If you know me at all, you’d be well aware that I am a big fan of handmade gifts – for teachers in particular – and this last year was no different, other than the fact that I now have two girls at school and more than double the number of gifts to make.

This year for the girls’ class teachers, I struck upon an idea quite early – which, while it didn’t translate into my actually completing the gifts any sooner than they were absolutely required (some things will never change), it allowed me to ruminate over how best to execute my plan…

The plan started with this little seed of an idea from a back issue of Creating Keepsakes (Nov/Dec 2010 for those of you playing along at home)…

Happily, the plan also required a trip to The Happiest Place on Earth (“start the CAR!!”) to pick up the frames that feature in the project

Here’s what I did with mine…

With the addition of a good many grinds of my Timeless Type Junior Alphabet and Simple Numbers dies through the Bigshot, plus my trusty laminator, I put together a perpetual calendar and was rather chuffed with the result

The one pictured above uses the very sweet and pretty Cheerful Treat Designer Series Paper, which is one of many options you have to choose from in the way of exclusive Hostess Products should you opt to host a workshop of your own.

Next up, I put one together using some very lovely paper that you may not yet be familiar with depending on whether or not you’ve clapped eyes on the upcoming Sale-a-bration brochure (can anybody say FREE STUFF?!!)

One tip that I will give you should you decide to embark upon a similar project, is that it’s a good idea to mark a little notch for the rings to sit in so that they don’t slide over the edges of the frame.

Like this…

I just used a little metal file that I have and after measuring the correct spot for the rings to hang, ground it back and forth to create the little divot

The gifts I made for the Teacher’s Aides in the kindy class were of a sewing persuasion and didn’t involve Stampin’ Up! fabrics, plus they were finished off at such a cracking last minute-ish pace that I’m not even sure I have photographic evidence that they exist…  If I dig some up, I will post them on my other blog for your viewing pleasure

So there you have it, my 2011 teacher gifts.

Should you be liking the idea of getting your hands on either set of the Designer Series Papers that you’ve seen glimpses of here, be sure to contact me to book yourself a workshop.  Sale-a-bration starts on the 24th of this month and is shaping up to be the best ever!  Contact me to book your date…

There are several stamp sets that really made my stomach drop when I saw them show up on the retiring list, one in particular being Petal Pizzazz.

The beautiful, big, bold flowers lend themselves to beautiful, big, bold projects and I have used them SO very much these past couple of years!

Today I have another pizzazz-y project to share – one that I created recently as a gift for one of the mums from my small girl’s kindy class at school.  She is currently going through chemotherapy treatment and one of the other lovely mums organised a meal roster for the family, so for the past several weeks, the vast majority of the family’s weekday evening meals have been delivered to their doorstep.

I took a turn to take them my Grandma’s meat pie a couple of weeks ago (recipe below for those of you after a fabulously simple but hearty family meal!) and took the opportunity to include an extra little something to hopefully bring a smile to her face in the midst of such a turbulent and scary time for a mum with young children.

I wanted the front to be bright and cheery, so Petal Pizzazz combined with some gorgeous colours and lashings of stripey Old Olive ribbon did the trick perfectly   I also added some embossed Perfect Polka Dots onto the largest flower for some added whimsical texture, and some pearls and a button, well, because I like them

Inside I tucked a beautiful teal coloured scarf that I hoped would add some colour to some less than colourful days, and also a voucher for a massage that I hoped might provide some relaxing time too.

As I promised earlier in the post, here is the recipe for the at-least-three-generations-old recipe for my Grandma’s famous (at least in my family!) meat pie:

Ingredients:
500g beef mince
1 onion
1 potato
1 carrot
1 turnip
salt and pepper to taste
1 quantity of shortcrust pastry (I used to use the ready made frozen stuff, but now I returned to making my own as Grandma would have done – only she didn’t have a Thermomix, bless her )

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180°C

2. Line the base of a slice tin with two thirds of your rolled out shortcrust pastry, making sure that it extends beyond the top edges of the tin a bit (it will fold over the top layer at the end)

2. Chop the onion finely and grate the other vegetables. Or if you happen to own a Thermomix, whack all the vegies in and whiz them for three seconds at speed 5

3. Mix in the mince and combine well with the vegetables, adding salt and pepper to taste.

4. Place the mince/vegetable mixture on the pastry layer and spread out to all edges of the tin, pressing with a fork to flatten and smooth.

