Today I'm sharing the last of the projects we made at last weekend's Christmas workshop: a stamped clay ornament and a decorated kraft gift box to put it in. Here's a photograph of the ornament:

These clay ornaments have a natural finish and can be stamped straight onto the surface, without any additional preparation. As we were going all out for Christmas, once we had stamped our design onto the ornament we stamped the pattern again with Versamark, sprinkled with Heat and Stick Powder and heated with the heat gun, then sprinkled with Iridescent Ice glitter and heated once more. This gives the finished item a more muted colour and a lovely sparkle that catches the light.

We also decorated one of the lovely ready-made kraft boxes from the catalogue to go with it - here's the top of mine:

Together they would make a lovely gift for someone, if you could bear to part with them of course! I will be using mine to decorate my tree during the festive season, but I'm sure I can make another one or something else to go in the box! I hope you liked my first Christmas projects of the season - there will be lots more where this came from. If you would like to join any of my classes, do get in touch for more details; my September card classes will be featuring the Mosaic Madness stamp set and then from October we will be doing Christmas cards all the way through until the end of the year.

Back tomorrow with the first of the weekend birthday cards: my brother-in-law is celebrating his 'big 40' with a party tomorrow and then my own 'Baby James' will be 6 on Sunday, so I've a few birthday cards to share. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Sweet Essentials, Four Seasons (hostess - retired)

Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler, Be of Good Cheer Designer Series Paper (retired)

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Real Red

Tools: Simply Scored, Big Shot, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, 7/8" and 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punches, Merry Minis (star)

Finishing Touches: Champagne Glimmer Paper, 3/4" Cherry Cobbler Chevron Ribbon,  Cherry Cobbler 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon (retired)

Another week, another late post - I'm loving the summer holidays but when school's out it sure is tricky to keep everything else on track! So today I'm posting nice and early, so that I don't run out of time again!

Today I'm sharing another of the makes from my Christmas workshop that I held last weekend: a lovely set of four tea lights in a handmade box. This workshop was less about the stamping and much more about the scoring - if my ladies weren't proficient with their Simply Scored scoreboard beforehand, they sure are now! So here is our finished box:

We made a box with a sliding sleeve cover, from which we cut out an oval aperture with the Oval Framelits and backed with a window sheet, to allow a glimpse of our lovely hand-stamped candles inside. Here's a picture of the open box, with a peek at our 'dressed up' tea lights:

We edged each of them with a strip of DSP; I'll be making more of these when my festive washi tape arrives, as this is perfect for this kind of project. The candle stamping was really easy to achieve and as none of the ladies present had done this before, was a real 'wow' moment for them. I suspect lots of their friends and neighbours will be receiving stamped tea light gift sets for Christmas now that they've learned this clever technique!

I love this spotted star/snowflake paper from the retired 'Be of Good Cheer' paper set; with so many designs to choose from, we all made different ones though - here's one of the other finished sets made by Kathy during the workshop:

These papers are just so lovely, but don't be too sad that they are now retired; I have had a 'sneak peek' of the new Autumn-Winter seasonal catalogue and can honestly say, you will not be disappointed with this year's offerings!

All being well, I will be back tomorrow with the last of my Christmas workshop projects. I'm off to have a quick spot of making before meeting friends in the park for a picnic - lovely! Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Four Seasons (hostess - retired)

Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler, Be of Good Cheer Designer Series Paper (retired)

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Cherry Cobbler

Tools: Simply Scored, Big Shot, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punches, Oval Framelits

Finishing Touches: Creped Filter Paper, Window Sheet,  Cherry Cobbler 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon (retired)

As I mentioned earlier this week, yesterday I held an all-day Christmas workshop with a lovely bunch of ladies and we made a good start with our preparations for the festive season with a number of 3D projects. I'm going to share the first of these with you today: a door wreath made out of paper rosettes and featuring the sadly recently retired Be Of Good Cheer Christmas DSP. After much scoring, gluing and decorating, this was the finished article:

This picture shows my version of the wreath suspended. In hindsight, I should have photographed it in situ on my front door, although then my neighbours would have thought me completely mad (they already think I'm part way there, as I grow potatoes and pumpkins in my front garden, but that's a story for another time!!) The rosettes made from the patterned paper were cut using the Designer Rosette Bigx XL die, which is great for fast and easy cutting and scoring; unlike the ones made from the plain cardstock, which we scored using the Simply Scored scoreboard so they took a little longer. We used a variety of circle and scallop punches to create the centres; here's a close up of a couple of mine:

The one below was our focal point rosette, complete with ribbon trim - did you spot the lovely new Cherry Cobbler chevron ribbon in there? - and we also included a banner sentiment in keeping with the season:

The nice thing about a project like this though is that whilst everyone starts out with the same materials, each person has their own 'take' on what theirs should look like, so you end up with lots of similar but slightly different outputs. To illustrate, here is one of the finished wreaths of one of the ladies who attended:

Isn't Maureen's wreath just lovely? I'll share the other projects we made with you later this week. I'm off now to recover from the party excesses of my day - my downline Barbara and I held a joint party for our 6 year old sons this afternoon: swimming party followed by birthday picnic in the park. I will share the invitations and thank you notes we made tomorrow; meanwhile, time for a nice quiet glass of wine and to put my feet up, I think!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Sweet Essentials, Tiny Tags (retired)

Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Gumball Green, Cherry Cobbler, Be of Good Cheer Designer Series Paper (retired)

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Cherry Cobbler

Tools: Simply Scored, Big Shot, Rosette Bigz XL Die, 1", 1 1/4", 1 3/8" Circle Punches, 7/8", 1 1/4" 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punches, Itty Bitty Punches (circle), Merry Minis Punch Pack (star), Jewellery Tag Punch (retired)

Finishing Touches: Champagne Glimmer Paper, Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons, In Colour Dahlias, 3/4" Cherry Cobbler Chevron Ribbon,  Cherry Cobbler 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon

Keeping with the Father's Day theme, another quick Dad card from me today. This time I went with a rosette for a Number One Dad:

I went with a Cherry Cobbler base to match my designer paper. The striped paper actually comes from the Christmas Be of Good Cheer paper stack (retiring this month), but it is neutral enough to work well on a masculine card. I made a rosette in double-quick time using my Simply Scored score board, then layered my 'Number One' stamp with a couple of scalloped circles to balance the size. I quite like this card, although if I made it again I would substitute the green scalloped circle with a vanilla one; I don't know whether it's psychological or not, but adding the green into the colour combo makes it look more 'Christmassy', which isn't quite the effect I was after!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up Supplies:

Stamps: Ciao Baby!, For My Family

Cardstock: Cheery Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Be of Good Cheer DSP

Ink/Stampin' Write Markers: Cherry Cobbler

Tools: Simply Scored, 7/8" Scallop Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Scallop Circle Punch, 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punch

Finishing Touches: Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine