So many ways to Count the days!

I must be really losing the plot now! I am waxing poetic… Too much to do before Christmas and not enough time to do it in! Just popping in to share my latest project with you. My gorgeous girlfriend bought this craft wood tree from a Scrapping shop, it comes complete with the little tiles to count down the days until Christmas and the hooks to hang them on. My little guy and I have decorated it to give to his class teacher. Here it is …

We decorated both the tree and the tiles with the Stampin' Up! Dashing DSP. Projects like this are sooo easy with SU because everything co-ordinates so well, the inks, ribbons, papers etc. I didn't have to spend hours searching for just the right colour cardstock etc. The numbers on the tiles are from the On Board Lots of Letters, and are triple embossed with Gold EP. The star was from the On Board Trimmings that were in the Spring Mini catalogue, it is triple embossed with a rhinestone brad in the centre. "Days until Christmas" was stamped, using the retired Tidy Alphabet, in Versa Mark on co-ordinating cardstock and embossed with gold EP. Then cut out, remounted on a contrasting colour and cut out again. Finally we tied some gold and red cord through matching buttons and popped them up on dimensionals as "decorations" on our tree. I also made a little box (adapting the gift box from "Mainly Flowers") to keep the tiles in when they are not in use, as they will not all fit on the hooks at once.

Hope you like it, would love to know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by...

Claire

Christmas Candy!!

Hi again,

Yet another Christmas project to share with you! These are the little gifts my son and I made for his classmates at school. I have to say the idea is not mine, a friend made these with her boys a year or two ago, and the idea just stuck with me (TFS Lynda!)

We used the retired Merry Minis set and watercoloured the images to match the Designer Series Paper (DSP) we chose. Here are some pics for you.

A close up!

Project Recipe:

Fold a 16cm x 5cm piece of DSP in half and stick together near the open ends. We used Dashing, Wintergreen and Ginger Blossom. Punch at the open ends with the Scallop Edge punch (A great new punch available in the Summer Mini).

Push the folded edge of the DSP as far as it will go into the Double Slot or Double Circle punch, centre it, edge to edge and punch.

Stamp your image on scrap cardstock and colour as desired, here I used an Aqua Painter and Ink pads to colour.

Punch out your image with the 1 ¾ " circle punch, and mount on a piece of co-ordinating card stock. Here I punched the co-ordinating cardstock with the Scallop Circle punch.

Adhere to your DSP.

Slide the candy cane inside the folded edge of your DSP. Take an 8cm length of co-ordinating ribbon and feed through the holes from top to bottom with both ends. Cross over and feed back up through the opposite hole to form your bow. This will hold the candy cane firmly in place.

Too easy!!!

Hope you like them. Thanks for stopping by.

'Til next time …

Claire

Just Made It!!!!

Phew! Finished just in time! After 3 weeks spending every spare moment on this project, I just managed to finish it in time for my little guy to use it. His comment was "Wow that's Awesome Mum!" So, I thought I would share all that hard work with you.

This is my Advent Calandar. It was inspired by this one I saw on Butternut Sage Designs. There is even a video tutorial, if you would like to check it out. Obviously I had to make a few alterations, as we don't yet have the Bigshot here in our Australian Stampin' Up! catalogue. So here is a pic of mine, made using items we do have!

A bit closer

A close up of one of the boxes

A close up of the Faux Metal Star

Project Recipe: (All products used were Stampin' Up! except where stated)

Pre-stretched artist canvas from a discount shop (Chickenfeed for those of you in Tassie)

Craft boxes with lids from a discount shop (they have ovals and circles in Chickenfeed). I attached these to the canvas using Velcro dots so that I can remove them after Christmas and pack them away carefully

Oval cutters (I used Creative Memories ones) to cut the Designer Series paper for the lids, then glazed the lids with Crystal Effects (hopefully this will prevent the DSP from peeling off in the future)

