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…

I am sitting here with a list as long as both my arms of things I need to do before my gals and I set off for an Easter long-weekend down south with my folks and nephew, one of them being to show you the Easter projects that I have busied myself with over the past couple of weeks, before Easter has come and gone and they have lost their significance entirely.

A couple of weeks ago I ran a class here at home where we made three projects (including chocolate) as ideas for sweet and simple Easter gift giving.

This little guy came about as a result of seeing a variety of different punch-art bunnies around the internet, all of them cute but not quite what I had envisaged in my class-planning brain, so I combined different elements of things that I saw and ultimately made him my own.  This was also the project that I did as a swap for my team stamping day last month, and the inspiration for the next two projects came from there also…

This gorgeous creation was the brainchild of Inky Lou-Lou (aka Louise Layton) from my team of lovely stampin’ gals.  We did a version of this at our Easter themed team stamping day in April, and if you click on where I have linked her blog above, you can see her original sweet design

This one was inspired by an Easter card by the lovely SJ (honorary A Klass Act team member Sarah Jane Kalé) at the same team day and features her much loved and perfect for the occasion faux suede effect.  I used the same technique and applied it to these cute little basket that I made up with the Top Note die and lashings of Pretty in Pink satin ribbon

The teachers at school also got these baskets as their Easter gift with a Lindt gold bunny each inside.

So there you have my selection of Easter themed projects that have been keeping me busy these past couple of weeks!

If you’re wondering why you didn’t see notification of this class before I ran it, it was because in my usual style, I was running a bit late with getting the word out, so chose to do so on my Facebook page and Twitter instead of putting in my customer newsletter.  Turns out that the class filled up with Facebook fans and Twitter followers alone, so if you want to make sure you don’t miss out on anything in the future, make sure to ‘Like” my Facebook page –>here<– or follow me on Twitter –>here<–!

Pop back tomorrow to see what the school classmates got as their little token gifts and also what my small girl wore on her head for the kindy Easter hat parade….

Two weeks in a row – I’m on a roll folks!  And you’ll note that Challenge Chewsday got the nod from the majority of commenters (commentators?!) on the last post – not that I was taking a poll or anything, but since you offered your opinions, let’s go with it!

This week I headed back to Inkspirations HQ and used the fabulous sketch on offer there…

Combined with this PRETTY colour combination from ColourQ…

And this is what I turned them into…

On Thursday just gone, our gorgeous across-the-road neighbours added a beautiful baby girl to their already sweet and lovely family, so as a heartfelt thank you for giving me a brand new baby to sniff, with a little bit of congratulations thrown in, this is the card I made for baby Lily, that we headed over this afternoon to give them.

I also made a little matching gift tag to hang from the bag…

So there you have my challenge entry for this Chewsday!  Hope you’re enjoying my new blog feature – I certainly am!

• An oldie but a goodie – sponge the edges of your cardstock and paper for a lovely vintage look
• Punch a strip of cardstock with a border punch, feed it through the Crimper, then concertina the straight edge together and stick it behind an oval or circle shape for a pretty border
• Use a White Gel Pen in conjunction with watercolouring for some great highlights

“Happy Birth-Day Lily!”
Stamps: Awash with Flowers, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Paper: Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, Watercolour Paper, Cherry Cobbler, In-color DSP stack,
Ink: Versamark, Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Ovals die, Eyelet Border Punch, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Neutrals Brads, Crimper, 2-3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Bitty Buttons, Owl Punch (heart), Blushing Bride Stitched Poly Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Glue Dots, Stampin’ Sponges

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

At the end of every school year I like to do a little something for the kids in my big girl’s class at school.  The trouble is, it gets harder to do something ‘different’ each year, especially as they’re getting older and more discerning!

This year, was made a little easier by virtue of the fact that a few weeks ago, a fellow demonstrator posted a message on our demonstrator forum (FAB resource that it is!) that she had loads and loads of long, thin self-sealing plastic bags that she’d be happy to offload in packs of 100 to any interested parties.

Turns out there were a lot of interested parties, so it’s a good thing she really did have loads of them!

I relieved her of 10 packs, which if you bother to do the maths, is a whole BUNCH of bags, but I had never seen them anywhere before and they’re perfect for fun little gifts of the classmate variety, and with my small girl starting Kindy next year, I’m all of a sudden going to find myself needing to make double of everything at gift time.

As it turns out, another demonstrator on the forum alerted us all to the fact that Woolworths had packs of red, green and white jelly beans available for Christmas, so after picking up an armful of those, sitting with my big girl on the floor, first sorting the jelly beans into colours, then loading them into the bags, a stamped and folded tag punch later, this is what we had….!

The Sparkly and Bright stamp set would have to be my favourite Christmas set for this year – SO cute and whimsical and perfect for this particular job

I arrived at the little folded over tag at the top, as it gave me a place to stamp something, without being so labour intensive that I would start to hyperventilate when the crowd of seven year olds in receipt of the jelly bean packets started ripping them apart and throwing them away.

I put together an impromptu little tutorial in case you’re wondering how to achieve the folded over tag idea for yourself.  Please keep in mind the word impromptu when considering the quality (or not) of the pictures…

Start with a piece of cardstock folded in half.  I used Whisper White, which is a bit thinner than the regular cardstock so the double width is easily punched through.  Not sure how the thicker stuff would go…

Now slide the folded cardstock into to the punch so that there is a tiny (1mm or so) gap between the cardstock and the top of the punch…

Now punch!  And this is what you get…

And if you’re doing a whole batch of these as I was, you can cut strips of cardstock (I cut a piece of A4 Whisper White in half lengthways, then folded it in the middle, lengthways again), you can punch out a whole series of them…

To attach them to the bags, I simply stapled the back of the tag to the bag, then stuck the front of the tag down with a Stampin’ Dimensional.

Since I have a truckload of these bags now, I’m going to give a pack of 100 away to one of you, but you have to earn it!

Tell me your ideas for little stamped gifts so that I can be ready in advance for next year – I have double the amount to make from 2011 onwards remember, so I’m going to have to get myself prepared well in advance!

Winner will be randomly chosen on Monday!

“Merry and Bright Classmate Gifts”
Stamps: Merry & Bright
Paper: Whisper White
Ink: Early Espresso, Real Red
Accessories: Early Espresso, Real Red & Wild Wasabi Markers

“…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

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 think I may have mentioned on a previous occasion or two that I have a folder on my computer named ‘to blog’.  This folder contains images of projects completed over a good long while that are stored there so that I know I need to put them up here for you all to see.

At this point they would more aptly fit in a folder entitled ‘what the heck are you waiting for?!’

If not for the fact that the computer doesn’t like anything other than letters and numbers in its folder names, I may well have had a go at changing it.

So anyway, I’ve decided that it’s time to clear the backlog, what with colour collections being renovated and only just over a month until stamps and all sorts start retiring and all.

So herewith, my first offering from the aforementioned folder.  Blow the dust off if you will

This is a card that I made for my sweet niece Izzy, who turned 11 in December last year.

See what I mean about backlog?

Moving on…

I just had to have a go at the Sweet Treat Cups when they first appeared back in the previous mini and LOVE how they jazz up  a card.

The fact that you can fill them with mini M&Ms or other small chocolatey treats is a definite bonus, particularly where an 11 year old girl is involved.

You may have noticed in the flower to the right that there is also a small protrusion…

See?!

When I first laid eyes on the Sweet Treat Cups, they reminded me instantly of a class that I saw offered by a co-worker at a local craft shop where I worked momentarily a few years ago between children.  It involved using objects found around the home in your crafting and card making.

Can anybody tell me what I’ve used here for the smaller flower?

Petal Pizzazz would have to be one of my absolute favourite and most-used stamp sets from this current catalogue and I always get nervous around this time – a month or so out from retiring lists appearing – that one like this will retire.

I REALLY hope it sticks around and heads will not have to roll.

I’m just sayin’…..

As it turns out my nephew, Izzy’s little brother Harry has his birthday exactly a week before his big sis, so he got a Sweet Treat Cup on his card too.

No girly flowers here though….

…just a rocket!

This idea came from my super-clever and delightful sis-in-law Janny who is part of my stampin’ team.

She came up with the oh-so-awesome idea to fill the STC with blue and green mini M&Ms, thereby creating Earth for the rocket to blast off from.

Is this not the coolest idea for a boy card you’ve ever seen?!

Whether or not Harry paused to appreciate the artistry and inventiveness of this idea prior to tearing it apart to get to the M&Ms, I can’t honestly recall, but one can remain hopeful.

