Giant African Land Snails!

So I finally have some photos to share of my daughter's snail!

She has called it 'Slipper' and is very attached to it! I even had to email the ebay seller to get it's date of birth/hatching, so she can celebrate it's birthday later in the year!

So the slimy details: the shell is currently around 5cm long, it's an Achatina Fulica - which basically means it's an East African Land Snail, it hatched on 10th August 07, his or her mummy is called Tweedle Dee (Tweedle Dee is is 4 years old and a very large snail at a 7 1/2" shell.) It likes to each fruit and veg - especially cucumber and pears, and has to have some form of calcium like a cuttlefish bone (for its shell.)

I now know why folks in the States haven't heard of them - apparently it's illegal to have/keep them as pets over there - as they are simultaneous hermaphrodite and very invasive as it only takes any 2 and they breed like wildfire! We are certainly going to just keep to the one as I don't want to wake up one morning to find 100s of eggs in the tank! (Lots are sold on ebay.co.uk as reptile owners buy them to breed - for feed!) Having said that I have just read 'Instances of self fertilisation are rare' - so I had better not be too complacent!

Cleaning out is like a military operation - done out the back with a hose pipe, rubber gloves and lots of face pulling (uggghhhh!) Would I recommend one? Yes, my daughter loves it and it's not too hard to clean I guess. Certainly easy to feed! The good news - it was only 99p to buy on ebay - the bad, it cost around £50 to buy a tank and kit it out - but still pretty cheap for a pet!

Su

It's a Challenge!

A couple of weeks ago I had a search around and was surprised that I couldn't find a challenge site for us UK Newbies to Stampin' Up! As we are only on our first stash of SU stamps/first UK SU Catalogue, I thought a weekly challenge would be great to get us going!

Of course, there are a lot of fantastic cards with Stampin' Up! stamps out there, including more and more from UK stampers each day, but it would be nice to have a central blog/challenge showcasing just the Stamps available to us in the UK (so for now, just from the first UK SU Catalogue)? So I set up a separate website/blog for this and you can find it, along with all the details at http://StampinUpChallengeUK.blogspot.com/.

I hope you like it - and that you'll rise to the challenge and join me every week! So - the Card, ATC, gift or papercrafting item will have to use a Stamp or other product from any UK Stampin' Up! Catalogue (of course the first and only one at present!) based upon the challenge.

Naturally this doesn't exclude any of you from outside the UK - and I expect most of the stamps we have in our SU UK Cattie are already out there in America, Australia and NZ, etc. So please join in the fun!

To give you a flavour - here is this week's challenge layout and the cards samples I used for this week's challenge:

The solid flower was stamped onto pink passion card, using a Versamark ink pad - with glitter added in the centres. Wide pink organza ribbon was wrapped around the pink card before it was matted onto the white basecard. Another flower was stamped onto a scrap of pixie pink card using a pink passion ink pad, then cut out and all the lines on this flower were glittered apart from the outer edge. This was then stuck to the card using 3-d foam.

The Elephant card sample uses the cute elephant stamp from the Year After Year Set, along with the greeting from the Birthday Best set - using the same techniques as for the pink card, but using Tempting Turquoise card and ink, with the white grosgrain ribbon.

I have to say I really like this layout, as the possibilities are endless for a lot of the Stampin' Up! sets - especially the Year After Year one, as all the stamps will work (and I got to use my fab new SU Round Tab (109974) punch!

Su

Happy Birthday Samm!

Here is the card I made for Samm, a blogging friend at SBS8. Happy Birthday Samm!



Samm set a birthday blog candy challenge and this is my entry - Samm's blog is at http://samm-l.blogspot.com/ and is well worth a visit.


I used the Stampin' Up! Feathered Friends set, along with a Stampin' Up! Nature's Seasonal Border set.


The images were coloured in using pearlescent watercolours. A white organza ribbon was added before the blue card was matted onto the white base card.


Hope you like it Samm!

Card Making Magazine Offers

You know I like a bargain - so here are a couple that I have just taken advantage of - I have done it before, so I know they are genuine offers. 3 magazines for £1 - that's right just one pound for the lot! Of course there is a hitch - you have to set up a direct debit for the £1 and then the full quarterly amount every 3 months thereafter - so if you forget to cancel your subscription & direct debit after your first 2/3 issues, it's no longer a bargain.

But hey - with a calender (belt and braces, I'll set a reminder on my mobile phone too!) it's not too hard to cancel!

