A quick question ...

I have got a new laptop and was just wondering if anyone else had problems trying to publish a blog post with Windows 7??

My enter key doesn't move the cursor down.. do you have that problem? Leave a comment and let me know please!

I can't quite believe it...

I made front page on the Creativity Newsletter! How good is that?

I used the Quilling Dies that came out a few months ago, and these are the projects that I made..

This is a little box that I covered and used the flowers to decorate. Instructions for it are here.

 

I love this card. Perfect for Valentines day I thought. The project instructions are here.

And a Thank You card. Instructions are here.


I hope you like these projects - I do, which is why I thought I'd share!

Happy New Year to you too. We are just having a quiet one here - we usually do. But whatever you're doing, have a good one and stay safe.

FREE stamps?? Then read on!

I hope you have had a really good Christmas. Ours was brilliant - we had family up from Kent and a great time was had by all .. well, until Flu hit anyway. The majority of us are now all snuffling and sniffling and feeling really croaky!

But I needed to nip on today to wish you all a Great New Year and to let you all know about the exciting period that is upon us.. yes, it's Stampin' Up Sale A Bration time!

I just love the SAB because you can earn some fantastic FREE stamp sets. There are four to choose from - and if you would like to know how, then read about it below or click here to download the brochure.

Dates: 30 December 2010–28 February 2011

Promotion details: Our biggest sales event of the year--Sale-A-Bration--is here! This year we’ve got four great Sale-A-Bration sets for you to choose and recieve FREE!!!

So Happy for You wood-mount item 121853 clear-mount item 123220

Punch Bunch wood-mount item 121847 clear-mount item 123211

Sweet Summer wood-mount item 121849 clear-mount item 123214

Bliss wood-mount item 121851 clear-mount item 123217

There are three ways for you to earn free stamp sets:

• Spend. For every £45 you spend (before shipping and tax) you will recieve one free set.
  
• Host. For every £300 in workshop sales (product sales before tax and shipping), a hostess can choose an exclusive Sale-A-Bration set. This is in addition to the already fabulous hostess rewards!
  
• Join. New recruits can choose any stamp set from the 2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalogue (valued up to £44.95) when they become a demonstrator during Sale-A-Bration.

Now.. isn't that exciting??

If you would like to order anything, then please email me - joaustin22@aol.com - I am offering you FREE postage for the any qualifying order within the Sale A Bration period.

The last one...

Yes folks.. it's the last weekend before Christmas, and are you ready for it?

I thought I'd just come along and show you another Christmas card or two to finish off my posts for this year.. I'm not sure when, or if, I can get back online before Christmas, so thought I'd put them all on here for you to see.

However, if there are any details you need, extra information etc, then feel free to contact me and I'll answer the emails as they come along.

Here's one of the lovely Pepper and his sleigh

And the close up

Now a cutesy little penguin for a little girl.

And of course, the close up of the fluffy stuff and tinsel ribbon.

If I don't get chance to come back online before Christmas (Please keep checking back), the Sale-A-Bration catalogue comes out in January with Stampin' Up .. and there are some fantastic freebies to be had.. so check back at the end of December, just before the New Year and there could be a special offer or two!

Have a very Merry Christmas. I hope it's a good one!

What happened there??

I've checked my blog this morning and there have been no posts since Thursday.. I did schedule a few posts, but they didn't upload themselves.

Oh well.. maybe I didn't press the right buttons. Anyway here's the one that should have come up for Friday.

These little cow-y images are just the cutest. I have a few of them (one I showed earlier on my blog), this one and some all year round ones. As you may guess, I do like cutesy stamps, so these fit that niche perfectly.

I even managed to drag out my embossing folders for this card. I have quite a few of them, but rarely think to use them that much.. although, I wanted this card quite plain, so thought it would somehow brighten up the image a little bit instead of it being quite bare.

Here you can see the details a bit more. I used the Colour Spritzer from Stampin' Up to add a bit of shadowing around the image. What a handy tool that is.. it definately saves getting my air brush out!

Until next time!

Fairy... fairy... quite contrary....

How cute is she?

This stamp is part of a set that I've had for quite a while so I thought I'd ink her up and do her in Christmas colours. The poinsettia are dies that again, I've had for a while.. lol.

I coloured the fancy fairy in copics and added some white gel pen to give her highlights.. here's the detail -

Obviously fancy fairy needed to have some glitter on her wings, and I did this with a little bit of glitter glue.

I hope you like her.. I do! She's soooo cutesy.

Busy busy busy...

This week has been just work. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. But I've been quite productive so I'm not complaining. All my handmade cards are now made and sent, in fact, so are my bought ones. So, other than the MOT for the car tomorrow, I'm well on track for the festivities!!

On Saturday, I was working down in Sheffield at the lovely little Craft shop with Jane and the Girls. We had a Christmas Special craft class and it was great - complete with mince pies too.

Between then and now, I'd been preparing the last Craft Class of mine before Christmas. It was our last evening yesterday, so I bought plonk and munchies and we had a great time. I will show some photos of what we made another day.

But for now, here is a little project  from last week.

This simple layered card is one of my favourites for this christmas. I used an image I've had for a few months, but only just decided to ink it up as I really couldn't have a doggy picture missing from my Christmas cards could I?

The papers are from the lovely Bella Blue pack from Stampin' Up.. I'm really low on stocks of this now, so I'm being quite cautious with it. However, I do have some other wonderful ones to use too.. they're all double sided too, so the colours just go so well together don't you think?

The satin ribbon and rhinestones are SU too. Here's a close up -

l added a bit of glitter onto the card for falling snow.

I hope you like it as much as me. I'll be back tomorrow with another one of my Christmas cards.

See you soon!!

How fantastic!!

I was doing my daily blog rounds this morning, and Lisa over at the Lavender Stamper blog has done a post about how to print in Stampin' Up colours. How brilliant eh? You can now do the writing in SU colours to match your cardstock and inks!!

There is also HEX coding for when you are doing the HTML when doing programming, or RGB codes which you can use for Photoshop, Publisher and Word.


I have taken this from Lisa's blog so I hope you find it helpful.

Step 1 - select the colour you want to use and make a note of the numbers associated with RG & B.

Step 2 - In your word processing software, highlight the text where you will change the colour.

Point to the highlighted text and right-click for the shortcut menu.

Select the Font... menu.

Step 3 - In the Font Dialog Box, find the option for Font Colour and click the drop down arrow.

Choose the More Colours...option.

Step 4 - Select the Custom tab in the Colours Dialog Box.

Step 5 - Make sure that theRGB Colour Model is selected.

Then type the three numbers from the RGB Colour chart that correspond with the colour you want to use in each of the fields.

Click OK to close this box.

Step 6 - Click OK one more time to exit the Font dialog box.

The final result! Your text is officially Real red! (Or whatever colour you chose!)

Brights Collection

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Regal Rose (#F69EA6)		246	158	166		0	36	33	4
Melon Mambo (#EA5980)		234	89	128		0	62	45	8
Rich Razzleberry (#90496A)		144	73	106		0	49	26	44
Pacific Point (#007EB3)		0	126	179		100	30	0	30
Tempting Turquoise (#59C0DD)		89	192	221		60	13	0	13
Old Olive (#97954F)		151	149	79		0	1	48	41
Daffodil Delight (#FED559)		254	213	89		0	16	65	0
Pumpkin Pie (#F68935)		246	137	53		0	44	78	4
Tangerine Tango (#F3714F)		243	113	79		0	56	67	5
Real Red (#CE243B)		206	36	59		0	83	71	19

Neutrals Collection

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
River Rock (#D2C68D)		210	198	141		0	6	33	18
Chocolate Chip (#62453F)		98	69	63		0	30	36	62
Soft Suede (#896F4D)		137	111	77		0	19	44	46
Early Espresso (#584839)		88	72	57		0	18	35	66
Crumb Cake (#BCA685)		188	166	142		0	12	25	26
Sahara Sand (#BEB19F)		190	177	159		0	7	16	25
Whisper White (#FFFFFF)		255	255	255		0	0	0	0
Very Vanilla (#FFFBE9)		255	251	233		0	2	9	0
Basic Gray (#767C7C)		118	124	124		5	0	0	51
Basic Black (#000000)		0	0	0		0	0	0	100

