Yvonne Hunt – Independent Stampin' Up Demonstator

Blinkin’ great. Terry and I are off to Bulgaria today for a week’s chill and the weather is meant to be cloudy, rain and lightening there and bloody 25 degrees here! Wish I was staying at home now so I could spend more time in Vonniesworld. Not motivated now and struggling to get outta bed, hence the update from my iPad, lol.

You do realise I’m gonna be updating my posts probably daily now as I’ll be bored stiff if I can’t sunbathe and read a few books. I’ll try not to bore you all too much, lol.

Tags: Personal

Oh I’ve been in crafting heaven all weekend at Michelle Last’s ReTREAT.   I arrived home about 7.30ish after a 4 hour drive to my wonderful family, who have actually missed me, yahoo.  Emma wanted to play frustration with me cos she was bored (that’s a board game lol), Matthew pranched around the house showing me his muscles (he’s 17 years old and thinks he’s God’s Gift, lol) and Terry, well what can I say… he just missed me.  But after chit chatting for about an hour, guess what I ended up doing?  Yep, you got it – crafting!  I just had to finish off my project when I got home and it’s all done and dusted,  I’m so chuffed I managed to come home with 4 finished projects.

Michelle and Marguarite put on a fantastic crafting weekend, I hold my hat off to them both cos it must have taken them ages to prepare and organised but it was well worth it.  The Hotel was lovely and relaxing, the ladies were extremely friendly and fun and the projects were fab.

I’m off to Bulgaria tomorrow so I may not get chance to get all my photos online but I’ll certainly try.  Here is one of my finished projects for you to check out.  It is a home decor picture – Home is Where the Heart Is…

We all made our own interpretation using different colours, chipboard, embellishments and sentiments.  They were all fabulous.

Tags: Chipboard, Craft Weekend, Home Decor, Michelle Last's Retreat, Picture Frame Art

I’ve had a lovely weekend and even though it is now Tuesday, and the week is already flying by, I’m still focused on getting through all my jobs and staying organised.

My weekend started on Friday as I took the day off work to do some ironing. I had that much to do, it was literally taking over the spare room. So I spent the whole day ironing and although I still haven’t finished I feel great because I only have one basket left to do. Terry my hubby was also off on Friday as his weekend of motor crossing in Whitby had been cancelled due to the rain and flooding, so he spent the day at home doing some jobs. Brilliant I had him doing all those bitty jobs that I have been waiting for, for months. One of those jobs was a picture that my friend Penny made and I loved it so much she gave it to me for sorting her blog out.

Finally it is hanging on my lounge wall where is should have been 9 months ago! If you want to see more of Penny’s work, visit her blog at pennywilliamsartist.co.uk

The piece is called Rock Face and I absolutely love it.

A closer look…

Saturday was a full day at the Stampin’ Up Regional Event in Leamington Spa that was fab and I got home about 7.30 to a homemade SpagBol made by my lovely domesticated (well trained) hubby. Then we watched Britain’s Got Talent and off to bed. Sunday we took the dogs for a long walk and checked out a craft fair at my local hotel, The Last Drop Village. There was some lovely stalls there and I think I will take part next year. My friend and her boys came around to watch the Manchester City match and after a stressful 90 minute game to then be elated within a further 3 mins was fantastic. We were all jumping for joy and screaming, such a laugh. After that, Sunday lunch, caught up with some other recorded programs such as HomeLand and then bath and bed – fab!

I have a really busy week this week as I’m off to Michelle Last’s Retreat on Friday till Sunday and then off to Bulgaria for a week on Monday, phewww – stop the roundabout I wanna get off.

See ya all soon.

Tags: Penny Williams Artist, Personal, Rock Face Oil Painting

I’m hooked! I absolutely love the ‘Less is More‘ blog and find myself excited now for the next challenge. This week the challenge is to use only One Layer and only 3 stamps. So off I went into my stash and came up with this.

I made another one and layered it on basic black card which I prefer but didn’t put this in the challenge as this would not conform to the rules of one layer. Hope you like it.

Tags: basic black ink, Basic phrases stamp set, daffodil delight card stock, Every Little Bit stamp set, Less is More, more mustard in, One Layer challenge, size C clear block

Ooh what an fab day I have had today, early start as I had a 2 hour drive to Warwick and didn’t get home until 7.30pm but wow so inspiring. I’ve also made some new friends and had a catch up with my Stampin’ Up Granny Jeanette, (lol) who moved down south a few months ago.

And guess what? I won a prize, yes me! It was the Sweet Shop designer series paper, pleated ribbon, scented embossing powder and jelly brads, how lucky am I, can’t wait to have a play with it? Usually I would go to the Leeds Regional Meeting as that is closest venue to where I live but typical of me I double booked myself (as I treated myself to The Retreat with Michelle Last next week, can’t wait!) and didn’t realise it was the same time as the Leeds event and not being one to miss anything I decided to go to the Warwickshire meeting instead. It was so nice to listen to some of the other successful Demonstrators in the UK who were all eager to shared their stories and experiences with us.

I’ve just had a look at my swaps, which is always the best bit of our Stampin’ Up get togethers and they are great. I thought I would share my swaps with you, I received some really positive feedback about them. Again I was up against it, (brain freeze, as I’ve been crafting all week). We were asked to used something from the current catalogue, which is the new Summer Mini (page 23), I decided to use the Love & Laughter stamp set that I’ve had a couple of weeks but not used until now, as well as some card stock that I haven’t used yet, which was the natural ivory and vellum card stock.

I used the rectangle Designer Frames embossing folder for the Big Shot and quite a few of the Demos today asked me how I used it on the Vellum card stock without creasing it. Perhaps I was just lucky but I used my standard sandwich and voila. The centre rectangle was almost cut out and I just finished it off with my craft knife, I would have loved to have embossed the cake for a bit more bling but having made 65 swaps I didn’t want to chance it in case I run out of time, and anyway swaps are there to be a resource for us to improve or copy. They are a great starting point. Also not wanting to waste anything (I can’t bear to throw anything away), I used the discarded rectangle piece which was the perfect size for one of the stamps and I attached this into the card for a bit of extra something.

Hope you like them?

As well as the natural ivory and vellum card stock, I used soft suede ink, gold embossing powder, Big Shop Designer Frames embossing folder, love & laughter stamp set, tiny tags (which you can’t really see her but I used the Mr & Mrs stamp and punched out using the tag punch). I also used the flower stamp from the love & laughter set to stamp all four corners, which you can’t really see here. As I’m sure you are aware you cannot use any adhesive with vellum because it is translucent and you will be able to see it, unless you hide with a layer. I wrapped the vellum around the card blank and punch two little holes and then using a needle and some linen thread, I stitched it all together and tied it off with a bow. Phew, what an essay? Sorry if I’ve gone on a bit and bored you.

But

Tags: Big Shot, Designer Frames Embossing Folder, gold embossing powder, Linen Thread, Love & Laughter stamp set, Natural Ivory card stock, Soft Suede Ink, Tag Punch, Tiny Tags stamp set, Vellum card stock, Wedding Card