Countdown to Christmas #2 - Bearing Gifts Perpetual Calendar

Before the Countdown to Christmas project there is not just BLACK FRIDAY offers going on, there is a fantastic Stampin' Up! Joining Offer too!!  It is for one week only until 2ND DECEMBER so get your skates on and read on for the details.

If you have ever considered, pondered or wondered about what benefits joining Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator could bring then let me tell you more about the BEST offer we have ever had.

• There is a whopping 25% off the £99 starter kit so it will be just £74.25!! 
• For your £74.25 you can choose up to £130 in Stampin’ Up! products for your kit from the main or Autumn-Winter catalogues. That’s over £50 in FREE product!
• Once you join Stampin’ Up! UK, you receive a one-time 30% off discount with a product order of £150 or more placed within 45 days.
• Continual 20% discount! Enjoy a minimum of a 20% demonstrator discount on EVERY Stampin’ Up! order you place.
• There is a 5% Bonus EXCLUSIVE cash back on all personal purchases and customer sales in December 2014 with this special deal. This is in addition to your usual discounts and will be paid in January 2015.
• If you join then from December 5th 2014 you will be one of the first to see and pre-order products from the NEW Spring-Summer Catalogue and earn Sale-A-Bration products!
• The Offer kit is only available 25th November until 2nd December 2014.

If you are still not too sure or you are thinking 'what's the catch?' Just call me for a friendly, no pressure, chat over the details. I can tell you how much fun it is to share your creativity and be rewarded or even if you want to keep it all to yourself and just use the discount to enjoy the products.

If you are ready to go then just go straight HERE

Now a little something to inspire the creativity for Christmas.  Here is my little Calendar made with the Bearing Gifts stamp.  

This stamp is gorgeous, who does not love a Polar Bear for Christmas? He is a lovely outline stamp that you can stamp and leave or colour in as I have done with the blender pens. I just used my collection of coloured markers with a little help from the underside of the lid of an ink pad (or a smooth wipeable surface). Just run your marker pen on the inside of the ink pad lid (or wipeable surface) and you will get a little pool of the ink colour. Then you can just use a blender pen to pick up the colour and colour in an image. It produces a more watercolour effect than using the marker pens directly to colour.

This is another little box project and this time the boxes are made from cardstock with the Envelope Punch Board.  I think my boxes measured 4.3cm x 4.3cm when complete.You could also make them with the Gift Box Punch Board which I did for my second version after it arrived, as the smallest dimension box on the measurements given with the tool are for a box 1.75" x 1.75". This tool is fab for making all your gift boxes for presents too, no more searching the shops for the right size!

My boxes and background are decorated with the All Is Calm papers again. The numbers are in Dazzling Diamond Glimmer Paper so really dazzle and stand out giving the boxes a little added dimension. They are cut with the Perfect Print Numbers Die. The bear is also stamped on a Top Note cut with die for the Big Shot.

For the numbers if you make one of these for yourself you will need to number the two boxes. After finishing my boxes late one evening I have to admit this had me stumped, but a quick search online next day provided the answer.  So, here it is for you, box #1 needs to be numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Box #2 needs to be numbered 0, 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9.  

The sentiment is 'Bearing Gifts of Christmas Cheer' which is under the bear on the single wood-mount stamp.  I have stamped again on a separate strip to add it to the ledge. The ledge of the box is also angled down slightly to make the boxes sit back.  I have also stamped a few snowflakes onto the DSP with my Holiday Home stamp set, but these are just a little extra.  There are so many little extras in this set to use on seasonal projects!

The DECEMBER for the calendar has come from the Project Life Day to Day stamp set. A must for your Project Life, calendar, scrapbooking or memory making projects.  

I can't wait to sit this on the mantle and start the December calendar rolling!

Suzanne

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The products I used:

Envelope Punch Board	All Is Calm Specialty Designer Series Paper	Lost Lagoon 3/8" Silky Taffeta Ribbon	Bearing Gifts Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Blender Pens
Brights Stampin' Write Markers	Pool Party A4 Card Stock	Pool Party Classic Stampin' Pad	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper	Perfect Print Numbers Bigz Die
Holiday Home Photopolymer Stamp Set

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Countdown to Christmas #1 Advent Treat Box Stack

Here it is, the first signs of the Countdown to Christmas and my beautiful All Is Calm Treat Box Advent project which I sooooo loved making!  It was in my favourite All Is Calm speciality paper, but not only that, it was lots of little cute Tiny Treat Boxes, I love cute little things as you know. Shhh! It is a secret as to whether any of the boxes have any little surpirses left in them!

The Tiny Treat Boxes feature in the Autumn/Winter catalogue and come in a pack of 25 boxes perfect for advent. Someone at Stampin' Up! obviously thought of this project when designing the pack, right?  They are £6.25 for the pack and have been very popular, too popular for demand!  Not to worry, if you like the project and they are on back order, why not make your own tiny boxes with the Gift Box Punch Board (new in the Aumtun/Winter Catalogue)?  You can make a very small 1.75" x 1.75" box.  Or even make a very small box with the Envelope Punch Board if you already have it. (You will need to rotate how the boxes are stuck together and opened for these two methods).