Dashing Designer Series Paper, plus Old Olive, Real Red, Very Vanilla, River Rock and Chocolate Chip Cardstock

Chocolate Chip 5/8" ribbon, Real Red ¼" ribbon, Very Vanilla ¼" ribbon, Real Red striped Grosgrain ribbon, Chocolate Chip ¼" ribbon

Simple Serif Mini Alphabet and Numbers, to stamp the days until Christmas (thanks for lending them to me Lynda!) Merry Merry, Baroque Motifs and Seasons of Joy Stamp sets to decorate the boxes and for the faux metal embossing on the Star and the letters C and S of Christmas

Assorted punches, Rhinestone Brads and Hodgepodge Hardware for decorating the lids and displaying the numbers

On Board Loads of Letters and On Board Trimmings. The letters of "Days until" were painted with Real Red re-inker and a paintbrush then triple embossed with a mixture of White and Clear Embossing powders. The letters of "Christmas" were triple embossed with Gold Embossing powder.

Hope you like it, I would love to know what you think! Thanks for stopping by,

Claire

Another One for Christmas!

Hi again,

Thanks for stopping by to see what I have been up to. I found these pics on the blog of a very talented UK Stampin' Up! Demo, Crafty Squirrel. I had a go at recreating the box myself, but could not get the dimensions of the triangle quite right – I have always been spacially challenged, ask any of my maths teachers! Imagine my delight when Crafty Sqirrel posted the link to the templates. You can find them here along with heaps of others on Sara Sandberg's great site.

So, here is my attempt.

Project Recipe: (All products used are, of course, Stampin' Up!)

Stamps: Season of Joy (Spring Mini Catalogue), Illuminated (Standard Wheel)

Cardstock: Old Olive, Real Red, Very Vanilla, River Rock and Dashing Designer Series Paper

Inks: Real Red, Old Olive and Very Vanilla (Craft Ink), Versa Mark

Acessories: Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Fire Rhinestone Brads, 1 3/8 " and 1 ¼ " circle punches, Eyelets, Clear Embossing Powder, Heat tool, Stampin' Dimensionals

The red ponsiettas on the cover of the box were made by inking the stamp first in Versa Mark and then in Real Red ink. I then embossed them with clear embossing powder and cut them out. They are mounted on a dimensional with a red rhinestone brad through the centre, and then onto a circle of Old Olive cardstock.

I love this box because it is big enough to place a gift inside, such as jewellery or gourmet chocolates, but pretty enough to hang on the Christmas Tree. Hope you like it as much as I do. Let me know what you think!

Claire

Spinning into Christmas!

Hello!

Back again, thought you'd never hear from me again, didn't you! I just wanted to share a card with you that I have CASE'd from a couple of others that I saw whilst cruising for inspiration on the net. Apologies to the people I cased from, I can't remember where I saw them.
This is a spinner card, the little disc at the bottom spins around when you tilt the card from side to side. It can be quite mesmerizing!

Card Recipe: (All products used, are of course from Stampin' Up!

Stamps: All About Christmas Jumbo Wheel

Cardstock: Old Olive, Real Red, Very Vanilla, Gold Metallic

Inks: Old Olive, Real Red and Certainly Celery, Versa Mark (for embossing)

Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, Gold Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Embossing Buddy, Small Star Punch

After I embossed the All About Christmas design on my Very Vanilla Cardstock, I used sticky post it notes to mask of sections of the design. Once I had masked of a section I sponged ink into it, to create the mosaic type look.

Hope you like it. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by.

Claire

A special Thank you

H i there.
I needed to make a thank you card for my son's soccer Coach, as it was their end of season bbq yesterday. Their coach is a great guy, endlessly patient, and always with a good word for each of the kids, whatever their ability. Whilst I was mulling it over, this card popped into my head fully formed! I just love it when that happens! Unfortunately I didn't have the stamp sets I needed to execute the card, so, a few frantic text messages and a couple of phone calls later, I had the set that I needed on Friday night. Thanks so much for lending it to me Lynda! (Check out Lynda's gorgeous blog at Stampinkins).
I used masking to create the pile of soccer balls and to cluster the team together. The Stamp-a-majig saved my sanity when trying to line up all the arms and legs and heads! The kids are all wearing their soccer strip, which I watercoloured with ink pads and an aqua painter. Their coach is wearing the colours of his beloved Brisbane Lions AFL team – a touch he seemed to appreciate. The best thing about it was the kids all recognized themselves in the card! The goalies by their shirts, the girls by their hairdo's etc. It really was a fun card to make. I hope you like it. Thanks for looking.

Claire.

A cased condolence

Back again. At last… I am just popping in to share a card that I totally "cased" from a stamp artist calling herself cmsuto on Splitcoast Stampers. I don't normally completely "case" cards, but this card had the most beautiful dreamy quality about it. I just had to try and recreate it. As it happens, I had need of a condolence card recently and this card seemed the right one to make.
I used the "spray, ink and smash" technique to create the backround on glossy cardstock. If you would like to try it, click here for a tutorial from "Markie's Mom". The re-inker colours I used were Going Grey, Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant. To create the moon I used reverse masking and Whisper White craft ink, sponged again with Going Grey and Elegant Eggplant classic inks. Then I stamped the flowers from the sadly retired Stem Silhouettes and the butterfly from Natural Beauty in black Staz-on Ink. (Those of you with sharp eyes for detail will notice that I masked the border around the butterfly to prevent it stamping!) The butterflies were coloured with Elegant Eggplant, Brocade Blue and Regal Rose markers. I finished by matting my feature panel on Perfect Plum and making the base card Basic Grey.

Thanks for looking, let me know what you think.

Claire

Bandanna Technique

Wow! Two posts in one day! Well, there was something else I wanted to share with you because it is so cool and so easy.

I was mooching around on the web looking for some inspiration for my new stamps from the Spring Mini Catalogue, from Stampin' Up! I happened across this card by Barbara Hardeman on Splitcoast Stampers. The card was made using a technique I had not come across before – the Bandanna Technique. The stamp set Barbara has used, True Friend, lends itself perfectly to the "bandanna look" and happened to be one of my new sets!

I decided to use this as inspiration for my card to pop in with my Spring Mini Catalogue mail out. So I searched the web to find instructions on the Bandana Technique. It is actually very easy. Ink your stamps with black ink, I used Staz on, stamp your stamps on Whisper White cardstock. Sponge over the colours of your choice. Then highlight areas of the design with a white gel pen. Too easy! Anyway, for the sample, I have made here, I decided to go with a more traditional bandanna look and just use Real Red, so I brayered over my colour instead of sponging it.

Hope you like it! Let me know what you think.

Thanks for dropping by, Claire.

Too Many Boxes!

Hello, again! Long time between posts even for me! Life rips along at it's usual pace and as usual I seem to have to peddle twice as fast as anyone else just to keep up, let alone get ahead of the game.

Today I have some cute little boxes to share with you. My Stampin' Up! upline, Mae, kindly shared a link she had found to a blog showing the directions for making these gorgeous boxes. You can find Shelly's blog by clicking here.

My gorgeous girlfriend had a sparkly party for her 5 year old coming up. Having only a son I rarely get the chance to play with girly stuff. So I offered to make these as party boxes for the guests. I re-sized Shelly's original template to fit in party goodies. They were a very big hit!

The little girl's boxes were made using the Perfect Princess stamp set (thanks Lynda for lending it to me!), colours from the Soft Subtles colour family and, of course, lots of glitter. The little boy's boxes were made using Stampin Up!'s East Coast Prep designer series paper and the co-ordinating cardstock colours Real Red, More Mustard and Wild Wasabi. For the three older children attending (2 big brothers and an older cousin) I used the Outlaw designer series paper, the Wanted stamp set and Sage Shadow, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla co-ordinating cardstock. Hope you like them. Thanks for stopping by.

