Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop - Bring On the Bling

Welcome to the Stampin' Up! Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop for December - Bring On The Bling. 

With only a couple of days until Christmas day, we in Australia are having some amazingly hot weather. Strangely enough, I still like making Northern Hemisphere inspired ornaments for Christmas and today's project is inspired by a sample in the Handmade For The Season Catalogue.

Today I've just wrapped up the Christmas season of market stalls so it is time to show you my project which proved to be very popular at the markets. I've added my own twist to these great ornaments and I really enjoy making them. I made over 30 this week! They are versatile as you can make them in many different sizes, and I love that I can use up spare Designer Series Papers left over from other projects. 

The ornaments can be made to look old fashioned - one customer today said they reminded her of the Victorian Era, or they can be modern and edgy - simply choose papers to create the style you want.

 

This photo shows the variety of papers that I found work well. The Designer Series Paper Stacks patterns work really well together and when you adhere them randomly together, they give you a type of Harlequin style that is really fun. I've used left over bits of old styles together with some of the current patterns. 

Not much bling on these?  Just look at the next photos!

That is the Stampin' Up! fine gold glitter on each edge. This finish is achieved by applying 2-Way Glue Pen to all the edges, then rolling the ball in a tub of the glitter. Love it!  I used both the silver and gold glitter depending on the colour scheme of each bauble.

Another easy way to coordinate patterns is to use both sides of the one sheet of paper. Fold them alternately so the different pattern is stacked alternately in the preliminary stages of making the ornaments. This method will give you one pattern at the top of the ornament, and the other pattern at the bottom of the ornament. 

There are so many different ways you can construct these, leading to a nice surprise each time you try something new.

I hope you enjoy my project, but don't forget to follow the blog hop through and see all the wonderfully creative ideas from some of the top Stampin' Up! demonstrators in the world. You are at Ann Craig's blog now: so just click on the next name in the list below and you can move to the next person.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas holiday period,  filled with family, friends, peace and love.

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Stampin' Up! Achievers Blog Hop - Holiday Catalogue Sneak Peek

Hello and welcome to the Stampin' Up! Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop for August.
I'm so excited to be doing this hop for a couple of reasons:
1. I just last week achieved the next Grand Vacation - the Mediterranean Cruise - a dream come true for me - yippee!!
and
2. We get to give you a sneak peek of some of the gorgeous items that are in the new Holiday Catalogue.

Today was the first day I've had to play with my box of goodies from Demonstrator Pre-Order - it has been a frantically busy month with me and one of my team members participating in the 4 day Canberra Craft and Quilt Fair, and that involves a huge amount of work and preparation. Couple that with regular classes and events, and I've been battling a bug for about 6 weeks. However all is good now and I hope you love what I have prepared for you.

Christmas is a delightful time of the year, full of family gatherings, good food and lots of fun.  Funnily enough, even though it is summer here in Australia, I still love the concept of snowflakes and traditional Northern Hemisphere celebrations.

For my project I have made a non-traditional colour snowflake gift tag. Perhaps it is a little over the top for a gift tag, but it will be for a very special person.

I used the rich Black and White paper from "Winter Wonderland" DSP  and scored 2 strips @ 2 and 1/2 inches using my score board. Isn't that just the most gorgeous set of papers? After folding and joining the 2 strips, I hot glued them to a circle of black card to make the rosette.

I wanted to try every item in the Holiday Catalogue but did limit myself to about 7 or 8 different products!

Next I took one of the Spider Web Doilies, turned it over to the white side and embossed with heat and stick powder and silver glitter - stunning!

I couldn't go past using the "Sleigh Ride" Edgelits Dies, and chose the cute little houses. I have a "thing" about houses. I was surprised and pleased at how easily these pop out after running them through the Big Shot.
To make the tag a little more interesting and individual, I chose a greeting from the "Versatile Christmas" stamp set and heat embossed the words with White Embossing Powder.

There seemed to be a few blank spaces in my composition so I added some stamped snowflakes from the "Flurry of Wishes" stamp set, and punched them with the coordinating punch - Snow Flurry. You'll be able to get these 2 items as a bundle when ordering starts September 1st, so keep an eye out for savings like that in the new Holiday Catalogue. I wanted a bit of variety in these snowflakes and even though they come in 2 sizes I decided to emboss some with white onto Black Card and Silver Glitter onto black card.

I arranged them on Dimensionals, added some of the new Silver Cording Trim and Iced Rhinestone Embellishments and my tag was complete. I love to make eclectic items and this one sure has a lot of different heights, shapes and products in it, but it just goes to show what masters the designers at Stampin' Up! are - to be able to give us all these beautiful products that coordinate so well.

You should now take a look at the next blog in the line up below and enjoy all the wonderful ideas. Don't miss a single blog because they all have great ideas for using your new products from the Holiday Catalogue

You will be sure to want so many of these items when they are released on September 1st. They will be available on-line through my store or you may contact me if you want further help.

Have fun following along the Blog Hop and be inspired by all the super examples!

Stampin' Up! Achievers Blog Hop - Colour Me New

 

Hello again and thanks so much for joining us in this month's Grand Vacation Achievers Blog Hop. This month we have a new theme that requires us to
"Use at least two new 2015-2017 In-Colors in your project. Other colors can be used, however please use at least two new In-colors."   You are at Ann Craig's Blog now and I'm so glad you've stopped by.
THEME: COLOR ME NEW!  I didn't think this would be too hard as I am enjoying most of the new 2015 -2017 In Colors, however I have struggled to create something  for this blog hop that I feel is satisfactory. This is what I ended up with...

  I've seen plenty of gorgeous examples of cards using the Vintage Leaves stamp set and thought combining the In Colors would give some wonderful Autumn Colours. I knew I'd be able to neutralise some of the colours by overlapping them and am really happy with the way the leaf turned out. It is a combination of Delightful Dijon, Watermelon Wonder and a little Mint Macaron sponged onto the stamped image and then over-stamped with the original image in Tip Top Taupe ink.  

  You can see that I crumpled it a little before placing one dimensional in the centre and adhering both the tip of the leaf and the stem, to the background of the card. I've used my "go - to" stamp sets - Gorgeous Grunge and Work of Art, to create the background in Mint Macaron, Watermelon Wonder, Delightful Dijon and Tip Top Taupe. The card base is Whisper White with edges sponged in Tip Top Taupe, matted onto Mint Macaron and Watermelon Wonder. 

The tag is stamped with a greeting from "I Think Your Great" stamp set, and the "celebrate" is from Expressions Naturals Elements that I have sponged lightly with Delightful Dijon ink.   

I hope you like what I've made - I'm still not convinced although I am warming to the finished product.

Thanks so much for stopping by....

Now you should hop along to the next link in the list below to get some more awesome inspiration on ways to use the new 2015 - 2017 In Colors.
Simply select the name after my name and you'll be on your way!

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