It's March already and a new month means a new Stamping Sisters tutorial bundle. This month's theme is project for the girls - to show our friends, Mum's Sisters and all the wonderful women in our lives how much they mean to us.
Of course the layouts and ideas used on the projects can be applied to lots of other projects too, so you'll definitely want to buy or earn the tutorials free.
Here's a peek at the 5 projects we've created for you.
It's all go in the Barnes household due to some much needed garden renovating happening while my darling man is on leave. Sadly this means no stamping for me this week... & my latest order has just arrived too :(
However, I want to share this project with you - an easel post-it calendar I made for my lovely Diamond Stampers team members.
My friend & Just Add Ink teamie, Patrice made me a lovely easel calendar last year which I loved, so I thought it would be a fun gift to make. I added a post-it-note (sticky note) pad to the bottom of mine, as who doesn't love a post-it? They're certainly one of my stationery geek obsessions.
Of course I HAD to play with some new goodies from the Occasions Catalogue, so I used the large intricate balloon & backing dies from the new Up & Away die set (part of the Lift Me Up stamp & die bundle) with the coordinating Carried Away paper pack. Carried Away is a Sale-a-bration exclusive you can get FREE with each $90 purchase until 31 March, it's not available for regular purchase.
Here's a closer look at the front.
Choosing my colour palette was easy - I used the colours in the Carried Away
paper, which are watermelon wonder (base & balloon), night of navy
(balloon & sentiments), peekaboo peach (calendar mat & balloon)
& mint macaron (balloon).
I stamped the 'live, laugh, love' sentiment (Layering Love stamp set) directly onto the patterned paper in night of navy.
Do you love the love the intricate pattern of the balloon? It gives me happy memories of a hot air balloon I saw in Paris long ago. You may think it took ages to make the multi-coloured balloon? No! Thanks to SU cleverness, there are 6 dies that each cut a coordinating section, as you can see below.
I used card scraps to cut mine & cut a whole balloon in one pass of the Big Shot. Win!
Back to the calendar, here's a better view of the easel stand.
On the back I stamped an awesome brand new sentiment from the Balloon Adventures stamp set
(also available as part of the Balloon Adventures bundle). This set includes a
great choice of large birthday sentiments that I will use lots for the
inside of my cards
Finally, if you need to post a calendar, it folds flat & fits a regular card envelope.
If you'd like instructions to make this easel calender, leave me a comment & I'll prepare a tutorial if there's enough interest. In the meantime, you can see more of my easel cards here.
Want to see more about the Lift Me Up - Up & Away bundle?
Check out this vid from Stampin' Up! At 30 secs in, you'll see how you can make multicoloured balloons like I did here.
So that's all from me for now. Remember to leave a comment if you'd like me to make a calendar tutorial & pin a pic for later inspiration too. Thanks for visiting today. Hope to share with you again soon.
Inky wishes, Di
Supplies To see & order any items used
in today's project, just click on the items below to see them in my
Online Store. You can order from me if you live anywhere in Australia. I
would love to be your Demonstrator if you don't already have one.
Please allow "Demonstrator contact" in your preferences so I can thank
you properly when you place your order. Actual items I used are listed first. Alternative purchase options are listed at the bottom of the supply list.
Note: Carried Away paper pack is a Sale-a-bration (SAB) exclusive. Choose a pack free as your SAB reward with each $90 purchase (exc shipping) during Sale-a-bration. See this Sale-a-bration post for more info. Calendar tabs were purchased online. Google 'calendar tabs' to find them in your country.
Wow, it's been a busy few days here. I was totally speechless that the fabulous Nancy Riley selected my little owl calendar in her last ipicks round-up (& those who know me know that's really hard, LOL). I really love Nancy's work & look forward to seeing all the amazing ipicks creations each week. I have no idea how you found me Nancy, but I feel very privileged to be included. Thank you so much.
I've also had lots of visitors from Kim Score's fantastic Paper Punch Addiction site, which I can't believe I hadn't found before, given how much I love my punches. Thanks heaps for featuring my calendar Kim. Your work is totally amazing & have add it to my google reader feeds so I don't miss anything.
Instructions & Template for Calendar
I've had lots of requests for the instructions to make the calendar & have e-mailed them to those who've asked already. This morning, my clever husband told me that I could load the template up on windows Live (who knew?) so you could download it yourself. Cool! So...
Since it's my first post for the new year, I thought some little desk calendars would be a good place to start, (she says, casually trying to ignore that she hasn't posted any projects for a loooong time). I've made lots of these over the last couple of months, (some with matching post-it note books too).
The calendars fold so they can stand up by themselves & fold flat for posting. I used pre-printed mini calendars to make them, but you could easily print your own in a size to suit. The size of the front is 14.8cm x 7.5cm & you need only half an A4 sheet of card to make one. Anyhoo, here are some of the ones I've made. Hope you like them.
Do you love the little dressed up owl? My clever downline Sarah showed me how to make the little bow, eyes & wings. Thanks S!
You may notice that they all include retired DSP & some retired accessories, as I've been trying to use some of the TONS of retired goodies I have. (not to mention the TONS of current goodies too - the butterfly embosslit & owl punches are current favourites!
About the post-it notes......you may remember I have a bit of an obsession with post-its & always have heaps. I've made various boxes to hold them (scroll down this post to see one version) but hadn't gotten around to making any little books. Then, just at the right time, I saw this lovely one by Nikki Stalker. Nikki very thoughtfully provided instructions to make them, so I used these instructions to start me off. Then, inspired, I fiddled around with the measurements & design (as I do) for my own version. Thanks so much Nikki for generously sharing your excellent tutorial.
There's too many to give a full supply list, but if you'd like more information about anything or instructions for the calendars, just contact me. In the meantime, thanks muchly for visiting.
Inky wishes, Di
PS: I'm finally back in business with a new laptop & new version of Photoshop too (yay), so hopefully I can start to catch you up on some of my projects from the last few months too. Back soonish.
Edited: Wednesday 19 Jan Thanks heaps everyone for your lovely comments and e-mails about the calendars. I have finished the instructions & have e-mailed them to anyone who has asked for them. If you haven't got them, check your junk mail box & e-mail me if you don't have them.
Edited: Thursday 20 Jan
I've worked out how to load the calendar instructions so you can download them yourself. Yay! You can Download them HERE.
I'd really love if you could leave a comment to say hi if you like the calendars & instructions too. Thanks heaps!
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