On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me - my Twelve Month Mystery Box Challenge!!

Oh My Goodness! Yes there is such a thing!

This year on E.S.A.D. (Extraordinarily Special Australasian Demonstrators) we had a Twelve Month Challenge, which consisted of picking a pack of Designer Series Paper at the start of the year, and then there was a project per month for the rest of the year, which went into a box decorated to co-ordinate with all the projects. Then we bundled our creations up and sent them on to a secret person, and eagerly awaited the postie bringing us one!

My recipient got her's this week, and here's a photo she took of all the goodies I made for her and sent in her Mystery Box.

I chose the now retired but much loved packet of Mocha Morning Specialty Designer Series Paper - love all those browns and golds and especially the lovely flocked sheets!

I did take up close ups of all the items before I packed them to send, so I will share more of them with you over the coming weeks!

Don't forget, Week Two of the Clearance Rack giveaway starts Friday, so if there is anything at all you might want to get your hands on off the second list, please contact me tomorrow! Things sold out so quickly in the first week it was astonishing!

Here's the promotion details so you can check that second list!

Catch you soon!

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Day Two - Twelve Days of Christmas

Twelve Days of Christmas!

Day Seven - Twelve Days of Christmas

Day Ten - Twelve Days of Christmas

Day Six - Twelve Days of Christmas

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me . . . eleven degrees above average . . . or at least that is what it felt like when Barbara Lindsey and I stepped off a freezing cold plane, from freezing cold Melbourne, into the gorgeous tropical heat of a steaming Brisbane day, in order to attend the Brisbane Heartfelt Stampin' Event in November.

Yep! You gotta love a job that justifies you flying all over the country in the name of stamping! Tassie one weekend, Brisbane the next! No wonder you can't get hold of me!

If you recall - way back at the start of August - I demonstrated at the Melbourne Heartfelt Day, so it was a real pleasure to go to Brisbane and attend the day as a guest and do all the classes and see all the wonderful demonstrations by such talented fellow demonstrators. One of the projects we saw were three lovely Gingerbread House Easel Cards made by the very talented Liz Collett. They sure were sparkly!

At our last Stamp Club night for the year, I wanted to make something fun, Christmassy and a bit different, so I decided the girls would all make  a Gingerbread House, inspired by Liz's. Thank you for the inspiration and straight forward instructions Liz!

This is what we came up with.

And the interesting thing is, I didn't even know that I owned a packet of More Mustard Card Stock until I went looking for it to make these cards! LOL

We had some fun (NOT!!) with the gorgeous Paper Doily Sizzlits die - two things : first you have to have it facing UP! and secondly, put waxed kitchen paper both sides of your card stock in your Big Shot sandwich! It makes the pieces just fall out!

You can see we used lots of Holiday Catalogue Products for these cards - the Scentsational Season Bundle from Page 16, the delicious Snow Festival Designer Series Paper from page 10, Greetings of the Season Stamp Set on page 8, Snowflake Soiree Stamp Set on page 5, and one of my favourite products of all - the Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder on page 33. Whoa!!!

Lots of fun, and such a novel card for that special someone!

Well, one more day in my Twelve Days of Christmas series, so I will see you tomorrow! Take care and see you then!

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me . . . 10 decorations . . . all sparkling on a white tree!

I found a lovely little tree in Spotlight - as soon as I saw it, I thought hmmmmm I can see that with cute things pegged onto it!

And most specifically, I could see ornaments made with the Ornaments Keepsake Bundle, and I could see lovely labels from the gorgeous Snow Festival Designer Printed Tags (page 12 of the Holiday Catalogue) all schoozied up to brighten the tree.

I looked at what colours were in the printed tags, and then cut out a heap of letters using the Timeless Type Bigz Alphabet Dies to make four letter words (nice four letter words!!) that related to Christmas.

These were arranged on the tags, and then bows and some Champagne Glitter Glass were added to give them that real Christmas Bling!!

Oh, and then there's the tag with the reindeer taking up space on it, so that needed just a three letter word!

And don't you love those tiny pegs? They actually came out of the Snowflake Season Simply Scrappin' Layout Kit on page 21 of the Holiday Catalogue (love those silver snowflakes!).

So here's the whole look brought together :

Now, if I can get the wind to not blow it over, I think it will make a gorgeous decoration on the table for our outdoor Christmas lunch . . . otherwise it may just have to take pride of place on the sideboard in the living room, competing with the real tree, which is still on my shopping list!

