A favourite Convention card

There were a number of very inspiring presentations at Convention, but one of the most memorable was by a Scottish Demo now living in France who taught us all the partial embossing technique (you can find more info on her blog here). I fell in love with her card that she demo'd as it showcases three of my favourite new products from the 2011-2012 catalogue, the Brushed Gold cardstock, the Antique Brads and the Victoria Crochet Trim. I made a very hasty trip to the Convention Boards to take a photo of her project after she'd completed her stint on stage.

Here is Moira's beautiful partial embossed Christmas card:

 And here is my attempt (almost identical I know). I had to make a few slight amendments to the design to teach at my Christmas card class on Saturday. This card was a real hit with my card class ladies at the weekend and the brads and crochet trim were very popular too.

Such a lovely technique that I'll definitely be trying again (although you would probably have laughed at me trying to master it for this one card!! Oh the mistakes I made! I promise it is quite simple if you follow a tutorial which is what I ended up doing after MANY failed attempts *laugh*)

Products used:

Cardstock: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Brushed Gold

Trim: Victoria Crochet

Embellishments: Antique Brads & optional Basic Pearls

Stamp sets: The Christmas is from 'Heard from the Heart' and the Happy is taken from a sentiment in 'Polar Party'

Punches: Small Oval and Scalloped Oval

Embossing Folder: Vintage Wallpaper

Thank you for stopping by today ;0)

Convention Catch Up!

Wow, where did that week go? Cannot believe i have been back from Convention a week now and I havent had a moment to update my blog with photos. I finally get a chance to schedule a post and now my photos are playing up. Hope you don't mind rotated pictures. I guess you'll get the idea!!

So I returned from Convention over a week ago now. And what a crazy couple of days we had. It was an inspiring and fun two days in Disneyland Paris surrounded by Demos and friends alike. I had a blast just catching up with team mates and meeting new people, and that was before we even began to think about crafting ;0)

I was so pleased that I chose to fly with fellow Pink Lady team mates earlier on the Thursday as it gave us all a chance to catch up and chill out before the main event got started on the Friday. We all went for a big team meal on the Thursday evening over in the Disney Village (just a hop, skip and a jump from the Sequoia Lodge where we were staying) followed by team swaps.  For some reason I must've had a total camera block as I didn't take any 'people photos' during these social meet ups. Think I was too busy chatting to think about my camera.

The main event started on Friday morning with a chance to register and pick up our fab SU craft bag (which I'll have to take a pic of for another day), start general swapping, check out all the lovely goodies for sale in Memento Mall, and just generally catch up. One of my favourite things about meeting up with fellow Demos is seeing the swaps people come up with. There was a team of German ladies all in traditional dress swapping German gingerbread biscuits (my kinda swapping!!) and there were card swaps, and chocolate swaps, card candy and 3d items. It is just a creative mash up of ideas. All of which I then had to fit into my swap box to carry home!! I'll try and get some good photos at home of some of the swaps I received. There are so many ideas and techniques used that I'll have to go through them all for inspiration for my upcoming Christmas journal (2 days and counting.....).

Anyways, enough jabbering. Here are a few Convention highlight photos. This first one is of my lovely Kala on the Convention inspiration boards. I was so pleased to see her lovely face up there. I made everyone nearby take a picture too ;0)

 The theme of this years Convention was 'Grow' so there were a lot of lovely papercraft displays of flowers and garden related items.

 One of Shelli's presentations on the main stage (she is always so well dressed!)

 A Saturday coffee break! What festive trip would be complete without a Starbucks Red Cup. The Parisian menu was different to ours at home. So I  ordered myself (or rather got a fluent French speaking Demo friend, Jenny to order) a White Chocolate Cranberry Mocha. Sounds weird. And in all honesty it was pretty strange (there was a strange jammy mixture left in the bottom!). But lovely to try something different. And another photo for my Starbucks of the World album ;0)

 And this last pic is a fun Pinkies photo taken in the New York hotel. Not sure my pregnant body was too keen on fitting in this little taxi. But fun to take time out with Sarah, Michelle and Jane.

So much more i could say about the weekend. But all in all it was just a fun weekend of Stampin' Up! related chatter and crafting. Now, how can I manage a 6 month old and my luggage to Mainz for Convention next year.... I'll have to have a think.....

