Priceless Breanna

One of the biggest 'Wows' I learnt at Convention was that you can colour b&w photo's with SU! Pastels! Awesome! I'm not much good with software based photo editing as you can probably tell! so this hands on approach suits me down to the ground! I couldn't wait to get home and try it out and this is the result and I'm quite chuffed! Carrie Cudney's presentation at Convention was probably my favorite - I loved all her scrapbooking, and this page is inspired by her work. It's 100% SU! too!! I've stamped the backgrounds with the new So Swirly jumbo wheel, the title "Priceless" is from the set Priceless, the flowers, hat pin, beads, and pearls are all from the new Pretties Kit (love love love it - all the Flowers in the kit are white and you just colour them whatever colour you like- as Ive done here, one directly with a pink passion reinker and one with the pastels) and I finished it off with some black grosgrain ribbon. The colours are Pink Passion, Basic Black and Whisper White. Quite a simple page but effective. I'd love to hear what you think...

Whilst on the subject of my Beautiful girl -we recently celebrated her 3rd Birthday, I thought I'd show you the Birthday card I made for her and the cake Rick & I made. It was a Dora The Explorer - Fairytale Adventure Party, so we decided to make her Princess Dora's castle, we reckon we did pretty good - even if it did take nearly all night...

And here's her card...

The stamps are from Pretty Princess, stamped with stazon onto water colour paper and coloured with Stampin Write Markers and an Aqua Painter. The 3 is from the Simon Lower Chipboard Alphabet, coloured with lovely lilac and the dazzling diamonds glitter. I used the Tab Punch for the pull tab. The colours are Pink Passion, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Turquoise and Confetti White.

I've Been Tagged!!

I'd wondered what this tagging thing was all about and if it would ever happen to me. Well now it has! The very lovely Sharon from http://stampin-scrappin.blogspot.com/ has tagged me so here we go...
The rules are:
1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok then, 7 things about me:

1. I'm a Virgo (and yes I can be a bit anal at times!)
2. I have two Staffordshire Bull Terriers - Bear & LuLu. I used to Breed and Show them!
3. My middle name is Maree and so is Breanna's
4. I've stayed in Gono village in the PNG Highlands where there is no electricity or running water and its so high the clouds float through the huts and you can get altitude sickness
5. Rick and I have been married twice - in PNG and Australia
6. I have three University Degrees
7. I'm a chocoholic (big time!)

Now to tag 7 bloggers...

1. Karen http://luvtostamp.blogspot.com/
2. Jean http://jeanmckenzie.blogspot.com/
3. Kristy http://kraftykristy.blogspot.com/
4. Leah http://www.stampinwithleah.blogspot.com/
5. Mel http://www.melhanlon.blogspot.com/
6. Natasha http://www.natashamurraystamping.blogspot.com/
7. Nerine http://www.stampinaddiction.blogspot.com/

OK so some of the tags are the same as Sharon's - but I figure they can just answer once!

Its Official - Dannie's a Demo!!

Well its been a long time coming but Dannie is now officially an Independent Stampin Up! Demonstrator - YAY!! For those of you who know Dannie, you'll know why I'm so excited. She is a self confessed scrapbooking nerd and is by far the best Scrapbooker I have ever met! Her work is always absolutely gorgeous, she has such a knack for colour and design - I cant wait to see what she can do with SU! products. All I have to do now is work on convincing her to start a blog so you can all see what I mean!!!

Here's a card and little gift I made for her...

Here I've used the Baroque Motifs stamp set (my current fave!), Short & Sweet (for the Welcome), the new scallop punch (love it!), some white grosgrain ribbon, dazzling diamonds glitter and some Almost Amethyst DS paper from the Prints Sampler 6 x 6 pad (which is the promotion for May - more on this very soon). The colours are Almost Amethyst, Lovely Lilac and Sage Shadow.

I also gave Dannie a little bag of goodies to help her get started, as you can see I gave her some ribbon samples, some hodgepodge and made her some colour swatches. I thought I'd be tricky with the bag topper and make it a card which she could use in her workshops/displays. I adhered it with a temporary bond only. Here's the card close up on its own (colours aren't true to life in this photo for some reason...

The stamp set is Garden Whimsy, the greeting again is from Short & Sweet. The colours are Purely Pomegranate, Blue Bayou and Soft Sky (all new In Colours).

It's great to be able to share the SU! experience with another wonderful friend (and one that's close by!)

Welcome to the World Markus!

My gorgeous friend (and Happy Stampers team member) Helene and her family welcomed a new Son and Brother into the world earlier this month. Here's the card I made for them...

Its called a 'double slider' and I've been dying to make one ever since I saw the tutorial on SCS. The blank front slider panel is where you write your message. Here I've used the Wash Day Jumbo Wheel (retired) stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with the Watercolour Wonder crayons and Aqua Painter. The "Welcome Baby" is from Short & Sweet, the swirly background stamp is from Baroque Motifs, and "Markus" is done with the Newsprint Alphabet (retired). The colours are Sage Shadow, Creamy Caramel and Brocade Blue (another great colour wheel combo! - If you don't have one I highly recommend you get one!).

