Shiny Sparkly Stamping

2011-11-22T08:14:00.000Z

I have blogged 2 days in a row! Oh my gosh! Can you tell daddy is 'working' from home so giving me some Phoebe-free time!

As promised here is my current personal project that I am working on. I am making a present for my Nan, now a great-nan, that's a bit different from the normal photo albums. I have been quite busy doing things with Phoebe and her daddy or crafting in some way or another recently so haven't seen my Nan as often as I would have liked. Her other grand child, my cousin Francis, is a marine engineer and is off at sea for long periods of time and she always complains that she will soon forget what we look like!

Honestly, I will have to get a photo of my Nan's collection of pictures next time we visit so you can see that she is exaggerating slightly and that it would be impossible for her to forget us- we are everywhere in her lounge!

So, I have started making her this exploding photo album. I love our new in colours, especially wisteria wonder. The Flirtacious speciality DSP is pretty yummy too! The base is made from 12x12 wisteria wonder cardstock and decorated with 3 1/2" square pieces of DSP which will provide a background for my pics!

I have stamped the outside using an old favourite, the Circle Circus stamp set!

This is the box just before it 'explodes'!

I will hopefully have this finished just before Christmas and because my nan hates technology I will be able to show the finished product before she receives it!

Take care and see you tomorrow.

2011-11-21T18:33:00.001Z

Hello! Back again!

As promised earlier, here are a few pictures of the cards we made at my Christmas class on Saturday.

First is this sweet little gift card card/holder. Super quick to make using a whisper white note card, the Jolly Jingles jumbo wheel, inked up on a marina mist ink pad and some tombow and dazzling diamonds for the front.

Plenty of space for a gift card inside

I used the Christmas greeting from perfect pairs as a nice surprise when the recipient removes their gift card

The next card is one of my favourites, it has lot's of elements but is actually very simple to make.

It uses crumb cake, very vanilla and soft suede cardstock. The stamp sets are delightful decorations and serene snowflakes. The card uses one of my favourite toys, ahem, sorry, business tools- my Big Shot. This time I used the textured impressions designer frames embossing folder. You get 2 folders in the pack-a rectangular frame and the oval one that I have used. I used the lace ribbon border and ornament punches, a couple of dimensionals and an adhesive pearl to finish of the card and give it some depth.

Here are the other cards we made including a cute little children's shaker card!

I will be back tomorrow with my current work in progress, my exploding box mini photo gift!

2011-11-21T10:36:00.001Z

Hello everyone in Blog Land. I hope you are all keeping well. I have had a busy few months. This is why!

On Wednesday 24th August 2011 at 7.23pm weighing 9lbs Phoebe Nicole Cooper was born. Just like her mummy who is generally very disorganised, she was 11 days overdue but well worth the wait.

It's scary to think that she will be 3 months old on Thursday!

This is the look Daddy has taught her to give me when I am trying to argue the case for a bigger craft room!(photo above)

I would love to say this is the smile she gives her mummy but in reality it's the effect the monkey on her mobile has on her.

I will be back later today with pictures of the projects we did at my Christmas Crazy class that took place on Saturday.

Is my blog alive..?

2011-11-17T20:34:00.000Z

This is an attempt to find out if my poor blog is still alive or whether it needs to be ressurected in some other form so here is a brief recap of some of my creations over the last few months! (very photo heavy!)

Day 1 - Thank you card

2011-05-23T07:17:00.000+01:00

My aim is to post a project every day this week. Hopefully the scheduling has worked and you are looking at project number 1 for this week, a Thank you card. This is a card the ladies made at card club last week, very quick and very simple.

Recipe

Cardstock - Whisper White, Regal Rose and Rich Razzleberry
Ink - Rich Razzleberry
Stamps - Fine Flourish and Tiny Tags
Punches - large oval, scalloped oval and eyelet border

Thanks for stopping by!

2 posts in one day!!!

2011-05-22T14:43:00.000+01:00

As promised, here is something I made for my Nan for her birthday earlier this week. We also bought her a lovely glass lamp from IKEA but she always likes something hand made.

This card was almost 99% CASE'd from one shown to us by my lovely stamping mummy, Amanda at a recent team training day. I tweaked it a little using the rhinestones as I know my Nan loves them!

