Meet Nibbles and Pip

29 September 2018

FF@F'o'clock'ish, Sept28th, 2018

Fabulous Fridays @ Five'o'Clock'ishHeaderJpeg

Welcome back everyone, my goodness, seems like for ever since I got one of these posts scheduled and done before it's actual due time.


This is a quick and simple Christmas card you can make using Whisper White Note cards, washi tape, ribbon and one or two stamp sets depending on your likes.

This card, once I'd worked out what I was going to do, wouldn't have taken me much longer than about 10 to 15 minutes to make.  Gather your items and away you go. I'd rate this as fairly easy.  Plus, got so much washi tape and want to use it up so you can justify buying more?  Well decorate your envelopes, the insides of your cards.  Hide where the edges of your ribbons fold over to the inside of your card. Check out the photos below. I've used water colour pencils to colour that cute little elf too.

closeupFinishedVHampson2018

finishedSept28th2018Inside1

finishedSept28th2018a

finishedSept28th2018b

I have adhered the cut pieces of ribbon using tear & tape, folding them over to the inside of the card. I used the red & white polka dot washi tape to put a border on the inside of the card so it covered both ends, top and bottom, of the cut ribbon.  I did a repeat stamp of the gift boxes using granny apple green ink and the same stamp. Do this before you adhere the ribbon, makes it a lot easier.  My sentiment, stamped in Poppy Parade, is from the Misteltoe Season stamp set.  You could hand cut that little stamped elf out if you like fussy cutting.  Or you can purchase the stamp set and matching framelits in a bundle and save 10%. I hand cut mine because I only needed a few of that little elf for the projects I've done this year.

NOTE: Did you know, using the framelits on the matching Designer series paper called Santa's Workshop (page 19 in the holiday catalogue) will cut them out too!

Til next time,


happy stamping, colouring & creating!






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20 September 2018

Thursday 21st Sept2017, throwback to ...

... a Christmas past, 2014 no less!


Remember when I made this card in a box?  No?  It was for Christmas 2014 and you know what? I still love making this type of card, not just for Christmas but for any occasion where something just that bit more special and elaborate is called for.

Here it is flattened down to fit in a standard Australian card sized envelope.

closedflattendcardVHSept20th2018final

PLEASE NOTE: the materials used for these projects have been retired but you can use many others that are in the current annual and/or holiday catalogues, see the product links at the bottom of this post for suggestions.  I used Blendabilities back then. They are now called Stampin Blends, check out my online store! 

I am copying and pasting much of  this because I know many may not have seen the blog post  when it was on my previous Stampin Up blog ( wirgie101.stampinup.net only started in March 2018. This little beauty was made for a Christmas promotion in 2014.




Here are my instructions for creating this style of card. NOTE: This is a PDF document. It will only be available for 7 (seven) days from when this post goes live. 

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xokw5napfe9loy6/Updated2018CardinAbox%20RectangleOct2014PDFdoc.pdf?dl=0 




And here is the finished Christmas project I made in 2014 . Below it are some photos of others I have made over the years.

ChristmasCardInABoxVHSept20th2018Finished




PoolPartyCoastalCabanaSilverWedding2014

The above was for a friend who was going to a wedding







GwensMum2014

The above was for a friend to give her elderly mum who loves  orange!







 

Image1

And this one above was a special order for someone turning 50 who loves holden cars. I sourced the photos and printed them myself, I've used some chipboard & sentiments from my stash with current at the time patterned paper.  The Holden car photos were all models built the year that special someone was born! 







 

Hope you find these instructions easy to follow, remember I'm in Australia so I work mostly in metric


til next time,


happy stamping, colouring & creating! 






Below are some suggested current products you could use.


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17 September 2018

Bit of this and a bit of that....

A quick post to let you know I've been doing some reshuffling on this blog.  Learning more about how to use Wordpress as best I can. It's been an on and off learning curve for over a year. I've moved a few things around, found how to get some things to show up better (I hope) and generally make this a bit more organized. Currently this is a free blog. We shall see what else I learn as I distract myself from dwelling on up and coming appointments I have to take my Daddy too.

FYI, those that have seen my posts lately on my Facebook business page will know that my father's tests came back 100% yup, lung cancer.  It's thrown me into a spin so I'm trying to regroup so to speak and prepare for what ever the biopsies and such show. Then, what ever the treatments are and all that goes with this kind of diagnosis.

It's going to be busy because I've so many creative ideas I want to share with you but I have to put my family and my own health first. Can't look after others or share my creativity if I'm not looking after myself too.

So I'll leave you with a follow on from my post about Pantone on a recent FF@F post

Two colours that appeared in my newsletter and are soooooo like current Stampin up colours it's amazing. Plus we have been talking about what's green and what's blue withing my Crazy Crafter's team/group page recently.

ColoursForSpringSummer2018_2019

These colours are so much like some of our current colours, see the product link below.

until next time,


happy stamping, colouring & creating!


Product List




















12 September 2018

What's up buttercup? 12Sept2018

This is another personal, detailed post. 


I'm rambling a lot lately.


