Chocs Away!

You may know that I've decided to make a lot of my gifts this year, I mentioned it a few weeks back when I showed my corn relish jars.  Well, my mum loves white chocolate, so I've made these individual little bars of white chocolate with almonds and dried fruit in them too.  I'm especially pleased with the label, which I designed on the computer and printed out.  (I say "designed" but I really can't take much of the credit!  The Santa postage stamp came from Vintage Holiday Crafts and the background was a free Shabby Princess fall design that I colourised red and rescaled.)

I plan to make more of these, with different chocolate and different fillings.  I'll change the colour of the checked paper and use a different stamp on each one, so watch this space! :)

Edit to add:

After posting this, I got to thinking about how I might package these up to make a nice gift.  I took an OHP transparency and cut it to size then folded it on my scoring board to make a plastic sleeve like the ones you often see in stores on this kind of item.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! :)

Seeing Stars!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Stars". I'm a big fan of the Retro Grunge pad, and this star paper is one of my favorite designs from that stack.  It makes a great cover for this pocket journal, don'tcha think? :).

I finished it off with some stamped detail in the central recessed panel and an Idea-ology tassel chain.  This is all ready now to become a stocking filler for someone! :)

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Just the ticket!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "tickets". I really love the vintage photos that feature in Tim Holtz's Lost and Found paper stack, so used some of them on this card.

I also tried the versamark shabby resist technique on two of the panels.  I stamped the ornate border with clear versamark ink and dried it with my heat gun.  I then applied distress ink over the top of it, and it gave a white resisit where the image had been stamped.  More subtle than regular stamp-emboss resist techniques, but very effective!  Really great to be able to use the ticket paper in two different scales on the same card too, I love how it looks.  Plus I got busy with the sewing machine, I think I threw everything at this card! lol


Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Women Only!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Women only". I've made this card using a female design from a female designer - Wendy Vecchi!  I've got a dodgy knee right now, so this is just a short post, hopefully back to normal soon!


Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Recycling with Relish!

This weeks theme on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Recycle/Upcycle". I'm making a lot of my gifts this holiday season, so I've been scavenging for boxes I can recycle as gift packaging.  This one started out as the box that my mobile phone came in, you can see it in the pic below!


I've been making caramelised onion marmalade and corn and pepper relish, and this box is perfectly sized to hold 3 of the jars.  I wish I had more than just this one!  I used a sheet of Tim Holtz's seasonal cardstock to cover the outer sleeve and then made a kraft tag to go with it using the Santa and holly from the Holiday Wishes stamp set.  Throw in a few baubles, some holly leaves and a bit of gingham and string and we're all done! :)


Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

ATG - I'm stuck on you!

You know how sometimes, when something just works exactly like it should, you can only sit and marvel at it?  I'm like that with ATG guns, they're like the adhesive applicator that I've waited all my life for, lol  I've a bit of a "thing" about adhesive, it's like everything I make has to be able to bear the weight of a grown person hanging from the bottom of a plane or something - not rational, but I like a strong bond, what can I tell you? 

I've had one of their yellow ATGs for a while, using the 12mm tape in it, and it's always the thing I reach for first when I need a good strong bond on something, plus no waiting for glue to dry!   Prior to that, I'd spent a fortune on disposable tape applicators, which often didn't even stick that well!

Sometimes the 12mm can be a bit too wide for smaller elements I'm using on a card or project, so I've had it in mind for a while to get hold of one of the 6mm (1/4 inch) applicators.  Scotch are doing a promotion on them at the moment, just £9.99 for an pink applicator and two rolls of 6mm acid-free tape which is half price, and an absolute bargain (and I know how much most of you like pink too, lol)!  Personally, I'm not a scrapbooker, so acid-free isn't an issue for me, but I know many of you out there need acid-free adhesive to ensure the preservation of your valuable photos.  Even better, they're donating $1.20 for each kit sold to the Susan G Komen cancer charity, so what are you waiting for? :)  You can find their offer here.