I also made her a decorated post-it note pad and a little pizza box to gift wrap it in!

Recipe:

Cardstock - Wild Wasabi, shimmer white, Marina Mist So Saffron and textured Baja Breeze
Ink - Wild Wasabi, Marina Mist and Baja Breeze
Stamps - Simply Said, Bella Toile, All A Flutter, Plane and Simple and Dot, Dot, Dot.
Other accessories: Big Shot, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die adhesive pearls, adhesive rhinestones and Marina Mist satin ribbon.

I will be back tomorrow with news of a whole range of new classes and clubs that I will be running over the coming months, plus another project!

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

Finally back!

2011-05-22T14:16:00.000+01:00

Well, after a lengthy battle with blogger am I am back in control of my blog!

I promise you, I haven't been sitting around doing nothing, I have been very busy growing this!:

Hopefully all being well our little lady will be joining me and her daddy at convention in Paris in November. This was taken some weeks ago, I am now 28 weeks and there is no way I am adding any more picture of her until she is born!lol

I have also been busy with a craft room revamp courtesy of my lovely other half:

and now it has been in use for a while....

Whoops!

I have however, created something other than a huge mess in here and will be showing my projects over the next few days!

Convention 2010 Was Amazing!

2010-11-07T10:19:00.000Z

Well, where do I start?! I had soo many plans and ideas about blogging whilst we were away which were thwarted by my forgetfulness, left my phone charger at home so I was on limited battery for most of it. I arrived at Croydon Park Hotel at around 2ish. I decided to get there a day earlier as my upline, the lovely Amanda Fowler, had arranged a lovely team dinner for us. I went and had a drink and some late lunch in the bar with Jane, Kerry and Caroline.

People gradually started arriving, including this lovely lady:

Hayley Gillie was my very lovely roomie for Convention. She has the patience of a saint, I am so disorganised! I am sure that she has gone home a little crazy because of me. Sorry Hayley!

So, on to our team dinner. Amanda had her own little mini awards ceremony for all of us Inkee's which was lovely. Here are some pics:

It was a fantastic evening, it was especially exciting when we saw that Shelli, Paula, Charlotte, Jerome Axel etc. were all staying in our hotel! She came and said hello which was lovely of her considering how tired they all were. If we thought we had to get up early for the coach it was nothing to the times that they had to be up and getting everything ready for us.

I will post pics from day 1 of convention tomorrow!

New Classes and Clubs!

2010-10-07T13:02:00.000+01:00

I have just finished organizing my new monthly clubs and classes so pop over to my new pages to have a look! I am happy to plan and run scrapbooking classes if you require them, just send me an e-mail and let me know.

Today's post is quite short but pop back tomorrow for some projects made with my goodies from the new catalogue, also for my blog candy competition!

Mini workshop

2010-10-04T11:09:00.002+01:00

Well, had a busy busy weekend sorting the house, looked like there had been a craft explosion! Then, on sunday I had people over for a mini workshop which was lots of fun! We made a couple of projects including a small treat pouch with some chocolate in and a mini cupcake gift card holder. The workshop was postponed from last weekend so unfortunately one of the lovely papers we used is now retired, however, there are loads of fab new DSP designs in our new catalogue!

Bless my nan, she was so proud of being able to use our new crimper to seal her treat pouch!

If you are interested on getting your mitts on a copy of the new Idea Book and Catalogue then e-mail me to order one or get one free if you book a workshop with me. I would love to hear from you and now is an ideal time to get started on making those Christmas cards and gifts.

New Class Sneak Peaks

2010-10-01T20:52:00.000+01:00

These are the projects that I did for an inspiration station at our quarterly team training. They will also be some of the projects that I will be making at my October classes!

I will add individual pictures of each of the projects over the next few days!

NEW CATALOGUE!!!

2010-10-01T07:32:00.001+01:00

Wow! It's so exciting to say this.... welcome to the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalogue 2010-2011! I have been stamping like a mad thing over the past month and have been dying to share my creations with you so here is a little peak at some projects that I created for our quarterly team training.

There were 3 other VERY talented ladies Hayley, Liz and Jane who made some out of this world items but I won't put any pictures on here until they have shown them on their own personal blogs.

