Indian Celebration

I hope you are recovering from the excesses of Christmas. We had a very low key Christmas and have enjoyed the peace and quiet.

My husband and I attended a friends 21st birthday party yesterday. It was absolutely amazing, our friend is Indian and everyone was dressed up to the nines including the birthday girl. Here is a picture of her in her beautiful dress.

I'm sure you'll agree she looks stunning - the photo doesn't do her or the dress justice!



I did of course make the birthday card and thought I would share it with you. I used the Fabulous You stamp set and embossed the shoe, and butterfly from Papillon Potpourri, with Irridescent Ice Embossing Powder.

I do hope she loved it - it was nearly as sparkly and beautiful as the birthday girl herself!



I hope you are looking forward to the New Year. We certainly are and I'm hoping the sunshine outside is a harbinger of better weather to come as I am fed up with walking the dogs in the wet and mud! If I am honest a few hard frosts and even snow would be most welcome at the moment!

I am taking bookings for parties in 2013 and I know Stampin' Up! have some great offers in store and I'll be sharing some sneak peaks over the coming days.

E-mail me or give me a call if you would like to book a party or place an order. Details are on my contact page!

Paula xx

Christmas Wishes

I would like to say Happy Christmas to all my customers, friends and followers.

I shall probably be taking advantage of the holidays to craft so will hopefully have some nice cards to share over the Christmas period.

In the meantime here's a Christmas message from Stampin' Up!

I hope you enjoy it!

 



 

I know there are lots of exciting things in store for the New Year from Stampin' Up! and I will bring you all the news as soon as it is released, so watch this space!



 

Happy Christmas!

 

Paula xxx

 

Stampin' Up! Christmas Cards

I cannot believe I have been so lapse in posting. I must admit I had such a heavy schedule last week!

Wednesday we went out for a meal for hubbies birthday, Thursday I went to Wycombe for a comedy club night out, Friday we went to a friends wedding and Saturday we had friends over from Ireland to stay and went out for a meal!

I have hardly had time to craft! I did feel a bit of a fraud at work as it is so quiet - I'm not one for doing nothing so I have booked tomorrow afternoon off! Today I received my last order of the year from Stampin' Up! Some of the goodies have been confiscated by hubby and my Mum as they are going to be wrapped up for Christmas!

I will be able to show you a few sneak peeks of things you will be able to get in January... so remember to pop back soon!

These will probably be the last Christmas cards I will post this year. I must admit I never thought I would get so into Seasonal Crafting and had avoided going mad on the Christmas Stamp sets but I have really enjoyed making cards.

The card below shows that you don't have to invest in things just for Christmas, the Elegant Bouquet Embossing folder works really well with the Punched Ornament stamped using the Delightful Decorations set.

 

 

The second card was a complete fluke... I had one of those moments when I thought "What can I do with...?"

I punched out two large ovals and scored them with my Simply Scored, added 3 blobs of glue with my hot glue gun, that I sprinkled with Dazzling Diamonds Glitter whilst they were still wet, and BINGO! You have Mistletoe.

The glittery edges of the card and the Die Cut Labels Collection Framelit were done by just putting sticky strip carefully around the edge then removing the backing and dusting with Dazzling Diamonds.

I hope you like my little offerings from today. Hopefully I will have some more things to share with you before the week is out!

If you wish to place an order, join as a demonstrator or have a party, do get in touch!

Paula xx

Stampin' Up! Christmas Punch Art

We're off out shortly to celebrate Chris' birthday with our lovely friends at The Swan Hotel in Thame.

If you haven't been there since it re-opened and had it's wonderful make-over you have to give it a try! The steaks are simply devine!

This card is one I essentially copied from a commercially bought card. Which goes to show how professional you can make things with Stampin' Up! products. I asked a few people to compare the two and they couldn't decide if they were both my creations!

I used all three colours of the gorgeous Glimmer Paper - two of the Circle punches for the moon, the Star and Trees are from Merry Minis - the doors are from the Word Window, the houses and rooves were punched from the same square punch and the sentiment is from Greetings of the Season.

Great fun isn't it. I really enjoyed this one!

I'm also finalising my last order of the year and will be placing it on Friday morning so let me know by 9am Friday if you need anything added.

Pxx

Decorating Candles - With Stampin' Up!

Earlier this week - in between bouts of studying (thank goodness the exam is now over - just 8 weeks until my results), I saw an amazing video by one of my friends and fellow Pinkies Traci. It was a fabulous tutorial of how to decorate candles...

First I'll show you my effort - then the brilliant video Traci did - in case you would like to try the technique yourself.

I chose a non-Christmassy design so I can give it as a gift that will 'outlast' Christmas.

The butterflies are from Papillon Potpourri and punched out with the Butterfly Punch - it is not possible to punch out the Tissue Paper alone, so I stuck it on a Post-It (other brands of adhesive notes are available!) and punched the two layers out together.

The 'Love' image is from the gorgeous You Are Loved set and punched out, using the same technique, with the Decorative Label Punch.

Here is Traci's fabulous Video - don't forget if you want to try any techniques you can always ask me about holding a class at your house for you and your friends - for this type of project there would be a small charge - unless you supply your own candles. Or hold a party!

Thanks Traci for letting me share this video!



Stampin' Up! Four Seasons

Goodness me - we really did have winter today. I awoke to about an inch of gleaming snow outside. Completely unexpected but luckily, as I was working from home, I didn't have to brave the roads!

I did walk the dogs earlier than usual to take advantage of the added benefit... of 2 clean dogs. A rare thing in recent weeks with all the rain we've been having.

Well I am still revising like mad for my exam... this time on Friday it will all be over and I'll have 6-8 weeks to wait for my results.

So in celebration of the snow I thought I would share a card I made a few weeks ago.

 

I used Marina Mist card stock and ink with a Whisper White mat. The background stamp is from Four Seasons, the hostess set in the catalogue. I used my Big Shot and the Snow Flurry Bigz Die to cut out the snowflake and stamped the snowflake from the Four Seasons set in the middle. On the centre and tip of each 'arm' of the snowflake I dabbed some Dazzling Details and finished the card with a sentiment from Greetings of the Season.

I hope you like it! Remember if you want anything from the Autumn/Winter catalogue you only have until the end of January!

Although some of the items may come back in the main catalogue don't bank on it! I would hate for you to miss out.

If you would like a copy of either of the catalogues then please let me know as I have plenty.

Keep warm and watch out for the ice!

Paula xxx

December arrives...

Well here we are, nearly another year over and only 24 days until Christmas. I have had a very busy week revising for my practitioners certificate in Data Protection. I have an exam next Friday and am really nervous.

The depressing thing is, I am so focused on passing my exam, and all the revision that goes with it that I just haven't even thought about crafting. I felt even more depressed when I went to Next today and couldn't fit in a size 12 any more! M&S here I come... hopefully their sizing is more generous!

I thought I would share a card I made a couple of weeks ago... before Data Protection took over my life!

Here I have used the Snow Swirled Stamp Set. Heat embossed the tree with Wild Wasabi embossing powder then punched a star out of Silver Glimmer Paper with the Merry Mini Star Punch.

The sentiment was punched out of Whisper White using the Decorative Label Punch, I then punched the same shape out of Red Glimmer Paper and 'framed' the sentiment. You can see it more clearly below.

 There will be a few more Christmassy offerings in the coming weeks. But please order early for Christmas. Orders will be being taken up to and including the 16th December!

Hope you are enjoying the cold crispy weather!

Paula xx