Cute little bird houses

Thank you everyone who passed by on the MINI blog hop on Sunday and a HUGE thank you for all the lovely comments that were left, I'm very grateful. I hope you enjoyed doing the tour and found lots of inspiration along the way whilst adding to your wishlists, I know I did. So today I've another product from the NEW MINI CATALOGUE. Stampin'Up! punches are VERY popular and now they've added to their collection with an amazing Bird Punch! I have to say it's brill, it punches real easy and includes the branch, bird and wing. It's a new design too so it can be stored on it's end saving on space which we all seem to have issues with and I love it, love it, LOVE IT! lol So here's my cute little project which I saw on Stampin' Pretty and had to have a go at.

Very easy to do using the 2,4,6,8 box method. And that little birdie...isn't he sweet? These Bird Houses are very addictive to make too.

Only 2 days remaining now until the launch of the NEW MINI...are you excited?? See ya real soon!

Mini Blog Hop 2010

For those starting with me for the blog hop, Hello and are you ready for some beautiful projects??!! And for those joining me from MONICA, hi and I hope you've seen lots of lovely things inspiring you and getting you all excited about what the NEW Mini has in store from 1st April. I'm absolutely lovin' all the new items, trouble is which one to play with first!! lol

So, my project for the Blog Hop is this Card Organiser designed by Linda Moss and inspired by one made by Hayley Gillie at the Regional Training Event last week. I've used the SWEET PEA DESIGNER PAPER STACK - 48, 12x12 sheets of Double Sided Paper in 24 designs. All the papers are devine and colour co-ordinate with Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Old, Olive, Taken With Teal, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, Pretty in Pink and Rose Red. There's quite a few colours as you can see and each design really is beautiful. I had a hard choice with which ones to use for this Organiser they're that lovely, but I went with these gorgeous butterfly and Pretty in Pink dotty papers.

The little pocket on the front has another NEW item from the MINI, SWEET PEA STITCHED FELT....love it! A bargain price too as there's 52 pieces in a pack for £6.50.

'Scuse the wonky angle of this next photo, goodness knows how I managed to do that. It does however show off the sides of the Organiser really well. See the ties on the side? The beads are also handmade.

Each pocket of the organiser has a monthly calender to slot your handmade cards behind, which is great for keeping up to date with up and coming birthdays. And finally a photo of the back of the Organiser, only becuase I wanted you to see more of these beautiful papers which is still part of the same piece from the front. You can click on any of these pictures and they'll all pop out as a much larger image for you to see the finer detail.

So that's me for this blog hop. Hope you've enjoyed what you've seen and I'll pass you on to SHAZ for your next stop and dose of eye candy which I know you will love.

Tomorrow I have something very cute to show you using another NEW item from the MINI so hope to see you then!

Enjoy the rest of the 2010 MINI BLOG HOP and hope it's got your juices flowing for making your purchases on the 1st April. I've also an EXCITING OFFER coming up very soon so if you're thinking of placing an order and would like the chance to WIN some MEGA PRIZES, stay tuned. Or if you'd like a NEW MINI catty posted to you, please drop me an email at jodumbleton@aol.co.uk and you can also get an insight into what the prizes are.

Tfl,

Mini Blog Hop

Don't forget the Mini Blog Hop tomorrow, starts at 10am. You're going to love it!

See you tomorrow.

Mini, Mini Easel

Mini easel cards are my most fave fun card at the mo. Teamed with Vintage Vogue from the NEW Mini catty (which is available to order from 1st April) they make a cute card for any occasion. Love 'em!

Sorry it's a flying visit today, lots of catching up to do with housework and prep for a workshop tomorrow.

Nearly forgot to mention, this Sunday 28th, there will be a MINI BLOG HOP where you'll be able to see lots and lots of fabulous creations made with products from the NEW Mini Catalogue. Now that's something you will definately want to see! Hope to see you there.

Tfl,

Sneak Peek #2

OMGosh, this next set from the NEW Mini catalogue has to be my most favourite set at the moment. Since it arrived (it's been 2 weeks now) it hasn't moved from my crafting desk. It's goooorgeous! And what is this set?? It's VINTAGE VOGUE....

