Luurrve monsters!!

Where did the time go…..  I can't believe I forgot to hit 'publish' on this post - and now I have heaps more to share too…

With Valentines Day just 3 sleeps away and being without a 'significant other' , in my house any effort toward romantic gestures is diverted to showing even more love to my girls.

From my time as a nanny in America, I truly absorbed some of their (what us British may call) 'over-enthusiasm' towards 'Holiday Celebrations'  I LOVED Christmas over there, Hanukkah, Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving - I even introduced my host family to a very English 'Bonfire Night!'  
In all of these celebrations, the most touching was their way of expressing 'love' on Valentines Day.  In the USA Valentines Day is NOT just a romantic day to share with boyfriends / husbands etc, but to show affection to 'everyone' who they are close to - friends, family and most lovely of all, children.

I fondly remember crafting with my charges Taline and Christopher, making 'treats' to take into school to hand out to their friends on Valentines day.  While at Convention back in November we were introduced to the  'Whole Lot Of Love' promotion and I immediately thought back and knew i could re-live those memories with my girls… I just needed the help of these guys…

My girls had great fun putting them together.  They made Shortbread Biscuits in Heart shapes with Granny and we got some Strawberry heart shaped fruit snacks from the supermarket. We used small cello bags to wrap the biscuit and Strawberry treat, then 'wrapped' the monster arms around them to give them hugs!…

Here is Poppy with 2 of the finished articles - we made 54 in total!!

(all the other photos I took were terrible - very dark and blurred - bad lighting in our dining room)

SAB Playtime Challenge!! (Part 2)

I made 8 items in total! 

Starting from top left…

Pistachio Pudding Thank You Card - I cut a piece of Pistachio Pudding card stock to the same size as the card blanks in the kit (so that it would fit in the envelopes provided) Popped on a square of Bermuda Bay, matted with the Spotty base card provided.  With the Banner Tag punch I made 2 banners, 1 each in Tangerine Tango and Sahara Sand, embossed these wit the Decorative Dots TIEF and stuck them to the underside of the Thank You die cut banner.  Wrapped the right side of the banner with gold thread and floated it on dimensionals!

Envelope for above card - I simply embossed the flap and used a gold liner provided - however, I do cut my liners down as they don't need to be so long inside the envelope, no one sees them, so may as well save for use elsewhere!

Black 'Son' Card - This was the last item I made last, trying to figure out how to use the 'foreign' sentiments in the kit - discovered a little 'cut up' trick..using the 'TO' and 'OUR' I attached these to an A6 card blank made from Basic Black then used some random sized scrap pieces, by rounding just 2 opposite corners with the Envelope Punch Board, this made for a more 'retro' look favoured by those men folk - so naturally - although I don't have any - I figured it was lending itself to a 'boys' card.  I cut SON freehand and matted onto a piece of cut up envelope.  Once all my pieces looked happily placed, I added a few banner punched pieces and wrapped some Baker Twine around to 'tie it all together!

Envelope Gift Bag - I sealed up an envelope and use the score board to turn it into a gift bag (i will have to do a whole separate tutorial on how to do this!) I embossed the top half of the bag and embellished the bottom with a strip of spotty card and a skinny banner.  Using an envelope liner I cut the 'flap' off and used this to wrap over and around the top of the gift bag to seal it - punch a small hole and tied twine through to hold the for you banner on! - my neighbour gary came round last night to borrow paracetamol, he looked so poorly :-(  but it gave me inspiration that this gift bag would fit them in for a get well soon gift!

Triangle Gift Pouch - I wanted to use the 'French' Sentiment, ideal for my girls French Teacher!  So, I cut a spotty card base in half, and stuck the two short edges together to make a tube.  Flattened one end and stuck together with sticky strip. Now, as i don't have a paper crimper, i used my score board to score 2 lines over the sealed end, to make it a little prettier.  I filled the tube with Chocolate Mini Eggs (and yes, D and I did manage to finish the rest of the packet!) I flattened the open end in the OPPOSITE direction, making the 'triangle' sealed again with Sticky strip. Scored 2 lines as before, wrapped some twine around with the 'merci' banner and a little gold star to finish - tres jolie!

 2 Mini 3x3 Notelets - Fabulously easy to make, i cut 2 pieces of 3 x 6 inch card stock, folded at 3 inches, used the banner punch in the bottom right hand corner of each.  From scrap strips snipped the bottoms into banner 'inverted V's' and adhered them at differing lengths. To my surprise the Gold pre cut banners were the perfect length to lay horizontally over them!  Inside i put a contrasting square of card stock and then stuck the little gold stars on to the inner from the front, using the centre of the banner aperture as my guide - very sweet, could've easily made heaps of these!!

Gift Card Envelope - I cut a card base to a 5x5 inch square and made the smallest envelope as printed on the Envelope punch board, which holds a credit card sized gift card or dinky notelet.  As the Spotty card is pre scored to be a card blank I knew I'd have a random score line, so I made sure this would be over the top right of my envelope and covered it with a skinny banner strip provided.  On the flap, the banner didn't cover the entire score line so this is where I tied the gold string around and held it it place by a gold punched circle from the spare envelope liner.  Finally placed the banner left over from my 'cut up' trick earlier and a gold star to finish!

Even after making all those, we still have spare stash from the kit - so heaps more could be made i'm certain!… maybe if I get a little more spare time I'll see what i can do with the rest!!

Hope you enjoyed!

SAB playtime challenge! (Part 1 of 2)

Victoria couldn't join us last night, bad back, much sympathy - I myself had a 2 hour massage yesterday to ease mine and it helps enormously with the Fibro pain.  In fact, if you are local to Chesterfield, I can't recommend Ali at Vivienne's highly enough!

