Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Try It Tuesday Beach Layout

 Well its late but I finally got there with publishing my scrapbooking layout for the day.

This is another of the pages we created at last weeks scrapbooking class. This was inspired by my favourite papers from the Spring Summer catalogue, Sunshine & Sprinkles.  We coupled the bright colours of the papers with the contemporary embellishments from the new catalogue, the Elements Cute Clips & Soda Pop Tops.

We created the perfectly matching soda pop top embellishment by punching a whale image from the DSP and then setting this in place with Crystal Effects (gives a lovely glaze over the top of the image).
 A close up of the lovely Cute Clip.
 We created the sea themed background using spattered ink and the tiny fish image from the Itty Bitties stamp set (Spring Summer Catalogue, Page 25). We then finished with tiny pearls to look  like bubbles and spray.
I cannot believe we're nearly in to April already. Very soon I will have a 1 year old baby. Where has the year gone? Feels like only 5 minutes ago I was sharing scan pictures and now I have a fully functional lovely little Miss. She is teetering on the edge of walking (she has mastered the art of demanding a walk around the house clinging on to our hands for support) and is determined to climb the stairs a dozen times a day (we promptly invested in a new stairgate). She has also mastered the art of answering every telling off with 'yes'. She makes it incredibly hard not to smile when you're trying to stop her from eating yesterdays leftovers off the floor (bits the dustpan and brush might have missed that is) and all she keeps doing is smiling and saying 'yes'. Well at least she knows her own mind I guess ;0)


Thanks for popping by today. Any questions about the products used above, please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. I'd love to chat Stampin' Up! with you ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)
-X-


 
 


Saturday, 23 March 2013

And the winner is......

 
I am excited to announce the winner of my Big Shot competition is..... Pat!!! And the runner up prize of a fab Stampin' Up! paper trimmer is Julie. Well done to you both and thank you to all my lovely customers for all their support, parties and orders throughout this years Sale-A-Bration. It is very much appreciated.
 
Hope you all have a very lovely and crafty weekend.
-X-

Shoebox Swapping with my Team

 To celebrate the final day of Sale-A-Bration I am sharing the lovely projects we made at my team shoebox swap on Monday.
 
What a lovely variety of projects and techniques. I love seeing what my lovely team come up with as we all have such different styles and colour favourites.

Lorraine made the fab punch art Easter bunny topper which came with a lovely chocolatey treat too (that didn't make it to the picture I am afraid!). I love this idea. You seal the bunny over the top of a cello bag filled with Easter-y treats.

Charlotte designed the Rich Razzleberry card with a stamp set I am ashamed to admit, I had never even seen in the catalogue before this card, Lacy & Lovely (page 99). She paired the stamp with beautiful matching designer series paper. This is the beauty of crafting with my team ladies, we all own different stamps and come at Stampin' Up! with different crafty styles and interests.

The final card isn't too clear in the picture above so I have shown separately below. This was designed by Hayley using the stunning Swallowtail stamp in the Spring Summer catalogue.
I love this technique and absolutely adore this stamp now. I had overlooked it as being too big in the catalogue. But now, having used it, I have placed an order to get my hands on it myself. It is so detailed and intricate. Such a lovely card and such a stunning stamp too ;0)
As I mentioned previously, today is the final day of Sale-A-Bration. So place your orders with me before 5pm to take advantage of the fabulous Stampin' Up! freebies and to be entered in to the 'Win a Big Shot' competition.
 
Thank you for stopping by today and thank you to all for a fabulous Sale-A-Bration ;0)

-XXX-

Exclusive Offer from Stampin' Sarah!


Throughout the Sale-A-Bration period (which runs until March 22nd) I am personally running an exclusive competition to win your very own sparkly new Big Shot die cutting machine.

Click on the photo above to find out more.
 
-xxx-

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Try It Tuesday on a Wednesday

 Good afternoon and hello to my Try it Tuesday feature (a day late again!). Maybe I should change it to Making on a Wednesday instead ;0)
 
I am back to normal scrapbooking service this week. The above layout is one of the pages we created last night at our monthly scrapbooking class. I cannot for the life of me remember where I found the inspiration for this page. I have looked all over Pinterest to see if it was there to no avail. I saw a page with a beautiful paper created birdhouse that inspired this layout and would love to give credit.
 
I used the beautiful Birds of a Feather and More Amore Designer Series Papers on a Marina Mist base for this 12"x12" page. The stamped images are from Elements of Style and Aviary (the Marina Mist accent bottom right). We created the floral embellishments using a variety of papers and circle punches (finished with designer buttons).
 
I love the simplicity of this page and the multifunction use of the birdhouse. It would work for a number of pictures, themes or occasions.
 
Next months theme is going to be formal evening wear. I look forward to creating some pages for my ladies to use their lovely cruise photos on.
 
I have some pictures to share with you of some beautiful projects my team shared with me on Monday at our monthly shoebox swap. But to finish today I will share with you my project that I created for the swap. I love this simple little triangular gift box. I found the instructions for this project here.

Thanks for joining me today. Please get in touch if you'd like to join my scrapbooking class or find out more about Stampin' Up! and their products.
 
