Thursday 31 December 2009

Class of 2009!!!

I have seen this done on a few blogs and thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the Stampin Up cards I have made this year!!! Gosh I have been sat here for over an hour doing this post!!!!!
I have picked a card for every month this year to show you my "Class of 2009"!!!!
Its interesting how the styles do vary!!
January - Mr & Mrs Stamp set
February - A Rose is a Rose
March - A Rose is a Rose



April - Simply Said



May - All in the Family



June - Tart and Tangy




July - Wild ABout You



August - A Rose is a Rose


September - Blooming with BEauty




October - Flight of the Butterfly


November - Greenhouse Garden


December - Best Wishes and More


I find it really interesting that I have chosen A Rose is a Rose 3 times!!! Some months were harder to choose and I could have picked a couple of cards that I particularly liked!!
Let me know which one of the 12 is your favourite!
Well this is my last post for 2009 - What a year it has been for me, a fantastic year and I hope 2010 continues to be the same. Here are some of my highlights of the year!
  • Becoming an Aunty to my gorgeous Lucas
  • Being awarded with so many awards at Stampin Up convention - in particular Number 2 Demo of the Year and top Recruiter.
  • Winning the Strictly Come Dancing trophy at my theatre company event
  • Achieving the Monaco incentive trip for next June with Stampin Up!
  • My Wedding business being in the top 3 finalists in the Wedding Ideas magazine annual awards (just found this out last night!!!!!!)

So my final thoughts and words of 2009 are of thanks!!! Thanks to my blog readers, thanks to my lovely customers and Stampers 10 members who support me month after month, thanks to my wonderful team of girls - Julie's Jems, thanks to my fellow SU demonstrators who have become good friends and i want to thank my lovely family - my fantastic husband Robin (who puts up with a lot!!) and my gorgeous boys Ross and Evan!!!!

Have a happy and safe New Years Eve and hears to a fantastic 2010!

Jules xxx

Wednesday 30 December 2009

The Magic of Christmas

Happy Wednesday to you. Gosh I dont seem to know what day of the week it is at the moment, have to keep checking!!!! Due to illness I have a lack of cards to show but I do have some Chrimbo photos before we all got ill!!!

Sorry for the length of the post today!

Here is our front garden on Christmas eve, very snowy! Do you like the gap in the fence!! That was where the skip went when we were have the conservatoire done!!


I had to show you a couple of photos of Evan on Christmas morning. He is 7 now and this year he was the most excited he has ever been. His face when opening his presents is so expressive, I am so glad I managed to capture it on camera, you can almost hear the gasps!!!!!! I am sure he is going to be on stage with a face like that, he has good singing voice too!


GASP!



And he loved his Club Penguin puffle, cuddled it straight away, bless!




On Christmas Eve, Robin and boys madea this snowman and had a snowball fight. This was taken on Boxing Day so he wasnt at his peak on this photo but it was lovely to look out of the window on Christmas Day and see a lovely snowman at the bottom of your garden!




We all went sledging on Boxing Day to a local park. I normally dont like going as I hate getting wet and cold. I love the sledging part but hate coming home and feeling cold etc..... But I made a big effort and we had a fab time! Ross decided to take his body board with him to see if it worked as well as a sledge - it didnt!!!




There were only 2 other people here, was lovely!




Off he goes!



Evan loved the sledge!!




Finally I wanted to finish with this photo I took of Evan that I am really proud of! I think its a lovely photo, I laugh at all the gaps in his teeth at the moment, but it really sums him up!!



Sorry for no cards today, hope you have enjoyed my photos instead!


Jules xx

Tuesday 29 December 2009

Good Neighbours Easel Card - with tutorial!

Good morning! Gosh yesterday was a nightmare! Boys were better but Robin and I were quite bad during afternoon and then in evening! We seem to be a bit better this morning!


I managed to do this before I felt so ill!!! A couple of my blog readers have asked for an Easel Card tutorial. There are lots of easel cards out there at the moment and I think they are a lovely design. They can be done as an A6 size or I prefer to do square ones. This one is a small square one

Ok start with a piece of card 4" x 8" and then score across the long side ar 4" and 6". You cannot see the score lines on the photo but at least it shows you which way your card should be!

You then need to fold the cardstock so it looks like this. Make sure you give the creases a really good fold with a bone folder or such like.

For my main image I have taken a piece of Very Vanilla card which is 3.5" square and for the matt at the back a piece of Really Rust card 3.75" square. I have then colured my image which is from the Sale a Bration set you can earn for free during Jan and Feb!! See above post for details!

I then stick the image to the matt and then stick onto my card base! VERY IMPORTANT POINT HERE, MAKE SURE YOU ONLY PUT TAPE HALF WAY UP THE BACK OF THE REALLY RUST CARD AS THE TOP HALF SHOWS!

