Back from Newbury

Newbury was a fantastic show, I met lots of lovely crafters and I had a full workshop of 10 lovely ladies, it was really hot that day so thank you so much for coping in the heat!  Pictures of the workshop will follow in the next few days.

My fellow demonstrators and I all made stamped items for our goodie bags and the pictures below are some of the items I made, a card, a bookmark (giant paper clip), a chocolate favour and a notebook. All simple designs but lovely.

You will also see the made with love stamp on the back.  Stampin' Up! is an 'Angel' company which means it is happy for you to sell your creations using Stampin' Up! images but you need to have a copyright Stampin' Up! sign on the product, they can only be hand stamped images but there is no limit to the number of products you can make.  We sell a lovely stamp set with them in, but I always have my set of these stamps available to my customers if they wish to borrow them.

You only have 2 more days to take advantage of the extra special sign up offer from Stampin' Up! of a free stamp set of your choice from the catalogue, email me for more details and see the post below.

9 cards and a bag

On thursday evening I went to MJ's Crop circle to teach a class, 9 cards and a bag in 2 1/2 hours..........

We had a wonderful is very busy evening and everyone completed the cards but we over ran a little !  Thank you MJ and the lovely ladies for a fab evening, I hope to visit again soon.

Do check out MJ's Crop blog here.

If you would like me to come and teach this class to you and a group of friends please email me.  ajpapercraft@btinternet.com

Notepads 2

Here is the close ups I promised from yesterdays post.

Rose Red card stock with a 2" strip of Rose Red double sided paper attached to the cardstock and folded over the front of the notepad. A Chocolate Chip scallop punch topped with a Rose Red Circle and a Soft Subtles button tied with linen thread. White grosgrain ribbon.

Certainly Celery Cardstock with a 2" strip of Certainly Celery double sided paper attached to the cardstock and folded over the front of the notepad. A So Saffron scallop punch topped with a Certainly Celery circle and another Soft Subtles button tied with linen thread. Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon.

Bashful Blue cardstock with a 2" strip of Cutie Pie double sided paper as before. The Elephant is from the Year after Year stamp set, stamped in Black Stazon and cut out attached with Stampin' Dimensionals and finished with Blue gingham ribbon.

Pretty in Pink cardstock, the Snail is from Unfrogettable and stamped twice once onto Pretty in PInk and once onto a scarp of Rose Red double sided paper. I cut out the snail shell and mounted it onto the top of the snail with a Stampin' Dimensional, I made the eye pop with some PVA glue and Dazzling Diamonds glitter, finished with Black gingham ribbon.

Notepads

Hostess Gifts, I always give the hostess of my home workshops a gift to say thank you for inviting to their home.  It is always a homemade and uses some of our wonderful Stampin' Up! products, this month I've made some note pads, they are similar to the magnetic pads found here on an earlier post.

I've used double sided paper to highlight, the ribbon is a design touch by my daughter which actually serves an important purpose, it holds the top flap down, because our cardstock and paper is such good quality and heavy it kept lifting up, so thank you Kimberley.

I'll post close ups and product details tomorrow.

Ribbons Ribbons Ribbons

Stampin' Up! has some wonderful ribbons and I have been searching for a nice way to store and display them that wouldn't take up lots of space.  I've been thinking about using a paint pail, one of the clear ones but they all seemed quite big.

So whilst having lunch today soup from a well known supermarket..........it came to me, I could recycle the container the soup came in.  Definately cheaper than a paint can and better for the environment!

Now the picture above is of my first attempt, there are 9 holes for ribbons, I do have more ribbons well they are such lovely colours and great value........ but the ones I've stored in here are the ones I use the most.  I am going to tweak the design a little so a revised version will be blogged later.

Never froget your place.......

Okay funny title but this set is called unfrogettable and I've made a couple of bookmarks!  So please excuse the play on words.

I've made the bookmark 1 1/2" wide so that I can feed it into the reverse of the scallop punch to make a shaped top.  Each bookmark has a scallop punch of Certainly Celery Designer paper attached using a jumbo eyelet and my trusty cropodile.  For the bling I've used dazzling diamonds on the 2 way glue pen that came in the Simply Sent kit which is on special offer this month and for the bulging froggy eyes I've used a little PVA glue.  

There is "faux" stitching around the edge, just my piercing tool and mat and a white gel pen on the dragonflies and a Certainly Celery Pen on the frogs.

Magnetic note pad

This is part of my hostess gift packs for March, that I have been making over the weekend.  They are note pads covered with Old Olive card stock and stamped with Old Olive ink and Seeing spots stamps.  The clip came from Staples and has a really strong clasp and magnet on the back, I've covered it with Designer Series Paper and a scallop punch of Old Olive, topped with a circle punch of Chocolate Chip and more Seeing Spots stamps.

My Wonderful Hostesses

My hostesses are very special, they invite me to their homes, to meet with their friends and family to have a fun filled afternoon or evening of papercrafting and to find out all about the wonderful things they can create with Stampin' Up! products.

Before each home workshop I spend time talking to the hostess about the things she is interested in and what fun projects we can create together. Last night I had a wonderful home workshop hosted by Vicky who is a very talented card maker, She loves to give personalised gifts to go with her wonderful cards so I thought this little bag would be great for her and she loved it.

The tutorial follows

You need
1 x A4 Card stock I used Tempting Turquoise
Seeing Spots Stamp set

Small piece of Tempting Turquoise and Pumpkin pie cardstock
Tempting Turquoise ink
Pumpkin Pie Ribbon
Mini Glue dots
1 brad
Scissors
Cropodile
Tag punch

On one side of the card stock stamp random images all over using the Tempting Turquoise ink and the Seeing Spots stamps, make sure some of the images go over the edges of the card as this gives a more professional finish.



Turn the card over and score at 6cm in from each of the long sides.



Then score at 12cm in from each of the short sides

No the slightly tricky bit...you need to measure 6cm the point where the lines cross over along the long side, you are going to make a diagonal score line to the outer edge. Please use the photo to guide you. As you do more you won't need to measure!



Now fold in thelong sides to the centre and on one side only puch 2 holes about 2 cm apart through the layers of card stock. You will also need to crease the diagonal folds you made at the last set so they sit as shown in the photo. The sides of the bag will also need to fold in a little it looks like a 'W' shape in the photo.



Now fold in the other side ( the one without any holes).



Stamp the thank you and flower onto some Pumpkin Pie card stock and punch out a tag shape. Stamp the flower a second time onto Tempting Turquoise cardstock and cut it out. Using a Tempting Turquoise brad I covered it in a mini glue dot , this was something Shelli demonstrated at the Open night in London and is a really neat trick! The mini glue dot is a perfect size and you just rub it over the brad so it shapes to the sides of the brad then you dip it in Dazzling Diamonds a fantastic fine glitter. The great thing about using a coloured brad is the glitter allows the colour to shine through. I then attached the cut out flower to the tag with the glittered brad.

You need to thread the ribbon through the holes from the inside of the bag, then turn the bag so the holes are at the back and bring the ribbon around to the front. Thread on the tag and fasten the ribbon, trim the ribbon to size, all finished.

This bag was inspired by the one sheet box tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers Forum, I have adapted the sizing to fit UK paper sizes, and tweaked and added my special touch.

All images copyright Stampin' Up! 1990 - 2007 and created by Amanda Fowler