Sale-A-Bration 2011 Is Here

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Home from Make It Farnborough

I'm just back from a day out with my Mum at the Make It show in Farnborough. Like I need encouragement to spend money on crafting stash (especially with the Mini only a month away now!). There were so many lovely stalls and ideas and I've not got finger lift tape coming out my ears (I stocked up while it was on offer!).

While we were there Mum and I decided to take one of the workshop sessions with the lovely Natalie O'Shea. We took the Stampin' Up! stamping scrapbooking workshop where we all made the following 12 x 12 LO using Growing Green (colours Cajun Craze & Old Olive). This has really inspired me to start thinking creatively about how to use stamping in my scrapbooking. I am fine making stamped embellishments for my pages, but I've never really used my stamping for backgrounds like this. I am also super impressed with how beautifully this stamp set stamps. Another one to add to the neverending (and always growing) wish list. Now I just have to find a perfect photo to fit the space and add a bit of journalling.

 Also, thank you again to Julie over at Julie's Japes for the inspiration for this Elegant Eggplant Bliss card. When I saw her Concord Crush design I thought I would give it a go in EE. I used this as part of a workshop yesterday and the ladies all really enjoyed making it ;0)

 Remember, we only have 3 more days of Sale-A-Bration left now. So if you would like to take advantage get in touch asap to place your SAB order on 609249 or poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk.

Happy Crafting ;0)
-X-

Wow, three posts in one day!

My final post for today. But I've saved the best for last. This is my favourite LO of my weekend and I themed it around the idea of a Rainbow (Paige hinted this might be the subject of an upcoming challenge LO). I had seen a similar idea with buttons in a scrapbooking catalogue. So I attempted my own version- a Christmas Rainbow. And I am over the moon with how it turned out. This now joins this LO as my two all time favourite pages. And this page also confirms for me that all the time and money I have invested into improving my scrapbooking has been well worth it. Equipped with the simplest of papers, but using the best tools and embellishments you truly can create something effective and capturing the moment beautifully. I guess having the right tools around me inspires me and gives me confidence.

For this LO I used my Brights and Regals Stampin' Up! buttons (the best quality crafting buttons I have come across- not that I am biased or anything!) along with a base of Old Olive, Real Red and Certainly Celery C/S (12x12 textured). All the added ribbon and embellishments were taken from a big stash box some lovely ladies had brought along to the retreat. They bring it along for us all to go through and use if we want. I was so grateful as I managed to create some stunning details using their stash ;0)

This final final LO was also created under the theme of rainbows (this is the first time I've created two completely different LOs in response to a challenge prompt). This one is themed around Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat and the photos are from the WCC day out to Southampton last month.

Thanks for stopping by and reading. I realise three posts in one day is a little excessive. I just wanted to get everything blogged and shared following such a successful weekend of crafting.

Happy Crafting to all ;0)

More Retreat Makes

Here are a few more of my Retreat LOs. Many of them are part of the Wight Craft Circle weekly scrap challenge.

Week 49- 'Did You Know'

I reinterpreted the prompt to read 'Don't You Know How Much I Love You'.

 Week 47- 'Whats Your Colour'

Lime of course ;0) I loved this 8.5x11 LO and how I tied it in with what I was wearing that day in Icelandic snow.

 Week 45- 'Blast From The Past'

I chose my childhood dog Tigger as the subject of this layout. 

 And the final two LOs are just ones I did for fun. With the first photo I wanted to do the photo justice as it was my absolute favourite photo that Sam and I took on our Icelandic trip. I wanted the photo to be the focus and to tell its own story. Although I couldnt resist a bit of bling in the form of some Stampin' Up! rhinestones.

 And my final LO was completed using my favourite Sweet & Sour DSP from Stampin' Up! and Rich Razzleberry C/S. I accessorised the LO with some hand made crocheted flowers my Mum made for me using leftover embroidery floss. I found a whole stash of rather embarrassing childhood photos of me in various different outfits. I tied the colours of the LO in with the colours I was wearing in one of the pictures. I also chose the butterfly accents to compliment the butterfly motif of my top in the middle photo.

If you'd like any further info on Stampin' Up! products, please do not hesitate to get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830.

Happy Crafting ;0)

Shimelle's Scrapbooking Sketch of the Week

Just back from the Wight Craft Circle Retreat over in Totland. I was super productive completing 8 - 12x12 LOs, 1 - 8.5x11 LO and a whole load of swaps for my upcoming training next weekend ;0)

Here is my first LO of the weekend. I used Shimelle's latest Scrapbook Sketch of the Week as the inspiration for my design. I hadn't realised the buttons/circles were wonky till I photographed it. Still its all part of the character of the LO. This page captures our old cat and dog in their younger days. These sketches are so inspirational. I love using them to design a LO completely unexpected, or different from my usual style. And it was lovely to unearth some old photos and capture a moment long forgotten.