-xxxx-

Convention swaps

Oh to live in sunnier climes where there is sunshine all year round for better picture opportunities.  Instead we have to battle the early evening light and flash rebound..... But you'll get the idea with my swap photos.

The first project I have to share is my Button Buddies/Nursery Nest inspired Card Candy.  The idea is to create card toppers that use punches or a particular stamp set in a variety of ways and to showcase the images. I fell in love with Button Buddies the first time I saw it. I love how Stampin' Up! create products that link with other items (such as this use of buttons within the image). I stuck with the DSP colour scheme and used several pots of Subtles Buttons to create my 10 matching sets of Card Candy.

 My second project today is my general convention swap- a shrink plastic wine glass charm. My lovely Mum sat and made these all for me as I just havent had the energy to create 87 (thats how many my wonder Mum made!! Thats a whole lot of shrinky dink plastic and jewellery wire) swaps. She is truly fab as she created her own little links for the charms and also raided her bead stash (not sure how I ended up photographing identical swaps as she used lots of different beads for these wine glass charms).  So for this Mum stamped the flower from Season of Joy onto shrink plastic and sat with a heat tool shrinking them (after cutting them all out and creating the link by punching a hole with my Crop-a-Dile). After linking the charm and beads onto the wine glass loop we mounted the whole charm onto Old Olive cardstock and finished with a small cello bag.

So these are my swap projects for 2011. I'll be back at the weekend to share some of the lovely projects I receive in return and tell you all about the Convention experience.

Happy Crafting ;0)

Off to Convention

If you are a Stampin' Up! regular, or you hop around a few Demo blogs, you won't have failed to notice that Convention fever is in the air. So as you read this,  I will be on my way to Paris for this years European Stampin' Up! Convention. Two days of Disneyland fun with fellow Demos from the UK, France and Germany. Stampin' Up! always know how to put on a good show and there is always a couple of fun crafting sessions too. But I'll share more on that on my return....

I've kept things a bit simpler on the swaps front this year and also had a great deal of assistance from my lovely Mum too. I just havent had the energy to do all the organised swaps like I did last year. I wanted to be involved in the swapping but also had to consider that I'll have to carry everything home on the plane ;0)  If you pop back tomorrow I'll share my Card Candy and general swaps. Todays project are the stamped candles I made for my two Convention roomies, Jenny and Anja. They havent turned out quite as perfect as I imagined (its been well over a year since i tried candle stamping) but I do love the embossed gold and silver against the red candle (which matches Stampin' Up!'s Cherry Cobbler ribbon and embossing powder perfectly).

So here are my Serene Snowflake candles.....

Thank you for stopping by today and come back tomorrow for more swapping and convention makes.

Happy Crafting ;0)
-X-

Pennant Punch Christmas Tree

The final project from October's Card Class is this masked Pennant Punch Christmas Tree card. This was inspired by this card over on Vicky's blog. As regular readers will have seen, I adore this masking and sponging technique and could make a million Christmas cards this way.

I created a mask using a post-it note and the scalloped pennant from the Pennant Punch. I then sponged over the mask with Pear Pizzazz. With the mask still in place I stamped part of the large tree from Lovely As A Tree in Old Olive and Garden Green to give the leaf texture. The trunk was stamped using a stamp from Trendy Trees (a bit wonky I'm afraid- must find where I hid my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig).

I created a second mask using a torn post it and sponged over more Pear Pizzazz to create the grass and then finished with Garden Green ink to stamp the Contempo Christmas sentiment.

Hooray for Friday ;0) I'm off to my monthly crop tomorrow and i haven't managed to go for several months. Will be lovely to catch up with the ladies (as well as get my Convention swaps finished once and for all!!!).

Happy  crafting ;0)

-X-

An unusual Christmas card...

So this was inspired by a beautiful card I saw over on In Love With Stamping (I am having trouble with my internet at the moment and cannot open another tab to look up credit for this card). I just fell in love with this unusual colour combination for Christmas- More Mustard and Cajun Craze.

This was also my first experimentation with the baby wipe technique. And i really like the effect it gave, especially with such a large stamp like the Medallion background stamp. It created a striking but subtle background.