  

One of our lovely team, Tracy Liscombe had put the project together and shared (we love sharing) and I was straight on to ordering my boxes and the number die (Perfect Print Numbers Die for the Big Shot) to have a play. 

Now, each of my boxes has been decorated with a square of the DSP paper and then number added.  I set my number on dimensionals which was a bit fiddly, but along with the Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer paper it made them dazzle that little bit more. I used little strips of the foam pad from around the edges of Dimensionals. A very economical use for the leftovers too.

There are so many extras on here, too many to list! There is Baker's Twine, Rhinestones, Itty Bitty Accent punched Stars, ribbons, and greetings to mention just a few.  My little white and blue buttons I made using the Simply Pressed Clay and the Buttons and Blossoms Simply Pressed Clay Moulds. I then coloured then with a Soft Sky marker for the blue ones. The Nordic buttons from the Autumn/Winter catalogue have buttons just the right size too.

I found lots of the Holiday Homes stamp set was the right size to stamp onto the DSP paper to add some images. If you can spot him there is a little snowman. There are also Snowflakes and Santa of course who makes an appearance on Day 25.

I hope you love this project as much as I do and want to give it a try yourself.

Suzanne

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You can use a multiple of stamps and products you have to decorate your project how you wish, but here is some of the list of products (well most of what) I used

Tiny Treat Boxes	All Is Calm Specialty Designer Series Paper	Perfect Print Numbers Bigz Die	Holiday Home Photopolymer Stamp Set	Simply Pressed Clay
Buttons & Blossoms Simply Pressed Clay Molds	Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons	Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper
White Baker's Twine	Silver 1/8" Ribbon	Lost Lagoon 3/8" Silky Taffeta Ribbon

Alternative boxes can be made with one of the following tools and some Kraft Cardstock or coloured card:

Gift Box Punch Board

Envelope Punch Board

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Seaside Sea Street Treat Cup Card

There's been lots of glitter, lots of sparkle and lots of Christmas projects on the go, but this weekend saw little one attend a birthday party for a school friend so of course a little card was needed.

After spending some time lost in the world of Pinterest I of course had narrowed my crafting time to produce said card down to an hour or so. Whilst browsing I came across some examples of the Sea Street stamp set and I realised I could use this. I just moved away from the usual nautical red and blue combinations, added a little pink here and there and this is what I came up with.

My little fishes are stamped in Melon Mambo and also some Strawberry slush.  To get the lighter tone I stamped off first. My other colour combination is Bermuda Bay.  I wanted the card to be a bit special so I added a Treat Cup and then put in some of the little 'friends' from the set, the little crab and the little lobster along with some of the starfish cut out.  

It's a must to have some sparkle right?  I add some beads I had from my stash and there are also some punched out Glimmer stars from the Dazzling Diamonds glitter paper. You can also just see in the photo that my Perfect Print Numbers dies have come in handy too to add the number '5' to the octopus. Here is a closer view.

I stuck my treat cup to the outside of the card to keep the image behind it and then I used my Circle Framelits to create a border.

The birthday celebration needed a little banner so I used the Banner Punch with the Designer Paper Stack in the In Colours 2013-2015 and the Thick Baker's Twine to create my banner. I glued the twine of the banner with glue dots and then stuck the banner pieces down with the two-way glue just overlapping the twine.

To finish it off with some birthday greetings, a little 'Happy Birthday' from the Something to Say stamp set and the 'Birthday Wishes' inside is from the Four You stamp set.

I hope the birthday girl liked it!

Suzanne

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If you would like to try this card, these are the products I used:

Sea Street Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay	Strawberry Slush Classic Stampin' Pad	Card Stock A4 Strawberry Slush
Strawberry Slush Thick Baker's Twine	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad	Sweet Treat Cups	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	Banner Punch
Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack	Something To Say Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Four You	2013-2015 In Color Designer Series Paper Stack

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.

Folded Card Template

I am back! As promised, here is the template for the 40th Birthday Card I showed you in my last post. I made a template by expanding on the measurements of a card online. My card, as you know, was super-sized.

Here the template is laid on the Simply Scored Plate.

Or on the grid paper.

The card is shown laid at 90 degrees in both these photos.

If you click on the photos you should see bigger pictures to see the details. 

The measurements you will need are:

Here it is when it is standing up. All ready to be dressed up.

This is the list of products I used:

Perfect Print Numbers Bigz Die	Stars Framelits Dies	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack	Stampin' Trimmer	Simply Scored
Simply Scoredâ„¢ Metric Scoring Plate	Four You	Good Greetings Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Stampin' Dimensionals	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper
Silver Foil Sheets	Card Stock A4 Bermuda Bay	Pool Party A4 Card Stock	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad
Pool Party Classic Stampin' Pad

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

I have some fantastic Christmas projects still to show you and will be posting details and photos shortly.

Suzanne

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To place an order, book a workshop in your home or come to a class, just drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com. Remember you can now order online at anytime too.