These were my other swaps for the Regional Training last Saturday. It's a blatant CASE from this one here but time was short last week and when I saw this elegant card I knew it had to be the one. Isn't it fabulous??!! The one above is in Rose Red, Pretty in Pink and Old Olive on Very Vanilla. This next one is in Pale Plum, Elegant Eggplant, Sage Shadow and Handsome Hunter on Confetti White. And this last one in So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun and Old Olive on Confetti White. Well that's me for today. I hope you like this set as much as I do and keep an eye out for more sneak peeks coming up!

Thanks for poppin' in.

10 days and counting...

There's something new and exciting coming on the 1st April, do you know what it is?? It's the new Mini catalogue!

I've been dying to tell you what's in it and with just over a week to go before you can start putting your orders in, I thought I'd start showing you a few samples of what's to come. This was one of my swaps for the training day on Saturday.

It was a fabulous day by the way. I had lots of amazing swaps and I came home buzzing with ideas which is something I always do when I go to any of the Stampin' Up! events. The samples and entries for the Demo Choice were out of this world, really gorgeous, the display boards fantastic and to be in the company of so many lovely ladies.... well it was just the best. I'll get the swaps photographed this week and hopefully put a slide show up of them all as soon as. So back to the card....this was me doing a bit or brayering. I only did a few of these as they were a bit time consuming especially as I was planning on making 40. I did change them for something else and even then my total swaps only made 31. I'll show you the others I made in my next post. Anyway, this new stamp set is called 'Bird on a Branch' which is really lovely as a silhouette. The script of this sentiment is so beautiful with such fine detail and it stamps perfectly. I've also used some new Speciality Designer papers called Night and Day...they are sooo lush. They're all black & white, obviously, and in the pack there's also 2 sheets of acetate with black spots on. I haven't used them yet I'm still at the stroking stage..lol There's also something else on this card which the camera hasn't picked up but I'll tell you about that another time. Don't want to give too much away in one go now do I?!!

See you tomorrow with another sneaky peek. :)

Elegant Carnations

I'm off to a Regional Training Event today, joining 60 other Demonstrators for a day of fun and learning - can't wait! It's almost a mini convention and I'm so pleased to be taking along three of my downline, Helen, Cath and Alison. Cath and Ali are new demo's having only signed up in the last two months and their enthusiasm and excitement is so contagious! All three ladies are very talented in cardmaking and scrapbooking and I know their swaps will be exceptional. I will share with you what I bring home from everyone and you'll be able to see for yourself how brilliant the talent there is within Stampin' Up! I've done my swaps, last minute dot com as usual, and they're a blatant case but I'll show you them another time. What I will give you a peek of is what I've made for the Demo's Choice - this being a little competition for Demonstrators to go to town and let their creative juices flow. I think my creativity is hiding somewhere but thankfully a few weeks ago I did make something just in case I didn't get the time.... it's a box...

... not very exciting but a pretty box anyway. Over Christmas I picked up a few gift items and one of them was handsoap and hand cream packaged together. The lilac and cream packaging was so pretty of course I had to team it with some SU! colours - Lavender Lace, Very Vanilla and Elegant Eggplant with a hint of Old Olive. I also bought a fluffy cream flannel and wrapped everything together with that beautiful wide striped grosgrain ribbon. I'm sure I've said before but tying bows is the easiest with this ribbon, so soft and lush.

And then I made my box, adding some of the window sheets to the inside of the lid to give a glimpse of what's on the inside.

Monica demonstrated at Convention how to make some fabulous flowers from punch outs of the scallop circle. I've since seen a fantastic tutorial on how to also transform them into carnations as you see on my box. Emma Foulkes is the lady that has done the video and you can find it here. Although Emma used paper for her's I've used 6 scallop circles in SU! cardstock. Once the flowers were dry I wiped a glue pen over the edges of the carnation and sprinkled Dazzling Diamonds on them - very sparkly. These carnations are gorgeous and I love making them. I also made some smaller ones that you see on the sides of the box which are done in the same way but punched from the larger flower of the Boho Blossom punch.

The stamp for the outside of the box is Bella Toile, one of the large background stamps. So classy and again went with the pattern from the packaging of the handsoap and hand cream. So that's me done. I've just got to pack my swaps and I'm off to bed - it's an early morning for me and I don't really do early. I'll need to set every alarm clock in the house...ha!