I'm home...to the dreaded Lurgi !!

Hi Everyone! I'm back from Convention - which was absolutely FANTASTIC!! The reason I haven't been able to post is that I arrived home to a very sick little girl and hubby! As if that wasn't bad enough I succumbed to it myself! We're all much better now though (thank god!).

Getting back to Convention, it was unreal! So much fun, so inspirational, motivating and educational. The highlight for me was seeing my gorgeous downline Mel again! I also got to catch up with My upline Sharon who I hadn't seen in 12 months, and I got to meet some of the stampers whose blogs I stalk! (hi Karen, Jean & Marelle) Another big plus was that I got to share the Convention experience with my beautiful friend Dannie! She loved it and it just may have tipped her over the threshold to sign up!!! More news on this soon....

Here's a picture of the four of us on stage under the Dream Big cloud (L-R Dannie, Me, Mel, Sharon)

I also got to do the stage walk!! Wow, still cant believe it! Big thank to my table at dinner who gave an almighty cheer when my name was called! I got a hug from Shelli and the really cute stamp set Short & Sweet. My award was for Level 1 recruiting (5-9 recruits) - so thank you, thank you, thank you, to all my lovely talented downlines who made it possible! And also as a result of my wonderful team I got to attend the Leadership class on Friday night (for Senior Supervisors and above) where we were given the Garden Whimsy set!!! I was soooo chuffed with that - It was on the top of my wish list! So girls there's something to aim for for next year! (Tash & Nerine you are both so close I'm sure you'll get there, and I know Mel has her targets set!!)

Here's me on stage with Shelli (hate this photo of me! but just had to show that I did actually hug her!)

Here's everyone from our table at the Dinner with Shannon (SU trainer from USA). L-R me, Mel, Claire, Sharon, Shannon, Julie, Dannie, Leah. Thanks guys for being a great cheer squad!

We also got to do some great make & take projects, it was great fun working with Sharon, Mel and Dannie. We had lots of laughs - mostly at my expense! Here's some piccies of what we made - a scrapbook page, a cute little box, two water coloured love notes and a card. Very cool!

I'm sure you've all heard by now, but it was announced that next years convention will be in Canberra on the 1st & 2nd of May 2009, cant wait to do it all again! In the meantime we have regionals in Sydney in September! YAY! The other exciting news was that next year we will get to pre-order from the new catty during March!!!

If you're in the Newcastle region - I'm full of inspiration and would love to share what I've learnt with you, please contact me to host a workshop or attend a class.

Convention Time!

I can't believe convention is here already! I leave tomorrow to fly to Brisbane, I can't wait to catch up with old friends and met some new ones. It's going to be great!

Well, as promised I'm posting some photos of the swaps I've made to take with me. It's really late, I'm extremely tired and I haven't finished packing yet, so please excuse how brief this post is. When I get back I'll add some detail re supplies and techniques.

I made 4 different items- a card front using Wild About You, another front using Time Well Spent, an ATC featuring Bodacious Bouquet and a little fortune cookie in a bag with a topper using Artfully Asian - a grand total of 60 items! (I made most of them this week - which is why I'm so tired!). Anyway, here are some pictures...

Sorry some of the photo's are really bad - I hadnt realised until I posted them here! I'd love to hear what you think - I hope the ladies at Convention will like them!

I'll post again next week and tell you all about all the fun things we did!!

Bag Tag Number 3!

My friend Dannie is coming along to convention as my guest, so I just had to make a tag for her too...

Sorry the photo is blurry. Supplies same as previous tags. Hope she likes it!

Happy New (Catalogue) Year!!

Woo Hoo!!! It's time!! I can finally share the ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS new Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalogue with you!! It's so wonderful you wont believe your eyes! Some of the fantastic new products include : 6 beautiful new In Colours, textured cardstock, amazing new DS 12x12 papers, scrappin kits, pretties kit, cool new punches, and of course heaps of fab new stamp sets.

If you'd like to get your hands on one for all this plus over 300 inspirational project ideas, I have catalogues in stock and available for purchase, OR you can book a workshop with me and get one for free! To have a sticky in the meantime click here for the online caty. Enjoy!! Contact me anytime to place an order.

Happy Birthday Rick

Here's a (super quick) card I made for DH's Birthday...time was limited so not much thought was put into the design (sorry Rick - but better than no card at all!). However, I actually like it for its simplicity...

The stamp set is "It's your Birthday", the background is Petals & Paisleys DS paper (Again!! - i know, bu I'm using up all my scraps!) and of course the tag punch, hodgepodge hardware and some grosgrain ribbon. Card stock and Ink colour is Pumpkin Pie. The photo is a bit wonky - don't know what happened there - but it doesn't look lopsided in real life!