Yesterday this beauty dropped through my letterbox.

Thank you so much Lynne for the lovely card, handmade envelope and the wonderful words inside !

I also recieved this last week from Pamela.

It’s Sloe Gin, she was kind enough to make me some after we had talked about it last autumn.  It is delicious and even more importantly she has promised to take me hunting for sloes to make my own this year, I can’t wait!

There are only 6 days left of Sale-a-bration, the wonderful stamp sets will then be gone for good.  Email or call me to place your order, £45 will secure you your favourite SAB set.

Happy Stampin’

I love making gift and home decor items and I have had some little 4″ square canvases for a long time in my magical “3D items to alter box…….”

I pick up things with no real idea of what I am going to do with them and then when inspiration strikes I have things ready!

You can see some tiny ribbon, it’s our new 1/8″ taffeta, yummy !  The base of the canvas is painted with Stampin’ Up! Basic Black ink refill, then a layer of the fabulous News print Designer Series paper, followed by lots of stamping and tearing.

The rose at the bottom corner is very dimensional and made from a circle of card, cute !

Pop back tomorrow and the rest of this week as I have lots of convention things to share with you.

Happy Stampin’

These are small shopping notepads covered in double sided paper from the Love Stories Simply Scrappin’ kit. I’ve cut out from the paper the little blue flowers and mat and layered them onto Night of Navy and Bashful Blue cardstock.

I’ve used the template from the tool kit to paper pierce evenly spaces holes in 2 of the cormers ( it makes it so easy and looks fab). Then a little Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon finishes it off.  Oops I forgot the glitter……….., well what’s a present if it doesn’t have glitter on it!

I hope you are having a lovely weekend, I’ve got some more magazine work to finish and then I shall start with my new goodies……..Yes I have new stamps………..Pop back next week and see!

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Embellishments and Tools

3” Paperclip
Hot glue gun or other strong glue
Old Olive Ribbon
Black marker pen and White gel pen
1 3/8 ” Punch
½ ” punch
Boho Blossoms punch
Scallop circle punch
Round Tab punch

1. First punch and cut out all your pieces 1 3/8” punch 4 x Chocolate Chip, 1 x Close to Cocoa, ½ ” Circle punch 2 x Old Olive, Round tab punch 1 x Chocolate Chip, Boho Blossoms punch 2 x Creamy Caramel. Cut a small triangle for a beak from Creamy Caramel.
2. Stick 1 of the Chocolate Chip circles to each side of the top of the paperclip.
3. Draw black and white eyes onto the Old Olive circles and attach them with the beak onto the Chocolate Chip round tab punch.
4. Make wings by punching part of the Chocolate Chip circles through the scallop circle punch, about 4 scallops is the right size.
5. Stick 2 of the small flowers underneath the Close to Cocoa 1 3/8” circle to make feet and attach the wings to the top section., Then add the head.
6. Put glue onto one of the Chocolate Chip circles attached to the Paperclip and stick the owl to it.
7. Tie the ribbon to decorate the bookmark.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

Thank you to Amy Celona for the original idea of the book and for allowing me to share it with you.

Have a very Happy New Year

Amanda

2 x Coasters
4  x 4″ square pieces of Designer series paper ( I have used  Rainbow Sherbert)
Toning 1/4″ grosgrain ribbon ( Tempting Turquoise)
A calendar and mat layer of toning card stock
3 x flowers punched from co-ordinating colours of card stock I have used Apricot Appeal, Green Galore and Tempting Turquoise and the 5 petal
flower punch and Boho Blossoms punch
Brad, piercing tool and mat
Strong double sided adhesive
Cropodile
Sanding block or sand paper

Stick the paper to one side of the coaster, lining up 2 of the edges so you have to trim less.

Trim around the edge of each coaster, then stick down a second piece of paper on the other side and trim again.

The designer paper has a white core and this is what you can see on the next picture. You are aiming for a nice smooth rounded edge on all sides.

Stick the paper to one side of the coaster, lining up 2 of the edges so you have to trim less.

Trim around the edge of each coaster, then stick down a second piece
of paper on the other side and trim again.

Using your sanding block sand down the edges of the paper, don’t use a backwards and forwards motion as this will lift up the paper from the coaster, just keep sanding in one direction down towards the coaster. The designer paper has a white core and this is what you can see on the next picture. You are aiming for a nice smooth rounded edge on all sides.