Happy Crafting ;0)
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Packing for the Retreat

Right, I've finally got 5 mins to sit down with The Hairy Bikers (LOVE their cooking!), a cuppa and my blog. I've had one seriously hectic night trying to pack for the WCC Retreat this weekend as well as sorting and delivering all my latest Sale-A-Bration customer orders. Since finishing work I've spent time with my lovely downline Sandy, my fab customer Chris and my great new friend Hayley also popped round to pick up some SU bits she ordered. I have that satisfied feeling of getting a lot done in a short space of rime (I even managed a Somerfield run to pick up some Heroes as I was having a serious chocolate craving). Although my packing isnt going quite as well as I had hoped. The pic below shows the stash I've sorted so far. Quite restrained for me. But i'm not finished yet (what you can see is an order for my crafty pal Paige, a tote of punches, my 12 x 12 paper carrier and my 'bits and bobs' tote, oh and my phone charger too). I havent even started with embellishments and stampsets...... Hope my Mum has packed light as I'll need most of the car to fit it all in...

The cards above are my customer thank yous for SAB orders. I borrowed the thank you stamp from my Mum's starter kit order. I stamped it in Peach Parfait centrally on a small 3 x 3 notecard. I then embellished with flowers punched with the Boho Blossoms punch (In Colour DSP) and a rhinestone to finish. A quick and simple (yet striking) card to show my appreciation for all my customers who have ordered this month so far ;0)

Right, I'm off to finish the embellishment sorting..... I'll be back Sunday to show off all my Retreat makes. I have a whole stack of photos awaiting some creativity ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)

-XX-

Less is More Week 2

This weeks Less Is More challenge was a one layer card to include a flower or a tree. This card did not turn out anything like what I had in mind when I started my design (it originally has a small square aperture for the tree image which was printed on the inside). Upon a bit of experimenting I was happy to keep the image plain and simple on the outside of the card. I love this retired Stampin' Up! set so was only too happy to bring it out of retirement for the evening.

This was stamped on a 10cm x 10cm card base of Very Vanilla. The greeting is from the free Sale-A-Bration set 'So Happy For You'. Off to write this and send it to my friend to wish her a very hopeful Spring filled good luck (hence the image of the blossom covered tree).

Happy crafting ;0)

-X-

My Mum's First LO

Well I have so many things that I have been working on this past couple of days but cannot post yet (swaps for my Stampin' Up! training next weekend).

So instead today I am posting a pic of my lovely Mum's first ever scrapbooking LO. She is joining me this weekend for the Wight Craft Circle scrapbooking retreat in Totland. As she is new to scrapbooking she had a go at a practice LO and this is her beautiful result using pictures of my cousin's baby. This was made using papers from a retired Simply Sent card set from Stampin' Up!. I love the way the papers pick up on the detail of Alex's stripey bib. We cut the letters with my Cricut from coordinating Stampin' Up! cardstock (mounted onto scalloped circles) and Mum embellished with some hand made crocheted flowers (made with leftover embroidery floss), Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon and buttons from her stash ;0) And of course a bird punched with the two step bird punch.

Happy Tuesday Crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Sale-A-Bration Special Results

Thank you to all my lovely customers who have placed qualifying Stampin' Up! orders over the period of my Sale-A-Bration special. Using the list randomizer on Random.org I can announce the winner is Hayley. Congratulations ;0) So thats a Level 1 Hostess Set and £15 worth of Stampin' Up! products as a thank you for ordering your Sale-A-Bration products through me this January & February ;0)

There is still time to order your products to benefit from Sale-A-Bration (which finishes on February 28th). Don't forget you can choose a free SAB set for every £45 you spend ;0) Just give me a call on 07830 343830 or email: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk.

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting

-XXX-

Stylish Blogger Award

Thank you to the lovely Peg for passing this Blog Award on to me ;0) I've seen a few people receive this blog award around the web and I always love doing these random fact type posts. So here is my random 8 info tidbits:

1) I got a (rebellious?) tattoo when I was 19 and I still love it 11 years later (and sometimes have battles with myself to stop myself getting more).

2) I thought I could swim in my Mum and Dads front room when I was three and dived off a poof-y thing onto the coffee table. I still bare the scar on my forehead of what happens when you need stitches to repair the damage of indoor swimming.

3) My colour of the moment is teal and I'm currently in the process of designing a LO around this theme

4) My favourite Stampin' Up! stampset is still Loads of Love. This is the set that tempted me to become a SU demonstrator.