I embellished with a line of Basic Rhinestones and a bow tied with Real Red Satin Ribbon. The ornament was raised with dimensionals.

Please excuse the somewhat haphazard stamping of the greeting from Contempo Christmas. This goes to show that even us Demonstrators have issues with over inked stamps from time to time (I really must remember to check the stamp before putting rubber to cardstock- especially if the greeting is the last step to finish the card!!)

I hope you enjoyed this unusual take on a Christmas card. I think I might get a little more creative with my colour combos going forward....

Punch Art Father Christmas

Now I wish I could claim this Father Christmas Top Note card as my own. But alas this was inspired by a fantastic punch art creation posted by Kirsteen over on In Love With Stamping.

I've never tried to recreate a piece of punch art before. But as soon as I saw this Top Note Father Christmas I couldn't resist. This was one of the projects we completed in October's Card Class. And we had a lot of fun making him too.

I just love the texture of the Manhattan Flower embossing folder for the beard. You cannot even see the detail of the flower. It looks like it was designed for the sole purpose of giving texture to Father Christmas's beard ;0)

The colours I used for this are: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Pretty In Pink and Regal Rose.

Thank you for stopping by tonight. Hopefully if I can get my act together I'll be able to schedule a couple more posts for the upcoming days.

Happy crafting ;0)

-x-

Hostess Thank You

Thank you for all the lovely congratulatory messages. They are very much appreciated ;0)

Now on to some Christmas crafting. I must again apologise for the poor lighting of these two photos. I was taking these late last night so that I had something to post today and the result is slightly 'off colour'. Bring on the Spring and some nicer lighting conditions (although I must confess to actually really loving these damp days and dark nights- a good excuse to cosy up under the duvet with a good film or a book).

I demonstrated at my friend Hayley's annual birthday workshop last night. I designed two little make and takes for all the ladies to have a go at which didnt leave much time for a demonstration. So instead I made this little hostess thank you set in advance and just showed the ladies instead. I picked Pool Party & Night of Navy as my colour scheme to give an icy winter feel to the two projects.

The card was made using my favourite technique again. I created a Post It note mask with the Curly Label punch and then sponged Pool Party and Marina Mist onto Shimmery White cardstock (I love this C/S as it gives a nice icy feel to Christmas-y cards). I then stamped the largest snowflake from Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy over the top. I then stamped the 3 smaller snowflakes as a background. The Thank You sentiment is taken from Curly Cute.

 The hostess gift element of the set was this luminaria. I followed an online template for the basic shape and then customised this to use my own colour scheme and stamps. I had previously bought two packs of the battery operated 'flickering candles' from Ebay but not gotten around to using them. Now I have seen the result I will most definitely be investing in some more I think.

I did try and get the luminaria lit up but I just couldnt get the lighting and settings on the camera quite right. I created it using Night of Navy as the base. I punched the holes using my largest circle punch. I then cut 4 pieces of vellum to fit and stamped with Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy. For the trees around the bottom I used Not Quite Navy as the base card stock then stamped the multiple tree stamp from Lovely As A Tree along a strip of card (using Versamark). I then covered this strip (on which I stamped the image three times) with silver heat embossing powder and embossed for the icy finish. The last touch was to sponge dauber white craft ink along the base of the trees to give it a snowy look.

And just one final quick bit of info. Stampin' Up! have launched a Hostess incentive which runs through till December 15th. If you host a qualifying workshop (£300+ sales) anytime within this period you will receive extra product for free. The product bonus is the lovely Paisley Petals stampset and coordinating Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper. What a great way to celebrate hosting your own Christmas workshop!

If you have any questions on Stampin' Up! please let me know and I'll try to help as best I can (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

In the mean time, happy crafting ;0)

-X-

So here is my excuse

So I know I am super behind with my blogging and on updating you all with all the lovely Christmas projects I promised. But I do have a good excuse. As you may or may not be able to see from the photo above, I am happy to say I am expecting ;0) I am so excited to be pregnant and to have a full of energy 13 weeks along bouncing bean growing inside me. But it has taken its toll craft wise I am afraid. And my blog is also looking a tiny bit neglected. But as I am now moving into my second trimester I am getting my energy back so I hope to be back in the swing of things very soon.

Thanks for reading today and I hope normal service can resume asap.

-XXX-