Wow, where has the month gone, it seemed only yesterday that I was posting about my last class and here.  Mind you, I've done 2 fairs and have been quite poorly with bad tonsillitis, so it must be nearly a month...lol.

Anyway, today I held my monthly class and a couple of my lovely ladies couldn't make it for one reason or another so I held it at my house instead of the hall I usually have it at.  As last month was a scrapbook month it meant this month was cards.  I asked my ladies at the last class what they would like to cover this month, as I think it is important to go with my ladies views, and they wanted another Christmas Class.

Well I'm all for doing Christmas cards as it helps me get ideas for my cards too, I just need to make sure I don't send my sister and sister-in-law the same one...haha.   So the stamp set we went for this week was Joyous Celebrations from the new Autumn/Winter catalogue.  My ladies also bought the embossing folder and punch that are shown on the same page.

OK so what did we make, well we did a little bag, using the fantastic new Bigz die in the main catalogue, and 6 wonderful cards (well that's what my ladies said).  So here they are in one shot and I'll then show you them individually:

The first thing my ladies did was the lovely little bag you can make with the bigz die.

I used paper from our wonderful 12x12 selection Be of  Good Cheer, you get 2 bags from one sheet.  I can't believe the gorgeous 12x12 papers we have this time.  I have received the wood effect set (sry can't remember the catty name but you will know which ones) and OMG they are just lush, the shine on them is fantastic.  Anyway back to the bag and you will see there is no stamping from the Joyous Celebration but I did use the stamps from Tags til Christmas which I think is a must seeing as Christmas is nearly upon us.  I have also used the Sweater Trim from the Autumn Winter catty and, I hope you agree looks great on this project.

Here are the 6 cards we made today:

 

You will see that I have used several different techniques and products, some new some old, to make these cards.  For those of you who have the new catalogue you will see that I have "cheated" a little and CASED a card from the catty.  Now its not that I couldn't come up with a 6th idea but I just love this card.  Its so simple yet so effective.  However, instead of using the Itty Bitty Frames dies I have cut the "label" by hand with cutting a "V" either end of the card.

Well, I hope my absence has been worth the wait.  I promise I will be back soon with new projects to show you.  Until then take care of yourself and pop back soon and please leave a comment.

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Products used:

Stamp sets – Joyous Celebrations, Tags til Christmas

Big Shot – Oval Embossing Folder, Framelits Dies, Bag bigz die

Inks – Gumball Green, Raspberry Ripple, Early Espresso 

Papers – Be of good cheer, Festival of prints designer series paper stack

Punches – Decorative Label, 1” and 1 ¾” Circle Punch, 1 ¼ and 2 3/8 Scallop punch, Large oval punch, Boarder punch, 2 ½ “ round punch

Accessories –Self Adeshive Rhinestones and Pearls, Round treat cups, BakersTwine, White gel pen, Dazzling details silver sparkle, Big shot long plates, Brads, White Stiched Ribbon, Tulle ribbon (cherry cobbler), Vintage Faceted and Naturals designer buttons, Sweater Trim

Adhesive Paper – Festival of print designer series paper stack

Tools –  Paper trimmer with scoring blades

               Bone folder

               Snail Adhesive

               Tombow Glue

               Stampin’ scrub

               Stampin’ mist cleaner

Ex stampin up – Crop-a-dile

Mothers day pressie....

Oh my I can't believe its over a month since I last blogged, where does the time go???   I haven't been doing too much as my back hasn't allowed me to but I have made a few projects like my mums card for today and my grandson's christening keepsake for last Sunday but more of that another day.  One thing I was asked to do by my daughter was to make a 3d picture frame for my grandson's other mama, Julie, for mothers day.  She teamed up with her partners sister and they took their children to have a joint photo session so that I had one photo of all three to work with. 

Its difficult to make something for someone you don't really know as I've only met Julie three times and not really had the chance to chat with her too much.  However, her daughter said that the colour theme in her house was green and when she looked at my colour chart last weekend she said it was a similar collour to Old Olive so I had a bit of a starting point.

So I painted the frame with Gesso (not a SU product) and then, using a stamp from Vintage Vogue, I stamped around the frame in Basic Black.  I them used the smallest butterfly out of Flight of the Butterfly and stamped the image in Platinum shimmer paint.   I had a thin piece of rubber that came with my ink pad holder so I used the Beautiful Wings Embosslits dies with the big shot to make the smaller butterflies.  The shimmer paint was added using a dauber.  So that was the frame complete but I didn't get the actual picture until Friday so I wasn't sure what colours I was working with. 

