In the Pink

My Christmas Cards 2011

2011-12-24T17:02:00.001+11:00

Well It’s time I showed some of MY Christmas cards. I’ve been trawling the net for weeks looking at the creations of others and being truly inspired, now I had best show mine before Christmas is a distant memory!

This one I gave to a few special people who came to my classes during the year. I know you can’t tell by this photo, but the Xmas tree has been stamped with White craft ink and heat embossed with the new Iridescent Ice embossing powder. When you angle it in the light, you see all that sparkly goodness!

Here is the one that I sent to family and friends, a simple design where I just let the Stitched Stockings and matching builder punch be the star, adding family names just to personalise it a bit.

This year I treated myself to the Welcome Christmas stamp set, tried out a few different things and here is one of them. My frame has been punched out with the Scallop Trim Border and just for something different for the ladies in my class, it’s been applied around the outside. Not an easy feat round an oval!

I have long wanted to try one of these Festive doors since I saw one years ago in a card magazine. I think I just had to wait until I had a wreath stamp. Any way I quite like how it turned out.

Gone for Garden Green with this fairly simple but I hope effective design.

You can tell I’ve gotten a lot out of this set. This time the wreath and ‘Joy’ are heat embossed in white. I just love that effect on a darker colour especially at Christmas time. Also looks great with Cherry Cobbler if I do say so myself.

Some thing in Baja Breeze now. I think this colour and Dazzling Diamonds Glitter go really well together at Christmas time. Also love the new matching Seam Binding Ribbon.

Another stamp set I treated myself to this year was Jolly Bingo Bits.

I haven’t really had a good chance to play with this set, although most of the ideas in my head involve lots of fussy-cutting out the little images, hence I haven’t found the time. There is always next year for that.

I have seen other clever people using these images to create the words ‘JOY’ and ‘JOLLY’ so I thought I would have a go at that too and here is my creation.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing my Christmas cards. I enjoyed making them when I had the time.

Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year, thats when I’ll be back. Till then,

Jen

GIANT CRAFT SALE!

2011-11-13T16:12:00.001+11:00

It's on again!

The Stampers Anonymous team and I are getting together to have our fourth Annual Giant Craft Sale Day.

We have cleaned out our cupboards, and have lots of Craft Goodies that need to find new homes. There are retired stamps and scrapbooking supplies, ribbons, embellishments, plus handmade cards and gifts too (perfect for Christmas!), and lots lots more!

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

When: Saturday, 19th November

Time: 9:30am -1pm

Where: NEW VENUE! Toongabbie Public School Hall

(cnr Fitzwilliam St and Binalong Rd Toongabbie, opposite the IGA.)

Please spread the word to anyone who may be interested, and I hope to see you there!

Jen

All in one go

2011-10-30T21:59:00.000+11:00

It’s been a while since I last blogged, so I’ll show a few things all in one go.

Back in July, our team held a Stamp camp and I was asked by Marelle to present a shoebox swap with ‘My Friend’. This was very similar to something I saw on the net, although have no memory of who the original creator was. I really love the use of colours, I think that was the attraction for me.

Don’t adjust your screens, yes it’s meant to be a little off centre. This is a shadowing effect or as some people call it ‘ghosting’.

I’ve been meaning to have a play with this for a while and a good solid stamp like Medallion background is a good one to use. The solid stamp is stamped with Whisper White and dried with a heat tool. Then stamp the same colour as your card stock over the top, except a little offset. A Stamp-a-ma-jic should help out nicely here. I cant resist running my hand over the top of this and I hope it comes across that way.

I made this card a few months ago after I saw Mary Fish do this kind of thing with Clearly For You. I thought it was a good way to show off a lot of the little stamps in the set. So I set off making a blue version similar to Mary’s green one. Mary had used one of the little silver keys in the centre of her flower, but when I made mine we didn’t yet have access to the keys in Australia so I used a gold one that I had long had in my craft stash. Of course a few weeks later our new SU catalogue came out in September and there of course were the silver keys!