I'm writing this so people know I'm not ignoring them. I am just dealing with some major cr@p in my little corner of the world.  So it goes like this....(eek there's a song with those words, Moves like Jagger LOL)

My father got the confirmation yesterday 11th September, that yes he 100% does have lung cancer.  Now he said to me when I was taking him for the all day test (I drove about 400ks in that short 3 days up there) that it's to see if he has lung cancer. I knew that, you don't work for Australia's Medicare and department of human services and not pick up some medical jargon over the years.  Funny that it was 11 September yesterday. Daddy said hmmm another date in the brain, 9/11 as the Americans would say.  What an interesting thought because that's the date 21 yrs ago Princess Diana was in that horrible car crash .  He did make me laugh when he said "bloody hell, look at the date I get my results, 9/11"  Yes we did laugh but we knew deep down what was going to be found.

I live a few hundred ks drive away from my father these days. I'm in the north western suburbs almost at the start of the M7 motorway or better still that link between where the M7 starts and the M2 begins. My parents home use to be walking distance down the road but their home along with over 110 others is where there is now a double bus lane, cycle path and much wider Sunnyholt Rd. But the gum trees from their front yard are still standing LOL. They moved to a little town up on the central coast called Chain Valley Bay North and it doesn't have a lot of public transport nor any shops.

I am blessed when my only son, Ben, decided to move out of home, he moved up that way and he currently lives with his grandad technically but is in the process of getting engaged, married and already has a 3yr old step son. We are very happy they have found each other. My son has stepped in and said I am not to worry about getting grandad to his appointments and that I'm not to drop everything to be up there because he knows I'm just not coping right now.

You see, he's been watching his beautiful partner watch her own father slowly being ravaged by motor neuron's disease and we are all waiting for the call. We nearly had it a few weeks ago, but they got him to the nearest hospital.  He wasn't going to make it to John Hunter in Newcastle, it was too far and he was drowning with fluids in his lungs.  He fought and he pulled back up a bit. But when I saw the twisted body his has become in such a short time, since February this year, I knew he's probably not going to see his daughter marry my son.  Just like my Mum has not go to see my son become the caring young man he is. And how his Kat's own Mum didn't get to see her beautiful son Aiden born. See she passed from breast cancer 3yrs ago and Kat held her hand during her last dying breaths. This is a strong woman my son is so head over heals in love with. She came out of the blue one day whilst he was dealing with a break up he had to make with his long time gf up there.  It all happens for a reason, we just don't know it til we look back.

I've already burnt out somewhat with just a couple of months of back and forth. My father and son know my hubby and I want to move south. We are living in an area that was once quiet and rather non threatening. Over the last 18 and a bit years we've gone from being able to have our front door open to not even being able to hear the phone or tv because the traffic, sirens, bad drivers, police chases amongst other things make our once quiet little hovel so noisy. It's gotten so bad that many in the area don't run outside anymore when someone looses it on the road and slams into the median strips/telegraph poles and such. We hear sirens 24/7, police chases, ambulances, fire engines. We've tried to make our own noise but then we don't know that some low lifes have been terrorising our area with theft from fronts of properties. Thank goodness for the neighbourhood watch eye facebook page so residents in our area can keep up with what's going on. Bless our police forces because that page is monitored by them and we are usually kept up to date.

So yes, currently with my sleepless restless, pain ridden, nights, I want to run away, curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out and have my Daddy say it's going to be alright. But I keep pulling my big girl pants on and talk with him on the phone as much as I can.  Writing all this down helps, gets the tears out. And God I know is there, He sends little messages by way of 'angels' on this earth. Laughter in the funniest places, posts from friends who I've never even met in real life. Quotes that pop up online, music that's playing on the radio, funny classic british comedy I stumble across.  I laugh and I cry. I cry laughing.  Such is this journey of life that I go through, kicking and screaming trying to still be so strong and independent.  I know there's worse off than me. And then there's those who don't give a rat's and fly through life never to answer to anything.

Thanks for reading if you got this far and if you are going through your own worries, know that there is a God and that you just have to be still and know that (Psalm 46:10)







 

11 September 2018

Tutu Tuesday's Tutorial-11Sept'18

Tutu Tuesday Tutorials!

Today's tutorial is kinda Christmasy but you could make these for any occasion through out your year.


I do not claim creation of this style of gift bag. I have taken my inspiration and measurements from Sam Hammond Donald, a fabulous demonstrator who resides in the UK. Sam inspired me to make these types of gift bags because let's face it, most of us paper crafters have so many gorgeous patterned papers that we 'hoard' them.  As my gorgeous SU manager, Kylie Burtucci says, "Love it, chop it!"   Well I've taken that one step further and I am not Loving it, chopping it, I'm "Loving it, folding it, gluing it" so to speak.

Here's one I created to use up retired patterned papers...


finishedsample1Oranges

I hope you like my version these gift bags that can be made from Stampin Up's gorgeous double sided designer series papers, or maybe any you have in your 'stash'.  As Christmas, shockingly, is creeping upon us again fast, once you master the steps, yup, you can whip up one of these gift bags pretty quickly.   So grab a cuppa and have a giggle as I um and ah my way through the 3 part videos, then see what I finished creating.

Part 1 ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ass_iK6Cbfo

Part 2 ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-iA3dw_BA8

Part  3 ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyFG6XrAsNo




Here are photos of the finished bag, with a tag I made for it too

finishedJoyousNoellBagcloseup

finishedJoyousNoellBag1

Below are two product lists, one for the Christmas bag, one for the tag I made to go on the bag.  To huge thanks to Sam Hammond, I love this type of bag and yes, you could do away with the bigger folded down piece at the top to make it deeper as well!

Til next time,


Happy stamping,


colouring & creating!






Bag Product List



























Tag Product List