Regals Collection

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Elegant Eggplant (#534363)		83	67	99		16	32	0	61
Night of Navy (#30455E)		48	69	94		49	27	0	63
Not Quite Navy (#3A667A)		58	102	122		52	16	0	52
Always Artichoke (#6F6F55)		111	111	85		0	0	23	56
Garden Green (#5C815B)		92	129	91		29	0	29	49
More Mustard (#E19F4F)		225	159	79		0	29	65	12
Cajun Craze (#AD4A33)		173	74	51		0	57	71	32
Riding Hood Red (#BB414F)		187	65	79		0	65	58	27
Cherry Cobbler (#953332)		149	51	50		0	66	66	42
Bravo Burgundy (#7F3F45)		127	63	69		0	50	46	50

Subtles Collection

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Pink Pirouette (#FCDCDD)		252	220	221		0	13	12	1
Pretty in Pink (#FBCCCD)		251	204	205		0	19	18	2
Rose Red (#C75074)		199	80	116		0	60	42	22
Perfect Plum (#84697D)		132	105	125		0	20	5	48
Marina Mist (#72A3C1)		114	163	193		41	16	0	24
Bashful Blue (#C7DDF3)		199	221	243		18	9	0	5
Baja Breeze (#92C1C3)		146	193	195		25	1	0	24
Wild Wasabi (#85B271)		133	178	113		25	0	37	30
Certainly Celery (#C9CB94)		201	203	148		1	0	27	20
So Saffron (#FFDD9A)		255	221	154		0	13	40	0

In Color 2011

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Concord Crush (#464567)		75	69	103		27	33	0	60
Poppy Parade (#DF403A)		223	64	58		0	71	74	13
Pear Pizzaz (#B4BC71)		180	188	113		4	0	40	26
Peach Parfait (#F09455)		240	148	85		0	38	65	6
Blushing Bride (#F6C5BE)		246	197	190		0	20	23	4

In Color 2010

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Rich Razzleberry (#90496A)		144	73	106		0	49	26	44
Soft Suede (#896F4D)		137	111	77		0	19	44	46
Bermuda Bay (#01B9AE)		1	185	174		99	0	6	27
Crushed Curry (#FFC33F)		255	195	63		0	24	75	0
Melon Mambo (#EA5980)		234	89	128		0	62	45	8
Dusty Durango (#DA674F)		218	103	79		0	53	64	15

In Color 2009

Color (HEX/Web Color)		R	G	B		C	M	Y	K
Baja Breeze (#92C1C3)		146	193	195		25	1	0	24
Kiwi Kiss (#BBAB4C)		187	171	76		0	9	59	27
Pacific Point (#007EB3)		0	126	179		100	30	0	30
Pink Pirouette (#FCDCDD)		252	220	221		0	13	12	1
Riding Hood Red (#BB414F)		187	65	79		0	65	58	27
Tangerine Tango (#F3714F)		243	113	79		0	56	67	5

Who's the fourth??? ... and something new.

Oh Corrie!!! Help me out!!

Wasn't it good this week with the 50th anniversary of Corrie? Wow.. can't believe it's been going that long.. I can remember sitting watching Fred Gee, Betty and Bet ending up in the lake, and good old Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner. They definatley don't make them like that anymore do they?

But then on friday, I was sat wondering from then until now, who was the fourth?? Four Funerals and a Wedding.. there was the wedding, and there was Molly, Ashley and Charlotte who departed .. but who was the fourth?

And that lovely U2 piece of music at the end.. what a great piece - which is where my 'Something New' comes in.

I often visit other's blogs, people I have known in Blogland for quite a while, and when I saw Marcea's this weekend, I just had to join in and nominate my U2 song for Song of the Week.

So, without further ado... here it is, I'll share it with you today before I go. I'm going to put up some more cards from tomorrow, so check back soon.

Until then... enjoy!

A couple of cards...

How're you doing?

Things this week are slowly getting back to normal after the snowfall last week or so. Post is gradually coming through - and you never know, we may even get a rubbish collection.. whoo hoo.. hold me back with excitement!!

I've made a few more cards this week as I've got a couple of orders, so I thought I'd show you what I've done.

