Creativity

At crop and share the theme for March's challenge is creativity and so I put to good use these pictures that Charlie's nursery teacher gave me some years ago.  He's busy with his friend building.....  Thankfully Sue allowed us to stray slightly from the word creativity as the title for our page and so hence 'creative little minds' was born.  She also set us another challenge to 'doodle' on a project and I decided that it went well with this layout with building blocks and doodling. 

I love the in colours of 2012-2014 including summer starfruit, raspberry ripple, gumball green, midnight muse and primrose petals and they are perfect for making building block shapes with punches various.  The satin ribbons in these colours are fab too as they are really tactile and luxurious.  A little bit of gel pen added more doodles and the broadsheet alphabet is just right for this project. 

If you'd like to have a go at scrapbooking my new club starts on Thursday 16 May at 7.30pm.  It costs £15 and includes supplies for a double page layout, refreshments and the use of punches, dies etc.  Not only that it's a great way to learn some techniques, make new friends and book a slot to scrapbook in your diary.  Let me know if you'd like to join in or need more information.

Happy Scrappin' Zx

Stampin' Up! gifts for France

Olivia left at 0130 on Friday morning to travel Cahors on her french exchange trip.  She wanted to take gifts for her new penfriend Amandine and her parents and so I promised I would make some for her.  The gifts included this rather nicely wrapped (if I say so myself) cookie press.  I'm just adoring the new Comfort Cafe designer series papers which I used to wrap all the gifts. 

You'll also see that I stamped on the new cotton ribbon available from the Stampin' Up! Autumn/ Winter catalogue.  I stamped on it with the Border Banter stamp set using cajun craze ink.  A vintage tag from the retired stock of last year and a new brushed bronze designer button added just enough vvv voom!

On the right is a gift for Amandine's father.  Men aren't easy to buy for at the best of times and when you don't know the person even harder.  I didn't feel we could send chocolates or wine to France...... and so this neat package contains a tin of mints labelled 'THE BOSS'. 

Amandine and her mum were much easier to make for...  I used the sparkly vintage faceted buttons to make a button bracelet for Beattrice and Olivia chose the colours that she thought Amandine would like for her button bracelet.  I cased Jenni Pauli's idea for decorating empty button boxes as the gift wrap for these.

I believe the gifts were well received and by all accounts Olivia is having a wonderful time.  She's spent the first weekend with the family and today went into the french school to meet her english school friends and those of Amandine, before visiting some historical venues in the city of Cahors. 

I'll share one more gift with you tomorrow. 

Have a great evening Zx

Supplies

Stamps - broadsheet alphabet, mixed bunch, tiny tags, border banter

inks - cajun craze, midnight muse

card stock - whisper white, midnight muse, summer starfruit, soft suede, vellum

accessories - blossom punch, labels framelit dies, designer buttons, large and small pearls, crumb cake seam binding, dimensionals, cotton ribbon

More Monogram

stampin up demonstrator zoe tant

As a child I was always disappointed to discover that 'Z' or 'Zoe' didn't feature in the manufacture of mugs, keyrings or necklaces with initials or names.  As I've matured (some would not agree!) I've got less disappointed, partly through a lesser desire to have a mug or whatever with my name on, but also when the moment does take me Zoë is a more popular name these days and there are other names starting with Z.  However that said I thought I'd give the Less is More challenge another go and use my initial for some clean and simple thank you notes.

Baroque Motives is such an adaptable stamp set with this lovely flourish and it looks fab in basic blace with a few rhinestone accents.  The initial is from Broadsheet Alphabet which is great for projects like this because each letter has it's own special design and although different to the other letters in the set it goes.....!  I've also matted the 'z' onto basic black and whisper white cardstock to add definition to the monogram.

Simple elegance exudes with a finishing touch of basic black satin ribbon and rhinestones on the monogram block.

Have a great day!

Hugs Zx