Wednesday 20 November 2013

European Convention 2013!!!


Wooohhhhooooo! I'm off to Manchester tomorrow for our annual Stampin' Up! Convention!

I'll be back on Sunday. 

Anyone purchasing Class Instructions will need to wait until after Sunday for me to email them out :o)

Thank you!


Friday 15 November 2013

Envelope Punch Board - Party Gifts



Have you seen the Envelope Punch Board yet? This is an AMAZING product! You can, of course, create all sizes of envelopes with it - quickly and easily. You can also make liners for your envelopes. BUT it does so much more too :o)


I did a Party on Wednesday night for my fabulous hostess Hannah. I always bring a little gift as a Thank You. 

I used the Envelope Punch Board to create these Crackers. The smaller one was for my Hostess and contained some of our lovely Dazzling Details glitter glue.

The larger one was the Door Prize - won by the lovely Emma :o) This one contained five yummy Ferrero Rocher choccies.

You can create these crackers in almost any size you need - you are only limited by your paper size. 

The board only costs £17.95 - an absolute bargain!

Have a look at this short video from Stampin' Up! to see how easily you can create envelopes with this board.




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Supplies


Thursday 14 November 2013

More ........ Team Training Day Projects


This was another of the projects I designed for my Team at my training day at the end of September. This project is basically the same as the one I did at my Hostess Appreciation Event the week before - just using different products. You can see the details HERE






I used one of the images from the Best Of Christmas stamp set (details in right hand sidebar) and the papers from the Season Of Style DSP pack. 





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Supplies


Sunday 3 November 2013

Playing With Plastic!


Several weeks ago I was asked if I would review a product called ThermoMorph. It sounded interesting, so I agreed :o)

I was sent a huge 500g pot to play with. This was on sale at the time for £19.95 - but I've now noticed that it's only £15.95!! - and you get free postage - An amazing bargain! This pot would last such a long time when used for creating paper crafting embellishments.

You can purchase this product from Amazon and can find the full details HERE.

You can also read more about this product HERE.

ThermoMorph is a mouldable plastic. It comes as little plastic pellets. You add a spoonfull or two to a pot containing hot (boiled) water. Wait for it to go clear and clump together, then hook it out and mould it as you wish.

Because you are using hot water, I wouldn't let small children use it. 

The product is clean, quick and simple to use. It's only workable for a few minutes once removed from the water. BUT you can pop it back into the water to re-soften it again and further work it. You can repeat this process as many times as you like too, which is a great feature as it means you don't have to waste any of it. If you don't like what you've created - you can go again :o)


I used the Buttons & Blossoms Simply Pressed Clay Moulds from Stampin' Up! to shape the ThermoMorph with. 

I loved the results I got with this. You just need to separate a small piece of the plastic from your clump and press it into the mould. AND - it only takes about a minute to harden. So can be removed quickly and easily.

This makes creating the buttons really simple - you don't have to put the mould into the freezer to set it. However, it's advisable to have a Pricking Tool at hand once the buttons are removed. You can then use this immediately to 'poke' through the button holes. If you leave the buttons to fully harden, this is a little harder to do.


I found that you could also add Glitter to the plastic. I removed the clump from the water and then just dipped a finger into Dazzling Diamonds Glitter and worked this into the plastic before setting it into the moulds.


You can also colour the ThermoMorph. I did this using Stampin' Up!'s reinkers.

I stretched out the plastic with my fingers and added two drops of reinker to the centre. I then 'folded' it into the plastic and worked it until it started going too hard to work further. I dropped it back into the hot water to soften and just repeated the process until I got an even colour. I only used the two drops, I didn't need to add any more. 

I can't remember which colour I used while creating the above embellishments - it may have been Primrose Petals :o)


You can also colour the embellishments after they have been moulded. I used the white plastic this time to mould the flower, then mixed a couple of drops of Tangerine Tango reinker with some Crystal Effects. I then painted this all over the flower. I love the effect you get with this technique - the liquid pools into the crevices and adds more dimension :o)





All the above samples were created by mixing a couple of drops of Rich Razzleberry reinker with the ThermoMorph. I also added some Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to a few of them.

The embellishments created are beautifully detailed and would be very hard wearing. I created a sweet little hair slide using one of them together with some of our Vanilla Seam Binding.


Finally, another little experiment. I didn't have much success in stamping into the plastic, because it hardened to quickly for me. However, I do know this is possible to do as I have seen samples elsewhere. 

I did have more success in pressing the warm plastic into our Embossing Folders. I used the Pretty Print Folder here. I cut the shape with a Cookie Cutter. After it had fully set, I covered it with Versamark ink and then sprinkled Gold and Silver Embossing Powder all over it before carefully using a Heat Tool to melt the powder.
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