Tfl,

How about this...

Last Thurs Jane came over (armed with chocolate chip cookies) to have a go at some brayering. Jane is another Demonstrator local to me and she'd seen my little Pocket Silhouette cards here and asked if I'd show her how I did them. Now I'm far from being an expert on brayering but after watching the experts like Barbara Gray and Michelle Zindorf I've had a go and been pleased with the results. After all what can go wrong... another bit of cardstock in the recycling bin? Well it didn't take long for Jane to be up and running with that brayer, and then yesterday Mr Postie brought me a card in the post. Look what I was sent..... Isn't it fantastic?!?! I'm so impressed with this, I think it's better than mine! Thank you Jane, I absolutely love it!

Desktop Card Holder Template and Tutorial

Ok, so the long awaited Desktop Card Holder template and tutorial is finely here!

There are lots of templates out there in blogland for this and mine was inspired from this post I made here for us Europeans that have different sized c/s to our International partners. I must point out that I haven't bought this template from anyone or seen how it is made, I've purely looked at the one Lauren Meader made and came up with my own from one sheet of A4 cardstock.

So, firstly one template.

This may look a little small on blogger but if you click on the template is should pop out in a separate window. I'm working on it being in a larger format so bear with me for now.

So in short there is no cutting of the A4 sheet of cardstock. Simply score at 2.2cm & 4.4cm on the two long sides and one short side. On the remaining short side score at 6.6cm and 8.8cm. The measurement are a bit odd but it's the best way of doing it to ensure the holder can take the envelopes as well as the cards, trust me it will be perfect. When you've scored your cardstock it will look like this.

You then need to cut out the grayed areas as shown on the template and make cuts on the red lines as also indicated. Your A4 sheet should then look like this. Before you start sticking the box together, fold and crease the bottom score line and using a 1 1/4" circle punch, punch out half a circle. Which will give you this... Score all the remaining score lines ready for sticking together. At this point I would glue the flap at the bottom where the half circle was punched out. I've used Tombow Adhesive to stick the box together because it gives a bit of movement when sticking bits together instead of that instant bond with d/s tape. It also has a mega strong bond when dry.

Once you've done this add glue to the outside of the little tabs. ..and stick to the inside of the box sides. Then add more tombow to the inside of each side and tuck these flaps in place. I used a bone folder with the glue edge flat on a surface to smooth over and ensure a nice firm bond has taken place and there's no inside edges lifting up.Your card holder will then look like this... Finally add more tombow to the inside of the two long tabs........and stick to the outside of the cardholder. And there you have it! This is the decorated cardholder with 3 matching cards. Well I hope you can make use of this and I'd love to see what you've created. You can leave a link with Mr Linky below if you like and I'll pop by and have a look.

Enjoy!

Happy Mothers Day

I had a lovely Mothers Day yesterday. As I mentioned in a previous post it was also my MIL's 70th birthday but she didn't want a fuss so we went for a nice meal out, my parents joined us, and then back to ours for tea and cakes. Jake wanted to show both Nanna's how good he was on the Wii and he got my mum to have a go at the bowling. It was so funny, with Jake age 5 giving instructions to a 75 year old, honestly we couldn't stop laughing - my mum is VERY competitive. She eventually got the hang of what she had to do and loved it that much she wants to try her hand at tennis next....think we'd better move the furniture out first! lol Anyway enough of my ramblings, I want to show you this unexpected card I received in the post on Saturday from my downline Helen. It's an SU! Mother's day card, isn't it fab!

When I flick the birdie he wobbles like he's hovering - how neat is that! Thank you Helen it's absolutely gorgeous as all your creations are. Helen has some fantastic classes she runs on a regular basis so if you live in the North Dorset area and would like to attend, you're in for a treat. Check our her blog here to see what dates she has available.