I then took a piece of matching Designed Paper, this one is from the SPiced Cider papers, the size was 4" x 2" and I scallop the edge of it with my Scallop Edge punch and added some ribbon on the top

To keep the top part in place you can use a number of things, brads, flowers, ribbon in a bow or knot etc.... I have chosen to punch a sentiment out with my Oval punches to hold it in place.


And here is the finished card! I love this little house set, had fun doing some watercolouring wth this one today, I used my Close to Cocoa inkpads to colour the houses in.
If you would like to earn this set for free then contact me to place and order of £45 and it can be yours!!!!
Hope you enjoyed the little tutorial
Jules xx

Monday 28 December 2009

Handmade wrapping!

Good morning!

Well what a day it was yesterday!! At 3am on Sunday morning Evan was up being sick and then Ross started a few hours later! Its been a hard few hours but today they seem a lot better! We dont know what it was, whether we have eaten anything bad or it was a bug! Either way I hate seeing them poorly!

Onto something crafty! I made ths wrapping paper for my Nephew's christmas presenets. I love the little Gingerbread man in the Hung up on the Holidays stamp set so decided to use this!

I just used standard brown parcel paper and Creamy Caramel for the Gingerbread men and Real Red for the Candy Canes. We all made a tag (well me and the boys did!)
Here is mine!

Here is Evan's with his super cute writing!


And there is Ross's!

My sister loved the wrapping paper and took the tags off to keep!
Here is the lovely little fella in his Elf costume with Evan on Christmas morning. We popped over to my sisters house as the boys were desperate to see him!

And here they all are together

Well the poorly boys seem a lot better today so we may brave the shops.
Jules x



Saturday 26 December 2009

Card for Terri

Happy Boxng Day everyone, I hope you all had the most fabulous day yesterday! We all had a really fantastic day! Got off to a shaky start when Rockband for the Wii wouldnt work and Robin was getting very cross with it!!! Its still not working, will have to see if we can replace it!
We had lunch in the new conservatoire with my Mum and Dad and it was truly lovely, my Mum loves the space and we spent most of the day in there!!!
Anyway onto a card. This is for one of my downline, the lovely Terri. Her lovely hubby Robert sometimes orders cards off me to send to Terri! I am hoping I am safe to post it now seeing as its Boxing Day!

The papers are from MErry Moments and the stamp set is the matching Tree Trimmings set. Again I have used my Schoolbook Serif Alphabet. how many times I have used this!!!!

I have used the Eyelet border punch on the top layer and also on the bottom layer.


You cannot see very well but I used a mini message from my stash in the oval punch outs.
I hope you liked the card Terri!
Have a great Boxing Day everyone!
Jules xx

Friday 25 December 2009

Merry Christmas to you all!

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!!!!!

We had a lot of snow overnight on Wednesday and this is our garden on Christmas Eve


The boys went out to play! "Dont throw snowballs at Mum's new conservatoire please Evan!"


Evan after he threw a snowball at my new conservatoire!!! Naughty boy!



Ross being Ross - larking about!!!

Awww, we love each other really!

I love this photo, if only it werent for the orange comedy hat!

Evan getting himself into more trouble!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas. We had a lovely Christmas Eve, snuggled on sofa watching Santa Clause 3 in the morning and then visit from realtives in afternoon and the boys (+Robin) had a huge impromptu snowball fight with the neighbours in the afternoon!!!
Jules xx

Thursday 24 December 2009

More gift card holders!

I'm sorry but its more Gift voucher holders today I am afraid. These are special ones as they are Gift vouchers for my customers with a voucher in for Stampin Up goodies from me!
I have gone quite bright again with the Pink Passion but also done one in Real Red to be more traditional! Which do you prefer???

I have again used the snowflake from Best Wishes and More and the gift tag stamp from Tags for All.


The word window punch is used to slot the ribbon through, Gosh I love this wide striped ribbon!!! I hope the lucky recipients like their pressies!



We have had so much snow last night, I am going to take photos later on! Dont think the boys have ever seen this much snow before!


Bye for now

Jules x

Wednesday 23 December 2009

GIft card holders

We are sending a lot of Gift cards as pressies this year, just makes things easier plus people can buy something they really want!
I made these little holders yesterday afternoon using scraps of card and ribbon from my stash.
The first ones are for my nieces so I went with a hot pink number and stamped the snowflake from Best Wishes and More in black. I really like this snowflake from this set, its a set I should use a lot more!
The tage on the front is from Tags for All, again a very useful set you will use year after year. You cannot see very well but I have put some adhesive gems on the tree for a bit of sparkle!

The next set are for my sister and her husband (Debenhams and I tunes vouchers!! LOL) The card is from my wedding stash as is the ribbon, I wanted to go for a more sophisticated feel with these ones!


I love how they have turned out

Still very snowy and icy here, got pressies to wrap and house to clean today so I must dash!
Jules
x