Lay the coasters on top of one another making sure all the edges match, then using your Cropodile punch 3 holes through both coasters. Because the Cropodile is so strong it will easily go through both layers at once.

Decide which sides are going to be on the inside and thread ribbon through as shown. Tie knots and trim the edges of the ribbon.  The knots will be on the inside of the coaster.

The back of the calendar will look like this.

Layer the 3 flowers on top of one another and stick together with a brad, mat the calendar onto the cardstock.

Finish your calendar as shown in the picture below.

Before each home workshop I spend time talking to the hostess about the things she is interested in and what fun projects we can create together.  I had a wonderful home workshop hosted by Vicky who is a very talented card maker, She loves to give personalised gifts to go with her wonderful cards so I thought this little bag would be great for her and she loved it.

You need

• 1 x A4 Card stock I used Tempting Turquoise
• Seeing Spots Stamp set
• Small piece of Tempting Turquoise and Pumpkin pie cardstock
• Tempting Turquoise ink
• Pumpkin Pie Ribbon
• Mini Glue dots
• 1 brad
• Scissors
• Cropodile
• Tag punch

On one side of the card stock stamp random images all over using the Tempting Turquoise ink and the Seeing Spots stamps, make sure some of the images go over the edges of the card as this gives a more professional finish.

Turn the card over and score at 6cm in from each of the long sides.

Then score at 12cm in from each of the short sides

Now the slightly tricky bit…you need to measure 6cm the point where the lines cross over along the long side, you are going to make a diagonal score line to the outer edge. Please use the photo to guide you. As you do more you won’t need to measure!

Now fold in thelong sides to the centre and on one side only punch 2 holes about 2 cm apart through the layers of card stock. You will also need to crease the diagonal folds you made at the last set so they sit as shown in the photo. The sides of the bag will also need to fold in a little it looks like a ‘W’ shape in the photo.

Now fold in the other side ( the one without any holes).

Stamp the thank you and flower onto some Pumpkin Pie card stock and punch out a tag shape. Stamp the flower a second time onto Tempting Turquoise cardstock and cut it out. Using a Tempting Turquoise brad I covered it in a mini glue dot , this was something Shelli demonstrated at the Open night in London and is a really neat trick! The mini glue dot is a perfect size and you just rub it over the brad so it shapes to the sides of the brad then you dip it in Dazzling Diamonds a fantastic fine glitter. The great thing about using a coloured brad is the glitter allows the colour to shine through. I then attached the cut out flower to the tag with the glittered brad.

You need to thread the ribbon through the holes from the inside of the bag, then turn the bag so the holes are at the back and bring the ribbon around to the front. Thread on the tag and fasten the ribbon, trim the ribbon to size, all finished.

This bag was inspired by the one sheet box tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers Forum, I have adapted the sizing to fit UK paper sizes, and tweaked and added my special touch.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda

To start with I have used a shopping notepad, measured the width and added 1/2″ and the length to which I added 3″ I then cut out a piece of card stock to those measurements.  Using strong adhesive I stuck the back of the notepad down onto the card stock allowing a 1/4″ border to the bottom and sides, the extra was folded over the top and then decorated as detailed below.

I’ve used double sided paper to highlight, the ribbon is a design touch by my daughter which actually serves an important purpose, it holds the top flap down, because our  card stock and paper is such good quality and heavy it kept lifting up, so thank you Kimberley.

Rose Red card stock with a 2″ strip of Rose Red double sided paper attached to the card stock and folded over the front of the notepad. A Chocolate Chip scallop punch topped with a Rose Red Circle and a Soft Subtles button tied with linen thread. White grosgrain ribbon.

Certainly Celery Card stock with a 2″ strip of Certainly Celery double sided paper attached to the card stock and folded over the front of the notepad. A So Saffron scallop punch topped with a Certainly Celery circle and another Soft Subtles button tied with linen thread. Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon.

Bashful Blue card stock with a 2″ strip of Cutie Pie double sided paper as before. The Elephant is from the Year after Year stamp set, stamped in Black Stazon and cut out attached with Stampin’ Dimensionals and finished with Blue gingham ribbon.

Pretty in Pink card stock, the Snail is from Unfrogettable and stamped twice once onto Pretty in Pink and once onto a scrap of Rose Red double sided paper. I cut out the snail shell and mounted it onto the top of the snail with a Stampin’ Dimensional, I made the eye pop with some PVA glue and Dazzling Diamonds glitter, finished with Black gingham ribbon.

Happy Stampin’

Amanda