Anyway once I got the photo I noticed that the main colours were dark blue and baby pink.  Now, using my colour coach I looked at what colours went with Old Olive and to my delight I saw that one of the set of recommended colours contained Pretty in Pink and the other set contained Night of Navy, how lucky was that!!!  Here is the end result.....

The base card was 12x12 Old Olive I then used a sheet of the paper from the Flirtatious Speciality Paper (pg 96) as the second layer and created the border with the Eyelet punch (pg116).  The next layer is Night of Navy and again I used the eyelit border punch.  The corners of the photo were created using the FancyFlower Punch (pg 118) and I cut a slit in the shape and put the corners of the photo through, this was a technique recently shown in a Demo magazine.  You can try it with any punch such as the curly label, square etc and see the different effects.  To make the flowers I followed a technique shown on another Demo's site here, where I stamped the sentiment En Francais on tissue paper.  I then folded the tissue paper 4 times and  used the 5 Petal Punch to punch out the shape.  I used some old olive card at the same time to give some stability as I punched the shape out, this was used as the base to the flower.  A brad was then put through the middle of all layers and the tissue paper crumpled up to create the flower.

The sentiment at the bottom was made using Very Vanilla card and Timeless Type Junior Alphabet die in conjunction with the big shot.  The little flowers were made using the Boho Blossoms punch.  Other materials used were buttons from the Regals collection, pearls and glimmer brads.

My daughter and her parterner were very happy with the end result as was his sister but the telling time was when they gave it to his mum as her present.   Luckily she liked it so I'm happy.   I'll be honest but whilst making it I thought I was missing out on something like this.... I need not to have worried as my daughters did a frame with 3 sections to it and the middle one was a photo taken of me and the girls last Sunday at Leo's christening and either side to that was little Leo.... I couldn't have asked for a better pressie, all my babies together.  I haven't taken a picture yet but when I do I'll show you. :)

Sorry for such a long post, I'll try and be quicker next time.  Til then take care.

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Christmas presents

Hello Everyone,

Now you are probably wondering what on earth is this woman going on about christmas presents for when its only the beginning of January?   Well I'm actually going to show you some christmas presents that I made this year for some members of my family.

The first one I made was for my eldest daughter Nicola and her partner Lee.   Here it is.....

As you can see it is of gorgeous baby Leo.   I've used a box frame and painted it white with Gesso (none SU) and them stamped on the frame in Basic Black and Real Red ink.   The swirly pattern is from a stamp in the Creative Elements set and the flowers are from the ever popular Greenhouse Garden.  To decorate inside the frame I've used the Flower Daisies and Fun Flowers Die and the Medium Sizzlits dies for the letters.  The capital letters of his name have been mounted using the 2 different size Tag punches.  The embellishments used are the adhesive Pearls and a couple of clips from the clip assortments, buttons and antique brads. 

Now below is another present only this time it was for my youngest daughter Kirsty and her partner Alex.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picutre when it was completed this is the "designing" stage but you will get the jist of what I did as its very similar to Nicolas.  

This picture was taken of them when they were in Paris last year.   The difference between the two frames were that I only put the swirly pattern on Kirstys and I've used the Heart to Heart punch and letters from the chipboard Alphabet Soup selection to embelish it.  I've also used buttons, antique brads and filigree brads in the centre of the flowers.

These were given after all the other presents had been opened when we were at mum's on Christmas day and both girls loved them, in fact Nicola got very emotional :) 

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my projects this time.  Please leave a comment as I love to read them.

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Box Frame class 2

Good morning ladies,

I'm finally catching up on my sleep from convention last weekend, its only taken all week to do...haha

Yesterday I  held my monthly crafting class and this month we made the box frames again as most of the ladies hadn't done it previously.   It was such fun as the new ladies didn't know what to expect, they thought they would be making a frame from cardboard not a 3D project.  However, all of them throughly enjoyed the class.  Here are some of the pages out of the frames to prevent the glear off the glass :-

This one is Emily's, its a picture of her and her brother and is a christmas present for her nan, lovely thought don't you think?  Colours used for this one were Early Expresso, crumb cake and pretty in pink.

