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Saturday 31 July 2010

Fantastic Hostess Offer

This post will remain at the top of my blog for June and July.

Stampin' Up! have a fantastic offer on for June and July. Any person hosting a workshop in their home, during June or July will receive an additional £20 of freebies as long as the sales totals are £250 before P&P.  So make sure you get in quick, dates are going fast.  Email me to book your workshop date.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Floating Snowflake Xmas Bauble

As promised, here is the tutorial for the Floating Snowflake Xmas Bauble, that I demoed at the training event. Here is the bauble finished.


You will need the following Supplies:

Clear Glass bauble
Stampin' Up! Icicle Rub-ons
SU Medium Window Sheets
Felt tip pen (Not permanent as you need to be able to remove from window sheet)
Scissors



Firstly, take a Medium window sheet and using the felt tip pen draw a circle the required size.  My baubles where 6cm and I found that the inner of my Stampin' Up! mini glue dots was just the right size (approx 5cm)


After drawing your circle, you will need to draw a little tab, like in the photo below. (Sorry about the inky fingers in these photo's, I did the inking tutorial first LOL)


By adding this tab you have now drawn a bauble outline on the window sheet. Cut out the bauble and you will be left with the shape with black lines left from the felt tip pen.


Take a soft cloth or some Kitchen Roll and clean off the felt tip from around the edges of your shape. (This is why we must not use permanent marker)
You will then have a clear bauble shaped piece of window sheet.


Next, choose which rub-on you wish to use and rub-on to the centre of window sheet shape. As you can see mine isn't very central..LOL


Now is the time to place the snowflake into the bauble. Gently roll up the window sheet and place through the top of the glass bauble, making sure the little tab is at the top and the last to enter the bauble. As the sheet drops into the bauble it will un-ravel and become flat inside.


The little tab becomes an anchor, as it just pokes up into the neck of the bauble, and this keeps the window sheet upright inside the bauble. Replace the top onto the glass bauble making sure the little metal prongs sit either side of the window sheet. You now have a beautiful bauble that has a snowflake that floats inside.


Again, I do hope you have enjoyed my tutorial, and will enjoy making your own versions.

A note of warning:  If you wish to make this decoration using the Stampin' Up Icicle Rub-ons, please note these are in the mini catalogue Item no 116804.  The pack contains two sheets, 1 each in Silver and Whisper White and priced £7.50.  Items in the mini-catalogue are available until 30th September, so be sure to order yours before this date as there is no guarantee they will be available in the new 2010/11 catalogue.   If you would like more details, please contact me.


Tuesday 20 July 2010

Handmade Glitter Xmas Baubles

My demonstration at the Peterborough Training was Glitter Xmas baubles. I have had such fantastic feedback from those who attended, I thought I might try and do a tutorial for you all.

Here are the baubles.  This one is glittered with a snowflake rub-on


And this one has a snowflake floating inside a clear glass bauble.


I think we will make the glitter Bauble first.

You will need:

Clear Glass bauble (I had difficulty in finding mine a couple of weeks ago, but now there are many more available)
Stampin' Up! ink refill in your choice of colour (I used Not quite Navy)
Stampin' Glitter - I used the Turquoise colour from the Fine Cosmo set
Small spoon - I found a medicine spoon was quite good.
Stampin' Up! Icicle Rub-Ons



First take the top off the glass bauble, this comes out easily, by squeezing the two little wires together and pulling. Next drop about 15 drops of ink into the bottom of the bauble.


Start to swirl the ink around the inside of the bauble. Now I found the best way was to let the ink pool into one area, then rotate the bauble very slowly, making sure all the ink covers.


