Bunny ears bag for Easter - with video tutorial

While browsing Pinterest the other day, I saw a cloth bag with bunny ears and immediately thought how cute Stampin' Up's chevron paper bags would look with ears! I went off to see what I could come up with and this was the result:

Isn't it cute?! A pack of these chevron bags are only £3.75 and they're gorgeous and can be dressed up in all sorts of different ways if you're not a fan of bunny ears! (But of course you are!)

Have you seen that chevron ribbon - it's faintworthy! (and yes Spellchecker, I do know that's not a real word!) I can't decide which is my favourite colour but this Blushing Bride has got to be in the running.

My bag was filled with all sorts of chocolate yumminess so I stamped the tag with an appropriate sentiment from the Oh Goodie stamp set!

I made a little card to coordinate with the treat bag...

... with a hint of what's in the bag on the front!

What a fun Easter project! And the beauty of it is that it takes hardly any time at all, so it would be easy to make lots of them...

... which means there'll be lots of happy bunnies all round!

I've made a video tutorial to show you how to make the bunny ears bag, the tag AND the card:



Enjoy the comedy bit in the middle where I wrestle with the bunny!

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS PROJECT
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Oh Goodie wood or cling, Take Care wood or cling, Delightful Dozen wood or cling

Ink: Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride classic inks plus Wild Wasabi marker

Card stock: Crumb Cake, Soft Sky, Whisper White, scrap of Wild Wasabi (for leaves)
Punches: Extra Large Oval, Large Oval, Scalloped Oval, 2 1/2" circle, 2-step bird, Itty Bitty punch pack

Other: Tag a Bag gift bags, Blushing Bride chevron ribbon, white bakers twine, Subtles Designer Paper Stack, stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

My husband likes to regale the family with what he terms 'fun facts' and recently came out with the story that Mel Blanc, the actor that voiced Bugs Bunny, didn't like carrots. My youngest son seemed deeply affected by this. "How do you know?" he asked. " Oh everyone knows that!" said my husband. "Really?" said my son. "Why am I always the last to know?"

Have a great weekend and I'll see you very soon.

Hugs,

The three minute retro mouse

I loved the retro 'line art on block colour' treatment on this card I showed you on Tuesday, so I carried on with the idea for my three minute card today. Come and have a look:

The block colour background was created by sponging Soft Sky ink into a mask made with a 1" circle punch (a sponge dauber is perfect for this as it gives a nice even finish.)  I added the mouse from Life in the Forest using a stamp-a-majig to make sure he was where I wanted him. By the way, here's what I think of that little mouse: SQUEEEEEE! Sorry about that - hope I didn't hurt your ears! Now, let's take a look at some other versions I rustled up:

Here's a Pistachio Pudding one. The rule here is to choose any colour that formica kitchens were made in back in the 50s, and it will work superbly for this retro look!

I was using the Express Yourself hostess set for the sentiments on these cards and I couldn't resist using 'love you' with an added heart embellishment (from the owl punch). I love you too Mr Mouse!

• Hostess sets are gorgeous, exclusive stamp sets that are usually only available with orders of £150 or more but my Stampers 6 club members are also able to order them as a perk of their membership. If you're interested in joining my club, click here for all the information. There'll be a new group starting in April and places will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis. I'd love you to join me!

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Life in the Forest wood or cling, Express Yourself (hostess) wood or cling

Ink: Soft Sky, Pistachio Pudding, Summer Starfruit classic inks, stazon black

Card stock: Whisper White, scrap of Real Red (for the heart)

Other: 1" circle punch, sponge daubers, owl punch (for the heart), stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Wouldn't it would be wonderful to have a dining set like this:

What a gorgeous splash of colour and those chairs look very comfortable! The only trouble is, I'd have to decorate the whole house to match and...

... aaaargh! Stop it! Please...

...no! It's Formica Hell!

All the day-glo formica will be swept away by tomorrow when I'll have a cute little Easter project to show you - including an easy-to-follow video tutorial. See you then,

Join Stampin' Up and make a difference

The other day, a man came up to me while I was in the supermarket, thanked me for introducing crafting to his wife and told me it had given her a new lease of life. What a lovely thing to happen and, let me tell you, it was by no means the first time. People often tell me that I've changed their lives - which sounds crazy but it's absolutely true! It's just one of the reasons I love being a Stampin' Up demonstrator. If you're looking for a part time or full time job that makes you feel that you're making a difference to people's lives, why not start a Stampin' Up business? It costs just £99 for a starter kit and there are no risks at all. Click here for more info or just email me and ask as many questions as you like!

Since Sale-a-bration started, I've been sending out smiles, both the kind made by curling up the corners of my mouth AND metaphorical ones made out of card stock and ink! Come and see:

We all love free stamps don't we - especially when they're as beautiful as the Petal Parade free Sale-a-bration gift! I can't tell you how much I love this sentiment too. It's from a set called Happy Day which contains lots of lovely images, although none have been used quite as much as this one!

