Introducing The Butterfly Belles

I was thrilled to add a new member to my Stampin' Up! team this week. Welcome Michelle.

The only thing was that we now needed a team name and its pretty difficult to find a good name that has not already been taken. I love names like The Paper Dolls, The Tartan Stampers and of course Monicas Passionettes. I also wanted to create a name that went with our personalities and linked with this blog name. It was fitting that Michelle came up with Butterfly Belles and Karen rapidly approved. So thats what we are: The Butterfly Belles.

 In honour of our new name I made this tag from a few bits and bobs that I had lying on my crafting table - it is sometimes good to be a bit messy!




 

The embossed section and the two butterflys were made using a scrap of experimentally embossed, inked and spritzed whisper white card. I used the butterfly punch (surely going to be one of my favourites now) and the jewelery punch to make the hanger. That word window punch is so useful - it may look a bit dull in the catalogue but once you own it you will wonder how you managed without it.  Lace scraps, pearls, ribbon along with stamped crowns and the sentiment complete the look.

I was pretty pleased - what do you think?

I would love to see your favourite tag designs. Post some pictures! Have alook on the gallery page to see some more tags that I have been making.



Here is a Victorian Scrapbook image of a beautiful butterfly. Look at the superb quality of the multi colour printing.

 

Hand Crafted Christmas

Someone  said that you can tell an awful lot from the words that people use to describe things. I couldnt agree more when it comes to calling something "Hand Made" rather than "Home Made". I know that in essence the two mean practically the same but hand crafted conveys all the love and affection and individuallity that goes into a special gift made with your own hands.

The first is the Mason jar pincushion. Mason jars are a type of preserving jar with a two piece lid. I am going to make my jars with Stampin' Up! fabric for the pincushion part, fill the jar with threads, buttons (SU of course) and so on. Then i will be able to make a pretty tag and tie it on to the jar to complete the look. The ribbons, paper and buttons will all coordinate beautifully and it will make a lovely little sewing kit to sit on the recipients desk or work table.

Here are some of the ideas that I will be adapting this year as Christmas approaches and I need some little gifts for special friends.



Mind you there are lots of other things you can do with jars - Mason, Kilner or any other type. Have a look at these these cuties.

Write a message on the outside of the jar with your glue gun and then decorate with ribbon and tags. Fill the jar with sweets, biscuits or what ever you fancy.
Use your Big Shot to cut out letters or shapes and adhere to the outside or inside of the jar. What about personalising with a photo of the recipient (or their dog - fill the jar with dog treats in this case....)

I would love to see what you make from your jars. Please post photos in the comments section so we can admire your handiwork (not homework!).
More ideas next time!

Mittens from Michigan

The state of Michigan is the shape of a mitten (if we ignore the Upper Penninsula that is...) and we have been having a bit of fun using the Make a Mitten stampset and matching punch while I am here in Dearborn, just outside Detroit. Thats roughly where the knuckle of your left thumb is when you look at the back of your hand. Hmmm easier to explain on a map!
Have a look at some of the things we made:

Do you see the mittens punched from glimmer paper that have been used to decorate the pine cones? You can also see that  always travel with my bone folder! As I have said before it is one of my essential crafting tools and I tucked it into my case along with the stamps and punch.
Which tools would you make space for when going on a trip away from home for a week?

Making Cookies USA style

Cookies and Cupcakes have crossed the Atlantic although we still really prefer to call them biscuits and fairy cakes! Of course here in Michigan where I am staying at the moment if you talk about biscuits they think its a breakfast dish served with gravy - yet another example of trans-Atlantic language complications. Anyhow - back to the cookies. We had fun making these double chocolate and sea salt cookies.

 

Want to make these at home? Here's a link to the recipe on a blog where we found all kinds of delicious cookie ideas.

At the Stampin' Up! European Convention in Mainz last month we were able to buy some lovely seasonal cookie stamps - not stamps to use with ink but silicone stamps that make fabulous patterns on the cookie dough. Here is a the information on them from the seasonal catalogue. See how nice they are - ideal for making a batch of cookies and presenting them as a gift in a cello bag with a hand crafted topper or what about using the Season of Sweets designer kit?

And by the way did you realise that you can also use these stamps with salt dough and have fun with children making everlasting cookies for dolls and teddies to enjoy! This is certainly on my list of great crafting things to do over the Christmas holidays with the grandchildren.

What are you planning to do with little ones during the Christmas period? If you have any great ideas I would love to hear about them.

 



 

 

Crafting away from home...

So here I am in the USA at Katherines house, Dearborn, Michigan and trying to prepare a couple of card designs for us to make this evening. I brought my Make a Mitten stamp set and the lovely matching punch and a small kit of tools ( they fit into a pencil case!) and figured we could buy the other supplies here. Those of you who have been in the States will know Michaels and Joann as well as a plethora of Indy craft shops - sorry - stores! Well there is nothing like having to use non-Stampin' Up! card stock and paper to make you really really appreciate the quality of Stampin' Up! products. Yes - we all know they are great but you kind of get used to the beautiful colours, the accurate printing and heavy gauge of designer series papers. But after trying to use locally bought paper and card I am even more convinced of the value of using SU. And as for crafting with 5 tools and the contents of the kitchen drawer....phewee - how good is it going to be to be back in my studio with everything to hand. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is wonderful to be here though - and all Katherines friends are fabulous. Very enthusiastic and welcoming. We are taking part in a sketchbook project and I have started on mine. The downtown area of Detroit has had a very tough time with several areas effectively abandoned. They are talking about bulldozing whole blocks and maybe turning the land back into farmland. The Detroit Institute of Arts runs a lively programme of activities, which are free,to try and encourage people to come into the city more often. I will try to post pictures of my sketchbook when I get home and on to a bigger computer. I had better finish prepping for our group this evening - hmmm I can use a fork to help tie bows, maybe a cookie cutter as a template for card and the corkscrew to ...... well open a bottle of wine of course!

