It's finally here!!

Hooray, after weeks of planning, the ESAD Christmas in July blog hop is finally going live.





I hope you're ready for the ESAD Christmas in July Blog hop!

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators and it is an online group just for Australian and New Zealand demonstrators for Stampin' Up!

We so love what we do, and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends and wonderful blog visitors, but we share out love for what we do with each other as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know how and cyberstamps and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group.

You may have come to my blog from the super talented Paula Fuller or you may be starting with me. Either way WELCOME! I hope you enjoy the project I have to share. To continue on your way, just click on the link at the end of my post.

There are 25 very talented ladies on this hop, so grab yourself a cuppa, settle in and prepare to be inspired by wonderful cards, 3d projects and gift ideas. You will be so filled with inspiration that you will be dying to get started early on those Christmas projects.

The project I have to share with you today was a huge hit with my "Christmas Club" ladies last year - waving to you girls! It makes a perfect $5 KrisKringle gift for a workmate (or a gift for your child's teacher) and can be personalised to suit their tastes.

This idea came from a very talented US Stampin' Up! Demo - Amy Rysavy. You start with a clear glass bauble (they can be purchased from any large craft supplies store) and customise it using Stampin' Up! re-inkers and glitter. For my baubles I have used Chocolate Chip ink with the Chocolate Supernova glitter, Riding Hood Red ink with Dazzling Diamonds glitter and Kiwi Kiss ink with the Olive Supernova glitter. Don't they look gorgeous sparkling in the sunlight?

To complete the gift and make it easy to present, I needed a box. I discovered that the too clever and sooo easy to make 7's box, designed by the incredibly talented Marelle Taylor, (you can find the directions here). Fits these baubles beautifully! I have used Chocolate Chip cardstock and decorated it with DSP from the Bella Rose paper pack.

Here it is open:

And closed - ready to give as a gift:

I hope you liked the project I shared with you today. Pop back in the next few days and I will share a tutorial on how to customise the baubles. Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Now on to the creative musings of the inspiring Shelly Stewart. Enjoy the rest of the hop!

Cheers

Claire

Too cute!

Hello! A really cute project to share with you today.

I needed a special thank you gift for a freind that I stayed with in Sydney a little while back (waving to you Gerry!). I wanted the gift to be very special so it has taken me a fair while to decide what to do and then to put it all together. This friend of mine has a beautiful wee lad who will turn one later in the year. So I decided that an assortment of cards for little people may be the go!

I purchased Andrea Walford's gorgeous stationery purse class here. Then spent a fair bit of time customising it to suit Aussie card sizes. (These things do not come easily to someone as numerically challenged as I am - lol!) Then of course I had to decide on colours and stamps etc. Eventually I decided to use some of the leftovers from the flip flop album I made for my Secret Sister. (See my previous post) So I ended up using the too cute Hoppy Memories Simply Scrappin' kit and the gorgeous Fox and Friends stamp set. I am thrilled with the results and I hope that Gerry will like it too!

Here is the purse closed:


And here, fully opened out:

Inside there are two little pockets on either end, one for gift tags


and one for gift cards or little 3x3 love notes

The colours used in the Hoppy Memories Simply Scrappin' kit are Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, Real Red and Kiwi Kiss. I threw a little Melon Mambo in there so some of the cards etc would have a more "girly" feel.

The two centre pockets contain full sized cards and envelopes:


I love that this project is so bright and cheerful. I hope you like it too... Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Claire

More Secret Sister Gifts

My Secret Sister Linda had a birthday in April, so I made her a special card. I had seen lots of quilted top notes around, so I made my own version using the Cottage Wall Designer Series Papers (DSP) and the too cute new Bird Punch from the SU Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue. I also used a couple of the Designer Buttons I made from the same DSP. If you are interested in how I did this, there is a fab tutorial on Danielle Daws' blog - here


I also made and sent these gifts to Linda:
Linda loves to bake so I wrapped her gifts in these gorgeous tea towels for extra protection in the post, and also as useful wrapping paper! The card is inspired by a series of Heather Summers' from her Simply Stamping online classes. It uses the Friends 24-7 stamp set.

Inside the tea towels were a personalised mini album for each of her children.


Archie's uses the Hoppy Memories Simply Scrappin' Kit and is a Flip Flop album, again designed by the oh so talented Heather Summers. Sophia's is a Paper Bag Album designed by the awesome Jan Tink (you can purchase the instructions here) and uses the Sunny Day Simply Scrappin' Kit from the Autumn/Winter mini.



Here is a pic of the inside of Archie's album. The centre flap and the left hand flap flip upwards to reveal more pages that flip downwards. It is very cool!



Here is the inside of Sophia's album - unfortunately the pic insists on turning itself sideways when I upload it (I have no idea why!!) but you get the idea lol!

I hope you like these projects, I certainly had a ball creating them. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Cheers

Claire