The Sale-a-bration is here!!

This is such an exciting promotion I can hardly contain myself! Last year's was good but this year's is just fantastic. Sale-a-bration runs from today until the end of February 2010.

Here is how it works:

Customers - for every £45 you spend in the catalogue (exluding shipping) you get a FREE Sale-a-bration stamp set from the brochure.

Hostesses - hold a party during January or February 2010 of at least £300 and you'll be able to pick a FREE sale-a-bration stamp set on top of your regular hostess benefits.

Join! - Whether you are simply a craft addict or you are wanting to start your own business, if you join Stampin' Up! during Sale-a-bration during January or February you can choose ANY stamp set for FREE in the catalogue up to the value of £38.95. Such a fantastic deal and really tempting, ay?!

Drop me an email if you would like to know more or place an order: blueangelcrafts@gmail.com

Speedy card

Today I needed a card ready for in 10 minutes time. I don't usually have card emergencies but it really got my mind whizzing. I am quite pleased with the result and hope that the recipient liked it. I am becoming totally addicted to those little love note cards as they are such a dream to put together.

Tree decoration gift

I've spent a lot of time making gifts this year. Here is another adaptation from one I made last year.

It's simply chocolates with a card decoration either side and then some lovely golden elasticated thread to hang them by. I love the cute little reindeer stamp so I was pleased to incorporate it into the bag topper.

The bag of decorations was used in my Secret Santa gift (I don't think the recipient will look on this blog!). I made this hamper and included a package of the tree decorations. there was also snowman poo, mince pies, cheesey poppy seed biscuits and chutney included. I was pleased with the result and hope to be more organised to make more of these next Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Shopping Lists sorted!

Here's a little something I put together using a little notepad I found when I was tidying up. I can't resist this Simply Scrappin' kit and a little bit of Old Olive ribbon makes the notepad look really posh. A quick stamped white embossing on a piece of oval punched pink card. Nice little stocking filler and using up odds end ends that are to hand.

Gingerbread men

Not so much papercrafting but I did manage to squeeze in some lovely Stampin' Up! ribbon and thread!

I wanted to make some decorations for my tree and decided that gingerbread men would look nice but they didn't turn out quite how I imagined! I think I'd been dreaming about wooden ones that are 100% perfect. Anyway they look a million times better now they have a cute bow tie and the gold thread makes them look festive.

If you look closely at the whole tree you can see that I did do some paper-based decorations too, using my punches and a snowflake punch from the Season of Joy stamp set (my all-time favourite stamp set). In between the punched shapes are lovely minty or orangey chocolates!

Christmas Chutney

I made some chutney for gifts this Christmas and decided to wrap them more attractively than in plain jars. You can't beat the classic combination of Real Red and Old Olive!

It also meant that I could use my new FREE large tag punch that I got last month. I didn't think that I would use it much but it made decorating these jars a breeze.

The jar on the far left has a little reindeer on the top with a blob of red glitter on his nose! It made a change from the snowflake design the others had.

Red Birthday card

The festive season can feel a bit much at times so the other day I took some time out to make a birthday card. It was only when I'd finished I realised I had gone straight for festive colours: Real Red and Old Olive. Classic!

Anyway I embossed the sentiment with a stamp from the Cheer & Wishes set (pg62). White embossing powder is just genius on bold coloured card as it stands out so much better than a dark colour would.

The present on the front was created with elements from a Big Bold Birthday set (pg 35) and I filled in the little circles with red glitter. This was matted on a piece of So Saffron card - yes, a small break from all the festive colours!!

Sweet treat

I made a number of these little gift bags. They are filled with truffles (shop bought, gasp!). I used my new tag punch, 3 heart punch and the eyelet punch (pg88-9) to decorate them. I've become a bit addicted to punches recently. It's amazing how much further you can make your scraps go using a punch. The pattered paper was a scrap I found in my infamous scrap pile.

A really simple little gift but perfect for taking to people's houses when you've been invited over for a drink and a mince pie, and a bit more interesting than a normal shop bought goodie.

Simply Scrappin'

So at last I have posted some more pictures of my little one and showcased my new favourite Simply Scrappin' kit, Sunny Day (pg 78). This kit is so bright and cheery it's hard to know where to start. I love the cute patterns on the papers and the stickers are so versatile.

The 'Sweet' page has a title made from the cool new Sticky Cuts Sweet with Cosmo glitter(pg86). I was surprised how easy these were to use and the effect is really cool.

The turquoise page was a bit different for me. I usually have straight lines on my pages but I tried using a variety of circles in different papers to create a layered look. (apologies for blanking out the photo but it was a bit embarrassing to post on here!)

The final page is the first one I made with this kit. I got all carried away with the flower stickers and layered them up with dimensionals to make them more 3D. I also used my Darling Dots hostess set (pg10) to create one of the hearts by the journalling. That hostess set is absolutely adorable and very useful, I think.

Hope you like these pages of my lil one. Don't forget to order your own Sunny Day Simply Scrappin kit to make your own cheery scrapbook pages.

Scrapbook pages

Hoppy Birthday

All credit to Monica Gale who had a fantastic youtube video tutorial showing how to make this card. Here is my version for my father-in-law!

The cool thing is that the little frog spins around when you tip the card from side to side. I love that little frog character!! How does the mechanism work? Well I'll give you a clue... it uses two 1p coins!