Altered Christmas Domino Decorations from Stampin' Up! UK Demonstrator Sarah Poulton

Today I am sharing my favourite project from my Christmas Craft Days this year, altered stamped dominoes.  I love the simplicity of stamping on to dominoes to create either a personalised piece of jewellery or a hanging Christmas decoration.

I searched Amazon for the ideal dominoes. I searched all the local shops and Charity shops and only found black dominoes. So I used these white dominoes. They worked well although I bought several packets and some were more yellow than white. But I discovered you could whiten them with White Staz On and then stamp over the top once dried (as with the middle domino below).

I covered the reverse of each domino in a small section of patterned paper (for these I used Merry Moment DSP) and then adhered a flat back jewellery bail (I used these from Ebay) so that my class attendees could either thread a ribbon or chain to make it in to a decoration or necklace.

My ladies were then free to stamp their domino with whichever stamps they wanted. Most ladies chose to use the three above as their inspiration. I created this trio of festive animals using the White Christmas stamp set. I stamped the images in Black Staz On. Once dried you can use a permanent marker such as a Sharpie to colour the image (I used a Stampin' Up! Chalk Marker for the polar bear). It has to be colour fast as once you glaze the domino any non permanent colours will run.

Once coloured I covered the dominoes with Crystal Effects glaze and sprinkled a little Dazzling Diamonds in to the glaze to give a little festive sparkle.

I have to share a few more of the samples I made (I got a bit carried away and made about 20 sample dominoes). The 'fa la la' one was my absolute favourite and it uses a sadly retired stamp set from many years ago. To this day Season of Joy is still my favourite Stampin' Up! set and I was super happy to give it another outing. I don't think I could ever be parted with my Season of Joy.

To finish each domino I coated the edges with gold foiling pen (non SU) and left to dry. This gives it a nice festive finish. So simple and so fun to make. My ladies came up with so many different variations. It was lovely to see so much creativity.

Thank you for popping by today. I'll have another new Christmasy project for you tomorrow. Please let me know if you have any questions about Stampin' Up! or our products. I would love to help. All items can be purchased online via my shop or get in touch directly and I can order them for you to be delivered direct to your door. I'd also love to Demo for you and your friends at a crafty party. As the hostess you earn lots of lovely freebies and you all get to make a fun crafty project too (no crafting experience necessary!)

 -XXX-

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Journal Your Christmas Day 4

Apologies in advance, this is quite a picture heavy post. I have been slightly over exuberant in my Christmas journaling this weekend and the results are below (so much for only two pages per day!)

I’ll start my post today however, with a Christmas card. I made this early this morning (Sunday). I have my monthly card class at my home next Saturday and as its nearly Christmas I wanted to make it a special one with some alternative style Christmas cards. So I have been designing some lovely card ideas. Here is one of the projects I have decided upon for next Saturday; a gorgeous glittery heat embossed snowflake waterfall card. I have a couple of spaces available for this class, so if you would like to come along and learn how to make this card (plus two other cards and a 3D project, and refreshments) please get in touch (01983 609249 or poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk). The cost for the afternoon is £8.

 Right, back to what is taking over my life at the moment- Christmas journalling!!! I was a bit hesitant about signing up to follow a daily prompt as I wasnt sure I would be able to find enough to talk about. However, receiving Shimelle's daily emails (plus photography tips) is proving incredibly inspirational. And as you can see from the photos below. I certainly havent run out of things to talk about yet.

On Friday I bought the Daily Telegraph just for the satellite image on the front cover. This picture shows the whole of the UK from above covered in snow. I thought this was such a great image that I had to include it in the journal even though it doesnt entirely fit the two pages a day rule I imposed on myself ;0) Oh, and I appear to have become a bit fixated on acetate inserts you'll notice. For this double page I created an acetate overlay using Serene Snowflakes, Heat & Stick Powder & Dazzling Diamonds (I am so loving heat resistant acetate!!!). You cannot really see the acetate layer in the photo but it is lovely and glittery and effective in real life.

Yesterdays prompt was daydreaming of a perfect Christmas. We were supposed to let our minds wander to construct an ideal Christmas. I got completely carried away thinking about family holidays we have had abroad over the festive season and how lovely it was to be warm and sunny on Christmas day. So, while not completely fitting the festive theme I have created a couple of Hawaiian inspired Christmas LOs. I suddenly found a purpose for all the beautiful Hawaiian themed papers i have been collecting (including the lovely tropical [now retired] Stampin' Up! papers from the US). 

You'll note the token inclusion of my sister wearing a Christmas hat as we purchased our shaved ice on Christmas Day 2006 (the gentleman in the shaved ice van made her wear it for the photo!). While being sunny over Christmas isnt everyones cup of tea, as a family we've been away for 4 Christmases in sunnier climes and I've loved every minute of breaking up the winter blues with a burst of warm sun. I guess the moral really is (and this is included in my whole page of journalling) that its family and loved ones that make Christmas, not the location. But all the same in an ideal world, Hawaii would win every time!!! (Plus we always agree that there are no pressies if we go abroad- the holiday is our gift- so no horrible crowds and Christmas shopping!! Hooray for that too!!!)

Until tomorrow, happy festive crafting to all ;0)

-XXXX-

Card for Mum

I treated myself to a couple of new punches while putting in an order the other day for my new product share (above) and decided to make my mum a celebratory card for an important day today.

I've decided to post the card as 1) I loved the bright and bold colours and 2) I learned a very valuable lesson whilst making this- dont glue lovely ribbon with liquid glue!! (as you can see- it shows through to the front). Still, you never learn without making a mistake or two ;0)

I would like to point out that i originally glued the ribbon with sticky tape but then decided to stick the star underneath it afterwards. If I'm honest, it all went a bit pear shaped! *laugh* But the glue mark did fade when dry and Mum loved it all the same ;0)

For this I used: Green Galore and Pink Passion Card Stock on a plain black A5 folded card. I used the Cheers To You stampset accessorised with Dazzling Diamonds Stampin Glitter. The punches I used were my new Scallop Circle and Large Star. The Polka Dotted Ribbon is part of the new colours promotion and is Melon Mambo ;0)

The weird glitter on the star tips is some gorgeous tinsel glitter (not Stampin' Up!) that i saw at a craft fair and then purchased off Ebay (arrived from US yesterday hence I was dying to try it out). I absolutely adore the effect of this fine stranded glitter and it also reminds me of being a teenager as I used to wear glittery nail varnish with the same effect ;0)

My weekend of mini catalogue stamping..

Here is the card I designed for a mini catalogue launch swap with the Pink Ladies (Michelle's Stampin Up downline). I chose to give the Something Sweet stamp set a go (without sweet treat cups). I then had to reproduce the card 15 times (which was a challenge considering how quickly I ran out of YoYo Yellow cardstock. I had to improvise which can be seen in the second photo- overlaying the YoYo Yellow onto Real Red).

I used:

• Real Red and YoYo Yellow Card Stock & Inks
• Inks: Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, Pink Passion
• Something Sweet Stamp Set
• Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint
• Dazzling Diamonds Stampin Glitter
• Window Sheet (for the sweet machine globe)
• 1 3/4 inch circle punch