Claire

Craft Fair and Gift Cards

Hi again. Well I have been flat chat getting ready for the Craft and Quilt Fair here in Hobart at the end of the month. My colleague and friend Lynda Moss and I have decided to run a Stampin' Up! stall at the fair. As Lynda is in the UK at the moment, I have been flying blind and missing her usual input as my "sounding board". Very glad she will be home soon!

At the Craft and Quilt fair Lynda and I will be running two classes each day. We hope that all our local Stampin' Up! friends will show us some support and come and join a class! You can register on the day to join a class, there will be one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It would be lovely to have some familiar faces there for some moral support! Drop by our stall and say Hi too, we would love to see you.

Anyway, as a break from the tons of One Sheet Wonders I have been making so that we have some stock on the stall and samples to show. Yesterday I decided to play with another of the Splitcoast Stamper's Challenges. This one was a Technique lover's challenge. We had to make 3, 3inch x 3inch cards, then use the templates provided to make co-ordinating envelopes and a little box to present them in. Here is a picture of mine.

I used the Wild About You stamp set primarily. With sentiments from the All Year Cheer 1 stamp set. So sad it has retired, it is such a useful set! I also used the new Dashing designer series paper, which I just love. The cardstock is in co-ordinating colours, Real Red, Old Olive and Very Vanilla.

I really like this little collection and I think I will have to make some more to use as Hostess gifts. So, if you would like a little box of gift cards and you live in Southern Tassie, why not contact me – candpharrison@activ8.net.au – and you could receive one, along with all the other fabulous hostess benefits Stampin' Up! has to offer!

Leave a comment and let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by.

Inspirations Strikes!

Me again! As usual, longer between posts than I would like. This card just goes to show that inspiration can strike anywhere. I seem to be suffering from an illness which has been mentioned by several SU demos – I am starting to see the world in SU cardstock colours! I was walking from work to the bank the other day and a shop sign caught my eye. It was for a local beauty salon - not the sort of place I would usually give a second glance (lol!). However the sign was very pretty and feminine, and my brain just went "Going Grey and Pretty in Pink. Scary huh? I have been wanting to try a technique called "Retiform" (you can find Beate's great tutorial by clicking here) and I thought that it would give me the lovely soft look that I wanted for this card. I have used the Spring Solitude level 2 Hostess set and the colours Going Grey and Pretty in Pink in both inks and cardstock. I stamped the bird and the heart in Regal Rose to make them a little stronger. The central image is matted on Basic Grey and Regal Rose and popped up on dimensional, and the card is finished with some Pretty in Pink brads. Hope you like it! Very different for me. Thanks for stopping by.

Back to Kindergarten

Hello! It's me again. Longer between posts than I would have liked, but there you go … I have had the usual combo of work and home life to deal with and my little guy has been sick this week with a nasty infection – so all up, not much time to play!

Anyway, the card for this post is one that I designed for a challenge on Splitcoast Stampers. They have this great forum for SU demos where we can try ideas and techniques and share business info etc. It's a really great resource and subscribed to by demos all over the world so there are lots of ideas out there, as you can imagine. They have a challenge weekly where you are given a particular idea, to design a card that you could demonstrate in a workshop situation.

Last week's challenge was to incorporate paper weaving into your card. I just had to have a go at this one! It took me straight back to kinder, where I remember making, and proudly presenting to Mum and Dad, woven placemats. We used them on the dinner table until they fell apart! (My poor long suffering Mum!)

This card kind of took on a life of its' own and kind of designed itself as I went along! It has ended up being a lot more elaborate than my original concept and is probably now too fiddly to demonstrate in a workshop. But I was pleased with the overall look of it, so thought I would share it with you anyway!

I used Whisper White cardstock for the weaving. I chose to use the Fishy Friends stamp set. Then I embossed my fish with clear embossing powder, having first inked my stamp in both Versa Mark and Tempting Turquoise Inks. The weaving was then sponged with Tempting Turquoise and Green Galore Ink. To make my fish stand out from the sponging a little, I lightly blended the sponged colours with an aquapainter. (Thanks to Lynda – Stampinkins for that tip!) The edges of my weaving were a little (a lot actually lol!) messy so I made a border with strips of Tempting Turquoise cardstock and added Faux stitching with a white gel pen. The seaweed at the bottom of the main card was done using the tentacles of the jellyfish from the same stamp set, using white craft ink. I finished the card with a sentiment from the Warm Words stamped in white craft ink.

Hope you like it. Thanks for dropping in. See you next time.

More cards more techniques …

Well here we are again. Some new cards, experimenting with some more techniques! This first one was made for a friend and former neighbor for her birthday. This friend has recently been creating a black and white scrapbooking album for her daughter. It was a real challenge but the results have been spectacular! Anyway inspired by this thought I checked out the Split Negative Technique on Split Coast Stampers. You can check out the tutorial here. I created this card using black and white cardstock and embossing powder with the Baroque Motifs SU stamp set. I couldn't do just black and white though, so I caved in and added some touches of real red.

Next was another go at Split Negative. This time I used the Voila and Voila ala carte Stamp sets teamed once again with black and white cardstock and embossing powder. Once again I felt compelled to add a touch of real red and the whole thing is matted on some of the gorgeous new basic grey SU textured cardstock. So, I have a chef with a "dark side"… Gordon Ramsay perhaps?! That being said, it begs the question "What is under the lid?!!"

The third card I created for a recent workshop hostess. As I had demonstrated the Spotlighting technique at her workshop, I thought it would be fun to create her card using the Reverse Spotlighting Technique. For this card I used an Almost Amethyst cardstock base, stamped with the little flowers from the Polka Dots and Petals SU stamp set. Then I used the Paisley from Polka Dots and Paisley for the reverse spotlighting stamped on So Saffron and Close to Cocoa. I really like this colour combo. I finished the card by dying a piece of white ribbon with So Saffron ink and stamped my sentiment on a So Saffron scrap in Close to Cocoa ink and punched it out with my oval punch.

Thanks for dropping by!

Another Special Card!

Another special card for a special person. This one is a card I made for my Mum for Mother's Day today. For this card I thought I would have a go at the tiling technique as I have seen some beautiful cards made using this technique lately. I scored the cardstock using an embossing tool and a ruler to make 1 1/2cm squares, you can also use a "score pal" or the scoring tool on your paper trimmer, which would be a lot easier! I then inked up my "From the Garden" background stamp. A level one hostess stamp from Stampin' Up!. I used versa-mark ink, then inked it again in Purely Pomegranate, so that I could then emboss a coloured image with clear embossing powder. I wanted the flower to stand out a little against the leaves, so I very lightly watercoloured it using an Aqua-painter and the Purely Pomegranate ink pad. It was then layered on Purely Pomegranate cardstock, with the main card being Night of Navy cardstock. Mum really loved the colour combo! I finished the card with the sentiment from "Infinte Goodness" and a piece of the (sadly) discontinued navy organza ribbon. Very happy with the overall effect.

Special Cards for Special People!

Well, a busy week or two it has been!! What with a workshop and a Stamp-a-stack, as well as my "normal" job, things have been a little frantic lately! Still there have been a few special people in my life that I have needed to make cards for, so, a good excuse to take some "me" time when the family are asleep and play with some new stamp sets and some new techniques!

This first card was made for my gorgeous girlfriend for her birthday. We all need a friend like this one, you know, the one you call when you need some-one to mind the kids for an hour or two, the one you call for a quick chat and are still on the phone an hour or two later …! The one who knows not to say anything, just to listen when you are being totally irrational!

The idea of combining the polished stone and faux metal techniques came from a UK demonstrator I have had the great fortune to meet and share craft time with – Ann Wills – you can check out her wonderful blog by clicking here .

The colour scheme was dictated, of course, by my girlfriend's favourites, purple and green. As I had a piece of the polished stone cardstock I demoed at a recent stamp camp left over, I used this as a basis for the card and took the other colours from there. I was so sad to see Vintage Violet go from the Stampin' Up! Catalogue, especially as I have now discovered it works so well with Sage Shadow! However, I am quickly falling in love with the new "in colours" particularly Purely Pomegranite and Blue Bayou. The stamp set used was "Infinite Goodness" a level 2 hostess set from the 2008-2009 Stampin' Up! Ideas book and catalogue – for this particular friend it just had to be a dragonfly. So here is the result.

Time to Play!

Well now that stamp camp is over, I have finally had a bit of time to mount and play with some of the stamps from the new catalogue! Thought you might be interested in what I have been up to…

This first one was actually one I put together before stamp camp. As my colleague Lynda was teaching the brayered sky technique on the day, I thought I should have a go and make sure I could do it too!! Here is my attempt, using the new "Wanted" set from Stampin' Up!.

The next one is using a technique created by a very talented artist called Laura Fredrickson, whose blog "Scrapnextras" I regularly visit. You can check out Laura's blog by clicking here
For this card I wanted to play with the new Stampin' Up! "In colours" for 2008, so I used Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou together with So Saffron and a touch of Real Red. The stamps were the Star Studded standard wheel and the new Classic Stars jumbo wheel. I thought this would make a nice boy card.

Finally this one is using the new sets Voila and Voila a la carte. As my DH is a chef, I am really familiar with where their whites get dirty when the creative genius is upon them. I wanted to reflect that in my card. I really liked the effect, I did the water colouring with stamp n' write markers and an aqua painter.

Fossil Stone Technique

Well, here we go, deep breath … my very first blog entry. And what a way to start! Talk about jumping off the deep end! I am going to make my very first blog entry a tutorial! I must be mad. Ask Lynda, I'm sure she would agree.

So, you may be wondering why such an adventurous first blog? Well, I have a workshop coming up soon and I was cruising the net for inspiration (as you do) and I came across a tutorial by Julie Buhler for a technique called Fossil Stone. Some of you will know that I am a bit of a technique junkie, so if I see something I like, I just have to try it. Anyway this technique involves the use of a brayer. Having just completed the brayering Stamp Camp with Lynda, you would have been justified in thinking that I would retire my brayer for quite some time after all the preparation and so on. However I saw this technique and thought "the stamp camp ladies would like that". You see how dedicated I am (lol!) The best part is you don't even get your brayer dirty!!

Anyway, here goes … Please excuse my dodgy photography, hopefully it will improve with practice.

Fossil Stone Technique

You will need:

An A4 plastic sheet protector
2 coordinating ink colours (I used Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou)
2 pieces of glossy card stock
A brayer
Stamps of your choice

Step 1.

Cut the bottom and side off your sheet protector so you can open it flat. Smudge your first ink colour onto one side of the plastic.

Step 2.

Smudge your second ink colour onto the other side of the plastic.

Step 3.

Close the sheet protector and rub it with your hand to create air bubbles.

Step 4.

Insert your two pieces of glossy card stock, back to back,
with the glossy side of each facing outward.
Lay them in your sheet protector and close it over them.

Step 5.

Brayer over the cardstock (on the outside of the sheet protector) until the cardstock has a good coverage of ink.

Remove your cardstock and let it dry.

The finished cardstock!

And my card - Fishy Fossil!

Stamped images are copyright Stampin' Up! 1986-2008.
I hope you like this technique and have fun playing with it. Let me know what you think of my first tutorial!!

Claire