In fact, for both of the cards, I installed a handy little flap behind the STC using a scrap of cardstock and the slit punch so that getting at the contents doesn’t require complete annihilation of the card itself…

Again, whether or not Harry noticed this thoughtful inclusion is another thing entirely.  Let’s just say its a good thing he’s my favourite nephew

The Sweet Treat Cups are perfectly designed to work with the 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, both of which are available in the current Autumn/Winter mini catalogue.

If you’d like to grab some of these to have a play with for yourself, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

“Izzy’s Sweet Treat Flowers”
Stamps: Petal Pizzazz, Short & Sweet
Paper: Regal Rose, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White
Ink: Tangerine Tango, Summer Sun, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Eyelet Border, Word Window, 1/2″ & 1-3/4″ Circle Punches; Regal Rose 5/8″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Harry’s Sweet Treat Rocket”
Stamps: Pun Fun, Big Bold Birthday, Season of Joy (stars)
Paper: Baja Breeze, Close to Cocoa, Night of Navy, Watercolour Paper
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Baja Breeze, Close to Cocoa, Riding Hood Red, Night of Navy
Accessories: Scallop Border, Word Window $ 1-3/4″ Circle Punches; Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Aquapainter, White Gel Pen, Stampin’ Dimensionals

This week over at Just Add Ink, there’s a sketch challenge for you to try!

At first I was very challenged by this challenge as the sketch doesn’t have a great amount of detail, but as I played around with ideas, including a fairly ‘out there’ colour scheme, I ended up loving the result.

Here’s the sketch…

And here’s what I did with it…

In the end I stuck fairly faithfully to the sketch design, using a hunk of ribbon for the wide element across the top and adding my own touch of a greeting in the bottom right.

And did I not mention that the colour combination was a bit mad?!  I can’t tell you where it originated, other than the depths of my brain.  I just started pulling out some colours and spreading them out on my desk.  I ended up using no less than six of them, plus white, in the final project.

I had a particular someone in mind as I made this card and also had some gift packaging to do to go along with it, so in keeping with the colour scheme and overall design, I made a custom gift box:

I’m not going to tell you what’s inside or who it’s for as it should be due to arrive at its destination some time today and I have no wish to spoil the surprise in case the recipient should be checking in.

Here are the box and card together…

Very floral and rather bright and busy, but hopefully it will do the job of bringing some much deserved sunshine via the mailbox of a lovely friend of mine today

Head on over to Just Add Ink to check out the rest of the Design Team’s take on this sketch and have a play along yourself!

“Just Add Ink #15 – Sketch and Gift Box”
Stamps: Petal Pizzazz, Sweet Little Sentiments
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Taken with Teal, Whisper White, Sweet Always DSP
Ink: Regal Rose, Melon Mambo, So Saffron, Kiwi Kiss, Taken with Teal, Chocolate Chip,
Accessories: 1″ Double Stitched Chocolate Chip Grosgrain; Small, Large and Scallop Oval Punches; 1/2″, 3/4″ and Scallop Circle Punches; Corner Rounder Punch; Small Star Punch; Rich Regals brads; Stampin’ Dimensionals

We’re headed off to the south coast of WA for a few days of beach walking, chocolate eating, egg hunting and general chilling out and I’m SO very looking forward to the break, but before we head off, I just wanted to pop in quickly to share this little Easter gift that I made for Hannah’s lovely teacher Mrs Bolton.

I found some Easter eggs that were Pink Pirouette and Baja Breeze recently, so I grabbed a pack of each and thought I would create the gift around those colours.

I had no idea if the chocolate was any good at the time, but have taste-tested the leftovers and am happy to report that they taste just fine

You can’t really see inside the box, and I forgot to take pictures during the process, but I punched out eight 1″ circles for the eggs to sit in and popped that in the bottom of the box so that they would sit nice and straight and not roll around in there!

The lid was made out of Window Sheet rolled in the Scribble Jumbo Wheel using White StazOn ink.  It was my first foray into White StazOn and I am an instant convert!  I love the way it looks so pretty and dries so instantly on something as non-porous as plastic!

Here’s a close up of the little tag…

Right, I’m off to pack and get an early night before we head off in the morning.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe Easter and I’ll see you all in a few days!

“Happy Easter Mrs Bolton!”
Stamps: Occasionally, Scribble Jumbo SA Wheel
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Baja Breeze Patterns DSP, Window Sheet
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, White StazOn
Accessories: Small Tag Punch, Eyelet Border Punch, Double Rectangle Punch, Pretty in Pink Taffeta Ribbon, Baja Breeze 1″ Stitched Gorgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals