Happy New Year!!!

Hi everyone! Thank you to all the my loyal blog followers who have been checking in - sorry I took so long to post. I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and I wish you all the best for the New Year - hope its the best yet!! Wow, I cant believe it's 2009 - does anyone else feel like 2008 was a complete blur? I'm hoping for a great 2009 but I do hope it goes by a bit slower!

So what have I been up to? Well...I had HEAPS of Christmas creations to show you back in December but that went out the window when I got caught up in the Twilight saga - if you haven't read the books do yourself a favour and get them now - However be warned once you start you cant stop and all 4 books will need to be read - you just cant get enough and have to know what will happen next. Apart from the Crosstitch (Jamie & Claire) series by Diana Gabaldon, these are the most compelling books I've ever read. If you're not into books check out the movie - its no where near as good as the book - and I think seeing it without having read the book you would miss a lot of the details - but anyway its a close second that's for sure! You can check out the film trailer here (I downloaded it onto my iPod so I can get my fix whenever I want! - yes I'm a complete addict - I know its sad!) And one other little note of warning - you will fall in love with Edward Cullen and no mortal man will ever measure up again!

Ok, that's my twilight rant. In my real life (as opposed to my fantasy world of gorgeous vampires and werewolves!!! ) I have been really busy with all the usual Christmas and New Year stuff, we've had a few short breaks away and been getting some house and yard work done. Sadly I haven't really done any crafting at all and its back to work for me tomorrow.

Thank you to all my lovely friends, customers, downlines that sent me gorgeous hand made Christmas cards - they are all beautiful.

I made some post-it note holders to send to my downlines for Christmas, here is a picture of some of them:

While I'm in catch up mode...3 lovely bloggin sisters recently gave me awards - thank you soooo much. This beautiful butterfly award from my lovely friend Mel Hanlon and from the very creative Leah Weir

And this one from Sharon at Stampin & Scrappin


Thanks again ladies for thinking of me. I'm not going to tag any other bloggers - I think everyone has already got them (cause I'm so far behind!!!!)

I'll be back with some cards to show you later

It's Summer Mini Time!!

I love love love this year's Summer Mini Catalogue - its gorgeous!! Not only is it jam packed with gorgeous new stamps there's also new ribbon, chunky glitter, felt flowers, rub-ons and the most beautiful papers ever...check it out - the link is on the right hand side. If you'd like a hard copy to drool over email me and I'll send you one!

I did my first Summer Mini workshop today (thank you Paula!). For our first project we made a scrapbook page embellishment, here's a picture of the page I did as a sample showing its possible use... that's it at the bottom left...

How cute is she? That just goes to show how far behind I am on my scrapping - that's Breanna on her 2nd Birthday (she was a huge wiggles fan at the time and loved her Dorothy tutu!). Here's another picture to give you a better idea of the embellishment...

And here's a similar embellishment used on a card...

To make it we used the Friendly Flowers stamp set, purely pomegranate, pretty in pink, and chocolate chip ink on whisper white cardstock. The bling is the new chunky glitter applied with crystal effects. The chunky glitter comes in a set of 4 colours - we used the pink today and the card sample uses the crystal iris.

The other project we made today was a Birthday card with the new set Eastern Blooms. This is a really cool set, and the Bali Breeze papers that match are divine! This card was inspired by the colours of those papers...

Sorry for the blurry photo. Here's another version...

Hope you like these creations. I have heaps more to show you, so hopefully I'll be back again soon! Damn work for getting in the way of my stamping and blogging!

Dashing Bags in Boxes

How cute are these! We made these with the Dashing DSP and Season of Joy stamp set at a recent workshop (hi girls!). I liked them so much I've made even more!! Just cant decide whether to give them to all the family on Christmas Day or the preschool teachers...

We Have A Winner!

I know I said lunch time - but better late than never!!!
Thank you to the lovely ladies who left a comment on my last post. Yes you were right - all the projects featured products from the Spring Mini Catalogue - which as Tash pointed out, you can only get until the end of this month - only 15 days left. So if you'd love to get your hands on any of the beautiful stamps, papers, rub-ons, ribbons, stickers or die cuts, please email me.

I used random org to generate a winner:

Here are your random numbers:

4 Timestamp: 2008-11-15 09:06:29 UTC

Congratulations to Leah who left comment number four. I'll be sending you some blog candy very soon!

Can You Guess?

I have some Blog candy up for grabs- all you have to do is leave a comment on this post with your answer to this question: What do all the items I've made below have in common? I'll draw the winner at lunchtime on Saturday 15th November. Entry is open to everyone.

OK, here goes...first up we have a 'star box'

Next is a love note gift box set...

A triangle box (recent tutorial at SCS)...

A summer picnic inspired 'bag in a box' and box I made to keep all my Blooms die cuts in...

A very cute 'pizza box' I made and filled with Hershey's for an American friend...

And sadly I needed to make a sympathy card for my Mum last week who lost her much loved uncle...

So can you guess?

PS I meant to enter at least one of the 3D items in KristyJane's 'Anything but a card' challenge - but I missed the deadline - oops - sorry Kristy.

Christmas Windows

Windows, windows, and more windows! Everywhere I look there's window cards - I'll be happy if I don't make anymore for quite some time!!! Enough ranting...way back at regionals Linda Higgins demonstrated some really cool window cards - I mentioned them in this post here. I was very impressed with how easy these are to make and yet how effective. I thought they'd make great Christmas cards with a bit of a twist to teach my customers. My enthusiasm may have gone a little over the top though - here is just SOME of the Christmas window cards I've made or taught recently...

Sorry some of the photos are really crappy.

If you'd like more info on these cards please leave me a comment or email.

Sandy Claws is coming to town...

As promised here's a couple more of the Chrissy cards I've made lately.

These are two of the cards we made at my Christmas card SAS last Saturday. Sorry the photos aren't very good.

Stamps: Crab & Co, By the Sea (wheel - retired)

Ink: Sahara sand, black stazon

Paper: Kraft, Real Red, Old Olive, More Mustard, Whisper White

Other: Stampin Write markers, Real red buttons

Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Many Merry Messages
Ink: Always Artichoke, versamark
Paper: Holiday harmony DSP, Naturals Ivory, Purely Pomegranate, Always Artichoke

Other: Heat & Stick powder, Dazzling Diamonds, Purely Pomegranate Satin Ribbon

I made one of these candy cane holders for all the girls who came along to my class. The Santa made with the scallop punch is so cute! Here's a link to Tinkerin-in-ink with Tanya's tutorial if you want to make some yourself.

Christmas Cards by the truck load!

I feel like I've made so many Christmas cards lately! I've had a few workshops and classes on lately, and of course it is that time of year! Not that I'm complaining!! I haven't had a chance to take photos of all of them yet, but here's a couple from way back at WCMD!...

This one was one of the cards the ladies at my WCMD class made. It uses the Christmas tree from Fun & Fast Notes. The Merry Christmas label is from Party Punch (hostess set). The colours are inspired by the Holiday Harmony DSP's used (River rock, Always Artichoke and Purely Pomegranate) and I used the crimper to add some dimension to this one.

This one was a super quick 'One Sheet Wonder' I was playing around with for a class but didn't end up using. You just stamp an A4 sheet then cut into quarters to make card fronts for 4 cards. Here I used the poinsettia and swirl from Season of Joy in Always artichoke and Bravo Burgundy on Very vanilla card. You then just tear away the front of the Artichoke card, stick the stamped card front behind it, finish with some ribbon and a greeting and you're done!! I also decorated an envelope for this one.

Thinking of WCMD, I know it was ages ago, but I meant to show you the gorgeous treat baskets I made for the girls who came along. They were made from an SCS tutorial and I just love them! As per my WCMD theme I used the Holiday harmony DSP, no two were the same. Here's one of them...

and here's a pic of some of them on the table when the girls arrived for the class...

I'll be back tomorrow with some more Chrissy cards...