This is an image from LOTV, and is just soooo cute isn't it. The punched flowers are slightly the wrong colour, so I may need to change them before I give them out but all in all, I'm loving the colours.

I cut the shape of the card with a die, and created an easel card. Papers are MME and they're glittered.. rather splendid eh??

Now, this card below is completely Stampin' Up and is one that was created at one of our Craft Workshops.

The style of card was very popular last christmas, so I thought I'd adapt one that I'd done and use the Lovely as a Tree stamp set to create the wreath.

Obviously I had to choose Chocolate Chip and Old Olive cardstock to layer up. I finished it off with the ink spritzer and a chocolate chip stampin' write marker to create the little splatters. Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon and red gems just add that bit of bling.

Very vintage. What do you think?

Snow time like Christmas....

Brrr... it's not showing any signs of getting any warmer sometime soon.. I'm f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g!!!

As promised yesterday, here is another little Snowman to show you.. or should I say Snowlady??

This one I decided to colour in purple tones (won't my friend Nikki just love this?!)

l decided to use Aqua Promarkers to colour this one so I could get the washed out type of look and I think it's worked quite well.

The background was an embossing folder and brushed over with Almost Amethyst from Stampin' Up to pick out some of the embossing. I used the wonderful taffeta ribbon to tie my bow - luscious or what?!! Have you tried it? It's lurrrrvely!!

In fact, all of Stampin' Up's ribbon is fantastic.. and I do have quite a collection of it too as the price is not to be beaten.

Anyway, onto my sneak peek for my card tomorrow.. and here it is..

Yes. I just had to do it. A cute doggy card. See it in full tomorrow.
Hope to see you then!

Blue Christmas

As promised.. here is a Mr Snowman to go with my Mrs Snow from yesterday.

l layered the topper up in a slightly different way this time. The papers are from last year's demo's, and I had some left over.. I thought the colours were perfect to go with the colouring.

Here's another close up -

The ribbon is from Stampin' Up and is perfect for fraying. Just cut into the ends of the ribbon and fray it a little bit to give it a more distressed look.

I'll be back tomorrow with another snowman - this set is so cute I just had to use them all.. haha.

Pink Christmas

As I said yesterday, I was busy making cards this weekend for Christmas. Because I have a few to make, I thought I would keep them quite simple and given the weather of this last week, opted for a snowman or two from a set of stamps I have never used.

Mrs Snowman was the first one I did.

The papers are a new pack I've just got - all contemporary colours, lime greens, turquoise blue and baby pinks.. lovely.The fantastic satin ribbon is from Stampin' Up and so are the Rhinestones. Honestly, you've never seen anything with such sparkle as these rhinestones. They are just wonderful.

Here's a close up of the stamped image.

l coloured with copics and then added highlights to the cheeks with white gel pen. The glitter (although you can't see it too well) is Dazzling Diamonds from Stampin' Up.

The topper was cut out and layered, three layers in total, to give it a little dimension.

Do you want a blue version?

l will show you this one tomorrow!

Until then.. stay warm.. and happy crafting.

Dingle... dangle... bobbly bits..

Icicles...

Don't you just love them?

Well, I do when they're not hanging from my guttering! Next door had some amazing ones, absolutely loads, hanging down around 12 inches in length.. but this small one was hanging from my Studio roof.

And as for the Bobbly bits? Guess who they belong to?

Yes... you guessed. The Furballs. Here are a few quick shots of the wooflets playing in the snow. (Alas, none of Truly as she loves the snow so much she won't sit to have her piccie taken.. daft dog!)

Oh bless. The top pic is Scooby being a typical cheeky boy.. and the bottom is Holly - look at those lickle bobbles.. Looking more like a Poodle every minute! So cute.

Mummy, I'm camera shy.. tell me when you've finished and I'll pull my head out of the snow... !

Scooby has bobbly bits too - and such affectionate eyes, don't ya think? Beautiful.

And my favouritest photo of the day? This one -

Perfect for a Christmas card (watch this space!) Beautiful, Handsome Mr Scoobs..

Hope you like them. Promise a card or three is next on the agenda.

It's up!

Are you all thawed out?

We've had a grand total of around 16 inches of snow here I'm sure (although I didn't measure it.. it was too damn cold!) and I feel like I've shovelled even more of it - although I didn't even try to dig my car out.. lol.

Over this weekend, we have started to thaw a little, and hopefully by this weekend it will be mostly gone and snow-free. It's freezing cold today though, very frosty and icy, and I think we still have around 6 inches of snow (mm... more ice!) around in places.

So on Friday, mainly because it was snowing and I was feeling all christmassy, I decided to pull the tree from the loft, dust it off and put it up. Martina was blessed (!) with a few days off school as the village basically came to a stand still, so she helped to put the baubles on the tree and I must say, it looks rather nice!!

I was supposed to have been doing a Christmas Fayre on Friday too, but it was cancelled due to the weather, so it gave me a nice relaxing Friday evening.

I did take a couple of photos of the tree, in a whirlygiggy, fuzzy sorta style.. I hope you like 'em.. Christmas is just the perfect time to play with the camera.

See the Star?? That was my first star given to me by my SU mummy, Monica. Lovely, Sparkly and very Gold.

Swirls....

... and random patterns.

I have also spent the last few days making Christmas cards, so will be back to share those over the next few days.

Have fun.. stay warm... and keep safe.

A couple more teddies..

I must admit... I'm not too sure if I am liking these bears or not really. I do have quite a collection of them in my stamp stash, but I do tend to find them a little bit big for my general size cards.

I like to make 4"x4" ones, or sometimes larger square.. but most definately not an A5 card - it's very rarely that I make them that large!!! It's just not me.

So, without further ado, here's the rest of the cards from Stamp Class in Sheffield. Unfortunately, they don't do Stampin' Up lol, and it is quite hard sometimes to revert back to non SU cards at times. But with the collection of lovely stamps I have, it seems a shame not to get stuck in to using them sometimes.

And here's a close up -

The technique I used on these cards is called Spotlighting. Quite a nice technique to do sometimes me thinks... keeps things simple but nice! (and I've just noticed that the images aren't lined up totally straight.. the silicone must have slipped.. sorry!)

And lastly, here are a couple of gift tags that I made that went in a decorative box. They're just sooooo cute!!

and of course, the close up -

So. There you have it. Finally the end of these cute teddies..

Well, that's it for now.. hope you can join me again soon.

What a suprise!

Hello again.. how are we all?

Don't you sometimes put things somewhere, only to unearth them a few years later thinking you'd lost it forever?

That's the thing with my Magic Wand.. Yes, I have a wand. It's one that I used a long, long time ago to put gems onto my youngest daughters Ballroom dress that I made. I had totally forgot that I had it until someone mentioned one last month. I thought to myself 'I've got one of those', so went into my studio to hunt it out.

And I found it!

And it still had some gems left in the box!

So, here's what I did with it. The red gems are placed with the wand, and as they were preglued and set with heat, it is dead easy to do.

The teddy was another one from the Sheffield shop which we did on our stamping class.The ribbon is the new organza in the Stampin' Up catalogue.. rather luscious it is too.

Here's a close up -

So Christmassy.... and until next time, that's it for now... See you soon!

Still snowy...

It's still white over here. What's it like near you? My classes that I do over in Sheffield have been cancelled this week - actually, I'm quite pleased as I don't like driving in bad weather.

Anyway, here is a card that I did in class the other week. I hope you like it.

I used the cute teddy stamps that they had in the store, and decided to keep it quite simple as the focus of the class was just stamping and colouring.

Here's a close up - as you can see, I layered up the ribbon to add a little more dimension.

See you again tomorrow for another card or two. Until then, keep warm and cosy. 

Christmas is coming...

I just can't believe that it's nearly Christmas already! I have two Christmas Fayre's to do this week too.. but if the snow continues, I definately won't be doing one of them! Outside? In snow? Cold and wet?? No thanks...

But I have however, been making a start on some Christmas cards. This is one of the newest, and this stamp is just sooooo cute!

I've had this one a while, as I love anything cute and especially cows!

Here she is in a little more detail.

Isn't she just the cutest .. and the little mouse is adorable. The little flowers are punched and arranged into poinsettia's.

I hope you like it.. and the contemporary colours. I think I may make some fresh and funky ones this year as a change from traditional colours.

Back tomorrow with a few more. See you then!