Not sure what you call this water colouring effect, but I know I love doing it on on Fifth Avenue Floral. I never get tired of how the re-inker pools when you dot a little bit on your misted image with a brush. I can make 10 of these roses at once and not one of them looks the same. I thought it would look good with the matching embossing folder and can you tell I love those butterflies!

Thanks for stopping by. The last couple of weeks have seen me making Christmas cards for classes, so I should be showing some of those soon.

Jen

Old And New

2011-09-03T16:57:00.001+10:00

I meant to post these the other night before our new Catalogue came out but got a bit busy, any way they mix one of the new In colours with last Catalogues stamps. I love Wisteria Wonder and from the feedback I have received, so do a lot of others.

This card uses a previous Hostess stamp ‘Fast & Fabulous’ and a saying from ‘Friends 24-7’ and the bird punch, which is now called Bird Builder punch.

This card uses another Hostess ‘Because I Care’. I always felt that this Hydrangea was crying out for a mauve/lilacy colour, enter Wisteria Wonder! Teams terrifically with Elegant Eggplant. Other colours used, Pink Pirouette and Cherry Cobbler, have been selected using my updated ‘Colour Coach’. Some of the other stamps used on this card are ‘Friends 24-7’ and the script from ‘French Foliage’.

Thanks for stopping by and next time I post I will definitely have something from our new Catalogue.

Jen

Fathers day class

2011-08-28T11:43:00.001+10:00

I held a class for Fathers day this week. Now, I would have loved to have used the new stamp set ‘Best Dad Ever’ but my dilemma (and other Australian demos as well) is that this set isn’t released until next Thursday the 1st Sept in our new Catalogue. So we can’t get our hands on it just yet and Fathers day is on the 4th of Sept.

The ladies who come to my class have already had their fill of ‘Totally Tools’ for Dads cards, so I’ve gone ahead and used these 2 great stamps from our NOW finished Autumn/Winter Mini.

For ‘Sail Away’ I have used the ‘Sanded’ background, one of our soon to be retired sets, the sentiment comes from ‘Teeny Tiny Sentiments’ Don’t know what I would do without this set!

The popular ‘Motor Cycle’ has been used here. My silver panel has been made by putting a panel of Basic Gray through the ‘square lattice’ embossing folder, then saturating it in my Versamark ink pad and heat embossing it with silver powder. I think It really brings out the metal look.

Well the ladies loved the cards and I’m sure ‘Best Dad ever’ will certainly get a work out from me in the next 12 months when we do get it!

Thanks for stopping by

Jen

Christmas In July

2011-07-31T13:45:00.001+10:00

Here in Australia we love our ‘Christmas in July’. It’s the coldest month of the year and we get to experience what a Northern Hemisphere Christmas is like, minus the snow of course unless we live up in the mountains!

I’ve seen a few Christmas in July projects being shown on Aussie Blogs, that prompted be to think of something I could show. I haven’t been working on any Christmas projects but do have something I made last Christmas (the real one back in December).

In my travels I had seen wreath cards similar to mine using the Two-step Bird punch branch. However, when I sat down to make one my self, it didn’t look right. So I sat down and had a play and this is what I came up with.

I ended up cutting off the single leaf on one side, trimming the branch and arranging them on a pencil drawn circle template. Next I did a second layer to cover up the spaces of the first one. This is what I came up with and here is a close-up of the wreath.

I used some red rhinestones that I had and some retired stripy ribbon that reminded me of candy canes.

Thanks for checking in and ‘Happy Christmas in July’ to you!

Jen

I'm late, I'm late!

2011-07-31T13:12:00.000+10:00

Well here we are at the end of July and the end of another Mini Catalogue. I haven’t blogged for a while but recently I held a class highlighting stamp sets from this mini and here is what I came up with.

I got inspiration for this card with the recent ribbon promotion featured this month. I used the new ‘Sweet Buttons’ Embosslits (love ‘em, will be using them lots in the future) instead of real buttons and the green ric-rac in the background is something I had in my craft stash.

