A belated birthday!

Happy birthday to my great friend and Stampin' Up! mum Alex! I had about 5 minutes to make this card before dragging myself to bed after a mammoth crafting session preparing for Convention - but I managed to impress even myself with how it turned out! Hope she likes it too.

October Card Class

My monthly class was last night and again we made Christmas cards, using four different stamp sets from the Autumn Winter Catalogue.

We used Letterpress Winter, adding a snowflake embellishment for an extra special touch...

Next up was White Christmas. A really calm, snowy scene - using sponges to create a soft wintery sunset sky...

The third card was a nice simple one using Cheerful Christmas. I showed the ladies how they can use the blendabilities pens to colour the pearls to create their little red berries...

And for the last card, I horrified my ladies by making them use the Visions of Santa stamp set. If you don't know it - it's the one with the strange skinny-legged, hairy santas prancing around in their long johns!!

Well I must say I didn't get a great reaction from this card, but sometimes you just don't know unless you have a go. I actually really like this set, its funny and quirky and I love using the blendabilities pens to colour them in. It's definitely one to give a chance to!!

What do you think?

I have been playing with the set a lot and I will be adding more projects to my blog in the coming weeks...

Kx

Christmas All-Day Training

Yesterday was our team training day which we have every 3 months and it's always such a fun day with lots of crafting, inspiration and great company! I had two of my newest team members come with me for the first time and they really enjoyed their day.

As usual there was swapping! I made 24 of these santa treat boxes using the Fries Box die. I filled them with mint imperials and used the ho ho ho sentiment from the new hostess set good greetings.

I got some gorgeous swaps back. Good times!

Kx

Beautiful butterflies

A quick card today - lovely bright butterflies. Very summery!

Another quickie... this time a seaside-themed card. I may have holidays on my mind!! Everyone seems to be away at the moment but I'm not having my holiday until the end of the year so I'm just dreaming of the sea, sand and sun....

This card uses Sea Street stamp set!


Hope you're having excellent summers, whatever you're doing...!

Kx

Stampin' Up! Owl Punch ideas

Hello. This post is for all the owl fans out there! I have been demonstrating Stampin' Up!'s fabulous owl punch a lot this year - it's not a new product but it's certainly a favourite and many of my customers now own one!

I made this display picture to take to my parties and events to show people some of the fun ways they can use the owl punch. You can make pirates, pigs, tulips, reindeer, robins, and more! My favourite are the graduate owl, the bride and groom and the hen!

I took my inspiration from pictures I found online, so feel free to search for many more ideas.

The owl punch is only £15.50 = great value for such a versatile piece of kit. What have you made with yours?

Gift Vouchers available now!

I am selling Stampin' Up! gift vouchers of any value from £5 upwards - perfect for a birthday, thank you or any occasion you want to treat a friend or loved one to some craft supplies of their choice!

The vouchers come packaged in a beautiful handmade holder free of charge. Collect from me or I can post to you or the recipient directly (postage cost applies). Contact me to order!

Monthly Card Class - May

Here are the cards we made in May's monthly card class...

I didn't have a particular theme for this month's class, but as usual I wanted to showcase different stamps, accessories and techniques.

This card features the pretty Birthday Basic papers, and the Cupcake Builder Punch and Create a Cupcake stamp set. This stamp set is retiring at the end of June!

The crumb cake card is based on a design I found by a German demonstrator on her on her blog Stampin Club.  It uses one of the Gorgeous Grunge stamps to create a spritzed effect background, then we used washi tape and itty bitty  punched flowers to decorate. The sentiment is from Label Love.

A very simple but effective card and a favourite among the ladies at the class! The bow is made using the envelope punch board. There's loads of YouTube videos and tutorials out there for different ways to make bows if you want to google it, but I used this easy to follow tutorial for my bow.

Our fourth card was another simple but effective card using only 2 colours - Island Indigo and Soft Sky. The stamp is Flowering Flourishes - one of my favourites!

I host these regular classes on the second Thursday of every month at my house and they are becoming more and more popular. I have ladies who come every month and hate to miss one, and also I have new faces come along. Everyone is welcome and it's a really relaxed, friendly evening! See my classes and events page for details of upcoming classes.