5. Take the remaining pastry and roll it out so that it covers the mince/vegetable mixture, place it on the top, then fold the underneath layer of pastry up and over the top layer, pressing lightly to seal the pie.

6. Bake for approximately one hour.

7. Serve with lashings of tomato sauce and additional vegies if you like!  It also makes a great picnic food, served cold (but complete with the lashings of sauce!)

If there is anything on the retiring list that has caught your eye, make sure to contact me to order it asap so you don’t miss out!

Oh, and if you make Grandma’s pie, be sure to let me know how it turned out, and if it becomes a staple in your house as it has in mine

REMINDER: My 2011-12 catalogue launch is coming in a couple of short weeks from now, so make sure to book your spot asap by contacting me!  It promises to be a fabulous event, with loads of new product inspiration..!

” Petal Pizzazz Gift Box”
Stamps: Petal Pizzazz
Paper: Old Olive, Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Autumn Spice Specialty DSP (retired with Autumn/Winter Mini)
Ink: Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango, Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight
Accessories: Perfect Polka Dots Textured Embossing Folder, Old Olive Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, 3/4″ and 1″ Circle Punch, Small Star Punch (retired), Icecream Parlor Buttons (July Promotion), Basic Pearls, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Nothing like leaving things to the last minute but we’re at the final day of the Summer Mini and Sale-a-bration and I just had to pop in and show you this little idea (from last November no less!) that I put together using the Aviary stamp set that is available for only another 10 hours!

Aviary was the stand out stamp set for me as soon as I saw the Summer Mini (Itty Bitty Bits carved its own spot in my heart about five minutes later) and I jumped on the opportunity to grab it during the demonstrator pre-order period in November (just one of the many perks available to you as a Stampin’ Up! demo…)

I put it to work immediately for a project I created for our A Klass Act team Christmas dinner.  About 20 of us got together at a local restaurant, exchanged handmade gifts, chatted endlessly and filled our bellies with festive fare.

For my gift (we each put one in and received one created by another team member) I created a 2011 desk calendar in a CD case, which I also created a matching outer cover for…

The inside looked like this…

The beauty of the Aviary stamp set is that with a selection of four different bird cages and four little birdies, you have an almost endless supply of different variations and ways to use them!

Below are the individual month pages – click on the thumbnails to see them in full size.

I had so much fun putting this little project together, not least because once I had formatted the months and printed the pages, it was all one layer stamping with my chosen colour combination and came together very quickly.

I haven’t been able to decide on my favourite…   I do like the little dude in the Santa hat in December, but the stack of birdies in May is also fun.  Then there’s the cheeky fella in September who’s managed to make an escape, leaving his buddy behind

Which is your favourite?

As much as it was rushed and totally last minute, I hope you’ve enjoyed the last few posts highlighting some of my favourite things about the Summer Mini.  It really has been a favourite of mine.

As a special last minute offer, if you purchase all of the products I’ve highlighted in this and the previous two posts (Aviary, Itty Bitty Bits, Punch Pack, Bitty Buttons and the Square Lattice embossing folder) I will add the following as bonuses:

• a clear CD case – the kind that open right up to stand up on a desk plus information on where you can get more
• a template and tutorial for the calendar, including a formatted 2012 calendar all ready for you to print to give you a head start on some Christmas gifts for this year
• free shipping to your door – a saving of $5.95
• AND you get to choose a Sale-a-bration stamp set of your choice as well!

The wood mount option for the above products comes to $120.75 and the clear mount* option comes to $107.75.