How is your Christmas coming together?

See you tomorrow with day ELEVEN!!

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . Nine hours of stamping!!!!

I seem to have done a LOT of very long stamping days recently! Thanks to a huge calendar of events all needing new and gorgeous items to display or sell, thanks also to finally going to three days a week at my other job, and thanks to hubby having interests that take him away from home so he isn't offended when I shut myself away in the craft room for HOURS!!

Funnily enough, there's an awful lot of glittery shiny stuff all over our house, and I've had to re-order most of my embossing powders, shimmer paint, silver glimmer paper (lost count of how many packs now) and various other items which I never thought I'd run out of! What fun!!

Here's one of the reasons I ran out of stuff!!

I had a stand at the Research Primary School Twilight market, which was a very well organised and well promoted event with huge crowds throughout the night - I think the sausage sizzle was drawing them in!

Thanks to my lovely friend Josie Molenberg for prompting me to book a stall. I had a crazy couple of days making items to sell, and then the market was such a success, I barely had anything left to sell the following day at the Salvation Army Market at Healesville! Had to stamp all night!!

I wanted something a little different for the next day, and wasn't sure how much table space I'd have, so I put my mind to coming up with something a little fun!

Arent' they too cute! Love their very silly long legs and enormous feet, and they were really quite easy to make - once you worked out the hats!

Well, back again tomorrow for the 10th day of Christmas, hope you're enjoying your weekend, I have my team end of year bbq lunch today, so I better go get ready!

Kathryn

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, eight Stampin' Up! punches!

That's how many different ones it took to make Santa for my non-adhesive triangle boxes full of chocolates!

So, we have little round faces, and little round noses and an embossed moustache punched from the now retired Five Petal Punch. If you don't have this punch, you can create the same effect with flower petals from the Blossom Petals Builder Punch or the birds wing from the Bird Builder Punch.

Add some eyes from the Owl Punch, and draw pupils.

Add small flowers to the sides of his face for sideburns and a rim for his lovely Santa hat, then when you stick him in the right spot on the Triangle Non-Adhesive Box, the top of the box forms his hat!

One final step - every good Santa needs a big black belt with a shiny buckle to hold up his pants!

Have you even noticed these Antiqued Silver Ribbon Slides on page 31 of the Holiday Catalogue? 16 pieces for only $8.95, and I really think they are just the perfect finish for Santa!

Well, come back on Day Nine of my Twelve Days of Christmas for some more Christmas treats - now what shall I show you? The elves, or the Tree with Labels or something else?

Hmmmmm! See you then!

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me, seven days of frantically making things for Christmas markets!!

Don't you love how the Two Step Owl Builder Punch becomes so many more things than just an owl?

These ultra shiny glittery little faces looked so sweet on our triangle non-adhesive box. And who could resist them once they were full of Cadbury Roses chocolates! They were so popular at my Friday market at Research Primary School, that I had to make a stack more for the next day!

And I HAVE to thank Barbara Lindsay for the loan of her gorgeous Christmas Tree - she didn't even know I was taking it! Thanks Barbara, you're a saint!  Back to my mug holder for the next display!

If you pop back tomorrow for day eight, I'll show you some step by steps for those Santa's! Have a great afternoon!

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, six silver wings all mixed up and wanting somewhere to go!

At our Stampin' Up! Annual Convention in May-June, we were shown a gorgeous Christmas banner made by the very talented and ever so nice Beth Stewart. You can see the original  here.

For my Christmas Extravangza, I wanted to recreate it, and so one night when there were only going to be four of us at Stamp Club, I put the girls to work on a production line, cutting and embossing enough pieces for four of us to each have a banner; angel bodies, letter panels, birds and of course six silver wings each - and it took us the full two hours to cut all the pieces for four banners!

After the ladies took their pieces home, I sat up late, putting mine all together, and I DO love it! Thank you Beth for such amazing inspiratation!

I am busy today cutting out pieces for a stack more angel banners, as people love it so much!

I have a heap more recent Christmas projects to show you, so be sure to tune in for Day Seven tomorrow! See you then!

Kathryn

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, five pink & purple inkpads!

Well, actually one of them was Bashful Blue, but the others were Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Wisteria Wonder and Perfect Plum so by the time you brayered them all together, it was pretty hard to pick out the Bashful Blue!

