Kusudama Origami Ball

I had to give it a go... Just because.. Liz made one and a few of the Paper Angels have had a go& brought them to our last meeting.. .. So when Melissa and I got together for our All day/night Valentines Craft day... Well that was one of our projects...

Melissa's is so much nicer than mine.. And Liz's is lovely too... Mines not made form Stampin'Up! papers either.. that would make it so much nicer!!!

Mine has been to school for "Show n' Tell"... I believe it had a bit of an experience as a soccer ball as well... A little worse for wear!!!


Oh well.. At least It's been used...

They look really lovely with a ribbon through the middle of them and hanging... You can even add a little bling or pearls from the Pretties Kit...that would be lovely!

Inspirational Weddings

Inspirational Weddings is a book that I have put together for Brides to have a look at to be inspired.. It has wording for invites etc, pictures of Bononnieres, filler ideas, Matching stationary ideas... etc etc... I had to decorate the cover... Of course.. So it looks pretty.. Inside I have different coloured Tabs that I made with our Round Tab punch...


It all helps to make decisions...

Elisa's Elegant Invites

I think I am in love!!!! Every now and then you create something that is just beautiful!!! I believe with this card design I have we have hit the nail on the head!!!

I used Stampin' UP! Brushed Gold card stock and scored it so that it folds like a door...
I cut slits in the middle of each door to insert ribbon so that I can tie a bow to close the card..
I stamped with the border stamp from 'It's Maori Mate' Stamp set, and embossed it with gold embossing powder.
The Stamp-a- ma-jig was an invaluable tool to help me to get the design perfectly in line!!

I scanned the negative of the photo and blurred the background and made it Black and White.
I attached the invite and the photo underneath with a little bow kept in place with a gold brad.


Mass production.... They all look so NICE... It was hard to give them up!!!!! Lucky for Photos!!!

Elisa's Frangipani Wedding Invites

Another one of my Brides is getting married on the beach and she loves Frangipani's... She gave me her colour theme and I came up with these designs.... They could be used for anything really... Any one that loves Frangipani's...

We have changed the design totally... But these are some great samples!!! heheh

Cherish - Love - Scrappin'

I love Scrapping.. Only I just don't do enough.. so with that said this year I will be aiming to do much more!!! (Shameless plug) With our Paper Angels "Album in a Day" class.. well that is another way for others to Scrap some more too!!! ;) Yeah...

This is a lovely page that I did in a workshop recently.... Was really simple.. I think I am on a natural faze (colours) at the moment...


Oh yeah.... Eventually I will replace the photo... I drooped the ink pad when I was demonstrating... Opps!!!

Hera's Wedding Invites & Bonbonniere

I was able to design some lovely invites with a Beautiful "Bride to be"... I made a few examples for her to choose from and then once she had her photos done she was ready to make the final design decision...The 3 examples to choose from.... What will they be like???

Hera wanted to have the BEAUTIFUL photo to be the focus of the invite.. so we simplified the design heaps... And I found some Maori Art to put on the background of the vellum invite details so she could have some traditional homeland feel to it...

I love this photo!!! My girlfriend Nardia took it... She is a brilliant photographer.. She catches the inner beauty of people spectacularly!!! Take a closer look at the photo.. It looks like the top of their heads and the pointed elbows form a HEART shape!!! So brilliant!!!
Check out Nardia's Web site..... Click Here

This is and idea for the Boxes.. to be decided soon..

We were thinking that you could also put people names on the Bonbonniere's... That way they serve a double purpose... As a gift and a place card...

Wedding Bonbonniere Boxes

I am venturing further in to the world of Weddings!!!! (I already make Costume Jewelery, Hair Accessories and arrange flower Bouquets/arrangements for weddings.. )
And Now I have been expanding my wedding involvements into making some lovely little boxes.. In this photo I have added some past projects that can serve as a wedding Bonbonniere... there are so many more to discover!!! Yeah

Liz's Rub-on Class

Liz had this wonderful class with some of her customers... I was privileged to be able to attend and learned a wonderful Origami box!!! And used the sewing machine on some paper crafts for the first time eva...
The Scallop circle is for a Scrapbook page.. and the white is supposed to have a photo on it.. I've not put one yet.. as you can see... hehe...I loved the box so much!!! And have experimented with it a lot.. The kids and I were making them at church and we did it with all different size paper. We made boxes, with in boxes with in boxes!!!I found some instructions from the
origami-instructions site.. Click on link
To make a lid all you have to do is make the square 1cm smaller (eg. lid 12x12cm... bottom 11x11cm).. There were heaps of other things on the net.. It was interesting searching Origami... I have heaps of new things to try out...

Birthday Bash Class

We had a wonderful time making 6 Beautiful cards and a expanding folder for organising the years Birthday cards into... It was a great project and not hard... or expensive to reproduce... We used the Bali Breeze Designer Series Paper from our Spring Mini Catalogue... So it is very bright and cheery!!!! (* if anyone would like the instructions let me know)
And we got great use out of our new Scallop Stamps and Punches (also from the Mini Catalogue)This is another colour example... This was the test one... and I smudged the tabs.. so don't look too close!!!

Because we are Brothers....

I wrote a poem ("Because we are Brothers") to go with some photos that I have taken of the boys over time... My boys love to look at the photo albums.. but sometimes getting the big one (12x12) out is a little awkward!!! So I decided to make a small one.. As I am a big believer in recycling I had saved all the card backing from our stamping technique booklets... And covered them with some of our Prints Designer Series papers... (Old Olive and Brilliant Blue.... My boys colours are blue and green...) As the pages are small I printed out the photos in black and white and half the size of an 4x6 photo... Most photo places will allow you to do this with digital prints these days... Sometimes that service costs extra money so if you want to be thrifty find someone with a photo editing program... (I think you can even get a free one on line... to do this job) and save both photos onto a 6x4 .jpg template and combine them to make one photo...


The kids absolutely love this album.. And are so proud of it.. It is going to School for 'show and tell'... It's easy for them to handle and you can leave it on display.... It would be a great pressie for someone too!!! But not this one.. blood Sweat and tears went into it!!! It is not finished yet.. I have to buy some more ribbon and I have heaps more verses (I shortened these verses a little form the original as they were wordy... Cutting out the individual words WAS a great idea.. but very 'Fussy La La!'..
It's great to bind it with the curtain rings as you can add and subtract pages as needed!!!..

Paper Angels Christmas Pressy

Liz gave this beautiful album for all the Paper Angels who came to the last meting of 2008.. She worked her fingers to the bone!!!! What a wonderful woman she is.... Thanks Liz... (and Leonie for your help) We love you...xxxooo

She must be the angel Godmother... hehehe... (I'm sure she would hate that title!)

Trip to Melbourne

I went to Melbourne last month... And the highlight for me was leaving the family at home... wahoo!!!
No seriously it was....
Well I guess the other highlight was going to see "Wicked" (the untold story of the witches for the Wizard of Oz) How amazing was it????
But besides all that I was able to spend some time with my sister... I looked at her scrap books and checked out her room.... It is so important to have a designated domain!!! Anyway I had to take a photo of her canvas on the wall.. They are a great idea... I like the idea of doing a word and making other words and then having a great meaningful phrase after them... Man my English is how you say suck at the moment... been too long since I have posted on here...

This is just for you KATE!!! Kate is another Paper Angel and follows my blog and has been complaining that I am not giving her enough inspirational stuff this year!!!! Well I got the photos... but have to find the time to blog.. so over the next few weeks I should have some stuff ... OK???? Man some people are pushy!!!!
But I love em'... Gets me motivated.... Kisses.. Muwah xxxooo

Co-ordinating Our Christmas

For my colour theme this year I was going for the peacock colours... I like to make sure that everything coordinates!!! So I went all out.. This was our Tree with all the pressies under it..

Then I had to make Tags to put on the pressies.. Like this one.... My writing is not too good but the tag is nice…. this is a resist technique on white glossy card stock... I used my Brayer and some Ink refills on a wet one... I will have to do a tute to help people understand how I did it... It's hard to explain…I made our Christmas cards 3 or so days before Christmas this year.. I really was not organised... It seemed that everything was happening all at once… Chaos all around!!! ... I only made a few this year... The snow in the background is our glue pen & Dazling Diamonds glitter sprinkled on.

On Christmas Eve (day) I went to Liz's.. Our kids played while we had some grown up time to 'Play'... we made some cute boxes to put under the tree for each family member... Of course I had to make it all match.. So this is what I came up with.. I really loved it.. It was very fussy-la-la... but so worth it.... I would never make lots of these for a wedding or something... arghh.. think the design would have to be much more simple to mass produce!!!

I use the new chunky glitter in the Spring Mini Catalogue.. And some rhinestone brads from the round ice collection in our 08-09 Idea Cat....

Kids Punching Out the Christmas Crafts

My boys were playing with me in the shed over Christmas.. I gave them the punches and they had a blast... then my 6 year old got really creative.... He looked at our tag punch and said that it looked like a body.. so he set out to make a person.... Then they coloured it in like Elves and Santa.. and a Snow man too!!!

I was so impressed that I thought that I would make a copy of one of the designs out of Stampin' UP! card stock etc... How cool is this??? Heheheh...