I was channeling Darrel Lea chocolate shops with this one. They’ve been around in Australia a lot longer than I have. When I was young, the shop assistants in Darrel Leas used to wear floral smocks as part of their uniform with a big pink satin bow on the front, any body old enough to remember that? I think the whole outfit was meant to resemble a chocolate box.

This set has some lovely elements in it. I used the flourish to create the border, Love that flourish! A beautiful set and supporting such a worthy cause!

For the next two cards I had a play with ‘Clearly for you’ and the new ‘Beveled Windowpanes’ I also had a go at reverse embossing with the big shot and ‘Vintage Wallpaper’ embossing folder.

Some Demos may recognise this card from our monthly Stampin’ Up! publication we receive every month. It uses another product I love, Elegant Soiree DS paper. How sad will I be when this goes at the end of next month!

Thanks for looking in, I hope to show a few more things from the Mini before it finishes.

Jen

Birthday Cake Bounty

2011-06-12T16:47:00.000+10:00

Hello all!

Yes, I know there has been a lot of these awning cards featuring the Birthday Bakery Hostess Set. I’ve checked out a few I’ve seen on the net and this is the inspired card I have come up with.

This card I sent recently to my Niece, who I know is partial to a piece of cake.... or two! Not unlike myself!

Here’s to cake

Cheers

Jen

Taking Care Of Birthday Business

2011-05-29T19:00:00.002+10:00

Major apologies for the lack of blogging lately. I had meant to blog the following nearly 2 weeks ago, Well here I am now!

I had a bit of a surprise almost 2 weeks ago after my birthday on May the 16th. I received a lovely birthday card from Stampin’ Up, which was a bit special since it had ONLY just been announced a few days before at the recent Convention that all demonstrators would be receiving a card on their birthday!

I was especially chuffed because I knew that I was one of the 1st recipients of the birthday card and that it meant I could receive a further discount on 1 item ordered in addition to the discount we demos already receive! Happy Days!... and what to choose!

I was going to show all of my card and then I realised that would spoil the surprise for other Demos, so here is just a snippet.

Another birthday treat was going off to Adriano Zumbo’s cafe in inner city Rozelle. Something I had been wanting to do for a while. If you watch 'MasterChef Australia' you will certainly know who I’m talking about.

The cafe itself is tiny as far as seating goes, but the kitchen, otherwise known as the ‘Lab’ is huge with a large glass spying window so you can check out where the magic happens. It did appear that there was a class going one with lots people in their Chef whites having a bit of a play. Closer inspection revealed the Master himself working away at the other end of the Kitchen. Bald head down and working furiously at maybe, a V8 cake??? Now, at this point, I confess to being a bit starstruck somewhat and straining to look while I trying to point him out to our kids in excited tones. I’m sure I amused the locals who were dropping by for their pastries and coffee.

Well I didn’t get to try a V8 Cake although I have put in an order for my 50th in 5 years time. Instead we had some pastries and a selection of the famous Macarons to take home.

I believe here we have the likes of Strawberries and Cream, Satay, Pear Pistachio and Lychee Bubble tea to name a few....Yum!

Thanks for listening to my ramblings this time around, next time I will surely be back to business with some cards I have been working on.

Cheers

Jen

Late Mother's Day

2011-05-15T18:03:00.000+10:00

Better late than never I say! Last weekend was Mother’s Day, the week has flown past and I’m just getting around to blogging the card I sent my Mother-in-law in NZ.

For this card I got the ‘Blues’. No, not the melancholy kind but ‘Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze and Marina Mist. Added the ‘Very Vintage’ Wheel for a.....well vintagey look.

I did make a separate card for my Mum, but after I made it I gave it straight to her before I photographed it. Anybody else do that?Never mind I will show the same card soon in the form of a thank you card.

I cant wait to find out how this years SU Convention went. I wasn’t able to make this year in Melbourne. I bet those who went had a great time and I look forward to reading about it on other blogs.