The card is Gloss White, and I have masked the white spot by punching a circle from sticky notes.

After the brayering comes the really fun part - selecting a lovely silhouette design stamp, inking it up with Jet Black Stazon, and stamping away!

Funnily enough, I don't have photo of a finished card here, but I can tell you, then base card was black and there was a length of the lovely white Organza Ribbon from Stampin' Up! attached to the front and the gorgeous greeting stamp "Believe" from the Snowflake Soiree stamp set. Love that font!

I made 13-14 of these altogether - with a bit of help from stamping buddy Barbara who stamped the flower image in pinks and purples on the white card insert.

Well, day six tomorrow and I am going to be cutting out stacks more of my angels for angel banners, so why don't I show you some photos of that? See you then!

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, FOUR days in Tassie!

Sorry, I seem to have gone AWOL for a couple of days, but back on track!! Four days after the Caulfield Craft & Sewing Show, I repacked the car with displays, tools, ink pads, stamping stuff, catalogues etc and and headed off on the boat to Tassie for four lovely days!

We had a family day on Friday, catching up with various family members and attending my nieces' high school musical which happened to be "Oz" with my lovely niece starring as none other than an awesome wicked witch of the west!

On Saturday we got up early and drove up to Launceston for the Tassie Stamping Day! A day that I had co-ordinated for my team, and which all the ladies contributed to with make & takes and displays and inviting all their customers along.

It wasn't a day without glitches - when we arrived, we couldn't open the door!! (slight raising of pulse and cause for stress!!) But overall it was a wonderful day! The pictures tell a thousand stories so I will let you enjoy it for yourself!

As you can see, there was plenty of creativity, lots of yummy food for afternoon tea, and the noise levels got quite high with all the activity at times - just the way I like it!

Thank you so much to all the lovely guests who came along making it such a successful and fun day, and thank you to Elaine, Lorraine, Sherien, Virginia, Kerrie, Kelly, Judith, Virginia's mum, Dean & Tony for all contributing to enable the day to go ahead and be so worthwhile! I can't wait to do it all again next year - but maybe not the week after Caulfield Show!

Tomorrow (Day Five) I'll be back with some Brayered Cards I made in the middle of everything else. See you then!

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a Black Stazon Ink pad, two aquapainters and blender pens in a packet of three!

I truly love my Watercolouring, and those of you who have been to my classes will know that I mean REAL watercolouring, wet on wet, on proper thick yummy watercolour paper. Lucky for me,I can get a particularly good quality watercolour paper through Stampin' Up!

I always stamp my images with the Jet Black Stazon (giant sniff - ohhh love that almond paste chemical smell that takes me right back to the printmaking studio at Box Hill TAFE 20 years ago!!). The Stazon stays on! It doesn't run or bleed when you drown the paper in water.

I use the aquapainters for this task, filled with water and give a good squeeze to get it flowing nicely. Do have some paper towel on hand though, just in case the ink gets a little over-excited!  I like to pick up ink out of the lids of my Classic Stampin' Pads for my colours. If you don't have the Classic Ink pads, but do have Stampin' Spots, you can press a Stampin' Spot onto a margarine lid or piece of acetate to create a pallet for yourself.

This card uses just four colours, starting with Bashful Blue, Soft Suede, Always Artichoke and Real Red. Allow the first layer to dry thoroughly and then work back over it for more depth of colour.  In this example, once it was all dried and the colours rich enough, each berry was given a dob of Crystal Effects to make it shine like a real berry.

The lovely little bird is from the pretty Christmas stamp set Blessed Season. I wanted a little touch of something a bit pretty on the inside of the card too, so using the Always Artichoke ink pad, I stamped just a portion of the holly from the image onto a panel insert.

For something a bit different - with definite CUTE factor, I stamped on Whisper White cardstock with the Jet Black Stazon, but this time coloured ever so gently with the Blender Pens. This is a very controlled way of colouring - unlike the wet on wet with the watercolour paper.

How insanely cute is that little bird from the set For the Birds?  I love the whole set, but I particularly adore this sweet little chap!

Well, that's enough samples for one day! Four days after the Caulfield Craft & Sewing Show, my hubby and I headed south, on the boat to Tassie with a car full of stamps and samples to attend the Tassie Stampin' Day which my team hosted in Launceston. I'll be back tomorrow to show you some of the photos and tell you all about the crazy, fantastic day we had!

See you then! Kathryn.