Very chic and not so shabby

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I'm an Artist

Don't rattle my cage today because I'm in a very feisty mood! I'm fed up with apologising for 'just being a paper crafter' or hearing myself trying to explain scrapbooking and making it sound like something a Jane Austin girl would do to pass the days before a husband came along. No more! I am re-badging myself as 'An Artist' whose medium is mainly paper based. OK as a Stampin Up demonstrator we design projects that will work nicely in class for people who need quite a bit of guidance because they are just starting out but that doesn't make us less artistic - in fact more because we are looking at the potential of the gorgeous products and pushing them to the max. Just yesterday I saw an idea for using the word window punch to make a great finger tab. And I don't want to drown my femininity in order to give some gravitas to my artistic/ crafter title. I'm not usually a frothy type but if I want to wear flounces and frills, big jewellery and great make up - I jolly well will. If I prefer to use words like gorgeous, beautiful and yummy then I will continue to do so when describing cards, boxes and albums. So if you feel like I do then please don't be an apologist for your love of making beautiful things and sharing your creations. Phewee - I feel so much better for saying that! I'm off to the USA tomorrow for two weeks and as part of that I am participating in a Sketchbook and Journalling event in Michigan with my daughter. It will be very stimulating and I hope to incorporate some of the designs in a scrapbooking page when I get home. I will post pictures so you can see how it turns out. Thanks for listening.

Christmas Creations

Here are the cards and decorations we are making at The Loft, Tollesbury, this evening. This first one is using the Snow Flurry Bigz die for the Big Shot. Oh my how I love my Big Shot and doesnt this card look clean and stylish. I am sure there will be lots of snowflakery going on this evening!

Now this is a kind of pyramid shaped box that can be filled with sweets or any small gift ( or diamond rings if you like!) and I just know that it will look so cute hung from the tree. The Simply Scored will be working overtime when we make these really quick but super effective ornaments. I love the use of the stamp and framelet to make the tag.

And finally these textured tags are pretty enough to be used as card toppers in their own right. I am putting the  Chevron folder into use straight away because we loved how it was used at the Stampin' Up! Convention and geometrics are a very hot trend right now. I also used baubles from the same stamp set so we could make one run through the Big Shot do three projects! Clever stuff eh?

If you are thinking of asking Santa for a Big Shot do remind him that if he orders from me I will include a half day Get To Know Your Big Shot individual class for free and always be on hand to give advice or ideas on how you can use this most versatile of tools.

What was Convention really like?

I have just found this YouTube video which will give you a flavour of what it was like to be part of the 2012 Stampin' Up! Convention in Mainz. Totally crazy great time...... See if you can spot me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIWwA5GDoXg

Simply Scored

This is one of my "Go To" tools. The Simply Scored with it's stylus and the diagonal scoring plate are right at my elbow in the studio. It's another of those tools that you can't believe how useful it is - once you've had one you will be unable to think how you crafted without it. So here is a quick tour and some fab ideas to get you started. The Simply Scored takes paper or card up to 12" x 12", it has inch rulers both horizontally and vertically, it's own dual tip stylus and handy markers to make multiple projects easy. There is also a metric plate if you prefer to work in cm and mm. The diagonal plate allows really easy - well diagonal - scoring with total accuracy. I use my Simply Scored to make crisp accurate folds in card stock and paper to make two cards from a sheet of A4 really easily. Today we are making boxes and the Simply Scored is ideal to score the card for the sides - just score score and flip score score again and we are done. Totally accurate and parallel - don't you just hate it when things go wonky! Try using Simply Scored to make a smart double score on one edge of a card - try it the other way round so you get an outy line. That could be coloured up or distressed or left very minimalist. Love it for male cards. Do you brayer? Well try making a lattice or checked pattern then brayering on top - where the scores are you will be left with uninked areas. It looks so nice with Whisper White or Very Vanilla card stock. How about using a great background stamp as well - experiment using crumb cake on the brayer and sahara sand on the background stamp ( Mmmmm French Foliage, Postage Due, clockworks, Very Vintage stamps all spring to mind). I also find that the dual tip stylus - which is available to buy on it's own too - is fantastic for pressing things like flower centres, for curling paper or card for petals, making impressed lines on leaves, squishing down rhinestones or sorting out tiny bows. It doesn't leave a mark like the piercing tool or you poor old fingernail will. Check out page 181 of the 2012-13 catalogue for the Simply Scored, the diagonal plate and the stylus. Contact me if you would like to try out the Simply Scored before you buy!

Hello from Convention 2012

Just a quick note because I'm so excited to share some of the latest trends and ideas from Stampin' Up! European Convention 2012 here in lovely Mainz, Germany. What an action packed three days! You can only imagine the noise and energy that 700 SU demonstrators create when shown lovely new ways to use stamps and inks and dies and papers and card stock .... So here are just a few highlights which I will make and photograph and share when I get home. The first is a big trend to use geometric patterns in both pares and in textures. I particularly liked - well loved- the new chevrons embossing folder that allows Big Shot to make anything textured. The convention bag ( Mmmmm a gorgeous gift to all the demonstrators attending convention) is chevronned ( is that an actual word? OK - it is now!) and fresh in White and yellow. Then there are the butterflies, birds and bees - yes really - we know how we all love the florals and nature based stamps- so now we have more butterfly stamps and punches coming soon - great for layering, gesturing and fluttering. We were also using lots of subtle spritzing, sponging and brayering where you can really individualise your project so that it really reflects your style. So watch this space for some great new ideas using the Stampin Up products that you know are the best! Byeee from a rather rainy Germany!