Contact me asap – that is in the next few hours – if you would like to take advantage of this offer and snare yourself these fabulous products while they’re still available!

Already have one or all of the products in the special offer…?  Just because it’s the last day of Sale-a-bration and Summer Mini goodness, place a $100 order of anything from the Idea Book & Catalogue or Mini today and I will send you the template and tutorial as well, PLUS waive your shipping and of course you get to choose your favourite Sale-a-bration set too

Hurry!

* Clear blocks sold separately – if you don’t have any I can hook you up with those as well

“A bunch of birdies – CD case calendar”
Stamps: Aviary
Paper: Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Ink: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Regal Rose, Pear Pizzazz, Baja Breeze, Real Red
Accessories: Pear Pizzazz Stitched Poly, Basic Rhinestones

There’s still an hour or so left of Chewsday – at least there are over here in the West, so amazing as it might be, I’m on time with my post this week!

This week my challenge was to make something more impressive and amazing than the paper flower that my handsome man left on our coffee table for me this morning, wrapped around a note he wrote to wish me a happy birthday.

It’s a challenge I am never going to meet and once you see it for yourself, I’m sure you will agree, so let’s go with Tim’s Perfect Paper Posy as the Challenge Chewsday entry for this week.

Check it out…

It accompanied the early hours Facebook message that he left me:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL! I tried not to use your good cardstock this year!

I have said to him recently that I would like to involve him more in my Stampin’ Up! business and having clapped eyes on this baby this morning, I may well start sending him out to do workshops

Do let me know if you’d be interested in having my handsome man come and show you how to create this delightful 3D rose embellishment.  Although judging by the state of my desk this morning, I can’t guarantee he won’t leave a trail of destruction in his wake.

Wait, that could be my left over trail of destruction, scratch that…

I have had the most wonderful day, with a constant stream of phone calls and messages, lunch with my man and my small girl plus an impromptu shopping spree at the happiest place on earth (Ikea – thanks to vouchers from Nanny & Poppop aka my gorgeous folks) and a lovely catch up and cuppa with my aunty  this evening *waving Aunty Mair*

Not to mention the handmade cards that have been arriving since last week and the shiny new camera lens that was my (much coveted) gift from Tim and the girls.

So it’s a very happy 30-something gal who is headed to bed to sleep the sleep of one who has just spent a chunk of the afternoon assembling Ikea furniture.

If you’re at all inclined, leave a comment to let my handsome fella know what you think of his paper crafting efforts, because you know as well as I do he’ll be popping in here to check

As promised in my last post, here are the gifts that I made for my big girl’s teachers this year.  She had a lovely classroom teacher and also a wonderful Teacher’s Assistant, so I made them both a little gift as a thank you for a great year of school.

In fact, it was a bit of a bundle of gifts, the first being a personalised notebook that you can see towards the left at the back.

I picked up some gorgeous Crumb Cake coloured spiral bound books from a shop called Typo when we were in Sydney earlier in the year, as I like to keep a stash of alterables in my stamp room cupboard.

They were perfect for this purpose and I love how they turned out – the same but kind of different…

The little apple-looking thingamy that you can see in the front left of the first picture is a bit of a fun take on the old “apple for the teacher” saying.

It’s actually a little notepad that opens out into this little piece of delight…

Isn’t it adorable?!  I got them from a very sweet online shop called Kawaii for You – kawaii meaning “cute” in Japanese and a very apt store name, let me tell you.

Go there at your own risk and don’t say I didn’t warn you…

The final inclusion was a bag of chocolates with a flocked DSP topper from the recent Christmas Bundle promotion and jaunty Christmas tag.

Some stampin’ tips for you…

• Use Crystal Effects to give your punched out characters some extra dimension
• Use your scraps of ribbon to tie onto the spirals of notebooks for some added co-ordination and texture
• The Basic Pearls make cute eyes for the Two-step Bird punch!
• Get some of the beautiful Crochet Trim from the Summer Mini – instant vintage gorgeousness for any project!