I used the fab new stamp set Artistic Etchings to create 7 projects using to colour combinations. The first colour combination was Real Red, Basic Black and Whisper White. The second is my new all time favourite combo and is Baja Breeze, Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla.

I will add more pics of the individual projects later on when I release information on my NEW CLASSES! It's soo exciting!

I hate technology!

2010-06-22T13:46:00.000+01:00

Well, I don't actually HATE it as such, I just can't use it! As you may have noticed, I have been adding (rather unsuccessfully) pages to my blog. It's not going too well. So, if you are willing to have a little hunt around, you will find my contact information and details of one of my new monthly card classes. Unfortunately I have to leave for my 'day job' shortly so screaming at the computer will have to wait until later. I will be posting details of some more classes and a couple of clubs that will be starting up soon so keep 'em peeled!

I will leave you with a couple of pics though, just to prove that I have actually still been crafting ! This first photo is a bit of a sneak peak from my July class, so, if you like what you see drop me a line and book a place :)

Next is the Father's Day card that I made for my Pop (Grandad). I love this stamp set! (Fox & Friends)

This is a fab spinner card that is much easier to make than it first appears. My fab upline Amanda showed us how to make these a couple of months back but I have only just got around to trying it.
And finally, some of you may remember a while back that I had shown a photo of my Nan's first card-making attempt, well, she had another go on Sunday. She wanted to make her own version of my monkey spinner card so here it is! I think it's fantastic. :)

You can't see it from the photo but the whale is actually raised using a dimensional.

I hope you are all enjoying the lovely sunny weather and are having a great day wherever you are!

Oops!

2010-02-26T19:42:00.002Z

Posted wrong box/card set for the Inspiring Inkin' Challenge-sorry! Will upload correct ones first thing tomorrow! x

Two in one day!

2010-02-24T11:57:00.000Z

Well, whilst I have a spare couple of minutes I thought I would stick some pics on here. The recipes will have to wait until later in the week I am afraid. the first ones are of my other half Alastair making a card. His mum Gina said that I would never get him to make anything so I took photos to prove that he did it! This has been put away and will be sent up to Newcastle for mother's day.

The next couple of pics are from a little workshop I did for my Nan, some friends and family members. The first is a card we made and the second is a 'pop up' chocolate that I CASED from something Amanda showed us at our team meeting in december. It's also something that I will be using for my easter classes!

The pictures below are my entry to this weeks Inspiring Inkin' Challenge. You have to make a box and some cards to go in it. I used some of the mellow moss dsp from the hostess paper pack to make the box and 3 vanilla love notes for the cards. I made 2 very simple little cards and a mini easel card. Sorry abut the quality of the pictures!

The last photo is related to my other job. I work at an after school club called the Hedgehogs. We wanted to start a good behavior reward system. When the children do a good deed or are exceptionally well behaved they get a hedgehog stamp on their name card, once they get to 10 stamps they get to wear the hedgehog 'medal' for the day and also receive a little prize (notebook/pen or sweets). I was searching for ideas for the 'medal' when I remembered the Fun & Fast Notes set! Below is what I created and the kids loved it! The only problem was that the circle punch that fits in the scallop circle was slightly smaller than the hedgehog image so the butterfly had to go! :(

Hope you haven't fallen asleep after looking at all of these photos!

Happy Crafting

Helen x

I've outdone myself...

2010-02-24T11:19:00.000Z

Hello again! Even I have been left stunned by the amount of time it has taken me to post on here!
Well, it has been a very busy few weeks. We had an amazing shoe box swap evening and training day, organised by my lovely upline Amanda. Honestly, I don't know where she finds the ideas or the time! We completed colour sample sheets which have proved to be invaluble to me over the last couple of days. We also saw two fantastic demonstrations, 1 from Jane and 1 from Elaine. I have had a go at making an easter version of the card that Elaine showed us but it is very much a work in progress at the moment :/

I also dipped my toe into unknown waters at the weekend when I attended Amanda's 'Year in a Day' scrapbook class. I have customers and family members who are interested in scrapbooking and wanted me to do some classes/workshops for them but i have never really done any myself. I definitely came away inspired and full of enthusiasm and I am now in the middle of organising a scrapbook class of my own.

