24/7 SHOP WITH ME - STAMPIN' UP's ONLINE STORE

Stop press!!!  Oh my giddy aunt - we now have Online Shopping!  To all my customers, club members, Hostesses past and present and everyone else, this is an additional shopping facility 24/7 for you to get your hands on Stampin' Up! products.

I will still interact with you and offer you a personal service when we meet at classes, clubs or events, or via email or shows,  but you have the additional benefit of tapping into the Online Store in between if you ever run out of that all important "must have" item.

First you need to click on THIS LINK which will take you to my online store, create an account for yourself - add your name, address and details.  When you've finished,  click on 

Any online customers

 who order directly through my website will be entered into a 

 *MYSTERY HOSTESS

draw  which will end on 28 May 2013 at 2300 hrs GMT

*subject to a qualifying order for Hostess Benefits

Place an online order through my new Stampin' Up! website and remember to use this 

HOSTESS CODE:  ANJX9HKW

In the event that the order total for May does not reach the qualifying workshop total to receive Hostess Benefits, a name will still be drawn and I will send a mystery prize to the lucky winner.  All customers will also receive a complimentary gift as a token of my appreciation too.

In order for the Hostess Code to work, please make sure that the top right corner of the screen display has my name, if not, google Elaine Harding.  If it takes you to my blog "Elaine's Creative Musings" you will find 

in the top right hand column of my blog which will take you there.

Happy browsing!

TelfordRegional Make & Takes

What I love about training in any shape or form is that we always have some stamping and some creative time.  At our recent regional training in Telford, we were given two projects.  The first, above, was a jotter and the second, below was a little box containing five little 3"x 3" cards.

From having attended numerous sessions, I don't stress about doing it while on site and now just leave them till I get home, so finally several days later I've actually found time to break open the packs and set to.  I had to make up my own Gumball Green spritzing solution out of rubbing alcohol and reinkers to duplicate the splatter patterns on the instruction sheet for the jotter, but it didn't quite turn out like it did in the picture.  Instead I had a feint shade of green, no pretty splats!  The cover was scored in both landscape and portrait at 1/2" intervals to resemble a grid.  The colours used are Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Basic Gray, and More Mustard.

Here's a box made with the two tags bigz die.  A piece of Calypso Coral was stamped with one of the clockwork images and then punched out with the Blossom punch.    The sentiment set we used was One in a Million.

Watercolours

For today's Sunday share I've revisited some water colouring techniques.  I used a 3 1/2" x 5 1/4" piece of water colour paper, spritzed it with water and while it was still damp used my aqua painter to add the colours.  I spritzed again after each application of colour so that it would run in rivulets and create a random pattern.  Am pleased with the effect.

Its not really visible in this picture, but both the umbrella and welly boots had crystal effects added as well as on the raindrops, plus a few random raindrops.

Recipe:

Stamps: Bootiful Occasions, Million Dollar Moments (Hostess set from  SS 2013 catty)

Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry

Paper:  Watercolour Paper, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight

Accessories:  Crystal effects

This is short and sweet - enjoy the rest of your weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Artisan Embellishment Kit

Good morning, or g'day as the Aussies say.

Things are buzzing at HQ but  you'll just have to wait a bit longer for the news!  At Regional Training, demos are asked if they could drop off a swap for their display boards and this was my contribution.  I used the  Artisan Embellishment kit - it shows off the pretty lace, seam binding ribbon and for my sample, I was a bit extravagant and used the whole bunch of flowers to make up this floral bouquet.  You can use a single flower at a time, or a group of threes twice, but it looked so pretty as a bunch, I didn't want to break it up.

The frame is from Papaya Collage - I embossed it with Pewter embossing powder and it gives this lovely antiqued finish.  I cut out the inside of the frame so that you could see the pretty lace underneath.  The base of the card front is Early Espresso.  The second layer is Primrose Petal Core-dinations which was torn top and bottom then sanded to give a vintage look.  

The next layer is the Natural Composition paper with the music manuscript embossed, I distressed this too, and curled up the bottom right edge.

Hope you like it!

Altered Art

This was a reporters note pad and folder I altered to include a slot for the pen  on the left top side which I made for my down line Petra for Telford's Regional Training Day.   The folder was made out of a 12" x 12" sheet of textured Pink Pirouette (retired)  - sorry I don't have exact measurements.  I just did it by eye, butting up the notepad against the card stock to see where I needed to score.  I made a cover for the reporters note pad and scored 1/4" intervals where the spine at the top is and wrapped Floral District DSP as shown.  I had some scrap Rich Razzleberry DSP from the Razzzleberry Splash Simply Scrappin' kit left  from another project which I used to cover the "P" from the Bigz Typeset Alphabet to embellish the Window Frames with.

The Pink Pirouette folder is closed first, and the Rich Razzleberry notepad cover flips over the top of it and tucks into the Pink Pirouette tab at the bottom to secure it.

I also made Petra a name badge and a cello bag filled with sweets in her survival kit, but forgot to take a picture!  Hope she liked it.

Regional Training Swaps - Telford 2013

Happy Sunday!  

I'm sorry I didn't get round to posting mid-week but things have been a bit hectic and I just haven't had the time.  Yesterday a lot of demonstrators met up in Telford for Regional Training.  At least 50 Inspiring Inkees were there.   It was a brilliant day, meeting up with fellow demonstrators.  There were fantastic business presentations, product demos, technique demos, loads of good tips and advice and lots of news about forthcoming products which Stampin' Up! have asked us to keep under wraps for the moment until the official launch date.

Back to my swaps.  Want a closer look? - my swaps are 4" x  4" square.

The background stamp is from the SS catty called Beyond Plaid.  The flower is from Blooming with Kindness.  I stamped the flower in Sahara Sand, cut it out with the Apothecary Accent Framelits, used the Essentials paper piercing to accentuate the shape, sponged edges and adhered to card base with dimensionals.  To add a bit of interest, I cut banners with Comfort Cafe DSP and added a Neutrals designer button with some linen threaded through  into a bow.  All the buttons varied.

Hope you like them!

Secret Garden

Good day, folks - hope you're enjoying the extra day!  Here's another card using the Secret Garden bundle.

I stamped and white embossed three of this particular floral image on Calypso Coral card stock.  The first one I left whole, smothered it with a two-way glue pen and dipped the flower into a tub of dazzling diamonds while the glue was still wet, shaking off the excess. Alternatively, you can use Versamark, heat and stick embossing powder, a heat tool, sprinkle with  dazzling diamonds and heat again to fix the glitter on.  I chose the first option because it was quicker.

I cut the middle size flower and discarded the larger petals and coloured it with a Calypso Coral marker to make it a darker shade.  Lastly I cut the smallest flower and discarded the rest, and just used the marker sparingly in the centre to add a bit of depth by shading it.  The layers were popped up on dimensionals and I used a trio of pearls in 2 different sizes to embellish the centre of the smallest flower. 

The card base background was stamped in Baja Breeze and I matted on Early Espresso and partially embossed with Very Vanilla, leaving the bottom half smooth so I could stamp a sentiment from the Friendly Phrases stamp set.

The leaves were cut out of Lucky Limeade with the co-ordinating framelit dies from the bundle.

Here's the inside of the card.  It was originally the front of the card, but having stamped the flowers in Early Espresso I felt it detracted from the additional layers so I switched it round to the inside and stamped the front with the same flower but in Baja Breeze and that seemed to work better. I left the inside of the card blank so that it would be suitable to use for any occasion.

Thanks for stopping by - enjoy the rest of your weekend!