Organisation

I have been busy over the last month trying to organise my Shed along with Christmas etc!!... I've been trying to make all of my ribbons and punches and Stamp sets more accessible to me while I am crafting on my table...
Oh do I love my new organised... set up!!!!

I love Council Collections... When people in your neighbourhood put their discarded things out for the collection.... Talk about "one mans TRASH being another's TREASURE" I picked this 'home made' spice rack up from a Neighbours... How PERFECT is it??? My Punches sit on the lip and I can see them all perfectly!!! Yeah...

This is a great way to store all your Stampin' UP! stamp sets.... I can read them all and just lean back on my chair to grab another set.. (only don't tell my children I swing on the chair...hehehe else I will never be able to stop them from doing it!)

I picked up this peg board form a girlfriend who was redecorating her office... I thought ... well it may come in handy one day.. not sure what for but I will take it... So far it has been great I have made many display boards from it and now I have a great small ribbon storage area in a otherwise quite useless little space.... I bought some metal tray baskets from Bunnings Hardware and hung them on the board.. They lean forward so you can get to the ribbons really easily.... Oh yeah you can see my witches broom on the side too.. I parked it there for the day.. hehehe...I needed another space for ribbons as well... because I have my ribbons from Stampin' Up! and Ribbons from floral arranging and Ribbons coming out of the wahzoo!!! So on the side of the shelving unit I rigged up another slightly bigger storage unit.. This one has the 2 lengths of wood with long screws at intervals to hold each wire basket... The wire baskets were $3 or $4 each and the wood was $2.... so it is really affordable... Couple of zip ties makes the extension detachable if I decide it would be no longer needed in the future...

As you can see I need another row.. Next time I am at Bunnings I will purchase another tray...

With each improvement it makes creating so much more pleasurable!!! If you have any ideas please let me know or send me a photo of how you organise your creative space..... I would love to post it on here...

Happy New Year!!!! Jan 2009 Newsletter

To all of you!!!! I hope you had a Wonderful Christmas break and that you didn’t party too hard to as you saw the New Year in….
My goal is to be a little more organised this year… I will endeavor to have at least 4 newsletters this year… this being my
first!! Firstly I wanted to remind you all about January… Wahoo!!!!! Good stuff happening…

Sale-a-Bration!
1st January – 28th February 2009
Sale-A-Bration… Stampin Up’s favourite time of the year! During Sale-A-Bration customers, hostesses, and recruits can earn free stamp sets…and this year they are just beautiful. I’ve attached the brochure of free stamps (PDF format) for you to drool over!!! Heheheh.
The best part is… the sets offered during Sale-A-Bration are exclusive to this time only… they will NOT appear in upcoming catalogues, so that makes them very special, this is your only time ever to own one of the sets available, how exciting!

Customers can select any one of the sets in the Sale-A-Bration brochure free with a purchase of $100. There’s no limit – for every $100 you spend, you can choose a free Sale-A-Bration set! Don’t miss the opportunity to own these exclusive sets!
Hostesses, when you host a workshop of at least $600, you will receive a free Sale-A-Bration set in addition to the already generous hostess benefits! Ask me to book a date in for you to invite some friends around to your place, to make a card or scrap page, and take advantage of this great time of year with Stampin Up and Sale-A-Brate!
Recruits, join Stampin Up during this promotional period and you will earn yourself FREE any stamp set of your choice up to the value of $79.95 from the 2008-2009 Idea Book & Catalogue.

What a great time to become a demonstrator, or simply to take advantage for yourself of Stampin Up’s great products at a discounted price! Please ask me if you would like to know more.

Ok Time to announce the Workshops that I have planed so far for 2009!!!
But be sure to keep popping back here just in case I Plan more activities and neglect to inform everyone..… Or ring me… or email me… If there is something that you would love to learn let me know and I will plan a class around YOU!!

Sat …. 31st January …1pm…. Birthday Bash. We will be making 6 cards and a Lovely paper bag organiser to file all your Years Birthday cards in… Say it With Scallops stamp set (pg 16 in Summer Mini Catalogue$31.95) will be included in the price of the class. As well as all the Card and paper bag file instructions…. so you can go home and mass produce the years birthday cards and have a great time making presents for Christmas this year with the File for your friends… So you will all be prepared and organised!! (price to be finalised approx $40 to $45ish)
Sat… 7th March first session …. Techniques class Come along and learn some techniques… we will be making little ring bound reference cards to help you remember the techniques.. I will offer this one 3 times next year and each time we will be doing 10 reference cards.. so by the end of the year you will have 30 cards to jog your memory and instruct you how to use these skills and techniques you learn…
Sat… 23rd May 2nd Session …. Techniques class (refer above…)
Sat….18th July….Christmas in July… It just wouldn’t be right without the Christmas in July….
Sat… 5th September 3rd Session …. Techniques class

I have so many others being formed in my mind!!! It’s all a little Crazy!!!

October November… register your interest in our BIG Paper Angels Christmas Card Workshop!!!!
If you missed attending our fabulous Christmas Card work shop.. get in early next year and register your interest… When we receive the new 09-10 Ideas Catalogue we will be selecting the Christmas set right away and we will be letting you know which set so that you can reserve purchasing it till the Christmas Workshop… Great idea hey???

As you may know in 2009 I will be attempting to make my own U Tube tutorials… My plan is to have them out there for you to access…I’ll post links on this Blog … And if you would like to have a disk so you don’t have to download them every time you want to refer back to them I will be making some available for purchase… on the disk will also be Printable instructions… So if you would like to have a hard copy that option will be available too. I will be doing short “tips” and “how to” instructions…
(I filmed my first demo tute last month.. and I think it went well now I just have to learn how to edit it and post it on U Tube… and to link it on here!!! ;)

Please Take Care and be safe!!! Call me to register your interest in this years classes… Looking forward to hearing from you!!!

Love Ursula

Chocky Purse... & Raindear Candy Cane

I thought this was a great idea...I searched everywhere for a rectangular individually wrapped chocolate!!! It was a labor of love!!! but eventually Aldies came to the rescue for Christmas... yeah!!!....

So it was made with a 11.5cm x 4.25cm strip of cardboard... then I scored it at 2.5, 2, 2.5, and 2cm intervals... punched holes in the top and tied a ribbon through... then i could slip the chockie in... It fitted really nicely... I wanted to give a candy cane with them and I discovered that there was enough room to add my cute Reindeer Candy Canes.... yeah.. how perfect!!! I mass produced these to give to all our Paper Angels Team that came to our last 2008 meeting of the year...

Merry Christmas!!!

(Perhaps this will be the boys pressie for their friends next year!!! If I can find the chockies again!!!)

Bag-A-Lope...

Made with an envelope.. Love these ones.. they make wrapping your pressies so personal!!! And now that I have the scallop punch.. watch out world!!! Love this tool!!!

It really is nice to personalise the wrapping... No one will ever get a pressie like this... So simple.. you can bang one of these out in about 5 to 10 mins... and how effective is it???

I love it... Dressed for success!!! let's hope the inside is as impressive as the outside!!! heheh

Kids Chrissy Cards

The boys wanted to make some Christmas cards to give to their friends with a candy cane this year... so we modified a design that Liz made a little while ago so it fitted with the little candy canes we bought....

So easy!!! The boys could do it without any trouble... I did have to stick them on.... as that part was a little fiddly... We did it as a family project... because we figured that doing 25 each the boys would lose interest... They wrote on the back of them their friends names and signed them...

The Challenge..... To make jewellery out of Stampin' Up! Products... I'll take it!!!!!!!

Yes it was given to me a month or so ago... And I am sad to report that I have not been prompt in rising to the challenge... However... I went to Liz's during this week and she had been over to her friend who makes beads.. (very talented lady!!! ^-^ I so want to make stuff with her!!!) Anyway Liz told her of her Challenge and Olgar made a WONDERFUL necklace and lovely key ring... I told Liz that I was inspired and felt that I should whip my BUTT into shape by meeting the challenge... so I would go home and make a necklace of my own!!!

And that I did.. Like a woman possessed!!!! I stayed up till 1am in the morning.... I got blisters from beading.. I wrapped all the beads!!! and made them all individual... then I used the Designer Label punch on some small Black and White photos I had of my 2 boys and punched out some OHT to cover and protect the photos.. then I glued the Hodge Podge together (using 5 min Araldite.... If you try this DO NOT use superglue... it's vapers will cloud the metal and the plastic!!!) and joined it with a jump ring to the chain on the necklace.... Can you believe it looks sooooooooo good!!! I love it!!! And I have been wanting to make a black and white necklace for sooo long!!! I wore it to the Craft Showcase on the weekend and I got so many compliments.. Quite a few ladies who knew about Stampin' UP! commented on it too.. and thought it was such a lovely idea... Yeah again for Liz... Challenges.. and Inspiration... AND GREAT FRIENDS!!!

(This photo is not the best... I will take another when the sun is shining again.. come back in a couple of days to check on it)

Now you really know you are obsessed with stamping when you start wearing your paper crafts!!! hehehe...

One side has Ethan-----------------------and the other has Izra