My 8 month work in progress (craft room) should be finished this weekend! I have chopped and changed things about so much over the last few months that my poor other half develops an allergic reaction every time Ikea is mentioned! I think I emptied B&Q out of all of their drawer units last weekend too!

Anyways, enough of my rambling, i'm just off to take the camera off charge and hopefully upload some photos of my recent creations!

helen x

A Mixed Bag

2010-01-18T23:22:00.000Z

Have been massively busy due to starting a new part-time job and the fact that our house appears to be falling apart- luckily hasn't effected my craft room!

Have made a really mixed collection of cards today. The first is this one using one of my new stamp sets "Simply Said". I made this to take to home workshops to show customers some of the items that can be made using the hostess goodies that they could earn if they held their own workshop.

I used the Night Of Navy DSP from the patterns lll pack, this is a level 1 hostess reward. I used a Whisper White card base and layered the DSP onto some Night Of Navy card stock before attaching it to the card base. I then cut a smaller rectangular piece of Night Of Navy and Whisper White card stock, using the large flower stamp from the Simply Said set and Night of Navy ink stamped the image on the whisper white and attached it to the front of the card. I took a scrap piece of the DSP and punched out 2 of the flowers from the Boho Blossoms punch.

I turned the larger flower over to show the darker pattern on the reverse of the paper and layered the smaller flower on top. I then used the paper piercer and mat pack to make button-like holes in the center of the small flower and using a small piece of the silver elastic cord, i threaded the cord through and tied a knot joining the 2 flowers together. You can use adhesive but I found that the cord works effectively, also the cord allows the flowers to stand out more and look more 3D. I adhered the flower using a dimensional. I debated using the silver cord to tie a bow around the spine of the card too but decided that I liked this design better. To finish it off I stamped one of the sentiments from the Simply Said stamp set in night of navy inside the card.

Recipe:

card stock/papers- whisper white, night of navy. night of navy dsp

ink- night of navy

punches- boho blossoms

accessories- silver elastic cord

equipment- paper piercing tool, mat pack, dimensional, trimmer, paper snips, snail adhesive

The second card is very simple and quick to make.

I made a Rose Red card blank. Cut a piece of So Saffron and used the scallop edge punch on the bottom. I then used the scallop circle and 1 3/8" circle punches on some Rose Red and Very Vanilla card stock. I layered them then, using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig and taking 2 of the stamps from Circle Circus, I used So Saffron and Rose Red ink to stamp onto the very vanilla card stock. Just to highlight how useful the stamp-a-ma-jig is, I didn't use it on the first circle which came out very wonky, but I did use it on the other two. I attached the 3 circles to the So Saffron card stock and the card was done!

Recipe:

Card stock- Rose Red, Very Vanilla, So Saffron

Ink- Rose Red, So Saffron

Punches- scallop edge, scallop circle, 1 3/8" circle

Equipment- trimmer, snail adhesive

Will post more pics tomorrow as unfortunately the camera battery has just died!

Take care

H x

Oh dear

2010-01-12T23:28:00.000Z

Ok so the link didn't work!

the Inspiring Inkin' Challenge Blog can be found at:
http://inspiringinkinchallenges.blogspot.com/

Go have a look!

Helen x

Inspring Inkin' Blog Challenge No.18

2010-01-12T23:24:00.000Z

This is my first Inspiring Inkin' Challenge entry I hope you like it! This weeks challenge was to use the chalkboard technique. The Inspiring Inkin' blog can be found here

Recipe

Card- Rose Red, Whisper White, Basic Black
Stamps- Circle Circus, Whimsical Words (Sale-A-Bration set)
Ink- Whisper White, Stampin' Pastels (Rose Red,Certainly Celery, Yoyo Yellow, Ballet Blue and Taken With Teal)
Punches- scallop circle and 1 3/8" circle punch
Equipment- Paper trimmer, sponge daubers, dimensional

I made a card base using rose red cardstock, then cut a piece of basic black slightly smaller than the base. Using whisper white ink and the circle circus stamp set I stamped a mixture of different circles onto the black card then used the sponge daubers to pounce the Stampin' Pastels onto the ink.

