Here's the other *BRIGHT* stamp-a-stack for April, using the "Good Friend" set. I also used Summer Sun (aka Sportshirt Yellow), a colour I rarely use, but it works well with the new In Colors. These are pretty simple ones, but here are a FEW TIPS for you when using this set:
1. make yourself a mask (out of a sticky note) of the bottom of the bird, then you don't have to be careful when lining up his legs, and you can easily make them any length you like!
2. The bird's beak makes cute leaves! (see above, bottom right)
3. The bird's feet upside down make a cute stem and leaves for a flower (I cased this one from the SU! website): 4. I have even seen the bird stamped upside down and turned into a whale!

I'll be at Convention until Sunday, so I'll be back then with all the news. If you need to order anything or book into classes, feel free to send me an email in the meantime, and I'll get back to you when I get home!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Good Friend, A Little Birthday Cheer
ink: Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point, Basic Black, Summer Sun
card: Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point, Summer Sun, Whisper White
other: Black Gingham ribbon, Dimensionals, Mini Glue dots, Summer Sun marker, Basic Black marker

Fresh Cuts Stamp-a-Stack

This was one of my Stamp-a-Stack designs for this month. We used the gorgeous Fresh Cuts set to make 4 quick and easy cards. I love this colour combination - Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Kiwi Kiss and Basic Grey. The Kiwi Kiss has come out very bright in this photo...it looks much softer in real life.
I have stamped the main image in Basic Grey, and used sponge daubers and inkpads to add some soft shading. I love, love, love the little vine stamp. It makes a super quick and easy border.

I'm heading off to Stampin' Up! Convention early Thursday morning, so I'm madly doing some last minute bits and pieces. 60 swaps are done, and I'm also presenting on stage *gulp* so I've been busy preparing lots of samples for that.
I'll show you the other Stamp-a-Stack design for this month tomorrow (in between packing my bags!)

I'm also sending out my newsletter tomorrow, so now is a good time to sign up! Just fill in your email address in the box in my sidebar that says "Sign up for my Email Newsletter" ------>

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Fresh Cuts
ink: Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Kiwi Kiss and Basic Grey
card: Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Grey, Whisper White
other: sponge daubers, Small Oval Punch, Large Oval Punch, Designer Label Punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, Scallop edge Punch, white gel pen, Basic Grey Taffeta Ribbon

Austin Powers Cheers

OK, are you ready? I warned you it was bright! I actually water coloured this image at Stamp Camp, and then came home to make a card out of it and realised I would need to use Orchid Opulence, Tangerine Tango and Tempting Turquoise! When I pulled out those colours I thought I might as well go the whole hog and add Kiwi Kiss too:

Shagadelic baby! LOL I'm not sure what cocktail this is...it looks a bit nuclear reactive!

Quite a deviation from my usual style...I'm not sure that I like this one at all, but it was fun to make.

We had a lovely Anniversary on the weekend. Thankyou for all the warm wishes. We stayed in a very swanky Hotel and had a very fancy dinner (one of the perks of having a hubby who has connections with the Hotel industry!)

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Cheers to you, Seeing Spots
ink: Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence, Tangerine Tango, Real Red, Black Stazon
card: Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black, Watercolour paper
other: Tangerine Tango Patterns DSP, 1 3/8" Circle Punch,

Homer Simpson Cheers

My next Cheers to You card is a little less sophisticated than the last one - we've traded martinis for beer! A nice manly one, this one. If you ever need to make a card for Homer Simpson, this would be perfect.

We're off to celebrate our 13th Wedding Anniversary in the city tomorrow, so I'll be back in a couple of days to show you Austin Powers. Watch out....it's BRIGHT!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Cheers to You
ink: Black Stazon, More Mustard
card: More Mustard, Whisper White, Close to Cocoa, Watercolour paper
other: 'Good Morning Sunshine' DSP, Wide Stitched Chocolate Chip ribbon, Earth Elements brads, Linen thread, Dimensionals

James Bond Cheers

I've been playing with the "Cheers to You" set. I have 3 fun cards to show you. Today is James Bond....Martini and diamonds.

Stay tuned over the next couple of days for Homer Simpson and Austin Powers!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Cheers to you
ink: Black Stazon, Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango, Baja Breeze
card: Tangerine Tango, Baja Breeze, Whisper White
other: Good Morning Sunshine DSP, Tangerine Tango Patterns DSP, Rhinestone brad, Scallop Circle Punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, Word Window Punch, Dimensionals, Blender pen

A date for your diaries!

GIANT CRAFT SALE

My team and I are getting together to have a Giant Craft Sale Day. We have cleaned out our cupboards, and have lots of Craft Goodies that need to find new homes. There are stamps (both Stampin' Up! and other), scrapbooking supplies, ribbons, embellishments, plus handmade cards and gifts too, and lots more!

Everything will be priced to sell, so come along and grab a bargain! We'll also have Lucky Door Prizes to be won.

When: Saturday, 23rd May 10am -2pm

Where: The Church Hall (Blacktown East Presbyterian) Cnr Heffron Rd and Gallop Gve, Lalor Park

Hope to see you there!

Fresh Cuts Set & My Essential Tool Kit

Here's the set I made, each one a little different.

I'm often asked what my essential cardmaking equipment is. While I love lots of things (punches and ribbon would be hard to live without!), these are the things I use on every single card I make:

• Paper Trimmer (with inches and cm)
• Adhesives (snail, 2-way glue, dimensionals)
• Bone Folder (for crisp folds)
• Paper snips (good scissors are essential!)
• Sanding Blocks (gets rid of rough edges)
• Stampin' Scrub and Mist (the easiest and best way to clean stamps)
• Stamp-a-ma-jig (to get images and words in the right place, first time!)

I really think I couldn't make a card without these items! What is in YOUR essential tool kit?

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Fresh Cuts
ink: Baja Breeze, Versamark, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss, So Saffron, Rose Red
card: Fresh Cuts Notes, Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Summer Sun, So Saffron, Kiwi Kiss, Pink Pirouette
other: 5-Petal Flower punch, Rhinestone brad, White Embossing Powder, White Taffeta Ribbon, Flower Fusion, Pretties Kit, Button Bouquet, Pink Taffeta Ribbon, Earth Elements brads, Fire brads circles

Fresh Cuts

If you're looking to make a really quick card, you have to get your hands on the Fresh Cut Notes. They are just gorgeous and sooo quick and easy to use. They are square cards, with a die-cut flower design in the front. They are designed to complement the Fresh Cuts stamp set, but of course you can come up with your own creative ways to use them. I made a set of these in under half an hour, in all different colours. This one was my favourite though - Baja Breeze.
I made an insert for my card from Baja Breeze cardstock, and embossed the Fresh Cuts image in white embossing powder on the front, so that it would show through the cut-out flower. I stamped the small flower design (from 'Fresh Cuts') in Baja Breeze ink, and cut it out. I put a clear Rhinestone brad through the centre and then punched out a 5-petal flower to stick over the brad 'wings'. I'm so glad we can now buy the Rhinestone brads separately. I used to ration them when they were part of the Pretties Kit, but now I can use them willy nilly LOL
The 'vine' design down the side is also part of Fresh Cuts, and so is 'for you'. It is such a useful set of stamps! There is also a lovely 'thankyou' stamp in the set. I used some white Taffeta ribbon to finish it off, and stamped the envelope to match.
I'll show you the full set that I made next time.
We had a fabulous time camping...the weather was just perfect for us. Now that we're back I'm madly preparing for Convention. I was lucky enough to be asked to present, and I've been busy preparing lots of samples! It's in less than 2 weeks *gulp!* I'm starting to get nervous alreday!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Fresh Cuts
ink: Baja Breeze, Versamark
card: Fresh Cuts Notes, Baja Breeze, Whisper White
other: 5-Petal Flower punch, Rhinestone brad, White Embossing Powder, White Taffeta Ribbon

The Last Bloom

I saved my favourite one until last. This stamp has a bit more variety to colour - flowers, gum nuts and leaves! LOL
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed making these cards so much was, as Tegan pointed out, they are all in earthy colours. I do like to be stepped out of my colour comfort zone, and do something different. No blues and purples here!
I've stamped in Stazon on Watercolour paper, and coloured with an Aquapainter and inks.
I went a bit mad with sponging on this one! I couldn't decide which shade of pink/orange to do for the background panel, so I made my own colour ummmm.....Shining Sunset, it's called LOL. It's actually Apricot Appeal, sponged with Cameo Coral and Ruby Red, and stamped with 'Weathered' in Cameo Coral. When I tried the darker shades on there, they just felt too overpowering.

I hope you enjoyed my Bloom Away cards (and the Botany lessons!)
It's school holidays here, and I'm off camping for 3 nights with my family down on the south Coast. Hope it doesn't rain!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Bloom Away, Sanded, Weathered, Pocket Silhouettes
ink: Mellow Moss, Close to Cocoa, Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Apricot Appeal
card: Mellow Moss, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Watercolour Paper, Apricot Appeal
other: Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon, Word Window, Small Oval, Large Oval, sponge daubers

Happy Easter!

This one is pretty similar to my Waratah, only this time I've stamped on Whisper White cardstock, and coloured using my Aquapainter and watercolour crayons. I prefer my crayons when colouring on Whisper white cardstock because the colour 'floats' on top of the cardstock, rather than soaking right in like the ink does. It makes it easier to blend and shade the colours. I then add extra depth of colour with the inks.
This flower is a Banksia. If you would like another botany lesson, you can read about them HERE. Did you know they were named after Joseph Banks, who was the first European Botanist to visit Australia?
I hope you all have a happy and safe Easter!

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Bloom Away, Sincere Salutations, Sanded
ink: More Mustard, Old Olive, Close to Cocoa
card: More Mustard, Old Olive, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
other: 1 3/8" circle punch, Designer Label punch, Large Oval Punch, Wide Chocolate Chip Double-Stitched ribbon, Watercolour Wonder Crayons, Sponge Daubers, Dimensionals

Bloom Away Waratah

Those of you who know me know that I love to watercolour, so I couldn't resist getting these stamps of Australian Wildflowers. Stampin' Up! are a US company, but they really make an effort to give us stamps for the Aussie market. And I think they really got it right with this set. The catalogue has only been out for 10 days and already they have proven to be very popular. I coloured all 3 images at Stamp Camp (I was demoing watercolouring), and then came home and assembled them into cards. I'll show you all 3 over the next few days.

The first is the Waratah. You should be able to click on the image to see it in more detail.
Isn't it lucky that one of our new In Colors is the perfect waratah colour? Riding Hood Red, and I've added a touch of Real Red and Bravo Burgundy. For those overseas readers, the Waratah is the state flower of NSW, and is in the protea family. If you'd like to increase your knowledge of waratahs, you can read about them here.
I wanted a deep green for the leaves, so I used Always Artichoke. I paired the reds and greens with some browns: Close to Cocoa for the card base and Chocolate Chip for some layering. I stamped 'sanded' on the background (in Riding Hood Red ink) to add some subtle texture, and the edges have been sponged.
I did my colouring on Watercolour paper, stamped the image in Black Stazon and coloured with the Aquapainters and ink.
The greeting 'for you' is from Fresh Cuts, and has been punched out with the 1" circle, and then layered on the 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" and then the Designer Label.

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Bloom Away, Fresh Cuts
ink: Riding hood Red, Always Artichoke, Going Gray, Close to Cocoa, Real Red, Bravo Burgundy
card: Close to Cocoa, Riding hood Red, Always Artichoke, Chocolate chip, Watercolour Paper
other: Wide Chocolate Chip Grosgrain ribbon, 1" circle, 1 1/4" circle, 1 3/8" circle, Designer Label, sponge daubers, Dimensionals

You Take the Cake!

Cupcakes are pretty trendy in the papercraft world right now. The stamp set 'Party Hearty' has become a firm favourite already, not only because it has a cupcake in it, but it also has lots of other elements to make more masculine cards too...and there's no colouring in so you can whip up a batch of cards really fast!
This card was really quick to make. I just stamped each cupcake once onto a piece of Whisper White the width of my card, and once more onto some scrap Whisper White. I gave each cupcake on my card a different coloured candle, and I cut out the 3 cupcake tops from the scrap piece, and popped them onto the card with a dimensional. Don't these colours look yummy together? Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Regal Rose and Basic Grey.
To make the greeting multicoloured, I inked up the whole stamp in Pink Pirouette, and then used a Regal Rose marker to ink the word 'you'. Because there is no Baja Breeze marker, I just wiped off the ink with a cotton bud (q-tip) and carefully inked the word 'cake' with the edge of my Baja Breeze inkpad. Finally I used a Basic Grey marker for the line of dots.
I did a row of paper piercing with the Mat Pack, just to 'ground' the greeting more, and tie in with the line of dots under the words.
The finishing touch is some wide Regal Rose Grosgrain ribbon.

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Party Hearty
ink: Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Regal Rose
card: Pink Pirouette, Basic Grey, Whisper White
other: Scallop Edge punch, Word Window punch, Wide Regal Rose Grosgrain ribbon, Mat Pack, Regal Rose marker, Dimensionals

Upsy Daisy

I have so much to show you using sets from the new catalogue that I hardly know where to start! I made lots of samples for my Launch Party last Sunday, and hopefully I'll have lots of time to play over Easter, so there will be even more to show you.