Next we have Rachels.  Rachel decided she only wanted to do a 6x6 frame to match the one she has done previously, so cute.  The colours used on this one are Rich Razzleberry, pretty in pink, bashful blue and Wild wasabi.

Finally this is the one my sister did, shush its a christmas pressie for our mum, and its of my lovely grandson Leo.  This picture was taken about 3 weeks ago when he was only 14 weeks old, he's growing soooo quickly its frightening.  The cardstock used here was Island Indigo, Daffodile Delight and Basic Black.  You may have noticed the special paper at the bottom of this card, thats from the Mocha Morning Speciality DSP, isn't it just lush?

The other ladies didn't quite finish their projects in time but all have assured me that once they have they will wing a picture to me so I can show you all the finsihed products. 

If you would like to order any of the products listed or come to one of my classess just get in touch using one of the methods at the top of my blog.

Thanks for visiting, I'm off to start on my Christmas cards so I'll be back soon with more projects to show you.

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Stampin' Up! convention 2011

Hello ladies,

I have just returned from the annual Stampin' Up! convention and boy was it a fantastic experience.  The journey started last Wednesday evening when I stayed at a fellow demonstrators home, Zoe who was kind enough to drive us to Disneyland in Paris.  We left early Thursday morning and picked up another 2 demos before heading for the tunnel.  We arrived at the hotel at 7pm and thats when the fun began.

Friday started with a nice breakfast at the hotel and then off we headed to convention.  On arriving we were presented with a gorgeous black embroidered bag (which I will show you later), free stamp sets and the itinerary for the event.  We were then allowed to go into Mamento Mall where we were able to purchase exclusive items for demo's that attend convention.  It was like christmas had come early...  I spent ooodles and ooodles but don't tell the hubby : -)  After a day of inspiring classes and talks we had the awards dinner.  This recognised the demonstrators who had acheived certain milestones in their career, unfortunately I wasn't one of them but my upliner, Victoria, was.  Congratulations Victoria.

Saturday saw another day of inpiration and demonstrations that boosted everyone's enthusiasm in the room.  It was so uplifting to see lots of European demos together and the swaps were gorgeous.  Saturday evening was our time so we spent it roaming round Disney Village and of course I just had to buy something for my gorgeous little grandson, so I got him a Mickey Mouse and its only just a little bit smaller than him...lol   We arrived home safely Sunday evening and it was sooooo good to be home. 

Of course with going to convention meant swaps were needed so I decided to use the pillow box die and wanted to put a little chocolate bar in as a surprise.   So I foolishly bought the chocolate bars before making the boxes and guess what.... yep thats right, they didn't fit !!!!  So, not being one to be beaten by a chocolate bar, I decided to make up one box of each design and then give the actual swap out as a flat pack to make up at home and the chocolate bar seperately.  Well the amount of demo's that kept trying to take my sample  was hilarious and trying to explain the different chocolate bars was even more funny, my fellow demo and friend, Shazza, was laughing sooo much.  

I made 20 of each colour and the materials used were:

Concord Crush, Poppy Parade, Lucky Limeade, Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler c/s

Victoria crochet trim, Very Vanilla and Old Olive satin ribbon, Elegant Eggplant scallop ribbon, Pear Pizzazz polly stitched ribbon.  I just loved using the new ribbon and trim, they are soooo gorgeous, a definate must have in my opinion.

Doily triple layer punch, big shot, pillow box die, crimper and pearls. 

Sorry its been such a long post but it has been a while.  I'll try and post some pictures of the convention tomorrow.  If you would like to purchase any of the products mentioned above I'd be happy to place an order for you.  I can be contacted on 07891476636 or by e-mail tracy6636@hotmail.com

Til next time, take care

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Baby frames

Its getting close to my first grandchild arriving, 17 days,  and everyone is getting excited, especially my hubby...lol   It seems like only yesterday that Nic and Lee told us they were having a baby, I can still remember the shock!!! 

Yesterday Nikki and Lee decided to have a housing warming party and invited just immediate family to join them and see the nursery.  I know that Nikki loved the baby frame I did a few months back and had asked me to do another 2 to go with it saying love and hope.  Well I finally finished them in time and took them round yesterday.  It was the finishing touches to the room and here they are:

Needless to say they both loved them and were already up on the wall by the time we were allowed to see the finished nursery.  Now that was emotional in itself seeing it all set out ready for baby to arrive.  We then went on to have a lovely BBQ.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by, please leave a comment if you wish.

