Anyone for a Martini?

Shaken not stirred! Actually I think I was watching a James Bond movie when I made this card.

This one is made with some stamps from the new Cheers to You stamp set, as well as using papers two of the new In Colours, Tangerine Tango and Baja Breeze. The olive is coloured in with Kiwi Kiss ink and the Cheers to You greeting is also stamped in Kiwi Kiss. The background images were stamped using Versamark Ink.




Stamps: Cheers to You

Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Basic Black, Versamark, Baja Breeze

Paper: Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Baja Breeze

Accessories: Circle Scallop Punch, Circle Punch, Chocolate Chip ribbon, SNAIL, Blender Pens, dimensionals

New Catalogue

The new catalogue officially starts tomorrow!!

My camera is dead so I’ve scanned a few of the cards I’ve been working on. Hopefully I’ll have a new camera in a week or two so until then, I’ll be scanning cards instead.

Here’s one card using new stamp sets, In Colours and Designer Paper. I’ll upload a few more later.




The Hi image is punched out with the square scallop punch and I used a couple of dimensionals to make it stand out a bit. I love the birdie paper from the Good Morning Sunshine DSP. So cute!

Stamps: Good Friend & Say It With Scallops

Ink: Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Chocolate Chip

Paper: Pacific Point, Baja Breeze, Whisper White & Good Morning Sunshine Designer Paper

Accessories: Mat Pack, Square Scallop Punch, SNAIL

I has a sad! :(

My camera appears to be on the blink! I think it may have died! :(

So unfortunately I dont have any new Stampin' Up! sneak peaks for you! However, the new catalogue...rocks! I finally got my hands on it on Saturday and I have a massively long stamp wish list!

Retired list update

Click here to see which Stampin' Up! products are no longer available or are low quantity! Remember you only have until March 31st to get your hands on these retiring products

The new Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalogue comes out on April 1, and I have several boxes of them on their way to me as we speak!! How exciting!! If you would like a copy of the catalogue, please contact me at l_prothero@yahoo.com to pre-order one, they will cost $10. Or if you would like a copy of the Catalogue for free, contact me about hosting a workshop! You could earn free stamps and accessories!!! Yay!!

I'll be able to get my hands on my pre-ordered stamps and the new In Colours paper and inks, this weekend, so I hope to post a few sneakie peakies sometime over the weekend! Stay tuned!

Colour Inspiration #45

This is my card for Kristina's Colour Inspiration #45.

I actually only used white and black as I don't have any grey. It was rather difficult to photograph due to all the shiny emobssing. The black heart is also embossed.

Stamps: SU Priceless

Ink: Basic Black & Versamark

Paper: Basic Black & Whisper White

Accessories: Clear Embossing Powder, Heat Gun & the fabulous Embossing Buddy!

Thanks for looking! :)

Retired List Update again!

Click HERE to see the latest update of unavilable or in low quantity products from Stampin' Up!'s retired list.

Remember these products will no longer be available after March 31 as the new catalogue comes out on April 1! So contact me at l_prothero@yahoo.com to place your order!

Also, if you want to pre-order a copy of the Stampin' Up! 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalogue, please let me know. The cost will be $10 including postage. The cataloges will be arriving the first week of April. If you want to get a copy of the Catalogue for free, and maybe earn some free stamps and other fabulous Stampin' Up! product, you might want to consider hosting a workshop instead!

Retired List Update

These items are now unavailable:


Flip Flops
Wild Wasabi Classic Ink Refill
Soft Sky Classic Stamin' Ink Refill
River Rock Classic Stampin' Ink Refill
Purely Pomegranite Classic Stampin' Ink Refill
Earth Elements Eyelets
Soft Subtle Eyelets
Groovy Guava Classic Stampin' Ink Refill
Best Friend Numbers
Mateys Map
Basic Eyelets
Gifts Galore
Garden Annuals
Confetti Simply Scrappin'
Leaf Prints
Bundle of Joy
Short Order Numbers
Blue Bayou Classic Stampin' Ink Refill
River Rock A4 card stock
Ahoy, Matey
Best Friends Alphabet Upper
Soft Sky A4 card stock
Jersey Ribbon Originals
Black Hemp Twine
Bareback
Dasey Field
In Color 12"x 12" card stock
Wild Wasabi A4 card stock
Best Friends Alphabet Lower


