Simply Sent-sational

Ever feel the need for a little bling? Just make a card with Dazzling Diamonds after you've put on your makeup and you'll have just the right amount of sparkle everywhere to attract attention. Cosmetics with creamy formulations help the dazzle to stay put while you dance the night away. Try using a glue dot dipped in Dazzling Diamonds for a blingy beauty spot that would make Cindy Crawford Certainly Celery with envy.

Get the kit with maximum shine: Sending Happy Thoughts with Dazzling Diamonds included. Going to a party? Get glammed up while assembling a card for the birthday girl. What can be a greater time saver than combining cardmaking with your beauty routine?? Nothing, nothing at all!
Because you take care ^TM - L'ornier

OK...silliness over...unless something comes over me... A Sending Happy Thoughts Simply Sent Kit has the instructions and supplies to make five of each of the following cards:

Don't you love that ribbon?

Here's my spin on the kit with a few extra supplies:

For the card on the left, I inked up one side of the square stamp to create the dotted stems. The Very Vanilla Cardstock is mounted on top of Old Olive Prints DSP and a couple of the flowers have Stampin' Up! buttons for centres and a little bit of hemp twine. For the card on the right, I've used Bashful Blue for a couple of the flowers to match the strip of Summer Picnic DSP. The flower centres are brads topped with glue dots dipped in Dazzling Diamonds (a trick I learnt from the Sydney Stampin' Up! Regional training). The sentiment, shaped using the Word Window punch, is from another item which is on sale this month - the Short & Sweet stamp set!

To make the most of the Simply Sent-sational 20% off kits and stamp sets, please contact me. Enjoy your Labour Day weekend - for those of you in the right places *grin*

Simply versatile

You've probably already seen these cards before - they are the two predesigned cards in the Lifelong Notes Simply Sent Kit. The kit includes enough supplies to make five of each of these styles and even has directions on how to assemble them. I think that the top card is great for men because of the colour scheme and the geometric design. No flowers - I'm sure that they'd be relieved about that! It must be just about every macho man's worst nightmare - to receive a really pretty floral card on their birthday in front of their friends accompanied by a "Here's your prezzie, Honey Bunny Sugar Puff!" *grin*

One of the things that I enjoy most about these kits is creating projects using the supplies to make something that is radically different from the predesigned cards - I suppose it is the MacGyver in me! I also like using things out of my existing stash with the items in the kit for maximum synergy.

The card on the left is a CASE of a card from the Stampin' Up! Sydney Regionals. I added some Certainly Celery DSP, used a stamp from Occasional Greetings and a mat pack and I reckon it looks nothing like the ones above. What do you think?

The card on the right is for the girly girls who would have looked at the other three cards and wondered whether you had confused them with your hubby. I punched out a scallop from a sheet of Summer Picnic DSP and created holes using my 1/16" circle punch, used Basic Black on vellum for the medallion centre, a couple of lengths of Bashful Blue Grosgrain Ribbon and a stamp from Cheer & Wishes. Stampin' Write Markers in Bashful Blue and Certainly Celery sure came in handy too. Pretty girly, huh?

Simply Sent Kits are 20% off for a very short time only (October 4-11) so please send in your orders early so that you don't miss out.

Stampin' Up! is turning 20...

...but not in Australia. Hmmmm...is this one of those time zone difference thingamys? You know, how it is Wednesday here but Tuesday over there for most of the day? Well, actually, it is Tuesday over there for the whole of the day...just not our Tuesday or Wednesday. Yah! Moving right along...

Stampin' Up! is celebrating its 20th birthday and its party favour is a 20% discount off selected stamp sets with any $20 product purchase. Once you qualify, you can choose to buy one or any number of the following stamp sets for inclusion in the same order for the listed promotion price:

Stamp Set	RRP*	Promo*	IB&C page	Item number
Big Bold Birthday	$53.95	$43.16	37	112594
Pretty Princess	$45.95	$36.76	38	108894
Birthday Best	$25.95	$20.76	51	108753
Crab & Company	$52.95	$42.36	55	110246
Short & Sweet	$29.95	$23.96	118	112318

* Excludes standard Stampin' Up! shipping and handling charges.

Team this up with the 20% off Simply Sent Kits during October 4-11 and the festivities of World Card Making Day and that's three great reasons to celebrate being a card maker this month.

Simply Sent: Naked!

