Karen’s Notebook

I have a 3D project to share with you today! I made a little notebook for my friend’s birthday the other day. Well, I covered the notebook, anyway! The good people at Officeworks sold me the notebook in it’s original state and I just jazzed it up a bit!!

This notebook went to my wonderful friend, Karen:

I used a gorgeous piece of patterned paper from the Sweet Always DSP, which had such a beautiful picture on it that it didn’t need very much added to it at all!  I stamped some little flower images from the Always set in Regal Rose, Pumpkin Pie & Chocolate Chip and punched them out using the 1/2″ Circle Punch. I also added some Chocolate Ribbon along the edge and added her chipboard initial which I coloured with my Chocolate Chip marker.

Now, I was all set to share this project with you, using a completely different photo!! Then I saw a post by the very talented Amanda Reddicliffe, which gave some tips on using a photo editing program to edit your photos and make them look amazing! You can check it out her great tutorial here. I actually have been using the GIMP program (that she mentions) for quite awhile, but I hadn’t done much other than adding my watermark. I didn’t really know what to do with it to change the colours around and make them look better! I’ve been thinking that everybody else’s photos seem to look much better than mine, but I didn’t know how to change that! So, after reading her tutorial, I managed to brighten up my photo to get the one above.

ETA: I also had some advice from my lovely stamping friend, Jan (who is a bit of a computer whiz), and she said to use the Auto functions to make it even easier! It was SO easy after I knew a little more about what I was doing!! I updated the photo again, after playing around with the auto functions!

Would you like to see what it looked like before?!

Well, this is it:

And side by side:

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I’ll have to play around more with these different tools, but I’m pretty happy with my first attempting at properly editing my photo! What do you think?

Thanks for all your tips, Amanda!!

A Tool Shed Birthday Card

I have been super busy this week, finishing off at school and getting everything ready for the end of the year! A lot of that involved creating little things for thankyous and for the kids in my class, so I’ll be back to show you some more projects very soon!

This card was one that I made last week, though I just realised I hadn’t posted it yet. It was a birthday card for one of the male staff members who is our caretaker/ cleaner/ gardener/ handyman and general Mr Fix It! So, I thought it was rather appropriate to make him a card featuring the Totally Tools set. I used some of the techniques I pulled out for Father’s Day this year and put together this card:

It features a faux wood background (a technique I have explained here) with some tools stamped and cut out and added to a Polka Dot background (to look like the tools hanging in Dad’s shed) using some Vintage Brads. Here’s a closeup of those tools:

I then added the sentiment so that it hung from the board. A nice, easy card that is very appropriate for the Birthday Guy!

I’ll be back with some more crafty projects to share tomorrow!

“Happy Father’s Day Woodgrain”
Stamps: Totally Tools, Birthday Wish
Paper: Really Rust, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Ink: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Silver
Accessories: Basic Black Journaller, Aquapainter, Vintage Brads, Hemp Twine, Stampin Dimensionals

My Christmas Class cards

I have been busy with Christmas Card Classes lately, but now that I have had my last class, I wanted to show you the cards that we made. The girls all made 4 cards and a 3D project and they all enjoyed trying new ideas and techniques!

The first card is a great masking idea that I CASEd from my upline Sarah Klass:

It’s very simple to make but looks so effective (like you have been busy for hours!!) so it’s a great one to mass produce! It’s also pretty flat which is handy for mailouts. You punch a template in scrap paper to mask the background, wheel over it with a So Swirly wheel in Not Quite Navy, sponge with Baja Breeze ink and then add glitter to the swirls.

“Christmas Glitter Baubles”
Stamps: Occasional Greetings, So Swirly Roller
Paper: Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Whisper White
Ink: Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Basic Black (Journaller)
Accessories: 1 3/8” & 1 ¼” Circle Punch (for template), Two-Way Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Sponge, Stampin Dimensionals

This one uses the Season of Joy stamp set:

It’s a bit hard to see but the flowers are VersaMarked in the background.

“Christmas Season”
Stamps: Season of Joy
Paper: Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive, Baja Breeze, Basic Black, VersaMark
Accessories: ½” & ¾” Circle Punch, Vintage Brad, Stampin Dimensionals

This one involved a bit of watercolouring and my new Christmas stamp set “Punch Pals”:

“Christmas Tag”
Stamps: Punch Pals
Paper: Ruby Red, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, Ruby Red, Kiwi Kiss, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, VersaMark
Accessories: Aquapainter, Holepunch, Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon, Word Window Punch, Stampin Dimensionals

This card used the tree from Season of Joy:

“Christmas Tree”
Stamps: Season of Joy, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Kraft, Real Red, Whisper White, I Wish DSP (Scrapbooking Kit)
Ink: Whisper White, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Scallop Border Punch, Stampin Dimensionals

The 3D project was a cute little Scalloped Edge Giftbox which could fit chocolates, giftcards, tags or even hang on the Christmas tree:

“Christmas Scalloped Gift Box”
Stamps: Best Yet
Paper: Ruby Red, Whisper White, Old Olive, Holiday Treasures DSP
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive
Accessories: Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon, Holepunch, Scallop Oval Punch, Large Oval Punch, Stampin Dimensionals

Need to get back to stamping some more Christmas cards for my own personal Christmas card list now!