I thought I'd start with a simple one, using the set "Upsy daisy" which is one of my favourites already.

Here I stamped the daisies in Kiwi Kiss and then I stamped a shadow image in Sahara Sand. Sahara Sand has been dusted off now that River Rock is gone! "Upsy Daisy" comes with 3 greetings: You're on my Mind, Birthday Celebrations and Thankyou for your Friendship. They all would work equally well on this card. The scallop edge has been punched on a strip of Kraft cardstock, and the ribbon is Kraft taffeta. The Double-sided paper is from "Good Morning Sunshine", which has some bright Retro patterns, but also some more subtle ones too!

This card is a CASE of the layout on page 8 of the US Catalogue.

Materials (all Stampin' Up!)
stamps: Upsy Daisy
ink: Sahara Sand, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip
card: Kiwi Kiss, Kraft, Chocolate Chip
other: Good Morning Sunshine DSP, Scallop Edge punch, Dimensionals

Join a Share

Those of you who are subscribed to my newsletter would have received an email about this yesterday, but I thought I would also pop it up here for those of you who aren't subscribed.
NOTE: in the newsletter the price for the In Color Ribbon Share was incorrect, and the Striped Ribbon was omitted. Sorry!

Designer Series Paper and Embellishment Shares
I am taking sign-ups for several Shares. Joining a Share is a great way to try lots of new products without blowing your budget.
I will order the Shares as soon as the group is full, and let you know when they are ready.
Email me with your Club and Share selections, and to sort out payment. I accept payment by Cash, Direct Deposit, Cheque or Credit Card. Shipping will be at actual cost (I will use the most cost-effective method). Local customers are welcome to pick up from me.
You can view the catalogue online HERE
Let me know if you would like to join the fun! (Demonstrators within Australia are welcome to join in)

Double-Sided Paper Shares
you can view all of the papers on pages 132-135 of the catalogue

GROUP 1 $16.00 for 42 6"x 6" squares
Urban Garden, Haiku, Pink Flamingo, Sweet Always, Tea Party, Raspberry Tart, Sweet Slumber Specialty

GROUP 2 $18.00 for 48 6"x 6" squares
Good Morning Sunshine, Holiday Treasures, Bella Rose, Bella Bleu, Urban Oasis, Washington Apple, Windsor Knot, Candy Lane

GROUP 3 $18.00 for 48 6"x 6" squares"Patterns" - Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point, Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, So Saffron, Tangerine Tango

OR ~ JOIN ALL 3 FOR $49! (save $3)

Embellishment Shares
you can view the embellishments on pages 144-151 of the catalogue

CLIPS and DESIGNER BRADS ASSORTMENT $15.00
6 clips (2 of each style) and 18 brads (2 of each style)

CLEAR RHINESTONE BRADS and BUILD-A-BRADS $15.00
21 Rhinestone brads and 12 build-a-brads (6 brass, 6 pewter)

DESIGNER BUTTONS - BOUQUET AND LATTE $11.00
20 buttons, 1 of each style in all colours

FLOWER FUSION TOO $10.50
42 Felt Flowers in 3 colours - Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip

OR ~ JOIN ALL 4 FOR $49! (save $2.50)

Ribbon Shares
you can view the ribbon on page 150-1 of the catalogue

5/8" STRIPED IN COLOR GROSGRAIN RIBBON $15.00
6 colours - approx 1.7m of each colour (Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Pacific point, Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango)

1/2" STRIPED GROSGRAIN RIBBON $12.00
6 colours - approx 1.1m of each colour (Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red)

Prices do not include Shipping and Handling

It's Here, It's Here!

The day we've all been waiting for.... the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalogue is LIVE. You can see the online version HERE, or you can email me to get your copy mailed out to you. There's nothing like seeing it in the flesh! It's $10 if you pick it up from me or $15 to have it mailed anywhere in Australia - AND with it you receive a gift voucher to spend with your first order!

The new catalogue doesn't have a Stampin' Supplies list in the back, but you can download it HERE. I've printed mine out and put it in a Display Folder. It even has a picture next to the list of supplies, so you don't have to turn back and forth through your catalogue. The reason it is separate this year is so that it leaves more room for products (can't argue with that!)
I'll be sending out a newsletter for some Shares that I'm running later today. You can sign up to my newsletter over there ----->

I've been working on lots of projects for my Launch party on Sunday, so stay tuned over the next couple of days to see some of those!