Happy crafting ;0)
-X-

Saturday, 16 March 2013

Weekend crafty makes

I thought I would share a little seasonal crafting with you today. Here is this weeks workshop project. I shared this with a lovely group of ladies I met this week. As it was a large meeting I simplified the project to allow me to teach it to a large number.

This is an Easter gift basket made from two tags cut with the Two Tags Biz die. I used So Saffron and Pretty in Pink matched with the Somebunny stamp set to finish the gift basket. And to finish the project completely I treated all my ladies to a little chocolate chick and egg treat.

And as I have been a bit craftily quiet this week I have two congratulatory cards to share today too. I have two friends locally who have recently celebrated the birth of grandchildren. So I made a card for each of them to celebrate their growing extended families.

The first card uses the Two By Two stamp coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a blender pen and mounted on Pretty in Pink and embellished with basic pearls. The second card uses the lovely embossed vellum technique. I stamped the image from Bundle of Love with Stazon and then turned over and vellum and rubbed with my stylus (from the scoring board) over the areas of the image i wanted to turn white. I then mounted this on to Pretty In Pink card stock and mounted on to the main card base. The ribbon in both cards is the lovely Melon Mambo Striped Organdy ribbon from the Spring Summer catalogue.

Thanks for joining me today. Don't forget to take advantage of the last days of Sale-A-Bration. I will be placing an order on Friday so get your orders through to me before then to maximise your freebies ;0)

Happy weekend craftiness
-X-


Monday, 11 March 2013

Mother's Day Makes

Please forgive me for a slightly topsy turvy bloggy week this week. I have a super busy week ahead with classes and a WI talk so my usual features are going to be postponed a week. I do have projects to share but I just haven't had a second to sit down and scrapbook for a little while.

So today I am going to share with you the completed store card keyring I made for my Mum for Mother's Day. I covered old store cards with patterned papers and embellishments and then finished with a layer of PVA to create these mini scrapbook keyrings.
 

I bought a shopping tote which had a pocket on the front for a photo which I attached the keyring to. A thoroughly photo-tastic Mother's Day for Mum.

 And here is the Stampin' Up! Mother's Day card I made for Mum. I used a window die from my stash with SU's glossy cardstock. I used this photo I took a little while ago of the highland cattle local to my parents house. Mum loves these so I thought they would make the perfect view from the window. The papers I used to create the wallpaper are from the Summer Smooches DSP pack.

 
And here is how I spent my first Mother's Day.
 
Happy crafting (in the snow!!)
-xx-

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Easter Treats

I love this stamp set. I made this Easter set with the Everybunny stamp set from the main catalogue and I don't often get the opportunity to craft with it as Easter only comes round once a year ;0) I originally bought this set to tuck away for when Summer is older. But upon planning my Sew N So Fabrics class I decided this would be a perfect stamp set for this time of year.
 
Make it Wight Easter Card Class
Sew N So Fabrics Craft Centre, Ryde
Thursday March 21st
1-3pm
£8.50
 
I try to plan my classes around the season and different techniques. This class focuses on watercolouring and paper piecing to make these three projects.
 
Watercoloured hot air balloon Easter card:


Paper pieced Easter bunny:
 
To book your place on this class or find out any jmore information please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or contact the shop direct on sewnsofabrics@googlemail.com. I would love for you to join me on the day for a bit of Easter craftiness.
 
And just as an aside, I must apologise for the lack of a technique tutorial this Thursday. The week has run away with me and I have a craft room piled high with projects on the go. Lots of lovely things to share in the upcoming weeks though ;0) Stick with me, balancing family life with crafting and going back to work is proving a challenge but I am gradually getting there with making sure I devote the right amount of time to each important area of my life.

Thank you for joining me today and happy weekend crafting.
-X-


Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Tuesday Scrapbooking: Divided Page

 
Time is running a bit short in the Poulton-Williams household at the moment. I am cherishing every minute with my little girl when I am not at work (which is proving slightly challenging at the moment as she is teething and letting us all know about it!). I wanted to put together a page for todays scrapbooking feature but didn't have hours to spend matching and creating embellishments. So I decided to put together a quick and easy 12"x12" Christmas page using one of Stampin' Up!'s divided page protectors.
 
I collected together 6 photos from our family Christmas and cut them to 4"x4" squares. I then used a 4"x12" strip of green chevron paper taken from the Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper set to create the centre title strip. I cut the Very Vanilla and red spotted DSP using my Window Framelits Dies and used letters from my stash to create the title. I love how quick and simple this was to create and fills a Christmas shaped gap in Summer's scrapbook for 2012.

While we are talking scrapbooking, here is a little sneak peak of my Mum's Mother's Day present. She had seen mini scrapbook keyrings made from old credit cards on Pinterest. I decided I'd give it a go. This is not strictly Stampin' Up! (but could easily be adapted using all of SU's beautiful papers and embellishments).  I covered an old store card with pretty papers and then used tiny photos of Summer to create these two mini scrapbook pages. This is my first attempt at altering anything and I am happy with the result. I covered both with a thick layer of watered down PVA glue to protect them from the wear and tear of a keyring. I'll share a finished picture once I have finished them and attached them to their finished keychain ;0)

Thanks for stopping by today. Please leave a comment and say hello and I'll return the blog hopping favour ;0)

Get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249 to place your order or chat Stampin' Up!
-x-