Gradually the ink will cover the inside of the bauble. If you need more ink, add a few more drops. When you get to near the neck of the bauble, have a couple of sheets of kitchen roll handy and be careful.  You will be getting to the stage where your bauble is nearly upside down, to get the coverage you require, which means excess ink will drop out.  (I know from experience LOL)

Once your bauble is covered evenly inside by the ink, tip it upside down for about 5 to 10 minutes to allow the excess ink drain out.  I found a polystyrene tray that had some pears in from the supermaket a great holder.  I put kitchen roll in the try then tipped the bauble upside down on it.  The kitchen roll mopped up the ink and could be disposed of easily. This is important, because if you leave alot of excess ink inside, you will end up with leakages while being stored, until all the ink has dried up.



Once the ink has drained, then we can glitter.  I found it easier to position the bauble upright in the tray
and I also found it easier by making myself a little paper funnel.


Add glitter to the inside of the bauble, you don't need too much, as you can see from the photograph above, approx half a teaspoon is enough.  Place a pad of Kitchen roll over the opening of the bauble and shake the glitter all around the inside.  Take a look at your bauble turning it around to check that all places are glittered, if not just add a tiny bit more glitter and shake again.  Once complete your bauble will end up looking like this



Then you can decorate your bauble. I choose to use, the Stampin' Up! Icicle rub-ons, but you can let you imagination run away with you and decorate how you wish.



I found the easiest way to use the rub-ons was to do each, arm (not sure if this is the correct word to use LOL) of the snowflake in turn.  Because the bauble is round you have to rub the snowflake on carefully.

Here is the completed bauble



Here is a bauble in a different colourway. I used Perfect Plum reinker with the Orchid colour glitter.



I do hope you have enjoyed my tutorial, and it would be great to see any baubles you create. Leave a link in the comment box and I will pop over to have a look.

Tomorrow, I will share with you the tutorial to make the floating snowflake bauble.


Sunday 18 July 2010

Christmas in Peterborough

Today I have had the pleasure to spend the day with my fabulous mentors Monica and Bekka, along woth some wonderful fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators and my special friend Michelle, who kept me company travelling to the training event.
Thank you all for such a great day, I just love these get togethers.

The theme today was 'Christmas' yes thats right, CHRISTMAS! but as we crafters know we do have to start early to get everything complete that we all need to do for this special yearly event. I was honoured to be asked by Monica to Demo at this event, and my remit was to demo the beautiful Icicle Rub-Ons from the mini catalogue. So I have been a busy designing projects for today, which has proven to be quite a challenge in 30+ degrees. LOL.

I will share my projects with you early next week.

But for today, Here are the swaps I made for todays event.


23 of these where made and swapped with all the wonderful people attending and I recieved some awsome projects in return. Thank you ladies and gentleman (you know who you are) :-)

Here is a closeup of my swap.



The trees and Father Christmas have Dazzling Diamonds on them, but I am afraid the photograph isn't showing them up very well.

Supplies:
Stamps: A Holly, Jolly Christmas, Swirling Stars Wheel
Card:Kraft, Whisper White
Ink: Old Olive, Real Red, Soft Suede, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Accessories: Pewter Jumbo Eyelets, Real Red Satin Ribbon, Dazzling Diamonds

I will be posting my demo projects over the next few days, so do call back to have a peek.


Wednesday 7 July 2010

New look to my blog.......

Sorry I have been a bad blogger, but life has just got a wee bit hectic. I am sure you can all relate to this. Also the whole family one by one has been struck with a very bad summer cold and with the heat we have had the last few days it has made us all feel pretty bad. But we are all on the mend now, thank goodness.
Crafting has been going on behind the scenes but I am unable to share this with you just yet. Sorry.

But one thing I can share with you all is my blog makeover. Now I have wanted to do this, for such a long time but didn't have any idea what I really wanted. I have always admired the work that Michelle Laycock does over at Laycock Designs and when she released some Pre-made designs for sale on the 1st July I fell in love with a design on there. Origionally it was just a header, but Michelle has also designed a background, signature and facebook badge to match for me. Thank you Michelle, I am just loving my new look.

I will be back to blogging again very soon, so please do call back.

Testing the siggy!

write your post here!