5) I'm addicted to selling on Ebay (it funds my crafting stash).

6) I'm currently studying with the Open University (I apparently cannot go more than a couple of years without working towards a qualification- I miss study when I'm not doing it)

7) I crave another road trip after taking a 3 week trip in 2009 around Australia. Just need to win the lottery to pay my mortgage....

8) I love turning the volume up on my stereo and singing top of my voice to Pink songs ;0)

Not all that random but fun all the same. Right, hopefully I'll be back later with a couple more LOs (although my study seems to be taking over today so I'll have to see how the day goes).

Happy weekend crafting ;0)
-XXX-

Less Is More Black White & Pink Challenge

Not sure what happened to this photo. The card has entirely straight edges but in taking the photo it now looks all distorted. Anyhow, this is my very first clean and simple card.  And actually, despite my penchant for over embellishing, I really enjoyed making a simple design and look forward to making more cards for this challenge, hosted by Mandi and Chrissie over on Less Is More. I did allow myself one bit of bling with the centre of the flower (a Stampin' Up! basic rhinestone). My colour combo is Basic Black, Whisper White and Melon Mambo and the stamp set is Love You Much.  I'm now off to work on my photography skills....

Happy Friday & Happy Crafting ;0)

-XX-

Shimelle's Sketches

I sat down last night with a cuppa and an array of papers in front of me (along with my newly arrived envelope of 6 x 4s from Photobox) and had a go at a couple of Shimelle's sketches. I loved just taking a bit of time out to scrapbook about my trip at the weekend. Like I said in an earlier post, I think having a whole wad of new photos has got me all inspired ;0)

I used the same papers as yesterdays mini album. I've tied all my Iceland scrapbooking together with the same themed papers. I created two matching LOs which form a double LO in my album.

This first LO is inspired by Shimelle's new year-long class running over on Two Peas In A Bucket, 4 x 6 Photo Love. Using one 4 x 6 we had to create a triangle with our embellishments. I have so many little stars and gems in my stash that I really enjoyed embellishing this. And in the end I had to put things away before i over did it. I also dug out the few remaining coins from our Icelandic trip and added these in as an extra embellishing dimension.

 My second LO last night was based on Shimelle's recently posted Sketch of the Week. This was my Valentines themed LO for Monday. I find it hard to use hearts and heart embellishments on a lot of my LOs. But I had so much fun with my triple heart punch going to town with this one. The photo is a bit of an odd one I know  but it was taken of a love message in the snow Sam wrote for me on our holiday. I have used crafting glitter to accent the writing in the snow. Try as I might i couldnt pin point exactly what was making this LO a little wonky. I tried to rejig things and it wasnt working. So I have decided the wonky-ness gives the LO character ;0) A simple interpretation but I'm chuffed with the result.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.

Happy crafting ;0)

Home from snowy Iceland

Hello all ;0) Well I'm back from my super relaxing Reykjavik break and have come back full of beans and crafting ideas. I sat down last night and finally put some of these down on paper. I think my inspiration returned having a whole new set of photos to play with and scrapbook (I have designed about 50 LOs around pictures I took over the weekend- I'm going to be very busy at the WCC Retreat next weekend ;0)

Here are just a couple of the photos I took over the weekend. These were taken on the Golden Circle tour  (and taken during very brief periods over the weekend that it wasn't snowing!). The first is taken where the two tectonic plates meet in Iceland (you can see where the Mid Atlantic Ridge meets and is pulling Iceland slowly apart). So on one part you are stood on the Eurasian plate (I wanted to type Eurovision then!) and on the other you are stood on the N.American plate (I really don't know enough about Geology to explain this all properly! Really need to get my Geologist sister to guest blog and explain it ;0). The second photo is Gulfoss waterfalls. The picture doesn't do it justice or give you any sense of the massive scale of these waterfalls.

 Here is my '2011 Journal' page for last week. I was inspired by a LO Paige completed recently and after she gave me a cropping and resizing tutorial on photo printing software last week I decided to have a play with lots of mini pics. Although this small selection took me about 10 hours to align and size correctly so goodness only knows how she managed 60!!! I also used the WCC Sketch for Challenge 46 to design my page. Not entirely the same as the sketch. But I'm really pleased with how it turned out ;0) Broken my own golden rule though - no thickers in this album. I'm never gong to make it to December- it'll be bursting at the seams! 