Don’t forget that the December Frenzy promotion is still happening and it’s a great time to get some fabulous products at even more fabulous prices!  The promotion runs only until December 29, so if you’d like to take advantage of any of the special offers contained within, be sure to contact me!

Well my handsome man has the next few days off work, just in time for Christmas, so we’re planning some serious family time, starting tonight as we head out to check out some of the beautiful Christmas lights around the Perth suburbs!

I hope your lead up to the big day isn’t too frenzied…

“Teacher Gift Books”
Stamps: Just Perfect Alphabet
Paper: Naturals Ivory, Early Espresso, Old Olive, Soft Suede, Whisper White, Basic Black, Elegant Soirée DSP
Ink: Early Espresso
Accessories: Top Note die, Victoria crochet trim, Two-step Owl punch, Two-step Bird punch, Crystal Effects, Stampin’ Sponges

Thanks for all of your kind and encouraging comments about the classmate gifts that I posted the other day, and especially for the tips on mass-producible gifts I can bust out in future years

As for the winner of the pack of 100 of the little bags, using my good old-fashioned pull a name from a bucket and have my big child hold it up for the camera while my small child squeezes her head in front so as not to miss out on the action, all while making sure she doesn’t miss a second of whatever is currently on TV system, that would be….

Congratulations Krysta!  If you could email me your postal address, I’ll pop the bags in the mail for you

Now for the “more classmate gifts” alluded to in the title of this post…

It was brought to my attention as I was writing the previous post, that I had never actually posted pictures of last year’s classmate gifts.  I had planned to provide a link to last year’s effort to remind you of an alternative possibility along the lines of cheap and cheerful, mass-producible Christmas delights, but in searching for the link, I discovered that there never actually was one, as I had not in fact got around to putting them up here…

So here they are now – my circa Christmas 2009 classmate chocolate pops!

The chocolate pops themselves were a fantastic find – packs of six (or maybe it was four….) for a couple of dollars in Target, the best thing about them being that they’re made by a company that is super allergy-aware and separates the part of their factory that deals with nuts and nut products – a very handy thing to know when making treats for little friends with severe nut allergies.  Kinnerton is the name of the company for those of you interested

So there you go.  Next up, teacher gifts, although now that I have my girls on school holidays and Christmas a mere handful of days away, I can’t promise when that will be, other than soon……ish

“2009 Classmate Chocolate Pops”
Stamps: Season of Joy
Paper: Real Red, Garden Green, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Garden Green, Summer sun (now retired)
Accessories: Wide Oval Punch

“…eat something cute!”.

Is that not the sweetest saying and the perfect addition to a card for somebody that makes the most amazing cake creations the world has ever seen?!

Or set of cards, as the case may be, which was in fact the case when I decided to make a gift for a friend of mine whose work you may have seen here previously.

Julie – the Queen of Cakes – has come to my aid on a number of occasions when a cake of the stunningly beautiful and amazingly delicious variety has been required so I decided that with the aid of the perfectly apt for the occasion hostess set Birthday Bakery, I would make her a set of cute little cards…

I made a set of ten cards – two each of five of the delightful cake images from the long stamp in the set, watercoloured then punched out:

This is no day for “just a sliver” is the second of the adorable sayings in the set, and I used both sayings – once each for each of the cake designs.

Then I stamped the envelopes to match, because Shelli says “never a naked envelope” and when you have the option of cute cake images dancing across the back of an envelope, I’m inclined to agree

The cards and matching envelopes went into a little box that I designed for the purpose…

… which was then held closed with a bow of Early Espresso Satin Ribbon…

The hardest part was figuring out how I might get it to Julie in the post and have it arrive in its original condition, which I managed with the helpful advice of our local Post Office guy (“The word fragile means nothing to Australia Post”) and the aid of a box designed to send VCR tapes through the post (does anybody even own a VCR anymore?!)

I’m pleased to report that they arrived in pristine condition the following day and even more so that Julie loved them as I hoped she would

I’m also pleased to let you know that I have created a little tutorial (featuring my current favourite Aviary stamp set!) on how you can make this set of cards and box for yourself.

I’ll be back tomorrow to let you know how you can get your hands on it

PS. Gals in my A Klass Act stampin’ team, head on over to the team forum – I’ve uploaded the tutorial for you there

“Birthday Bakery Gift Card Set”
Stamps: Birthday Bakery
Paper: Regal Rose, Naturals Ivory, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Crumb Cake, various colours for watercolouring!
Accessories: 1″ CirclePunch, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Early Espresso Satin Ribbon, Mini Square Envelopes

I have had an advent calendar on my Christmas to-do list for such a very long time that I can’t even remember exactly how long it’s been there.  The cardboard variety emblazoned with all manner of commercial characters that you can pick up in the checkout aisle at K-Mart was never going to cut it for me, so my girls have been deprived of the delight of opening a little door every day during the month of December their entire lives while mummy got her act together.

Well mummy finally has and I’m pleased to report that as much as they probably would have been just as happy with one of the K-Mart jobs, the girls were over the moon when I unveiled the completed calendar, and the great thing about it is that it’s sturdy enough to be used year after year, so it has the added bonus of environmental friendliness too

Can you guess what I used?

The last photo is a bit of a giveaway, and as an additional clue, I probably looked a little bit dodgy carrying and armful of these things out of the shop where I bought them.

In my haste to finish the calendar in time for December 1st, I forgot to take a “before” picture of what I used to put it together, but with Google  Images to the rescue, this gives you an idea of what I started with…

…which probably also gives you an idea of why folks may have been looking at me sideways as I left the shop carrying four of them.

I wanted to keep it fairly simple for reasons of time and also fussiness.  Being that it would be covered in numbers, I didn’t think it needed much in the way of embellishments, so a few off cuts of Jolly Holiday DSP and some co-ordinating cardstock, plus several goes of my Timeless Type Sizzlets numbers through the BigShot and it was pretty much done!

To hold it all together, I used a 12×12 sheet of chipboard and cut lines part way through with my paper trimmer so that I could fold the sides up around the edges of the boxes, having first stuck them down with some large pieces of heavy duty double sided foam tape.

I stuck the folded up edges of chipboard to the boxes with Sticky Strip, then wrapped a length of Old Olive wide grosgrain tightly around the whole thing and tied it in a bow at the top.

I finished it with a day to spare and popped it above our fireplace in readiness for the first opening after dinner this past Wednesday, which needless to say was approached with much anticipation and excitement.

The girls were pretty excited too

They get to take it in turns to open the numbers, with the one who does the opening scoring the chocolate and the other one getting the fruit lolly.

Here’s my big girl doing the honours on day one with the small one looking on impatiently.

And here they are with the fruits of their patient waiting until after dinner time/bath time…

I’m thinking that I may have to invest some time and a couple of bottles of Crystal Effects to add a bit of a protective coating to the numbered panels as we have already had a bit of a chocolate covered fingers incident.  Not sure if I’ll worry about that or not.

BUT, I’m just delighted to have finally struck this one off my list of Christmassy things to make and am super pleased that the final result surpassed any of the pre-conceived ideas I had of how it might turn out.

I am, however, very interested in any other ideas for homemade advent calendars just in case the chocolate covered fingers get out of hand (no pun intended!) and ruin this one, requiring me to make a new one in future years.

So if you know of any, be sure to leave a comment and let me know so I can file them away for future reference

“Pill Box Advent Calendar”
Paper: Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla & Early Espresso cardstock, Jolly Holiday DSP
Accessories: BigShot, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet Sizzlets, Old Olive wide Grosgrain Ribbon, Sticky Strip, Tombow Multipurpose Glue

Following on from my previous post about Frames with a Flourish, another of the stamps sets that I will find it very hard to see the back of will be Nursery Necessities.

It is such a perfect set for all things baby, with its variety of sweet images.

