Stampin' Up! Secret Santa

Hi everyone!

I just love my Stampin' up! team! And I love my upline, Paula and her wonderful ideas! This year Paula arranged a secret santa between our Stampin' up team which was lots of fun. We each answered a little questionnaire about our favourite colours, items and things about Christmas and then she matched us up with our secret santas who then got to read the answers on our questionnaire and make a few cards and 3-D items to send to each other.

My secret santa loves Cherry cobbler and Early espresso so I sort of worked with that colour combo plus I used some of the colours from the Comfort cafe DSP. This group of items was for the last parcel which had to include some 3-D items. I made a corner bookmark (top of photo), A little embossed envelope holding a coffee sachet using the Two tags die and new Lacy Brocade embossing folder plus a Cross over card.

I'm sorry about the photo not being up to scratch, I had to take it at night so the items could be express posted early the next morning. And we have downlights all through our house which are terrible for good photos!




It's lovely to finally be relaxing for Christmas after all the hustle and bustle of preparing. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas this year and enjoy your families and hopefully a chance to slow down and do what you love. For me, I hope that will mean a little stamping plus catching up with family and friends here in Melbourne. I also hope you will have the opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, the arrival of Jesus as a little baby - a human who was also fully God! Quite amazing when you stop and think on it. A verse that sums up my feelings on Christmas this year from the Christmas carol called "Mary's boy child" is: "Man will live forever more because of Christmas day!" Wow!
Happy Christmas!
Love, Claire

November special offers from Stampin' Up!

 

Hello my stamping friends!

Aah we finally have the internet connected in our new home so I just had to pop by and make sure you know about this months AMAZING specials!

Offer #1 Available til November 30

Merry Christmas from Stampin' Up!

It's only November, but Stampin' Claus is giving you an early Christmas present: a FREE Festive Paper-Piercing Pack when you buy the Ornament Keepsakes Stamp Set and Candlelight Christmas Specialty Designer Series Paper Bundle.Click here for more information on the Stampin' up! website.

Offer #2 Available til December 16

Ink-credible hostess promotion

From 1 November through 16 December, host a minimum $650 Stampin' Up! party and get a FREE collection of ink pads*-a $79.95 value-in addition to our other fantastic benefits! How amazing is this offer! As I have recently moved I'd like to remind all my existing customers in Queensland that I can arrange to have orders delivered straight to your door from only $5.95 postage (or 5% of product total, whichever is higher). If you have a few friends that are interested I can post a virtual workshop kit out including catalogues and order forms. Whoever co-ordinates the orders can take advantage of the hostess offers including this ink-credible promotion! Here is some more information.

Another quick announcement.... The long awaited new style Stampin' trimmer will be available in December! This is the clever new style pictured in our current catalogue that we have been waiting for! Contact me if you would like some more information.

I hope to get stamping soon so I can share some new creations and ideas with you! Until then, Happy stamping!

Love, Claire

A card for my love

Hi stampers!

It's my hubby's birthday today and I thought I would share with you the card I made for him.

For those that haven't caught up with the news, we are off to Melbourne (we arrived last night!) for a new job for my husband with an airline! He'll be flying a similar plane to the one in the Sentimental journey stamp set (sadly retired) so I thought this was the perfect image to use this year.

The sentiment comes from Bring on the cake (y'all must know how much I love this Birthday greeting set - it's so versatile!). The background text stamp is from Daring adventure, one of my new most favourite stamp sets and the papers come from the Floral district set of DSPs. This is a good example of how floral papers can be used in a men's card especially when the papers are double sided! The button is one of the gorgeous new Naturals desinger buttons and there is a little bit of the Midnight muse satin stitched ribbon in there too. I love trying to break the rules and sneak some ribbon onto mens cards!

A roll of this gorgeous satin stitched ribbon can be yours for free when you place a $60 order this month and you can choose from 5 different colours. Click here for more information and contact me if you'd like to order. You can also visit my facebook page for regular updates and message me on there.
Happy stamping!

Betsy's blossoms and butterflies for a birthday

Hi everyone!

Today I have a pretty little card to share with you that I made for a special friend.

The background is Elegant eggplant stamped with the flowers from a new stamp set called Betsy's blossoms. The other contrasting colour is Summer starfruit, one of the new In colours available from 2012-2014. It's kind of a bit more yellow than the old colour Kiwi kiss. This has been stamped with the large blossom flower stamp from Betsy's blossoms and then some lovely ruffled wisteria wonder ribbon has been added.

The greeting comes from Bring on the cake (a wonderful birthday greetings set) and those darling embossed butterflies are made using the Beautiful wings embosslit folder on the big shot. It cuts out the butterfly shape and embosses the patterns at the same time!

 

I hope this leaves you feeling inspired to create!

Happy Stamping!

love, Claire

A dinoroar birthday!

Hi my stamping friends!

Just a quick post today as I am about to rush off and ice a birthday cake! My middle son Levi turns 4 today! So I thought I would share the card I made for him with you all.

I have used the very cute stamp set called Dinoroar and the Bring on the cake stamp set which has loads of different birthday greetings.

 

At first I was just going to attach the dinosaurs on the Pumpkin pie piece at the top there by themselves but they sort of looked like they were talking so I gave them speech bubbles! Hehe, Levi thought it was funny at least!

 

It's all finished off with some square lattice embossing on the red and a bit of (retired) pacific point ribbon. I love how all of Stampin' up!'s products co-ordinate with the inks, cardstock, ribbons etc all matching. I was inspired to use this colour combo from my very handy Color coach. If you ever have trouble thinking of colour combos you will love this tool that gives you a swatch of each colour in the Stampin up range plus 2-3 suggested combos for each colour.

 

Don't forget this month when you spend $60 you will receive a free roll of our gorgeous new stitched satin ribbon in your choice of five of the new in colours! Click here for more info.

Contact me if you would like to place an order.

Happy Stamping!

Love, Claire

You are loved engagement card

Today I have a little engagement card to share with you. A lovely young couple at our church had their engagement party on Saturday night and this card kind of evolved in my head for a few days until I just had to sit down and make it before I forgot it all!

We bought them some towels in a similar colour to Stampin' up's Pool party so that is where the colour inspiration started from!

 

I am just loving this new Textured impression embossing folder called Lacy Brocade. It is a stunning backdrop to this card. It has such lovely fine details. The main heart image is from the You are loved stamp set and I used Stampin' write markers here in Pool party, Wisteria wonder, Calypso coral and Lucky limeade. I think its great how these in colours work together so nicely.

And that bow is actually a bit of a tricky fake bow, you wrap the ribbon around in a loop (like the breast cancer ribbon) and then pinch together and wrap the brad around the centre. Very effective and easy!

 

It is finished off with a little sentiment from my go to greeting set, Teeny tiny sentiments and of course a Rhinestone jewel for a tiny bit of bling!

 

Thanks for looking, let me know what you think!

Happy Stamping!

Love Claire

 

The farewells begin :(

It's the hardest part of moving a long distance, saying goodbyes.
It is something that I dread as I try to keep myself together in public and put on a brave face but goodbyes always undo me.
On Thursday last week we had Levi's last day of kindergarten. He has been attending a beautiful little kindy that is part of Ethan's school. I just love all his teachers, they are such a blessing and we love the way they have taught and cared for him. I wanted to get them a little something special to say thank you and of course, had to make them a sweet little thank you card too.
This sweet image of the boy is from a new stamp set called Lean on me which has four little sketched images with cute sayings. I decided to just use the image part of the stamp with some Early espresso marker ink and then coloured it using the Stampin' write markers in So saffron, Pool party and Island indigo and the blender pen. The greeting is from the Pretty postage stamp set and again uses the markers in Pool party, Baja breeze and Island indigo. 

Don't you just love that Dark brown woodgrain background? I have used the new Woodgrain textured impressions embossing folder on the also new Early Espresso Core'dinations Card stock. The Core'dinations cardstock has a light coloured core so when it is embossed and sanded it reveals that lighter colour.
 

Thanks for looking! Let me know what you think!
Happy Stamping, Love,
Claire.