I love the font, the generous size of it and the way the 'i' is an open invitation to embellish! I've previously used a Christmas tree instead of it, hearts and flowers to dot it and this sparkling gem is another winner that fits beautifully with the idea of a smile.

I sent out lots of these, together with the spring/summer catalogue and the Sale-a-bration leaflet - all full of gorgeous inspiration!  If you haven't yet received yours, send me an email and I'll get them sent to you straight away.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Petal Parade (free with Sale-a-bration) wood or cling

Ink: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Coastal Cabana, Early Espresso

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Basic rhinestones, stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Stampin' Up isn't the only thing that makes me smile. My daughter was sitting behind me yesterday, working on her laptop while I was tapping away at my computer. Suddenly I heard her say: "Get OFF Tuppence, you ridiculous animal! Oh for goodness sake, she's logged me out now!" I looked round to see this:

That funny little cat just hasn't managed to grasp that while we're fond of her sitting on our laps, sitting on our laptops is not acceptable!

Your comments yesterday made me smile too. It was lovely to read them - thank you so much for indulging me as I went to Mumland!

It'll be Three Minute Thursday on my blog tomorrow and I'll have not just one, but THREE quick cards to show you! See you then,

Peaceful Petals with a retro spin

I had a lovely day yesterday and had some exciting news - but more about that later. First I want to show you a card I had great fun making! Come and see:

The Soft Sky chevron background is one of the beautiful papers from Stampin' Up's Designer Paper Stacks. These contain a selection of tone-on-tone papers and are available in all the colour families including the in colours - SO useful!  I topped this with a panel featuring a curved edge...

... which revealed the perfect space on the designer paper for me to stamp my sentiment from Peaceful Petals. You can see that I wrapped some of the gorgeous twine from the free Sale-a-bration Accessories Pack around the panel. I 'nibbled' bits from the edge of the panel with the pointy bit of my Mosaic punch so that the twine would sit neatly and then mounted the panel onto the DSP using dimensionals.

The circle was sponged on through a mask made with my 2 1/2" circle punch and the line art flower , also from Peaceful Petals, was stamped over the top in black stazon ink and left uncoloured for a retro look.

This card was inspired by this week's fabulous Fusion challenge. The colours and the black line art on a coloured block background were taken from the inspiration photo, and I also used the amazing sketch.

I shall also be linking this card up with the Paper Players where the lovely ladies are looking for spring thank you cards.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Peaceful Petals wood or cling

Ink: Summer Starfruit classic ink, stazon black

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Designer Series Stack in Subtles, 2 1/2" circle punch, paper snips, twine from Sweet Sorbet accessory pack (free with Sale-a-bration), stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Yesterday, my eldest son left school at lunchtime as he had an interview at our local college where he has applied to do a Graphic Design course after completing his GCSEs. I could tell he was a little nervous as he isn't taking art at GCSE which is the usual entry requirement; instead he had taken along a portfolio of his work all of which he has created on the computer, coming up with ideas and teaching himself techniques as he's gone along. When he came out of the interview he told me he thought the interview had gone well. Apparently he had shown each piece of artwork and talked about it and after that the interviewer said: "Okay - I'm telling you right now that you're definitely getting a place on my course!"

I'm so excited for him and very, very proud. Of course it was far too late to return him to school, so I took him for a slap up meal instead!

Talking of which, I suppose I better go off and make some pancakes! See you tomorrow,

Tag It - you're ill!

I am aching all over this morning after a massive reorganisation in our house that involved lugging bits of furniture up and down two flights of stairs! Talk about cardio fitness! In between the spring cleaning I've been catching up with some challenges in Blogland (well I needed a breather!) Come and see the Get Well card I made:

I wanted to make a card using neutrals with some bright pops of colour. The Smoky Slate background paper is from the Neutrals designer series paper stack and I love the way it matches the Smoky Slate card base exactly.

The paper stack contains four different tone-on-tone designs in every single colour in Stampin' Up's Neutrals colour family and I think it's a great investment. Of course the stacks come in all the other colour families too if you're not a neutrals fan!

The topper was made by inking up one of the images from Tag It with markers and cutting it out with the coordinating framelit. Do have a look at this fabulous, versatile stamp set - every time one of these sets is sold, Stampin' Up donates £2 to RMHC which helps families who have children with serious illness stay together during treatment. (Find out more here.)