Until next time.

Jen

Hope your weekend was EGGStra special!

2011-04-26T16:48:00.000+10:00

Well ours certainly was. This Easter has been about catching up with friends and family. We attended an Easter Egg hunt with lunch with friends on Good Friday, and then on Easter Sunday we attended another lunch and Egg hunt, this time with extended family. Gosh there’s a lot of chocolate hanging around the house!

Monday saw us staying at home and quietly reflecting on ANZAC day commemorations. Our extra holiday today has also been quiet and hanging around the house. It tends to be rainy and gloomy at Easter time in Sydney, so it has been a bit of a task to photograph these, but here they are.

Here is a close-up of the little nest. I CASE’d this from Qbee’s Quest and here is Brenda’s original. The little eggs I found at Darrell Lea’s. I thought they were the most authentic eggs around, although not so sure about the blue one!

Enjoy what’s left of your Break and I’ll be back soon with some Mother’s Day cards.

Jen

CASE'ing Zindorf

2011-04-13T22:59:00.000+10:00

I finally got around to casing Michelle Zindorf’s work. I’m sure most people are familiar with her work, especially her brayer work. Like most of you all out there, I have long admired her and have always wanted to have a go at CASEing one of her cards, but always felt a bit unconfident. So when she did her ‘golf card’ a while back, I thought that would be a perfect male card I could give Hubby and My Uncle too.

You can see Michelle’s version here And I’m happy to say both Hubby and my Uncle Ernie thought my card was pretty special and spot on!

Jen

Find your Bliss

2011-03-30T12:26:00.000+11:00

Hi all.

This card was part of a recent ‘Sale’A’Bration’ class I held showcasing what you could do with SAB sets. Part of my inspiration for this one came from a picture in the SAB catty and the colour inspiration came from the Colour Coach.

SAB ends tomorrow, Geeez! Where does the time go? I’ll sneek in another SAB card again soon.

Thanks for stopping by in my corner of the world.

Jen

Punch an owl

2011-03-26T19:36:00.000+11:00

A simple but cute card today.

I only just bought the owl punch recently and can’t wait to make more cards. I’ve used the Sale’A’Bration set Punch bunch and decided to go with Bold Brights for a fun birthday card.

Used the scallop circle punch to create simple clouds and the little cup cake comes from Crazy for Cupcakes. I thought I’d give stick on googly eyes a go and I think they look alright!

Hope you like and thanks for stopping by.

Jen

Where have I been?

2011-03-19T19:37:00.002+11:00

Well... the last 4-5 weeks have been spent focusing on my Mum’s 80th Birthday celebrations!

Mum and her twin Brother Ernie had a wonderful 80th Birthday lunch attended by family and friends up at Port Stephens (approx 2 hours north of Sydney).

The location was ‘The Beach House’ right on ‘One Mile Beach’ near Nelson Bay where Uncle Ernie and his family live. The beach itself was only a short stroll past the restaurant.

My job for the big event was of course making the thank you cards for those who attended. There was a beach theme for the lunch, and everything was decorated beautifully by my cousins as you can see with these photos. The thank you cards had to be beachy, so I used a stamp that I’ve had for a long time. No, not a Stampin’ Up one, but one that was very fitting for the occasion.

The Frangipanis used for decoration came from the tree in our front yard which I’ve shown on my blog previously. It was a bit of a challenge transporting them up to Port Stephens, but the effect on everybody’s tables looked lovely.

Here is the kid’s table with my two pictured, just before all the kids demolished the sand castles. My cousin Andrew and his talented wife Amanda put all this together, and as a treat for the kids there was treasure in the form of chocolate coins buried underneath the Sand Castles.

And of course here is the birthday couple (Ernie and Thelma) cutting their cakes. I don’t yet have a photo of my mother’s 80th birthday card. I will blog that in the near future.

Jen

More Valentines

2011-02-13T17:02:00.000+11:00

As promised some more of those Pink and Red cards that appear at this time of the year.

