Merry Christmas one and all!!!

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Albeit a very late, it still comes with all the wishes for a safe and happy holiday season sprinkled with much fun and frivolity!

I cannot believe where this last month has disappeared too! No sooner had I packed up from the second garage sale then I was up to my armpits with baking, packing for our week’s holiday which commenced the day after school finished, endeavouring to get all the shopping done BEFORE school was out, plus all the general froth and bubble that goes with day to day life in the lead up to Christmas anyways!

Another thing that kept me busy in that fortnight before school finished for the year was making four dozen Sour Cream Bags. This name is actually American and probably should be renamed “Frozen Samboy Bags” for here as I have yet to see any sour cream in these shaped bags in the Australian dairy cabinets.


These bags were in lieu of Christmas cards from the children to their class mates. Last year the children made their own cards. Yes I did design a card each for them to copy but what can I say, they are my children hence they nodded their heads in unison with a “yes mum” whilst all the while doing their own thing. Now who does that remind you of?!

No such luck this year though, their hearts were willing but their bodies weren’t able so it was left to me to cut, stamp and punch. Miss Seven did however sort the Christmas Tree marshmallows that went inside each of these little bags quite willingly and they both wrote up their own Christmas tags thankfully.

Both the paper and ribbon were last year’s stock from Stampin’ Up! I can highly recommend these bags should you need to use up any back-log of supplies you may have. I could have used even more paper but the Midas in me redid the sizing’s so I could get six bags instead of just the four out of one 12×12 – far more economical for mass makings!

The stamps however are both from the current Idea Book and Catalogue from Stampin’ Up! The Perfect Punch set I now leave in my kit as I continually reach for it when I need a basic sentiment that doesn’t look basic.W hat you can’t see from this picture is that I’ve in fact stamped Joy for Christmas twice – once in green, once in red – using my 1-1/4″ circle punch on one just for the sentiment then using dimensionals to adhere this circle then to the scallop punched out stamp.

As for the bauble stamp from the Delightful Decorations set, my gosh, how often did I use that in the last four weeks? All I can say is thank goodness my bauble punch was up to the challenge as at a rough guess I think I’ve used it at least 500 times… if not 600 times… at least!

Now for my joke I’ve been saving for months and now is really too late but never mind such minor details…

What is orange and says Ho Ho Ho?
FANTA Claus… ha ha ha
… oh go on, I know your smirking! 🙂

Here’s hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas whichever way you may have chosen to spend it, and are now bunkering down for one heck of a 2011!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


What have I done?

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I had so much fun with my last garage sale I just had to have another one which is to be this Saturday. In my mind it’s all organised but by this time for the last garage sale I was all ready to go (it kinda helped that I thought Thursday was Friday so pushed myself to get everything set-up what turned out to be two days early!) but not this time.

At lunch time I began collating all the things from my Studio which I had forgotten to put out last time – my gosh I have/had a lot of things (but don’t quote me on that!). I hadn’t even touched on the embossing powders or 12×12 papers last time, and don’t get me started on the chipboard die cuts… oh my 🙂

As for all the other bits and pieces around the house, I can’t believe I had a garage sale and didn’t even go through my corner kitchen cupboard – that was the entire point of the garage sale. Needless to say, that’s my mission tomorrow, clear the kitchen of all those items that seem like a really good idea at the time but once home… not so good…

More on that tomorrow but for now I’ll show you the Christmas version of the scallop envelope bag I showed you a few days ago.


Recipe
Stamp Set: Perfect Punches
Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Whisper White
Classic Ink: Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Scallop Envelope Die Cut, Big Shot,
Corner Rounder Punch, Window Word Punch, XL Oval Punch,
Greenhouse Gala DSP

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


You know you’re tired when…

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after two hours in the bath you wish you were in a spa bath so the water jets could pound your weary bones… then you realise you ARE in a spa bath and what’s worse… it’s your own bath! Just goes to show you how often I have a spa bath…

This was me after our garage sale on Saturday. Many thanks to everyone for their support – it was all very much appreciated I can assure you! The day went surprising quickly given Master Nine and I were out putting up our signs at 5.30am, with our first potential customer arriving not long thereafter and we continued on until 2pm when we closed the garage door. I managed to keep my eyes open until 7pm before falling asleep, only to wake at 11pm wide awake for the three hours… aaaahhhh!

But get this, even after the week that was I was still expecting to get into the Studio today for a bit of creating… HA, AS IF! So, with hands on hips tonight  I wondered what I had before spying three cards I haven’t yet shared with you.

The reason I haven’t yet shared these was because they were going to be October’s Make & Takes, then when I postponed classes until next year I was keeping these for February’s Make & Takes but today I was able to pre-order from the Summer Mini Catalogue that Stampin’ Up! is releasing next month and there’s a set in there that will be perfect for February’s Make & Take so now I’ll share!

You may remember the purpose of my Make and Take classes is to highlight just the one set of stamps, showing you how to get three very different looks. (Don’t you hate those classes where you’ve used stamps from at least three sets, then you find  out at least of those sets is retired… very frustrating to say the least…) Most times I aim to do a male, female, and child;s card but given the Eiffel Tower stamp  in this Artistic Etchings stamp set, I felt on this occasion we could omit the child’s card and do a bon voyage card instead.