Here is a project from the depths of my picture archive that is almost a year old now, but has not yet seen the light of day here…

Just over a year ago we had some lovely neighbours move in across the street, and shortly after they arrived, so did their first baby – a gorgeous little man named Jacob.

I got him a set of cute little singlets and packaged them up in a little box to match the pictures on the front

Here’s the matching card…

This next gift is another long-ago project and also one that has never been blogged, but even worse, has never been given!

I made it for a girl that I worked with for a little while several years ago who had a baby boy – gosh, it would be well over a year ago now…  I don’t see her often and after I made it, time just slipped by until it got kind of pointless, especially as the gift was socks and feet tend to, well, grow.

Anyway, here it is along with its matching card (cased from one by the lovely Sarah Jane Kalé)…

The little box slides open to reveal the sock bounty within…

…and fits three pairs in total…

Can you see what I mean about the delight of Nursery Necessities..?

Here are some more cards using this gorgeous and to-be-missed set…

If you read my earlier post, then you will likely have a slight case of déjà vu, being that some of the cards in the round up above also contain Frames with a Flourish, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to show you them again

Wouldn’t you agree that there is indeed a vast array of possibilities with this delightful Nursery Necessities set?!

If having a versatile, gender-variable and let’s be honest, flippin’ cute baby stamp set is something you think would be a useful thing for your stampin’ collection, then you really can’t go past Nursery Necessities.

But if you don’t act by tomorrow, it will go past you, as it won’t be making a showing in the soon to be released 2010-11 Idea Book & Catalogue, so be sure to contact me if you want to nab yourself a set while you still can!

*retiring products in red*

“Baby Jacob Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, Going Grey, Whisper White, Vellum cardstock, Patterns Pack II hostess DSP
Ink: Baja Breeze, Going Grey
Accessories: Word Window Punch, 1/2″ Circle Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Baja Breeze Striped Ribbon, Baja Breeze 1″ Double Stitched Grosgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Socks in a Box Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Polka Dot background
Paper: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Versamark
Accessories: Wide Oval Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Brocade Blue 5/8″ grosgrain, Clear Buttons, White Embossing Powder

I‘m finding it hard to believe that we are a mere day away from the end of August, and I feel as though I haven’t done some of the retiring items justice.

There are some stamp sets that I have loved a lot and will really miss so I thought I would take a minute to show you some projects that I have made with some particular faves…

I loved Frames with a Flourish from the start and have pulled it out on many an occasion when I have needed a frame of some description in whatever project I was stamping at the time.

This one is a little box made with two Scallop Envelope die cut-outs and an extra strip of cardstock to form the base.  I have been demonstrating this at most of my workshops this past month, with a little set of four cards to go inside using the Frames plus Pocket Silhouettes as well.

This is a card that I made absolute ages ago after I had an idea to use the dotted swirly frame in the set as a background.  I made the card, was satisfied that I had got the idea out of my brain and onto paper and never did anything else with it, hence the delay in putting it up here

The smudgy effect of the stamping was achieved by first stamping onto Kraft (soon to be Crumb Cake) cardstock in Chocolate Chip ink, then running over the top of the image with an Aquapainter to soften the lines a bit.

Here are some previously blogged cards (and a couple of books!) that I have made using Frames with a Flourish too.

Click on the thumbnails to see them in full size and in their original posts…

So there was a little trip down Frames with a Flourish lane.  If you love this set as much as I do, I encourage you to get in touch with me before the end of tomorrow and I’d be happy to place an order for it, plus any other retiring products that you find yourself in need of

*Retiring products in red*

“Scallop Envelope Box”
Stamps: Frames with a Flourish, Pocket Silhouettes, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Paper: Kraft, Naturals Ivory
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Scallop Envelope Die, Word Window Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, Kraft Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Thank you card”
Stamps: Frames with a Flourish, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Baja Breeze, Naturals Ivory, Chocolate Chip, Kraft
Ink: Chocolate Chip, White craft ink
Accessories: Pretties Kit, Very Vanilla 5/8″ grosgrain, Aquapainter, Stampin’ Sponge