Next thing I wanted to show you was one of the many cards my little lad made me for Mothers Day.This one in particular because of the words on the inside. Can you guess what he's written on the right hand side? The spelling he's put is 'I rily doo', does that help? Bless him...he's so cute I'd could eat him! But not all in one go though.Desktop card holder instructions are now finalised (at last!) and will be uploaded in the next day or so. Sorry it's taken a little longer, I just don't know where the time goes! Tfl,

Wide Striped Ribbon Sampler Pack

Ribbon is one of my favourite embellishment, whether it's on a scrapbook page, card or 3D item I always seem to add it in somewhere. I love all the ribbons that SU! sell but in particular the wide 1 1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon. It's the perfect ribbon for the tri-shutter albums and it's unbelievable soft which makes it fabulous for tying gorgeous puffy bows really easily, and honestly it is easy. Many of my customers love this ribbon so I've been offering sampler packs in all 4 of the colours - pumpkin pie, old olive, basic black and chocolate chip. If you would like to purchase one of these sampler packs which contain 1.5metres of each colour, you can buy them from me for £6.75 which includes postage. These ones you see are ready to go so if you're quick you could have it on your doorstep within a couple of days. You can email me at jodumbleton@aol.co.uk to buy your sampler pack but don't worry if they've all gone, I have more on the way. I'm currently editing some photos for a quick tutorial on how to put together the desktop card holder I made here so pop back soon.

Queue Up

I went to visit my BFF Karen on Saturday for a crafty get together along with Lou and Rachel. We had such a fab day! Karen was the perfect hostess as usual supplying us with lunch and homemade Rock Cakes and with lots of laughs through the afternoon it was a much needed tonic for all of us. Thank you Karen. x Out of my many 'thank you' cards I've already made I wanted one to be extra special and Karen's had her eye (like many) on the fabulous Level 3 Hostess set - Queue Up so that's what I went with.

Those little birdies have been glittered, well you know me and glitter! lol

If you've been wondering how to get your hands on this very popular but rare Level 3 set, I have a cunning plan. All will be revealed in a few weeks.

Almost there with the tutorial and fingers crossed it should be ready for Thursday.

Live Your Dream Desktop Organiser

Whilst blog hopping, as we all do, I came across this lady's blog. Ilina has made some beautiful desktop organisers and if you scroll down that particular post, one of the sets she made was in gorgeous shades of Cameo Coral and Tempting Turquoise...delish! The desktop organiser was a template from one of Lauren Meaders through PTI. Well us poor soles in the UK have different sized cardstock to our international partners so it wasn't worth me buying the template, so instead I made my own to fit our envelopes and cards, all from one sheet of A4 cardstock. Inspired by Ilina's colours and the first card you can see with the embossed dots on, this is what I came up with using the Live Your Dream stamp set.

Absolutely love this colour combo.

Tfl and see you soon,

For someone Special

It's my MIL's birthday next week, the same day as Mother's Day this year and it's a biggy too. Sue is a very special lady who will do anything for anyone and I'm very lucky to have such a wonderful MIL - she's the famous cake maker if you come along to one of my Open House events (details coming soon). I've made this A4 card especially for her - no age on there though as I think she would prefer not to be reminded. I don't know why but I'm always drawn to purple when I think of her and as I'm in my purple zone I had to go with the flow. The Bella Toile background stamp is sooo beautiful and teamed with 'A Rose is a Rose' I couldn't go wrong really. Colours used are Elegant Eggplant, Lavender Lace, Old Olive and Very Vanilla although it looks white on this piccie. The roses are cut out and raised on Dimensionals.

Yesterday I had a workshop with a group of ladies in Ringwood and I would just like to thank them for inviting me along and making me feel so welcome. I had a fantastic time with lots of laughs and lunch thrown in too - what more could I ask for!

Have a great day, I'm off to work now. :)

Big Bold Birthday

I love cupcakes, eating them mainly but stamping with them is just as enjoyable. Yesterday I was debating which stamp set I should use for a workshop and came across Big Bold Birthday. With the huge choice of stamp sets available in the Idea Book and Catalogue I'd completely over looked this one and I'm so glad I dusted it off to use.Whilst I'm still in the easel card phase I russled up this little 4x4. The colours are Pretty in Pink, Bashful Blue, Close to Cocoa and Regal Rose, plus of course a sprinkling of the most fabulous Dazzling Diamonds. You can see it better on this one here...Right that's it, the temptation has got the better of me. I'm off to make myself a cuppa and find something to nibble on. Tfl and see you again soon,