Monster Hugs 6th Birthday!

A quick post today to show you the birthday card I made for my niece. I had some of these cute monster hugs left over from the valentine promotion and I used the Sale-a-bration banners stamps and punch too.

Sale-a-Bration Blog Hop

Welcome to my Blog Hop post!

Me and 13 other demonstrators in Julie's Jems Team  have each created projects using Sale-a-Bration products and we are sharing them today on our blogs.

All you have to do is hop from one blog to the next using the buttons at the bottom of this post and enjoy the crafty loveliness!  (If you've hopped here from Caroline's page, you'll have seen some fabulous creations already!)

Today my project showcases the Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Papers. They are a pack of 12 sheets of 12" by 12" fantastic quality double-sided scrapbook papers - 12 different designs altogether.

I love these papers because they are so fresh and flowery - perfect for spring! I have been using these to create all sorts of things, but I wanted to share some of my favourite projects with you. Firstly my spring flower pot...

 I have made these before with different papers back in September. The 3D flower were made using the pansy punch. Each flower is made up of 3 punched pansies, and a piece of wire was pushed through the bottom layer and secured with a little hot glue (a hot glue gun is invaluable for projects like this!). I sponged the edges to give them definition.

I decorated an old coffee tin for the pot. Now I have flowers that will last all year long!

Here are a couple more ideas...

I covered a wooden 'love' decoration with the papers (my favourite design in the pack!), and also a money tin. I added some chalkboard paper cut with the labels die so people can write what they are saving for!

The pack of papers is worth £9.95 and are not for sale, but you can get them for FREE when you spend £45 until the end of March. They are just one of the many products you can choose for every £45 spend including stamp sets, a punch, card kits, and even digital sets. Keep hopping to see more ideas!!

I hope you like my project - please leave a comment before you hop onto to the next blog, which is Karen's!

Go back to Caroline's Blog

Carry on to Karen's Blog

Other Jems taking part in the Blog Hop:

Karyn Davies - KD Crafts
Debbi Taylor - Bee Crafty and Stamp
Rebekah Cornford - Crafting Becky
Julie McCartney - Crafty Angel Wings
Amanda Bates - The Craft Spa
Julie Kettlewell - Julie's Japes
Allie Jolliffe  - Jolli Crafts
Sharon Glynn - Happy Crafter
Angie Hutton - Feathertassel
Kate Martin - Krafts by Kate Martin
Liz Youd - Stampin and Creatin
Fiona Cullen - The Create Escape
Caroline Lovett - Caroline's Crafts & More
Kylie Henshaw - Hello Stamper - YOU ARE HERE!

Spring swaps

Ooops - it's been a while since my last post. Christmas and other things have got in the way of my aim to blog more regularly! However, I'm determined to kickstart my new crafting year with lots of interesting projects and exciting new Stampin' Up! products!

Today was our team's Quarterly Training Day in Pudsey, and as always there was plenty of crafting and inspiration, a raffle, great food and fab company! And as usual we all made swaps and spent the first few minutes exchanging projects with one another. I got some really lovely cards and gifts in exchange for mine, which were...

... treat boxes made using the envelope punchboard, and decorated with Sale-a-Bration products (more about that in a minute!).

I followed a video tutorial  by an American demonstrator Jen Arkfeld to learn how to make the boxes. Click here for the video. One you know the measurements they are very straightforward to make and I managed to cut, score, punch and assemble 20 of these in less than an hour.

To decorate I added some of the Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Paper - one of the free products you can choose with every £45 spend during Sale-a-Bration. The banner stamps and matching punch are also free items and I used these to make a colourful topper for the box.

So Sale-a-Bration - this is Stampin' Up!'s biggest annual promotion and it begins on Tuesday 1st February, lasting right up to 31st March. Between these dates there are brilliant incentives for customers, party hosts and their guests, and new demonstrators who sign up during the promotion. I'll add all the details to my blog on Tuesday!

Please come back here at 10am tomorrow to begin a Sale-a-Bration Blog Hop and you'll see a whole range of gorgeous creations from members of our team using the new freebie items!

Goodnight
Kylie x