These items are in Low Quantity



Theater Ribbn Originals
Soft Subtle buttons
Basics Outline
Earth Elements
*Earth Elements & Neutrals buttons
Gift sacks
By Land
Fishy
*Dad's Day
It's Your Birthday
Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware
Everything Baby
Fabulous Flowers
Rough Texture
Speckled
Birthday
Stipple Rose
Classic Backgrounds
Symbols of Solicitude
Forever in My Heart
Rich Regal Buttons
ABC Images
Linen
Beautiful Life
Polka Dots & Petals
Flitting By
Five-In-One Card Cover Envelope Template
*Pockets & Pieces Office Accents
All I Have Seen
Unfrogettable
Purely Pomegranate A4 Card Stock
*Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware
*Light Blue Gingham Ribbon
Rich Regal Eyelets


If there's anything on the retired list you have your eye on, contact me on l_prothero@yahoo.com before everything runs out!!

Colour Inspiration #44

This is my attempt at Kristina Werner's Colour Inspiration #44

Stamps: Priceless and For a Friend

Paper: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Pretty In Pink & Whisper White

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pretty In Pink & Versamark

Accessories: Choc Chip and Pretty In Pink Ribbon

It was a pain to photograph because I used such light ink for the happy new baby image and I had a lot of trouble getting it to show up!

Retired List

To make room for the upcoming new Stampin' Up! catalogue in April, Stampin' Up! is retiring a whole lot of stamps and accessories. A select number of these products are 25% or 50% off!! This promotion finishes on the 31st of March, but get in quick before they sell out! Because once they're gone, they're gone. The retired list can be viewed here. Contact me to place your order!

Also, I would to thank everyone who came to my first workshop yesterday. I hope everyone had fun!!

The countdown is on!

I now have less than a week til my first SU workshop! I'm really looking forward to it! At this stage there will be about 9 or so people attending.

Anyway I've been doing a few more samples to take along with me.

Some boxes/containers:

Cute little love note card with the seahorse from Fishy Friends.

This is a little box with the Loads of Love truck. I'm going to wrap up some yummies in a cellaphane bag and tie a little ribbon round that and have a tag hanging off the ribbon and put it in the box.





I've also done some scrapbook pages as well but I can't be bothered trying to photograph them :)

I ordered a few more Stampin' Up! things the other day, including the Priceless stamp set. This is one of the stamp sets that is being promoted for the Bushfire Appeal. It's a win/win situation really...I get a very good excuse to buy more stamps and 50% of the price is given to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal! I also ordered a few more types of ribbon...it appears I am addicted to it!

BUSH FIRE APPEAL!

Stampin' Up is helping out victims of the awful Victorian Bushfires that have been occuring over the past week.

From 12 February through 31 March 2009, Stampin' Up! will donate 50 % of the retail value of all sales from a select group of 10 stamp sets to the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfires 2009 Appeal.

Here is a list of the Bushfire Appeal sets:

* Looks Like Spring – Page 76– Price $58.95

* The Snowflake Spot – Page 27– Price $39.95

* Bodacious Boquet – Page 80– Price $58.95

* Polka Dots & Paisley – Page 46– Price $35.95

* G’day Mate – Page 115– Price $35.95

* Be Happy – Page 51– Price $39.95

Priceless – Page 105 – Price $48.95

Seeing Spots – Page 89– Price $29.95

Baroque Motifs – Page 98– Price $39.95

Live Your Dream (Summer Mini) – Page 3 – Price $55.95

*These sets will appear on the upcoming list of retiring products, so they will only be available for the Bushfire Appeal--while supplies last.

There's been an email going around with photos of some of the Koalas that have been affected by the fires. They too have lost their homes, and some have been severely injured. This is a very rare sight normally, but it's been happening a lot over the past few days - people are able to get close enough to the Koalas to give them water. I've included a couple of photos that I got in an email of the adorable cuddly survivors of these horrible fires.

I love this one :)

If you would like to help out the Bush Fire Appeal by buying some of the Stampin' Up! stamps as listed above or maybe holding a workshop to help raise funds in some way, please email me at l_prothero@yahoo.com

Such a busy weekend!

I've spent most of today sitting in my little craft room/library making cards and I even managed a bag too! I'm exhausted!

This is the grand total of this weekend's crafty shennanigans:

10 cards and a Bag-a-lope. The bag isn't finished yet, I'm waiting on my scallop edge punch which is backordered.

Piccies galore!!

I had the unfortunate experience of waking up at 5am this morning. After a while I decided I should get up and go for a walk. I took my camera along just in case, as I there are often pelicans and other interesting birdies around at the crack of dawn along the broadwater. Didn't see any today, however I did see this:

Goodness gracious great yellow balls of fire! Or something like that! The sky wasn't really yellow, but the camera seemed to think it was!