To finish it off I used rose red ink and the 'you're too kind' sentiment fro the Sale-A-Bration set Whimsical Words to stamp a sentiment on some whisper white cardstock before puching it out using one of our circle punches. I then punched a scalloped circle from rose red cardstock and attached the sentiment before attaching to the card using a dimensional.

Hope you like it!

helen x

A First Attempt

2010-01-12T22:50:00.000Z

This is just a quickie. This idea was CASED from a card that Amanda showed me during training in November. My Nan has never made a card in her life and was so excited for me when I became a Stampin' Up! demo that she said she insisted that she wanted to try a card. This is her attempt and she wanted me to apologise profusely to Amanda, so sorry Amanda! (she did try very hard)

Puppies and handbags

2010-01-03T10:26:00.000Z

As promised I have photo's of my beloved Radley handbag and the 2 gorgeous puppies that I spent Christmas with. I apologise now for the length of this post and for the lack of craft!

I was so excited when I got my bag that I have to admit that I didn't really look at everything inside, look at what I found when I did!

There is a tote bag inside, approx 13x13 inches! Perfect for scrapbooks/ designer papers,12x12 cardstock. There was also this sweet little purse

Then, I found this little leather envelope. Guess who was inside...???

And now for the aww factor.

This is Peroni.....

and Mango

They are cute but have way too much energy.

I will be back later to post todays "A Good Egg" card and the candle/card that my hostesses will be receiving in January.

Bye for now!

Easter Card

2010-01-02T21:48:00.000Z

Okay, so I may be starting these a bit early but I got carried away with my new stamp set- "A Good Egg". It's so versatile and works really well with the colours in the Soft Subtles family.

This card took approx 15-20 minutes to make and is one that I am going to be doing in my Easter class. Although you can't see it in the picture, the bottom of the chick picture is actually 3D. I inked up just the shell part of the chick stamp, coloured it with a marker, then cut it out and attached using a dimensional. If you wish to CASE it, feel free to contact me for instructions :)

Recipe

Card stock- Whisper White, Barely Banana, Certainly Celery

Ink-Black Staz-On, Certainly celery, Apricot Appeal. Barely Banana and Certainly Celery Stampin' Write Markers from the Soft Subtles set

Stamps- A Good Egg- Chick, flower and sentiment

Ribbon- 1/4" Certainly Celery

Tools/adhesive- 1 dimensional, SNAIL tape pen, trimmer, scissors

How long ago..? Oops!

2010-01-02T14:35:00.000Z

Honestly, I really didn't mean to leave it so long between blogs! I have been a busy bee though. We have quite a few family birthdays in December, including mine, so we had family gatherings and pressies galore. Unfortunately in between all the fun stuff we had holes in ceilings, collapsing floors, severed pipes,broken boilers and kidney stones!

We spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day at my aunties house, opening pressies, eating too much and playing with her 2 new Spinone pups (pics to follow!). Oh, and for anyone who saw my facebook status about having found the perfect pressie before Christmas, it was something that my family agreed to buy for me. It's green, it's lovely, it's a little on the huge side to hold all my junk - it's my new Radley handbag!!! (more pics to follow).

On the crafting front I have been creating a new website, holding my first workshop, planning clubs/classes and playing with my new stamps! My "A Good Egg" set has just arrived and I'm amazed at how many non-Easter projects I have already used it for! One of my New Year's resolutions is to be more organised so all being well I will have a post and new card to show you every day next week! Fingers crossed for this resolution lasting longer than my usual 2 days of giving up chocolate!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year and that you have a fantastic 2010!

Bye for now
Helen xxx

It's all so new!

2009-12-09T22:40:00.000Z

Hello everyone, this is just a quick first blog on my new site! I am slowly finding my way around so will be tweaking my page over the next few days! I will also be posting information about my classes, home workshops and stamping clubs. Feel free to contact me with any queries that you may have with regards to Stampin' Up! and their products!

Above is my first card made with a selection of goodies from my starter kit. It was a 50th birthday card for my mum who is owl mad (she loved it). The recipe is as follows:

Card stock- Old Olive, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White
Ink pads- Old Olive, Close to Cocoa and Not Quite Navy
Punches- Scalloped edge punch and circle 1 3/8"
Stamp sets- Forest Friends, Fun & Fast Notes