 I also made this little mini album last night. I was inspired by the lovely Peg over at Pegcraftalot and the little Meander Book she made recently. However, all my Iceland photos are 6x4 so I had to adapt the Meander Book to fit this size photos (so effectively it ended up nothing like Pegs so I'm going to have another go at that over the weekend!). I did this using two 12 x 12 sheets of Bashful Blue Stampin' Up! cardstock which I then folded and taped together to make a mini album holding 8 6x4 photos. I added journalling tags into the little pockets I'd created between each page, which were finished off with Round Tab punch. The DP is non-SU unfortunately but this mini album could easily be adapted to use any of the Stampin' Up! Designer Papers.

And finally, here is a sneak peak of this weeks card class:

This is the Elegant Soiree version of the Mini Notecard Wallet I made recently. It is created using coordinating cardstock and inkpads and the beautiful Just Believe stampset. I still have a few spaces remaining for my Wednesday night class on February 16th (7pm start, £8 for the class). If you'd like to come along and make this project then please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830 to book your place.

Happy crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Stampin' Sarah Sale-a-bration Special

I am offering my own Sale-A-Bration specials for anyone placing a qualifying SAB order by February 14th.

Free P & P if you collect your order from me 

&

One entry into a special draw for each £45 you spend with me during Sale-A-Bration (remember you receive a free SAB stampset per £45 spent).

One lucky customer will win a Level 1 Hostess Stamp Set and £15 of free product.

For more information on Sale-A-Bration please see my earlier post here.

So what are you waiting for, email your order through to me on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or call me on 609249 / 07830 343830. I am able to accept Mastercard, Visa & Visa Debit, as well as cash or cheque. I'd be happy to help and wish you all the luck with the draw ;0)

Week Four 2011 Journal

Here is my week 4 page for my 'summary of 2011 journal' (I think I might need to come up with a catchier name for it than that! ;0). I tried to use my tickets and bits and bobs from the week as the scrapbooking elements instead of all the beautiful papers (I did sneak in a bit of In Colour DSP) I would use in my 12x12 main LOs. I'm not 100% sure I like the effect (I have very little control over the fact that the orange of a rail ticket does NOT tonally match the pale blue of a Cineworld ticket!). But it still captures exactly what I want from the week. And I am trying to use different ideas and techniques on each page so that its a creative journey as well as a recap of my year ;0)

I also had a go at creating my own Crumb Cake journalling card. I have printed one for each month of the year. So the last LO of each month I will include one which summarises the following:

This month I've been:

Listening to.... Raise Your Glass (Pink) & Forget You (Cee Lo Green)

Watching.... Glee Season 2

Reading.... The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers (Paul  Torday)

Visiting.... The cinema

Until next weeks summary (and lots of exciting photos of Iceland hopefully!!!! So excited about my belated 30th birthday trip!),

Happy Crafting.

-XX-

In The Spotlight

My lovely crafty friend Hayley recently emailed her first layout for the Wight Craft Circle 'Scrap With Us' Challenge. As she doesn't have a blog I offered to upload it so the WCC ladies could have a look ;0) Here is Hayley's gorgeous interpretation of the sketch below.

WCC Week 46 Sketch Challenge:

I love the Christmas-y colours and the texture added by the embossing and glitter. I also spy a gorgeous scrapbooking use of the Bliss Sale-A-Bration set too ;0)

Now, as Hayley has put me to shame, I should really get on with my sketch interpretation for the week ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Mini Notecard Wallet

This project was the make and take at my Stampin' Up! upline Michelle's recent training event. I couldn't attend but loved her original project so much that I decided to have a go at making one myself. I didnt have the Elegant Soiree papers so created this Notecard Wallet using 12x12 Basic Black with the Love Letter DSP. Having completely fallen in love with the finished product I have decided to design another one to teach at this months card classes (Sat February 12th and Weds February 16th). So if you'd like to come along and learn to make this wallet along with 8 mini cards, then please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249 to book your place.

The above shows the outside cover of the wallet. The colour combo is: Basic Black, Very Vanilla & Riding Hood Red (although the ribbon is Poppy Parade Poly). I used Artistic Etchings for the front cover.

Here is how the wallet looks untied. 8 separate card pockets each decorated with a piece of DSP from the Love Letter series.

Each card base is made from Very Vanilla and embellished with DSP. The card on the left is stamped with a flourish from the Just Believe set and the red card on the right is stamped with the Bliss Sale-A-Bration set.

I embellished both of these cards with hearts punched from the small heart punch. I love creating little heart flowers using this punch. It also makes lovely four leaf clovers too ;0)

More punch embellishing here with the scallop edge punch. And a bit of stamping with Artistic Etchings (Left) and Bliss (Right).

Again, the left hand card is decorated with Just Believe and Bliss on the right.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I'm going to tuck this away into my handcrafted box and keep it as a pressie for later in the year.

If you'd like any further information on Stampin' Up! or would like to order any of the products featured, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy crafting ;0)

-X-