What a great day!!

Yesterday we had a Stampin’ Up! Regional Training Day in Christchurch and it was Great! Actually it was beyond great. It was lovely to catch up with and meet so many of my fellow team members and other local demonstrators. And along with the usual great WOW! demonstrations and make’n’takes there were some surprises too. Its great belonging to the Stampin’ Up! family as there are so many lovely ladies (and men) involved. A big thank to Emma and her helpers  who made us a flower folds brooch each and to Helen McEwen from Inglewood and her team of helpers who made everyone a special surprise too. It’s funny that the first things to sell out at our local supermarket after the earthquakes were milk and …um… chocolate. But everyone including  Helen knows that  a Stampers best friend is CHOCOLATE . Thanks ladies for these special touches to out day!

Anyway there was a name tag competition and guess who won it…..ME! I was so happy because I get to choose a free stamp set as my prize. I used a brand new product called Bevelled Windowpanes so look out for them in the new Autumn Winter Mini Catalogue due for release April 1st and my favourite Broadsheet alphabet. The Chantilly Lace is in the Summer Mini catalogue which means it is only available until March 31st!!

Here is my swap card. Its a little bit different as it is a gatefold but the picture has been punched so each alternate piece  opens a differnet way to separate the picture. Easier to show you with a picture. No doubt there is a fancy name for it but I dont know. Thanks Christine who showed me a card that inspired my one. The tassels on my key are made by unraveling some of the in colour ribbon

Thanks for your advice on yesterdays card ladies I will wait till next Friday to draw a name from the comments to get a little piece of “happy mail”.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

Day 4: Something Smelly. Nice Smelly not icky!! I knew what Dee’s favourite scent was so here is what I put together for her

Heres what I got from Dee a lovely jar of bath salts

Great Great!

This is my double Layout entry. Double page layouts I find are always a bit harder as the pages need to complement and balance each other. I liked this design because although there are a lot of photos on the pages it still doesn’t look busy because of the way the photos are arranged. The flowers added the finishing touch and were created using the 5 petal punch, corner rounder and my trusty tweezers! I also added some sponging to the edges with Soft Suede and So Saffron circle to th centre.

I used the Very Vintage Stampin Wheel with a Certainly Celery cartridge for continuous inking to cover both pages. Then let it dry well before watercolouring some bits using Riding Hood Red and Baja Breeze ink pads and the Aqua painter pens.

The DSP is from the Greenhouse Gala pack, the cardstock elements are Basic Black, Baja Breeze and Riding Hood Red.

Tools used Circle Scissor, Five Petal Flower and Two Step Bird punches, Big Shot and Scallop Circle Die plus the Corner rounder.

vvvvv Very Vintage Vogue

Gotta say I LOVE this set and matching Wheel and I have used them together on this Layout which is the second one we are doing at todays class.

I thought it was very elegant done in the black and White with once accent colour (Certainly Celery) This was an ESAD sketch challenge I never got to do but it that I really liked. I added Crystal Effects to the butterfly images which are cut from a piece of Whisper White rolled with the Very Vintage jumbo wheel . That Top Note Die cut worked really well for a journalling block and doubles as an accent too.