This card tonight was my “male” orientated card. I thought male through the repeated use of the crown which I believe is more male in style than female but hey, maybe that’s just me!

CARD RECIPE
Stamp Sets: Artistic Etchings, Perfect Punches
Cardstock: Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White
Ink: Black StazOn, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder, Big Shot,
Gold Embossing Powder, Heat Gun, Spiral Border Punch, XL Oval Punch,
Hemp Twine, Antique Brass Eyelet, Crop-A-Dile, Dimensionals

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


Can’t a man just enjoy his toe-jam?!

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This is what I heard from the back of the car this afternoon just after Miss Seven had let out a long EWWWWWWWW Master Nine had mistakenly put his warm socks on this morning to wear to school so consequently by the time I collected them  this afternoon his feet felt as if they were on fire so as soon as he was in the car his shoes were off. Oh, the joy of boys… you gotta love them!

Then we grabbed an early dinner and it was back home and into the garage. You see I’m on yet another mission… after a throw away line to a friend a couple of week’s ago that I should have had a garage sale for all my “out of sight out of mind” gear in the studio, it’s now become a reality. It’s operation GARAGE SALE with anything not tied down or has a child attached to it being sold!

I can’t believe we ever survived in our two bedroom apartment for so long when I look around this house – we seem to have stuff EVERYWHERE! Now, don’t get me wrong, I quite like my stuff (as anyone who has known me for any length of time will testify too) however there’s stuff and then there’s stuff, and it’s the latter we seem to have an abundance of. So

If you know of anyone who’s setting up house for the first time who may need sheets, cast iron pots and pans or even a dozen black candelabras, or would love some wonderful embellishments  for  scrapping or cards from various parts of the world (I have an ENTIRE table of those bits and bobs), there’s three boxes of just CRAFT magazines – papercraft, embroidery and patchwork, plus there’s loads of DVD’s, children’s toys, clothes, etc, etc… come on over this Saturday 30th October… there’s plenty for everyone!

With my mind being on the garage sale I have to confess I haven’t had much time for playing. Now I think about it, this has probably been the longest I’ve gone for a long time without creating. I made the cutest box Tuesday morning for a friend but guess what… thinking I should take a photo doesn’t equate to to taking a photo… argh!

Anywho… I did find this little gem I made not long after my Extra-Large Flower Punch arrived. I had had the background stamped for ages as I love the Artistic Etchings Stamp Set but I wanted something other then red, black and white so messed around with some blues and pinks and came up with this.

Card Recipe:
Stamp Sets: Artistic Etchings, Perfect Punches, Delightful Decorations
Classic Inks: Bashful Blue, Pacific Point, Pink Piroutte, Melon Mambo
Cardstock: Whisper White, Pacific Point, Melon Mambo
Accessories: Corner Rounder, Scallop Oval Punch, Fancy Flower XL Punch,
Large Oval, 1″ Circle Punch, Dazzling Diamonds

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x


Could someone stop the world please…

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just long enough at least for me to catch up. That’s all, as it seems lately that the more I have to do the less I actually do… not that it’s helped having my two little darlings home these past two days for one reason or another.

However tomorrow is a new day: the list has been made, the children have been told no matter WHAT their condition they are at school, the rain looks like stopping (albeit briefly), so hopefully once the grocery shopping is out of the way I will be able to knuckle down and get into life once again, maybe

Anyways… enough of my boohoo blues, here’s a card that lifts my spirits as anything with the Eiffel Tower makes me smile as it always reminds me of the day we spent at the Eiffel Tower when the children were just five and three.

What a fabulous day – we arrived before 8am and didn’t leave until almost 4pm – and that’s NOT because we were queued all that time. In actual fact we were very close to the top of the queue (thanks to it being so overcast and cold), no, we stopped and explored EVERY facet of the Eiffel Tower, ate chocolate crepes for morning tea, admired the view from all 360 degrees before finishing the day off with lunch in the VERY posh restaurant!

Yes, it cost an absolute fortune (especially when my hubby and I thought the champagne was extremely well priced considering where we were – it wasn’t until the bill came that we realised the price wasn’t per bottle but per GLASS… and we’d had four glasses thinking we were getting our monies worth from the bottle – LOL!) but what a story heh?!

CARD RECIPE
Carkstock:
Riding Hood Red
, Brushed Silver, Whisper White
Stamp Set/s:
Artistic Etchings, Perfect Punches
Classic Ink: StazOn Black
Accessories:
Scallop Edge Punch,
XL Oval Punch,
Sticky Strip, SU Dimensionals,
Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder,
Colour Spritzer Tool, Riding Hood Red Stampin’ Write Marker

Given the amount of embossing within the brushed silver, what I’ve endeavoured to do (but can’t really see from this photo) is to attempt to give the Eiffel Tower depth. I’ve achieved this by stamping in black StazOn twice on Whisper White, cutting both out the best I could, sticky one then adding dimensionals to the the next for the layered-full affect.

Another thing the photo hasn’t really shown is the spritzing I’ve done on the card background. You know me, I can’t just have plain cardstock at the back, I have to add a little something 🙂 I’ve also used sticky strip rather then the regular snail on the Brushed Silver simply as I feel with all the embossing it gives the metallic cardstock extra “stay-on” power!

Oh, and have yourself an... Inkee Fiddling Day!

Joanne x

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