Hugs
Tracy -x-

Box Frame class

Yesterday I held my box frame class and, as usual, we had a blast.  For once everyone finished their project...lol  I was meant to start one of the two I have to do for baby but didn't get a chance, too busy running around after everyone....lol  The ladies had free rain over all my stamps, punchs, inks, embellishments etc and each finished project was totally different and all looked stunning.

This is Rachels' finished project, she did a 6x6 frame.   The colours used were Rose Red, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, Perfect Plum Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake

Next is Teresas' finished frame, hers was slightly larger at 12x12.  Her colour combination was Pear Pizzaz, Peach Parfait, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake and Pretty in Pink.

Finally here's Stephs', who also did a 12 x12 frame.   Stephs' colours were Real Red, Wild Wassabi, Basic Grey, Chocolate Chip and Daffidil Delight. 

I'm sure you will agree with me that they are all fabulous projects and so different. Looking forward to next time ladies.

Hugs
Tracy -x-

Top Note box

Hello everyone,

Yet another hectic week, where does the time go. I'll be a Nan before you know it as Nic's only got 9 weeks to go OMG...lol Still we have got the pram and cot so thats the big items out of the way.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked, by Victoria,  to demo a project at her team training.  Well to say I was gobsmacked is an understatement but felt honoured so wanted to do something a little different and decided to make a Top Note die box.  When I did my first attempt I didn't have the Fun Flowers Die from the mini to make a flower for the top, it was on order, but I did have the circle scalloped punch.  So, stretching my brains cells a little I managed to make a flower from the punch out of the Sprintime Vintage DSP ( also from the mini).  Here is the finished project:

The final version was altered slightly to show the fun flowers die and alternate petals were embossed to give it a little character. 

The box and flowers are made using Crumb Cake and Rose Red c/s and the DSP's from the mini.  I just love the Rose Red colour at the moment, so rich looking.

Well thank you for stopping by and please leave a comment.  I hope to be back sooner next time...lol

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Hanging photo frame

Well its been a very busy time since I last posted.  Saturday was a day to get all the odd jobs done around the house, doing a bit of shopping, washing etc,  The usual boring day to day stuff...lol.   Then on Sunday I was helping Victoria at one of her papercraft sales doing the make and takes.  I met a lot of lovely ladies and I hope they enjoyed doing the projects as much as I did.

I have been making some projects to demonstrate the versitality of SU products and for this one I've concentrated on using the wonderful BIG SHOT.   I have concentrated on using the big note die to make a hanging photo frame.

This is my garden and shows hubby last year laying a patio outside the front of our conservatory and then at the side and the snow in Jan/Feb this year.  Before he did the  patio all that was in the front of the patio doors were 12 slabs so a major improvement I think and it always amazes me how different the garden looks covered in snow.

I have used lots of SU products and they consist of:
Top Note Die, Embossing folders, boarder punches, very vanilla and marina mist card stock and ribbon, greenhouse garden stamp set, rhinestones, springtime vintage dsp, itty bitty bits stamp set and buttons, various punches and alphabet stamps.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my project and thank you for stopping by.

Hugs
Tracy -x-

   

Baby Frame

Yesterday I had a day of crafting at Victorias and it was a great day, so relaxed.   We didn't make cards or scrapbook pages this time but a 3d frame.   There were five of us, including Victoria, and we each choose the colour scheme we wanted to work with.  The colur schemes were blue and brown, purples, neutrals, pinks and mine was lemon and beige.

We all had different ideas as to where our pictures were going to be hung once completed and ranged from the kitchen, craft room etc.  Everyones' frames turned out brilliantly and pics were taken by Victoria, she may blog them at some stage so pop over to her blog and have a look.  Now mine was for our new addition expected in July, hence lemon and beige.  It was sooooo easy to do and I have now ordered the same frames so that I can do a similar class with my ladies at some stage.

So here is my attempt.  Several sets were used:  Little Additions, Just Perfect alphabet set, Trendy Trees, Bundle of love and lots of pearls and punches.

I can't wait to see Nicola and Lees' response to it, I hope they like it and will hang it in the nursery when its done :)

Thanks for looking and please leave a comment.

Hugs
Tracy -x-