Perth Regionals – SO much fun!

WOW! What a day!

Yesterday was our Stampin Up! Perth Regionals and it was SO much fun! It was a day filled with socializing, chatting, meeting new people, listening to tips and techniques, swapping, lots of laughing, salivating (at all the wonderful ideas!) and of course, some stamping!!! It was just an amazing fun day!

Here’s some pics and details about our day…

When we first arrived at the Perth Convention Centre, we received our project packs plus our new stamp set and roller which was a sneak peek from the new Summer Mini – sorry girls, I can’t show you the stamps or projects until December! But trust me, they are very very nice!

Here is the ballroom filled with lovely stamping ladies!

As you can tell, there were a lot of ladies there!

We listened to some fantastic presentations, and some great Workshop Wows from demonstrators. My absolute favourite presentation of the day had to be a lovely lady named Bonnie,  from Stampin Up in Utah. She was hilarious! So funny! I was laughing so hard while she was presenting!

After listening to some presentations, we were able to get to some stamping! Here is a photo of our stamping table with some amazing girls from our “A Klass Act” team:

We had so much fun chatting and stamping together and it really made the day even more wonderful to have such great girls to stamp with! Thanks girls!

There were so many displays and ideas for inspiring us all! I took heaps of photos of the display boards and different swaps, plus I also received some amazing swaps which I still have to photograph and show you.

Here are some great ideas & projects that were presented:

A sneak peek of some Summer Mini creations:

I ended up making 44 swaps to swap at Regionals (with the help of the wonderful Tilly who joined my assembly line on Friday night – Thanks Tilly!!). As soon as I got there I set off for some mad swapping and it was so much fun seeing all the amazing creations that everybody had made. There are some super duper talented people in Perth! I was so impressed!

I am still taking photos and editing so I will be back later with pics of the swaps I made and the ones that I received! Be ready to be blown away!

Happy Father’s Day card

Father’s Day is coming up this weekend, so I have been busy making cards for recent workshops, as well as one for my own Dad and a design for the children in my class to make!

Here are two different cards that we have made at recent workshops, using the very masculine Totally Tools set:

This card was made by using the images from the Totally Tools set to create a background pattern and then this panel was added to a piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock which was torn along the edge to give a nice rough effect! Then I stamped the Happy Father’s Day sentiment from Occasional Greetings in Chocolate Chip and distressed the edges of the Whsper White and Chocolate Chip card. I added a little Hemp Twine as well just to finish it off!

“Happy Father’s Day Tools”
Stamps: Totally Tools, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Ink: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive
Accessories: Hemp Twine, Stampin Dimensionals

This card uses a cool technique called “Faux Woodgrain”:

This is a really easy technique and it’s great for masculine cards! I used a piece of More Mustard cardstock as my base and then I took the Really Rust inkpad and holding it flat, I “wiped” it gently across the cardstock in the same direction that I wanted the wood panels to go. Then I did the same thing with the Chocolate Chip inkpad over the top. You can play around with the colours and add more or less of each colour to get different effects. After that, take your Basic Black Journaller and using a ruler, draw lines for the wood panels and then draw little dots to show where the nails would be. It really is a very simple technique that looks really great!

I’ll be back with some more Father’s Day ideas before Sunday!

“Happy Father’s Day Woodgrain”
Stamps: Totally Tools, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Really Rust, More Mustard, Whisper White
Ink: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Basic Black Journaller, Stampin Dimensionals

Another Watercolour Rose Box

 I made another box which had a watercolour rose on the top, similar to this one shown in my last post!

This box was a little different as it was a bit taller and had two separate pieces. Here it is:

Here it is from a different angle: 

I actually forgot to take a photo of the inside, with the lid off and I gave it away as a door prize gift with some choccies in it, so I can’t take another photo! I might just have to make some more now!

I made the template after wanting a slightly taller box to my last one. I took 2 squares of different coloured card (I used Regal Rose for the bottom and Rose Red for the top). This design makes a box of 3″ x 3″.

For the base, you need a square of 8″ x 8″. Score in 2.5″ from each edge (on all 4 sides), so you have a 3″ x 3″ square in the middle. Cut one line of each corner, so you can fold it up to be a tall box and glue it together.

For the separate lid, you need a square of 6″ x 6″. Score in 3.7cm (1 7/16″?) from each edge
(on all 4 sides) so that you get a square in the middle that is just a little bit bigger than 3″ x 3″. This is so that the lid is bigger than the base. Then I punched all the edges with the scallop edge punch, cut one line of each corner and folded it up and glued it to form the lid.

Then you can decorate with some ribbon, some DSP and any other embellishments that you like! For this box, I made a watercolour rose using Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose and Rose Red inks. Then I added some Raspberry Tart DSP, and tied some Kiwi Kiss/ Very Vanilla satin ribbon round the edges of the lid, and finished it with a bow at the front!