Back to last night then,  Dorothy came and I'd already set the table for our 'challenge'!

Along with the Chocolate & Caramel cookies (Tesco Bakery - delicious!)…  I'd laid out...

• SAB Good as Gold Simply Sent (TM) kit
• SAB Decorative Dots TIEF (forgot I'd got this! - so only 5 more SAB items to get!!)
• SAB Petal Parade Stamp Set
• SAB Banner Punch 
• Cardstock in the co-ordinating colours of…     Tangerine Tango, Bermuda Bay, Sahara Sand, Pistachio Pudding, Basic Black and Whisper White.

• Classic Stampin' Ink Pads in…    Tangerine Tango, Bermuda Bay & Pistachio Pudding
• 1-3/8" Circle Punch (because - a circle will always come in handy!)

AND as a treat, we also played with the 

• NEW Scallop Tag Topper Punch! (133324)

Dorothy split the Good as Gold pack between the 2 of us, in the SAB brochure it claims to make 8 cards… but being the frugal miss that I sometimes am - I wanted to 'stretch' it… 
So by adding the bits mentioned above, we set ourselves a time limit of 2 hours to come up with something/anything, just as 'Many' projects as we could make!  With the usual tools to hand, trimmer, adhesives, Envelope Punch Board,  Simply Scored Scoring Tool etc  - we started the clock!

(Can I just say, I'd never known Dorothy so quiet!! - Bless, I really made her think 'outside the box' (hate that expression - but it sums up the challenge requirements perfectly!)

The Results Were….

D made 6 items in total! 

Starting from top left…

Spotty Thank You Card - she used a full card blank from the kit as her base, then cut another card base in half and trimmed it down, matted it onto Basic Black and mounted in 'on the wonk' Using a die-cut sentiment banner, she matted that onto Basic Black also, fussy cut around it, adhered it to the front of the card and added a Bermuda bay Bakers twine bow with a glue dot - Simple and lovely!

Co-ordinating envelope for the above - (sat underneath the card on the picture) she used another piece of card base and adhere it to the flap of the envelope, trimming off the excess.

Embossed Thank You Card - Making an A6 card Blank from Whisper White, D then cut a panel from Sahara Sand card, embossed it with the Decorative Dots TIEF and adhered to the card front. Using the die cut sentiment and gold banner, she place those against the bottom right edge of the embossed panel.  Finally decorated with 1/2 inch wide strips of the patterned base card, Bermuda bay and cut up a gold envelope liner too! - angle the bottoms with scissors and stuck down with a random gradient, popped the gold star on the bottom of the longest strip - et voila!

Peeking Petals For You Card - A6 card base was made from Whisper White, the petal stamp inked with Tangerine Tango and randomly stamped around the card.  A piece of Spotty base card was cut, the 2 banner strips added, gold thread wrapped around - and again stuck down 'on the wonk' - I'm loving the 'Wonk' it adds interest by being fun!

Thank You Gift Envelope - Strips of the spotty base card were added to the top and bottom of the envelope, then the skinny banners placed vertically down the left side.  A slice of Tangerine Tango was placed beneath the top spotty paper, the thank you sentiment hovers over this with dimensionals and finally the gold star banner was placed down the right hand side - a lovely envelope for placing a voucher or gift card inside!

For You Gift Envelope - She was itching to play with the NEW Scallop Tag Topper punch, so here she used it to make a 3-layer tag with the spotty card and Bermuda Bay, with the addition of the For You banner and some Gold thread it was ready to stick on the envelope, but prior to attaching, she embossed the flap of the envelope to add a little more interest.  Finally popping on one of those lovely little gold stars!

D admitted she'd found it a little difficult, as she mostly see's other creations elsewhere and alters them to her taste - to be told what she could use and to make 'original' items was a little daunting, but once she got into the flow - she flew! and ended up being really proud of her creations - so much so, that she's going to add them to her PINTEREST BOARD - click to follow her!

See Part 2 - for my creations!

Hope you enjoyed!

My SAB Stash...

… to date!!!

I indulged and so far got FREEBIES of…

• Petal Parade Stamp Set (clear) 133602
• Good As Gold Card Kit  133512
• Banner Blast Stamp Set (Wood) 133551
• Banner Punch 133519
• Heartfelt Banner Kit 133514
• See Ya Later Stamp Set 133533
• Hooray For Parties MDS Digital Ensemble 135274 …

…a mere 7 items, i've still 6 more pieces of FREE SAB Stuff to get… - catalogue quick!….what else do I NEED??!!!!

Don't forget, just a £45 spend = 1 FREE SAB item - what are you waiting for!!!!

The most distressing thing for me is that I only got to play with the punch and the MDS kit so far!! - We had a team meeting and had to choose from the SAB offerings to make our swaps… I chose the MDS kit (as had I had to wait for Mr UPS to deliver physical goodies I wouldn't have given myself enough time to create! - you see once your ordered is processed, you can download anything MDS immediately!)

I'd love to show you the swaps I made with the Hooray For Parties MDS kit, but can't find the photos?!? - (Note to self - MUST find & share soon!)

SO, anyway, tomorrow night, after the girls have had their swimming lessons, I'll try to get them in bed for 6:30 (usually 7pm!) with the bribe of a DVD in bed so I can have an evening of 'Mummy Time'… this means, crafty pals Dorothy & Victoria can come over and we'll play about with the latest SU! offerings.. so SAB stash get ready - you'll be unwrapped, fondled, oohed and ahhhed over - we might even stick a few bits of you together!!! ….

Promise to share the results!!.. until then…