Ever wondered what exactly was in a Simple Delights Simply Sent Kit? Wonder no longer as the following picture reveals the full contents of one such kit:



To help celebrate World Card Making Day, Stampin' Up! is offering 20% of all Simply Sent Kits for one week only. So make sure that you get your orders in to me between October 4-11 so that you don't miss out! Come to my WCMD event to see what is in the kits for yourself, along with a couple of alternate card designs using the kits plus some additional Stampin' Up! supplies.

Full circle: two BFFs and a tag

My bad! I was given a couple of Blogging Friends Forever gold cards quite a while ago by two of the loveliest INKlings that I know:

Dani Fender who recently received worldwide recognition for her cardmaking talent by being chosen as one of Kristina Werner's final 15 for her Color Inspiration #22. Yay Dani! Her cards are wonderful and her enthusiasm infectious.

Michelle Dyson who was recently Newly Discovered by Allison. Michelle is very smart on top of being a fabulous crafter. I remember her describing some research that involved someone with an autoimmune condition swallowing an egg of a parasitic worm (which flourishes in pigs) to switch their immune systems to infection fighting mode. This was in great detail and all over dinner! It was seriously interesting and I was really grateful that we had lasagne and not spaghetti that night.

While I was very chuffed to be on the receiving end, I wasn't so keen on one of the rules attached to passing it on. The rules are:

1. Only 5 people allowed.
2. 4 have to be dedicated followers of your blog
3. one has to be someone new or recently new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. you must link back to whoever gave you the award.

Yep! I wasn't too sure about rule #2. Who on earth would be a dedicated follower of this blog?! Hmmmm ... checked the list of followers on Blogger (new blogspot feature, btw) and she's already mentioned in this post. So, instead of dedicated followers of my blog, I decided that I would link to the incredibly generous bloggers who have included me in their blog roll to say many many thanks for doing so. I've excluded INKlings from this because I always link to them anyway (they should be known as lINKlings)! In addition, I absolve my newly declared BFFs of any obligation to follow the rules. Can I do that?! I just did!!

Marcia Pringle The Stamp Spot
Marcia makes the most gorgeous cards and off-the-page items in a mind boggling variety of styles. Check her blog for inspiration (or a good dose of awe!) I am really looking forward to seeing some scrap pages from her...does that count as a hint 'cause it really wasn't subtle, was it?

Sue Madex Madex Creations
Sue is famous as she is a commissioned contributor to Aussie Scrapbooking! Her site has great scrap pages and pretty cards and lots of useful tutorials too! *waves goodbye to those rushing off to check out the tutorials*

Chris Parker-Barnes Dot Dot Stamping
Chris recently started blogging in August and already has an impressive collection of cards on display. There is even a cutie pie shot of her little one in a scrap page...

Sarah Klass
Surely, she needs no introduction! Sarah is a top Stampin' Up! demonstrator - one of the select 22 to achieve the Incentive Trip to Palm Cove. She has a really funky style and she can make truly beautiful cards too!

Latisha Coleman Prayer & Stamps
Latisha has not yet left a comment here but I stumbled across her blog and spotted my blog in her linky-list. Latisha is from the US and you know what that means...PREVIEW! She has made the most of Pacific Point and I hope we get some of the marvellous stamps that she has used on her lovely creations.

I also just got tagged by Marcia! But I've already been tagged before and you really don't want to find out another 7 facts about me, right?! I'm sure you were traumatised enough by my first response...

So, why the full circle? It turns out that when I was first tagged in May, my taggees were Michelle and Dani - my two BFFers! How neat is that for an ending?!

Scraptember

I hadn't intended it but September has been the month of scrapbook pages of my nephew. On realising this, I decided to create a row of it by adding one more. I remember being told at school that two does not constitute a row - as in two in a row was just nonsensical. But two in a row does make sense, right? After all, it just means one following one other. Anyway, being a particularly pedantic student, I had gleefully stuffed that "rule" into multiple parts of my brain for future reference. I am sure that those brain cells are now a complete waste of space and mourn the fact that they could have been better put to use for remembering:
• Hubby's mobile phone number when asked by an interested employer,
• the names of people that I worked with 10 years ago and bump into at the beginning of a long train ride,
• whether we have to put out the recycled or the garden waste bin this week,
• to post that letter sitting in my OUT tray for the last four weeks! Gah!
• when swaps are due...