The inspiration for today's card came from the intriguing colour palette at Colour Me...!

and the sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Tag It wood or cling

Ink: Basic Black, Bermuda Bay and Real Red markers

Card stock: Smoky Slate, Whisper White

Other: Chalk Talk framelits, Adorning Accents embossing folder, Big Shot, Owl punch (for the heart) 

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Would you like to know how I got my hulking great teenage boy to have a clear out in his room? First, I gained entry with a pile of clean washing; once in, I chatted about this and that before casually asking if there was anything he'd change about his room if he could. Being male, he doesn't like change so he immediately said no. "Wouldn't it be great to get your xbox in this cupboard," I suggested. "And then when you weren't using it you could shut the door on it." His eyebrows snapped together dangerously. "It would be like a proper editing suite," I continued hastily before he could speak. "And perhaps you could have one of those big leather executive chairs..." Bingo! A faraway look appeared in his eyes. "One of those swivelly ones?" he asked wistfully. "Yes!" I said. "Of course, you would have to clear out the cupboard by the end of the weekend but I could certainly get one of those chairs for you!"

Oh dear, bribery and corruption... but the chair is on its way!

See you tomorrow,

Petite Petals for a happy mother's day

When I woke up this morning I wondered if I'd been transported to another country in the night (what do you mean?! It COULD happen!) It's been so dark and wet and gloomy in the heart of England but today it's blue skies and sunshine all the way - and what a perfect spring colour challenge at Less is More to go with it - green and yellow. Come and see what I've come up with:

I wanted to play with flowers today and I've gone for a combination of Stampin' Up's Peaceful Petals, for the leaves, and Petite Petals for the flowers. There's a punch to cut those pretty flowers out so it was quick and easy (and if you buy the stamp set and punch together you get a nice 15% discount!)

The background was made by inking up one of my acrylic blocks and stamping it onto the card base. I coloured the leaves in with a blender pen and some Gumball Green ink - my goodness, I will miss this colour when it retires at the end of June!

I decided this design would be nice for mothers day - coming up on the 30th of this month in case you were wondering! The sentiment was made by combining the 'happy' from Happy Watercolour and the 'mothers day' from Teeny Tiny Wishes. It's so easy to do this with a stamp-a-majig!

• I've made a short video tutorial to show you how to combine stamps using the stamp-a-majig. Click here to watch it.

I used this gorgeous sketch from CAS(e) this Sketch today.

And my card can also be my second entry into the CAS Addicted to Stamps and More challenge!

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Peaceful Petals wood or cling, Petite Petals wood or cling,
For the sentiment: Happy Watercolour wood or cling, Teeny Tiny Wishes wood or cling

Ink: So Saffron, Crushed Curry, Gumball Green plus markers (Neutrals)

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, scraps of Very Vanilla

Other: Petite Petals punch, blender pen, Candy Dots (Subtles), envelope board for corner rounding, stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

Here's someone else enjoying the sunshine this morning.

She was sitting out there as a dark warning to small birds and unsuspecting rodents... but they all laugh at her knowing that she's an old lady with very few teeth, who expects choice viandes to be chopped up for her and would prefer to be fed by hand only she can't get the staff!

Hope you're having a lovely weekend - see you soon!

Thinking about Life in the Forest

I knew I'd love using Stampin' Up's Life in the Forest stamp set. The foxy little fellow from the set is gorgeous and I imagined him being quite thoughtful as he padded about the forest! Come and see:

I've used a split background again - I love doing this and it means I can introduce a little textured core'dinations card stock for a bit of subtle texture. The top half of the panel is stamped with the Hardwood background stamp - a real must-have in my opinion!

What a sweetheart this fabulous fox is! I stamped him onto watercolour paper so that I could watercolour him properly with my aquapainter. I found that stamping in Early Espresso meant that I could mix some of the brown ink into the Cajun Craze. Mr Fox comes with dots for eyes which are lovely but it's easy and fun to change the shape with a marker to change his expression as I've done here.

The beauty of the Just Sayin' speech and think bubbles is that you can make them say whatever you want! I made my card to let a friend know I was thinking of her so this sentiment from Peaceful Petals worked well and I just used my stamp-a-majig to position it perfectly within the frame.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE THIS CARD
(Click on each item to find it quickly in my shop) 

Stamps: Life in the Forest wood or cling, Just Sayin' wood or cling,
Hardwood background stamp wood or cling

Ink: Baked Brown Sugar, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso

Card stock: Whisper White smooth, Wild Wasabi core'dinations, watercolour card stock

Other: Word Bubbles framelits, Big Shot, aqua painter, envelope board (for rounding corners), stamp-a-majig

Click above to place an order any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

CHOOSE A FREE SALE-A-BRATION GIFT WITH EVERY £45 YOU SPEND (excl. p&p)

The Life in the Forest creatures aren't the only cuties I've come across this week. "Did I show you the video of the deer making a noise?" my daughter asked chattily at the weekend when I got to spend an increasingly rare half hour with her. "Erm... no," I said. And then: "For goodness sake - how did you come across that? I mean what do you google to get a deer making a noise?!" She looked at me pityingly, the woman who doesn't come across cute videos in the course of my internet activity!

Well I bet you're just dying to see the video of the deer making a noise aren't you? Okay - here it is:



Have a great weekend and I'll see you very soon,