Gingerbread House

Last night I got together with a few friends and we built and decorated Gingerbread houses. It's something I've done for quite a few years now. It's always lots of fun, good therapy my friend said, plus working with lollies you can't go wrong!
Here's the front door. Note the mosaic tiled entrance made from liquorice all sorts sliced into their colours squares and quartered.

This is the flower garden before the snow fell.

I always attempt a snowman and they always look like they have melted which I guess is okay considering we are in Australia. Check out my snowman from last year!

Always love a good tree - this also is a bit more Aussie than I usually do - and who can beat a licorice all sort present?


I actually have an extra kit available including everything you see here plus cellophane and ribbon to wrap. If you are in the Parramatta/Hills area and would like to buy it it's $27 dollars but you need to tell me before Saturday.

Summer Mini Blog Hop

Welcome to the Stampers Anonymous Stampin Up blog tour! You may have just come from Noreen's blog, but if you are starting here, don’t worry … you can make the complete circuit just by following the links at the end of each post. There are 14 stops along the way and we hope you will visit each one to see the gorgeous creations we have to show you!

For our first tour we decided to showcase the beautiful new products in the Summer Mini, available to you from December 1st! At the end of each post there will be a link to take you to the next stop on the tour. Feel free to “share the love” and leave a comment! So sit back, relax and enjoy!

When I first saw the Summer Mini Catalogue the layout on p7 immediately caught my eye and I knew I had to CASE it. Having just had my little Josh, and getting these gorgeous first photos of him smiling, it was very easy to adapt the layout for him.

The hearts on the left of the photos were not my idea or CASEd. I had left this on my workspace and I came back to find my 5 year old with the SNAIL adhesive in hand. Job done.

I absolutely love the new buttons. I've never been a big button user but this idea just appealed to me. I have adhered them with SNAIL first and poked holes through the cardstock with my paper piercer then using a needle and Linen Thread I sewed them on and used a little bit of Crystal Effects to make sure the bow won't come undone.

The Chit Chat Rub Ons have some very cute sentiments suitable for either scrapbooking or cardmaking.

The stamp set is I {Heart} Hearts and how cute is this idea with the little heart stamp. Some of them are raised up on Dimensionals and they are all cut out as I didn't have my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig when I was stamping them so my efforts at lining them up by eye failed miserably so the paper snips got a work out.

Cardstock: Old Olive, Pacific Point, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise and Real Red.

Accessories: Playground and Sherbet Designer Buttons, Linen Thread, Dimensionals, Scallop Edge Punch

Well, that’s all from me. Now you’re off to enjoy the wonderful creations of Juliette. Thanks for stopping by!

Retired Stamps for Sale

I have several Stampin Up stamp sets for sale in various conditions. If you are keen on any please email me with which one/s and your postcode so I can work out postage.

Lots Of Thoughts BRAND NEW Unmounted - $20
Congrats BRAND NEW Unmounted - $20
Yummy BRAND NEW Unmounted - $20
Cause for Celebration BRAND NEW Unmounted - $45
Labelicious Lightly used - $30
So Very Lightly used - $15
Headline Alphabet USED some staining $40

Wheels
Cool - Jumbo $11
Lots of Dots Jumbo $11
Boho Friend regular $9

I've linked each one to a gallery of ideas using the stamps set on SplitCoast Stampers so clink on them to see what they look like. Happy browsing!

baby mail

I forgot to post these earlier but these are some of the cards I received when Josh was born. They are all gorgeous. This one is from my dear friend and upline Karen - love it!

This is from another dear friend Naomi. Such a great boy design.


Marelle, my team leader, decorated the envelope with some punch art - cute!


And the card inside is really sweet.


And how cute is this card by the very clever Liam. Sadly I think the rain got to the sentiment {sorry Liam} but it's still gorgeous.


If you've enjoyed seeing others creations don't forget the blog hop starting on the 30th Nov at 8pm. If you've never done a blog hop before basically you just click on the link at the end of my post and it will take you to another blog with samples from the new Summer Mini shown. At the end of that post click on the link to take you to the next one. You will eventually end up back at my blog {hopefully!} so it's like a guided tour. Should be fun!

clear & classy

I recently taught a class on coordinating cards with gift packaging. This was part of the class. The white Stazon looks gorgeous on acetate. I stamped the swirl from Baroque Motifs, combined it with the butterfly image from Great Friend on the card and wrapping paper and used a strip of DS paper from the Urban Garden collection with Baja Breeze Striped Grosgrain to finish it off. Plain white wrapping paper is a fantastic thing to have in your stash as you can coordinate a gift so easily. As long as it's not too shiny it can stamp up beautifully. I got a huge 60m roll so it should last me some time!

Blog Hop

I wanted to let you all know that our Stampin' Up! team - Stampers Anonymous - will be holding our first ever Blog Hop starting at 8.00 pm on Monday 30th November (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time). Fourteen of us will be showing you some totally AWESOME projects using products from the new Summer Mini Catalogue, including cards, scrapbook layouts and 3D items. It's going to be tons of fun and I hope you will be able to join us! You can join the fun from my blog and 'hop' on over to the other team members. You'll be able to get lots of inspiration and ideas.

Introducing

When the Stampin Up Spring Mini came out I saw this set and the sample alongside it in the catalogue and immediately knew that was what I was going to do for our baby thank you's.
So here is my effort.

Yes he's a fairly serious fellow - in fact this was his most common expression for the first four weeks. Now we are getting lots of lovely smiles. His eldest brother was the same - very serious.

I changed a few things around and took advantage of the ribbon bundle offer from September and used the Celery Grosgrain. I started out tying a bow and then realised it was going to be too thick to post so I did this faux bow. You open the flap to find the thank you inside. I also used the other stamp from the set for the invitations for the family to Josh's baptism.
This is the first batch to go out.

It will take me quite a while to get through all the thank yous - we have been showered with gifts, which is lovely. I intended to attach the little bunny from the Forest Friend stamp set punched and mounted on circles over the bottom right hand corner of the photo but totally forgot. So to add the baby touch I stamped the envelopes with the giraffe from Wild About You. Stampin Up! envelopes are so smooth, white and crisp I feel I'm wasting using them if I don't stamp on them. If you've never tried SU! envelopes I highly recommend them.