You might be thinking that this one looks a bit familiar. I CASEd it from Andrea Walford, whom I’m sure most SU followers are familiar with. Andrea’s card is here and my version uses similar ingredients.

I personally can’t go past a card that uses 4 different shades of Pink!

For my next card I used the ‘I {love} Love’ wheel and using a Post It note, I masked while rolling in mainly diagonal patterns to create a kind of love-fest background.

Hope you like, I’ll be back this week to show what I’ve created with Sale’a’bration stamp sets.

Happy Valentines day for tomorrow!

Jen

Valentine Comeback

2011-02-12T17:42:00.000+11:00

I’m finally back!

I bet you thought I’d vanished off the face of the earth.

I found it a bit hard to get back into crafting after we returned from our Christmas holiday to NZ. Not long after we returned our beloved cat Monty got hit by a car and didn’t survive. For a little while I was quite down and moping around. Then, because we’re crazy, Steve and I chose to adopt 2 new kittens, partly to get over Monty, but partly because a house just isn’t a home without a pet in my view. Well the kittens named Lucy and Meggsy have had some settling-in issues and some health problems too, but things have settled down a bit and slowly I’ve been able to get back into my card making.

I had a class this week highlighting Valentine cards and these are some of them.

The first one I copied from Stampin Up demonstrator Mag from the US using ‘Be My Valentine’.

This next one features the ‘I {Love} Love Wheel and I always feel you can’t go past red and white for Valentines. I’ve also used the Embosslits ‘Scalloped Heart of Hearts’. I read on someone else’s blog that the little bumps are actually tiny, minuscule, hearts. My eyes have gotten so bad the last few years that even with my glasses on, I’m not quite able to make out the tiny hearts. I will just have to take that lady’s word for it.

The next one features a technique I’ve long been fond of, emboss-resist on gloss paper. After stamping with Versamark and heat-embossing with white, I’ve sponged with Pretty in Pink and Rose Red for effect.

I hope you like, I will be back tomorrow with 2 more Valentine cards, I promise.

Jen

Come in Spinner!

2010-12-24T10:08:00.001+11:00

Do you like my spinnin’ Santa? This was another we made at a Christmas class here. The ladies loved this one and are promising to save their 5cent pieces to make more. If you’ve never made a spinner card they’re good fun!

The Santa is the same as I used in Heather’s Secret Santa present in a previous post, using the same punches.

This is the last post from New Zealand before we settle down for our Kiwi Christmas. I don’t have anymore Christmas photos to share, well maybe one more when I get back to Australia next year on the 4^th.

So until I see you again, Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year and especially Happy Stamping.

Jen

Gifts for Kids

2010-12-24T09:47:00.000+11:00

Just some things for the kids in our lives. The little cards are what we made for the kids in Jasmine’s class, and the little sunny boy triangles are a little something my ladies made in a recent class at my house.

The idea came from an Australian lady on YouTube. Here is a link to the clip.

Jen

Frosted Baubles

2010-12-24T09:30:00.000+11:00

This is the card I sent to Marelle as part of a Secret Santa conspiracy. Same as last year, most of Marelle’s team sent her an anonymous card claiming to be her Secret Santa, just to confuse her.

Anyway this is mine and I love how it turned out. A bit of masking, a variety of Christmas stamps and some of that lovely Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

Please forgive me for not stating my card recipe like I normally do. Because I’m posting from New Zealand, I forgot to bring my catalogue with me to refer to and I’m a bit rusty with some of the stamp names

Jen

Secret Santa from Sam

2010-12-24T09:18:00.000+11:00

Here at last is the Picture of my Christmas Gift from my giving Secret Santa Sam. Here’s another with the fantasy box open revealing the contents of SU products.

By the way I took a bit longer in posting this because I’ve been a busy girl! I’ve already put on my Christmas lunch with my extended family in Sydney last Sunday and on Tuesday my hubby, the kids and I flew to New Zealand to have Christmas with his family. So here I am posting form Tauranga in the North Island. Fingers crossed the posting works out properly!

See you soon with some more Christmassy things hopefully before Christmas!

Jen

Riding Hood Red Dasher

2010-12-15T22:14:00.000+11:00

As promised another Dasher card.

This one was part of a class back in November. This time around he has been stamped with a mixture of Riding hood Red re-inker and Frost White shimmer paint.

If you look closely Dasher is sporting his own little ‘Merry’ label around his neck... cute eh?

Still more Chrissy photos to show, so I’ll be back soon with some more.

Jen

Stamp Sets: Dasher; Occasional Greetings

Card Stock: Riding Hood Red; Very Vanilla; Crumb Cake

Ink: Riding Hood Red; Versamark

Others: Frost White Shimmer paint; Riding Hood Red re-inker; Riding Hood Red button; Rhinestones; Dimensionals; Riding Hood Red striped wide grosgrain ribbon

Dasher in a glittery blizzard

2010-12-14T16:53:00.000+11:00

Well that’s the look I was going for.

I thought our four legged friend with the impressive antlers may like to be in a Winter Wonderland scene.

This is from a recent Christmas card class, and this one is quite simple. The only challenge for my ladies was learning to use Heat’n’stick powder for the first time. Once accomplished it becomes quite addictive.

Hope you like this one, I’ll be back tomorrow to show another Dasher card.

Jen

Stamp Sets: Heard from the Heart; Dasher

Card Stock: Whisper White; Night of Navy

Ink: Night of Navy; Versamark

Others: Heat’n’stick powder; Dazzling Diamonds glitter; Dimensionals

Cherry Medallion

2010-12-10T16:52:00.000+11:00

Believe it or not, this is Cherry Cobbler card stock, but in this photo it appears a bit washed out compared to other Cherry Cobbler cards on my blog. In real life I love the way this card looks.

The Medallion has been heat-embossed with clear embossing powder and it has an almost velvet-like appearance that makes you want to run your fingers over it.

This card is one of my favourites and it’s also the same card received by Heather, whom I was Secret Santa to.

Hope you like this card. Details follow.

Jen

Stamp Sets: Medallion Background; Perfect Punches; En Francais

Card Stock: Cherry Cobbler

Ink: Versamark; Cherry Cobbler

Others: Basic Pearls; Clear and white embossing powder; Dimensionals; 3.5cm circle punch

Secret Santa 2010

2010-12-04T13:02:00.001+11:00

At last I can talk about my Secret Santa!

Last night the Stampers Anonymous team celebrated with an end of year Christmas Party, superbly hosted by our wonderful up-line and team leader Marelle.

Everyone that attended was allocated a Secret Santa who we then gave a SU gift from their wish list. The challenge is then to package the gift in the most creative way we can come up with!

I was SS to Heather, a lovely Lady whom I’ve gotten to know in the last year. As a gift I gave Heather a selection of SU products packaged in what you see here.

Those are my version of Poinsettias on top of the little box made with the 5-petal flower punch. I quite like how they came out. The little Santa is made with a variety of SU punches past and present.

Thanks to Marelle for the idea of the Scallop Circle bag which came from a class I did recently at Marelles.

We all had a brilliant night and as always I’m blown away with some of creations other team members put forward - such a talented bunch I’m part of! if you look at other Stampers Anonymous blogs in the next week or two, you’ll see what I mean.

Very soon I’ll post a picture of what I received from Sam, who was my Secret Santa.

I’ll be back soon with more Christmas cards to show.

Jen

Stamp Sets: Snow Swirled

Card Stock: Cherry Cobbler; Whisper White; Old Olive; Blush Blossom

Ink: Versamark

Others: Scallop Circle dye; punches- Word Window; 5-Petal; 3.2cm; Scallop Circle; Trio Flower; Small Oval; Old Olive Striped Grosgrain Ribbon; Turquoise and Red Markers; White Embossing Powder