I received my newest order of SU stamps today. They arrived at my mum's place on Monday and she dropped them off at my place for me today. I got some great stamps, ink pads, paper, ribbon and tons of other stuff.

I did another version of a card I did last weekend, the only difference being I used pumpkin pie ribbon at the bottom.

This one I kinda CASE'd from Cannie Hunter's blog. Stamp: Eastern Blooms. Ink: Choc Chip. Paper: Old Olive CS, Choc Chip CS, Whisper White CS, Sahara Sand CS and Confetti Designer paper.

I used Sahara Sand & Whisper White CS on this card, Confetti stickers, Celebrate You stamp from the Figures of Speech stamp set, which I coloured in with Stampin Pastels. I used my lovely new circle scallop punch as well!

This card is made using Taken with Teal, Night of Navy and Whisper White CS, Fishy Friends stamp inked in Brilliant Blue ink and I used Brilliant Blue ink and a blender pen to colour in the image. I also used Fishy roller stamp which was inked using the Versamark stamp pad. I used Purely Pomegranite ribbon.

My first workshop is being held at my lovely mum's place on Feburary 28! I have to get crackin on my examples and demo stuff!! And from what I've heard, at least 2 people are probably going to book workshops on the day too!

I've done some more cards this weekend and even managed to create a cute little pillow box today. I did have a go at a large bag that turned into a disasterous mess and ended up in the bin. Luckily, I remembered to use old patterned paper and didn't destroy any of my good stuff.

These are the two little bags I made last week:

I used the Fun & Fast Notes hedgehog stamp and the Greetings Galore heart envelope on these. I am totally in love with that hedgehog! These were fairly simple to make and turned out ok. I used my Perfectly Pretty roller stamp in Real Red on Whisper White cardstock. Non SU ribbon on the bottom. Red cardstock for the handle. The hedgehog bag uses Whisper White, Taken with Teal, Sahara Sand and Pixie Pink cardstock. I used the Stampin Pastels to colour in the images and blended with a blender pen.

This cute little pillow box was so easy to make.

All supplies were from the Simply Scrappin' Confetti kit, including the little gift sticker. The sticker is matted on Rose Red textured cardstock which also comes with the kit and pop dotted so it stands out a bit.

On this card I used my cuttlebug texture plate on the red cardstock. I used my versamark pad and the Itty Bitty Background stamps on the brown cardstock. Non SU ribbon. Real Red ink and the enjoy stamp is from the Lovely Labels set.

Loads of Love stamp set again! I really like colouring in the truck! I used my versamark pad for the background Loads of Love greeting.

I doubt I'll get any more cards done this weekend, I have to get some ironing done :( And the Australian Open mens final is on too! Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal! Should be a great match!

Its almost the weekend!!!

Yay it's Thursday night! I only have to work half a day tomorrow, so it's practically the weekend!! I'm loving watching the Australian Open at the moment. Except it's really messing with the amount of sleep I'm getting! I love watching Roger Federer, he's so amazingly good!


I'm very excited as I just made my first SU order as a demo!!! It was all for me, which is even better! I spent a small fortune, but thats ok. I turned out to be mostly paper and ribbon and I ended up with quite a few sets of free stamps thanks to Sale-A-Bration. For every $100 you spend, you can choose a free stamp set from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue .

There's 4 sets to choose from and I ended up getting 8 free sets! So I ordered 2 of each. That may give you an indication of how much I spent on my order! Naughty me!! :)


The Sale-A-Bration special ends on Febuary 28, so there's plenty of time to save up to get some freebies!

Due to the fabulous hostess perks that SU gives as well, I ended up more than doubling my ink pad collection! I also ordered a Crop-o-dile which I'm sure I'll have lots of fun with. Oooh I can't wait til it all arrives. I'm also looking forward to being able to spend more time playing with the demo kit this weekend. I'm going to try to master watercolouring the Load of Love pick up truck.


I also have some good news on the non-SU cards that my Mum's been selling for me. She's only showed them to 2 people so far and i've already sold $22 worth, which is pretty good as they're only priced at $2-$2.50! So about 11 of them. And she mentioned it to another friend of hers who has put in an order for $50 worth!!! So I have to make at least another 25 cards sometime soon. I wonder when I'm going to fit in time to sleep?!

Happy Australia Day!

Happy Australia Day!


I've been spending some of my day making some cards with my new Stampin' Up! goodies! I've been having lots of fun with these over the weekend and I made 2 cards today which I am quite pleased with. I made a couple on Saturday but I'm not 100% happy with them. I also attempted a box which definitely needs work!

All products are Stampin' Up! except for the ribbons. I did do my first few stay put bows which turned out quite well.


Card 1 - Stamps: Fun & Fast Notes & Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Paper: Pink Passion, Whisper White, Yo Yo Yellow and Confetti Simply Scrappin. Ink: Basic Black & Versamark. Other: Stampin Pastels, Blender Pens, Misc ribbon.

Card 2 & 3

Stamps:Loads of Love, Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Ink: Real Red, Basic Black, Brilliant Blue and Pixie Pink. Paper - Confetti Simply Scrappin, Whisper White, Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion, Versamark. Other: Misc ribbon, blender pens & Aqua pens

Card 4 - Stamps: Fun & Fast Notes & Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Paper: Whisper White, So Saffron & Ballet Blue. Ink: Basic Black & Versamark. Other: American Craft ribbon, Blender Pen, and Stampin Pastels

Card 5 - Stamps: Greetings Galore. Paper: Taken with Teal and Yo Yo Yellow. Ink: Basic Black and Versamark. Other: Stampin Pastels, Blender Pen, Misc Ribbon.

70th Birthday Card

This evening I did a fairly quick card for my Uncle. He turns 70 on Monday.

It's kind of an odd looking card and probably not very masculine but I'm going through a lime/brown/pink phase at the moment!

I used my cuttlebug numbers folder on the green paper. The green paper is basic grey, the blingy 70 is American Craft thickers and I used my nestabilities for the circle and scalloped circle. I have no idea who made the ribbon or the brown background paper!

The other thing I did tonight was figure out to put a watermark on my photos. I was worried I would need fancy photo editing software and I couldn't find my copy of Corel Draw so I did a bit of googling and came up with the instructions for creating a watermark using MS Paint! The tutorial can be found here. It's so very easy!

It's a lovely long weekend here in Oz and I'm so excited about getting to play with my new SU stamps tomorrow!! The weather is filthy hot at the moment so I'm very glad that I will be spending most of the weekend at my mum's place, as she has air conditioning! I intend to spend most of Saturday mounting my stamps and watching many episodes of Midsomner Murder (mum's addicted!) on DVD! :)

Stampin' Up! Goodies!!!!

So my Stampin' Up! Demo kit arrived today!!!! Unfortunately I have everything delivered to my mum's place as she's retired and therefore home more than I am. And she lives in Brisbane!! So I have to wait til Saturday to get my hands on all my goodies!! Oh the agony!!

I'm hoping to get a couple of cards done over the weekend so I'll post those here when I get back home to the coast. I'm so glad my kit arrived before the weekend, it's Australia Day weekend which means we have Monday off work!! Yay! More time to stamp!

I watched this video today on Michelle's blog, detailing how to make a stay put bow. Very informative. Unforutnately I don't have a hole punch or a cropodile. The cropodile is on my wishlist though!!

I'm also hoping to get involved in some of the Color Inspiration challenges posted on Kristina Werner's blog. I love stamping/scrapbooking blogs, they're so informative and pretty to look at!

Teddy Bear Cards

I've managed to do a few more cards. I am not putting any sayings/words on these cards as my mother intends to sell them to her friends and they have requested blank cards so that they can send them for any occasion. It makes things a bit more challenging when you can't add a saying or greeting.

Here's a close up of one of them:

I'm still very new to the whole using ink pads and aqua pens to watercolour, but I'm getting the hang of it and I love it!

This is the other card I made with a blue catepillar.

Cards n stuff

I'm about to become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator! I sent off my contract yesterday so now all I have to do is wait for my demo kit to arrive! I can't wait!!! Lots of lovely stampy stuff!!

I've been on a card making binge over the past week or so. And here are some of them:

These butterfly cards have the image stamped on the paper and then a cut out identical image placed on top so that the body is covering the background body but the wings are flappy outy. For want a better term!


This is a Gatefold card. I've never made one before but it turned out ok! The ribbon ties up to close the card.

This is a christmas card I made a few weeks ago for my friend. Its one of my favourites!








I finish my 4 weeks holiday tomorrow and I'm not very happy about it! I dont really want to go back to work on Monday. I'm going to miss staying up late and sleeping in late! Thankfully next weekend is a long weekend so I'll have an extra day to recover from working.