Had a sudden urge to glitter something on the weekend so Hannah (6) and I spent some time at my craft desk.  A touch of sparkle always brightens the day ... (and the floor!) 

The Recipe

Stamp Sets:  Paisley Background Stamp (loving this at the moment) and Bodacious Blooms (love the big bold flowers)

Colours:  Elegant Eggplant cardstock and ink, Whisper White craft ink

Other: Eleg Eggplant ribbon, Heat and Stick Powder plus Dazzling Diamonds Glitter and my Heat Gun, and of course raided my Pretties Kit for those rhinestone brads, hatpin, pearls and beads.

Pretties Kit - Hatpins:

Take the end off the hatpin and thread your beads and pearls on.  There are tiny spacer beads to put between them. 

I've used a glue dot on the top bead and bottom pearl to hold it in place. 

They are very handy those little glue dots.  You can find them on page 148 and you get 250 for $9.50. 

I've only just discovered them on a recent browse through the catalogue and now I use them all the time.  Great for sticking the halfback pearls on or ribbon or other embellishments.

February Classes - A Touch Of Sparkle

We'll be making some sparkly creations at my February classes.  4 dates to choose from.  Note: They book out quickly these days!   Details here.

Cheers, Sue

Oops - nearly forgot to post a pic of  Hannah's sparkly creation (DD 6.)  I manned the embossing gun but she managed the rest.  (And added a bunch of stuff from her rather large craft stash too.)

Blog Tour - Product Share Page

As well as giving my blog a bit of a facelift I've been through and added a few new features, and tweaked some of the old ones.  Here's the next step on the tour ....

A page I've added is the Product Share page.  Here you'll find details of any product shares I'm currently organising. 

Sometimes there are embellishments that you would like to share amongst a group of people.  And sometimes there are people who'd like a hand to find a group interested in the same knick knacks!   This is the spot. 

I'll list details of what the share includes, how much each share is and how many people we need to fill the group.  Once the group is full I'll contact you for payment by direct deposit or Paypal and can then order the product.  I'll split it into shares and post yours to you. 

If there is a product that you're interested in getting a share of, send me an email and I'll see what I can organise.

First up we have a Pretties Kit Share.  Two groups have been filled, ordered and posted and I'm taking names for the third group now.  Find all the details here.  If you love beads, those gorgeous hat pins, pearls and flowers then this is the share for you.  Or order a whole Pretties Kit tin for yourself during Jan/Feb and you'll be more than halfway to a free stamp set from the SaleABration catalogue.

Blog Tour - Search

I was hunting back through my blog to find this beaded card I did months ago and it took me AGES. 

So I figured maybe a Search Function would be handy. 

Hunted about and found a search widget to pop onto my blog and so now you can find the Search Section in the right column. 

Trusty old Google.  You can search just this site or the whole of cyberspace.  (Watch out - don't get lost out there!  I've been known to lose an hour or so thanks to good old Google.)

By the way if you need details on this card you can find them in this post.   One of my favourites.

More blog tour guide notes to follow soon!

Cheers, Sue

I've been looking forward to getting back into my inks again.  Today while Jack was napping I gathered together some supplies and had fun creating.

I used my SaleABration set - Botanical Blooms.  (Get this set free during Jan/Feb when you spend $100.)  A StampAMaJig is VERY handy for making use of this set.  Read on for some step by step instructions for how to colour your flowers.

The Recipe

Colours: Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, Sage Shadow and Very Vanilla.

For the greeting I've used a scrap of Wintergreen patterned paper that was mainly Sage Shadow in colour and coordinated well with the stamped panel.

Stamp Set: Botanical Blooms 

Accessories: Pretties Kit, Silver Hodgepodge and my new Designer Label punch.

Colouring Flowers

White flowers and Vanilla cardstock - no that just won't do.  Do you have some of the white flowers in the Pretties Kit?  You can colour them to match your inks and cardstock.  Here is one way to do this:

I'm using a couple of sponge daubers (pg150) and my ink pads to add some colour to these two flowers.

Just dab your sponge dauber onto your ink pad then onto your flower. 

Keep building up the colour until you're happy with the look.

Now - believe me this is the most important step.  ( I think I should write it in BIG LETTERS and stick it to my notice board.)

Leave it to dry.

No really - leave it to dry.  (Perhaps I should staple it to my forehead!)

No taking short cuts with this step.  (Yes I am talking to myself here, am a bit inclined to rush!)

See that lovely Pale Plum small flower there above. 

Now look at my completed card!  Yes I will 'fess up - I decided to layer it 5 minutes after I'd finished sponging it and some of the darker ink speckled the lighter flower, so I had to make it a little darker. 

Next time I will LEAVE IT TO DRY.  Hee hee.

The flowers look great with a rhinestone brad or a pearl in the centre.

There are other ways to colour your flowers - use a brush or aquapainter, or markers, or ink from an ink refill bottle. 

Cheers, Sue

If you'd like to get some flowers, pearls, hatpins and beads to create with - grab a Pretties Kit for $55.95.  (Pg 144.)  Or check this page for how to get 1/5 of a kit for $12.50 incl postage.