Speaking of which ... back to the scrapbook page. This was made for a 6X6 swap co-ordinated by the amazing Alana, who showed great patience as some of us were kinda all over the place (including me as I forgot when this swap was due until a week before closing date and had to beg for an extension). Thanks so much, Alana! Many thanks also to the lovely ladies who took part for the marvellous pages that I received.

Stampin' Supplies
Ink:
Pumpkin Pie
Real Red
Tempting Turquoise
Wild Wasabi
VersaMark

Stamps:
Defining Alphabet
Frames with a Flourish
Seeing Spots
Sprinkles

Paper:
East Coast Prep DSP
Pumpkin Pie Prints DSP
Tempting Turquoise Textured CS

Accessories:
1/2", 1", 1 1/4" Circle Punches
Horizontal Slot Punch
Real Red Striped Grosgrain Ribbon
Sponge Daubers

Make Your Own on World Card Making Day 2008

It is less than two weeks to go until World Card Making Day on the 4th of October! For those of you thinking that you are too busy to retrieve your craft supplies from the many nooks in your house, sit down to design and make cards, why not join me on the day? I'll have prepared all the tools and stuff you need as well as cutting cardstock to size so that you can enjoy the fun part - the stamping and card making! As for the regular card makers, join me anyway, for an afternoon of card making fun - you know you don't have to do any of the hard work...

There may be somebody out there who wants to try out card making - give it a go at my place. If you find it as enjoyable as I do, you can start your stash with a Simply Sent Kit. Stampin' Up! will be offering 20% of all Simply Sent kits during that week (4-11 October). I'll be displaying the contents of a few of the kits and some of the things that you can make with them.

Here are the details:

Date:	Saturday, October 4th 2008
Time:	2pm
Where:	Broad Arrow Road, Riverwood, NSW
Cost:	$5 to attend and includes a Make & Take and refreshments. Stamp-A-Stack (including envelopes) is: ● $12 for 4 deluxe cards ● $12 for 6 standard cards
RSVP:	Wednesday, October 1st 2008 [My contact details] Booking is essential as I have to prepare supplies for the event.

Deluxe Cards
Two Christmas cards and two birthday and/or thank you cards featuring:
● Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware
● textured cardstock
● Designer Series Paper
● ribbon.

Standard Cards
Three Christmas cards and three greeting cards featuring:
● Designer Series Paper
● a range of sentiments to choose from
● all Stampin' Up! supplies.




If you can't make it to this event, and you know at least three other people who are interested in making these cards, please contact me and we can arrange a time and place to stamp your own stacks (because it is card making day just about every day for me!).

Out of order

Such strange serendipity! I was entering the title of this post with just the hint of a smirk, when Fate slapped me down for being out of order. The original meaning that I had intended for this title was that I would be showing one of the challenges for the cyberstamp out of sequence...but when Blogger's Autosave feature activated, I was greeted with "Autosaved failed" and prompted with the standard suggestion of please try again...which I did. Hmmmm...did I try that again or did I imagine myself pressing the Save button? So I pressed it again. "Autosaved failed". Oh no! Blogger is out of order!

So, I trawled through the Blogger Help Forums, found no help there but lots of panicky people rearranging chairs. I then tinkered around with my settings and if you are experiencing the same problems, try clearing your browser cache and refreshing on each form before you use it (such as the list of posts and when you open up the edit post form). It worked for me [ETA: just long enough to get this posted] !

The third challenge for this month's INKlings Cyberstamp was the option of either a scrapbook layout or making a card using a themed stamp set so that the theme was not featured (eg. a Christmas stamp set for a birthday card) or vice versa (eg. a Valentine's day card from a non-themed flower stamp set). The scrapbook page is to use [WARNING: sample scrap page features a SNAKE] the following sketch.

I've posted this out of order so that my mum can see another layout of my nephew, Shi Wei! I've kept her waiting long enough...

Stampin' Supplies
Ink:
Chocolate Chip
Really Rust
Wild Wasabi

Stamps:
Defining Alphabet
Priceless set

Paper:
Apple Cider DSP
Naturals Ivory CS
River Rock Textured CS
Vellum CS

Accessories:
1/16" Circle Punch
Anchored Rub-ons
Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware
Black Hemp Twine
Corner Rounder Punch
Earth Elements Buttons