midnight crafting

So, my strategy for preparing for this craft fair is to leave everything to the last minute.  Last year I was crafting way in advance (meaning I started probably a month before).  It made it feel like I was preparing for forever and then last year, there were not very many people that came.  With the unpredictability of volume at a vendor fair, I figured it probably made more sense to not waste time preparing too early because I could better use that time sleeping or preparing for workshops or hanging out with the family.  I conciously accepted and decided that I would prefer staying up all night the day before rather than dragging it out for months ahead of time.


So, here I am at midnight getting all ready.  Really, I'm not as behind as I thought I would be. (which is why I"m taking a break blogging) I've got everything set for the things I"m selling at the table.  What I"m working on now is these little presentations I'm supposed to give during the day.  The organizer asked if I would do a couple of little stage presentations throughout the day.  I said "no problem" because that's the part I feel most comfortable with.  I can demonstrate cute little stamping tricks anytime.  Here's a little gift idea I'm going to show: stamping on a glass ornament. 

Of course you need a cute little box to put the ornament in...

This is the beginning prototype for my gift box class on December 5th.  I'm sure the final design will be even better!  Sign up and make your own handstamped ornament and decorated box. 

Okay, back to work for me!  Hubby taunted that he had finished reading his report cards and was going to bed.  I think I'll be done soon and can get some shut eye myself!

Shake it up!

I can't remember if I posted this fun card.  I demonstrated it at my holiday showcase last month.  I wanted to show how easy it was to use the new shaker frames that are in the holiday mini catalogue.  This is my version of a shaker card using the Tags Till Christmas set.  The sentiment is from the Snow swirled set.  I love the colours: pear pizzazz and cajun craze.  I never thought those two colours would work together but the colour coach told me it would so I did. A little bit of Mica flakes and dazzling diamonds makes the fun shaker element.  If you want to see how easy it is to make a shaker card, book a private class with me and your friends and I'd be happy to demonstrate for you!

Easy Gift Bag

I have so many things to share with you but no time to upload everything. If I have time tonight I wil upload more.

I love it when friends and customers share their creations and ideas with me. People say that I inspire them but I feel that you all inspire me!

Friend and club member Stephanie, sent me this link after our recent club meeting where we used fabric on our cards. She remembered that I have a great fear of sewing. This link shows how to make fabric flowers.

I couldn't help but try it since it looked so easy and didn't involve sewing. The beautiful flower needed to embellish something so I put it onto a kraft gift bag. I stamped the bag with garden green ink using the snowflake from the Snow Swirled stamp set. I then put some real red grosgrain ribbon across the bag. I cut out a snowflake using brushed silver paper and the snowflake die for the sizzix big shot and then glued on the fabric flower. Voila! A handmade gift bag that anyone would love. Wouldn't it be great to cover a jam jar with matching fabric and fill the jar with some yummy treats and then include some handmade cards in co-ordinating colour?

Crafting is easy with Stampin' Up!'s co-ordinating products!

More Christmas Cards!

I'm still trying to design a card that I feel is suitable for the upcoming holiday card swap that I am participating in. I quite like the one below. I am waiting for the items that I pre-ordered from the holiday mini catalogue to arrive so that I can substitute the central motif with some of the new products.

The finished card front size is 5 1/4" X 5 1/4". (fits nicely into SU!'s square envelopes). The card base is night of navy cardstock but the front is cut off on a diagonal and bashful blue paper with vellum ontop is added. Silver heat embossing is used for the snowflake and the sentiment. The scallop circle punch is used to punch out a piece of that gorgeous Stampin' Up brushed silver paper and a silver brad added in the centre of the snowflake.
This card uses old olive cardstock as the base with dry embossed very vanilla cardstock on top. Notice how the dry embossing only covers 3/4 of the cardfront so that I have a clear, smooth section to stamp and heat emboss the sentiment in gold. I used the jolly holiday designer series paper to add some colour and the snowflake was stamped in cherry cobbler with a gold brad in the centre. ( I am loving the cherry cobbler, old olive colour combo!) So, which one do you like better?

Christmas in July

Why am I making Christmas cards in July? Reason #1: I signed up for a Stampin' Up! demonstrator swap where we were supposed to make 20 identical cardfronts using product from the upcoming Holiday Mini catalogue. The organizer of the swap made it very clear that our work should be exceptional and she highlighted that things should be straight, even, contain at least 3 layers and have at least one embellishment. Talk about pressure! There were so many things I liked from the upcoming mini catalogue but I couldn't imagine inventing a card with a stamp set I didn't even own yet. So I cleverly choose a sentiment set so that I could start playing now with my only Christmas set (Snow Swirled) and just sub in the sentiment set when I order it Aug. 1st. Well, this was my first attempt; a card CASE'd from splitcoast, but I realized that I can't use it for the swap because the ornament strings are not straight and even. It's very hard to make it perfect with such small snips of paper. It also doesn't have an embellishment but I figured if it turned out okay I could find some ribbon or brads to put in somewhere. I love how the card turned out and will probably make more for my Christmas cards. I stamped the Christmas tree image in Rich Razzleberry and punched it out with the 1 3/8" circle punch. I then rubbed it in versamark and poured iridescent ice embossing powder and heat embossed. I used a portion of the word window punch to make the top of the ornament and cut little strips for the string. I did the dry embossing lines with my scoring tool.
Reason #2 for starting my Christmas cards: when I delivered an order to someone last week, she showed me that she had finished all 50 of her Christmas cards. I figured if she was already finished, I should at least be thinking what to do for mine!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...! Ha!