The first is £1 for 3 issues of Crafts Beautiful magazine - and they are also throwing in a free gift!
Go to: http://www.crafts-beautiful.com/qvc, (weird website, but it works) put in UK and ensure you check the £1 button. If it asks for a code, its QVC0108 and you will need to provide your bank details.

The second one is for Papercraft Inspirations, same trial offer, you just need to cancel within 60 days if you don't want to carry on, and its at: http://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/qvc. Again bank codes needed.

Card Blowout Week!

Hi,

I've been kept busy this week as we had our monthly craft night - Hillview Creative Crafters - at church this week, as well as my running a Stampin' Up! workshop/class.

I can't find my stencilled cards at the moment, so will show those another time. So here are the 3 cards that we made last night at my SU workshop/party:

This first one is made with the Stampin' Up! 'Birthday Best' set - it's so cute and really quick and easy to use.

I've used the cupcake with candle stamp, along with the birthday greeting - with the Bold Brights colourways. It's nice and bright and cheery, which makes a change to all the dull and wet weather we've been having. It was really nice to be able to colour in the stamp to the same exact shade as the cardstock - I used black ink to stamp the image and then coloured it in with Rose Red, Green Galore and Only Orange Stampin' Write marker pens, with a thin red ribbon to finish off. I'm really into card tearing at the moment, so you'll see lots of my cards with that!

This next card was also nice and quick and easy, which is ideal for workshops - looks so elegant too!

I've used 2 different flowers from the Stampin' Up! 'Mixed Bouquet' set. The first is the solid flower inked with Versamark (a watermark inkpad) onto Pink Passion cardstock - and the flower centres are then glittered using a Gelly Roll Stardust pen. We stamped the larger flower with Pink Passion ink onto a scrap of Pixie Pink card. The inside inked lines of this flower were also drawn over using the Stardust Pen to add extra sparkle. It was cut out and mounted over a piece of organza ribbon, which finished the card off - have to say I changed the width of the ribbon for my ladies as the wider one looked much better than the thin one I used here. Matting the pink card onto a white card base gives the opportunity to wrap and adhere the ribbon to the pink card for a neater finish, before sticking the pink onto the white.

And my favorite Stamp at the minute is this Poppy one, using the Stampin' Up! Hostess Set called 'Oh So Lovely' - which it is!

We stamped the long background rectangle stamp twice on scrap paper to get rid of the excess black ink to give a lighter stamped background. Then stamped the Poppy in black on top of the background. It was very easy to line them up. Using a scrap of white card, 2 stamped images of just the poppy heads were made, again in black. Back to the main poppy flower, all the edges were roughly torn and this was matted onto a piece of Only Orange cardstock, and this stuck onto the white basecard - on the left hand side of the card.

3 of the poppy heads were then coloured in using Only Orange Stampin' Write marker pens. They were then cut out, and the edges gone over with a black marker pen to give a neater edge. The 3 poppy heads were then stuck onto their respective plain flowers on the main card, using 3D foam squares. A message of Thanks was then stamped to the bottom right of the card, using black ink.

And if you live in the Gloucestershire/Cotswolds or Swindon area and would like to host a free cardmaking workshop, do get in touch with me. You are sure to have lots of fun with your Friends learning new stamping techniques, making some cards and looking at all the gorgeous Stampin' Up! products.

I'm Back!

Well Christmas and New Year were like a whirlwind and I am only just getting back into the swing of things - hence my long absence, apologies!

But, in those great words from Independence Day - 'I'm Back' and I suppose my NYR should be to blog every day - we'll have to see!

Here are some of the cards that I made over the holidays:

I used the Cuttlebug D'Vine Swirls as the background and a cute House/New Home Stamp (Katie&Co) which I coloured with Gelly Glaze pens. Added a ribbon and some mats.

Sympathy Cards are always hard to make.

I used some notepaper from Sainsbury's as the background as it has a faint watermark type pattern on it - really lovely. I bought the block of paper thinking I wouldn't have to cut the squares down, but I did to get the brown card matt to fit onto the card! Used the Fiskars Imperial Corner/Photo Punch.

A Sizzix cut & emboss flower was highlighted with some pearlescent ink and the message is a Rubber Stampede one I have.

Changing from my brown theme, the Cuttlebug embossers again came in handy for 2 quick cards. The heart one combines a sizzix heart with a cuttlebug love embossing folder which just fitted the small heart. I guess I may make a few more like this one for next month!

I liked the way the Get Well Card eventually turned out. I'm still working on getting the colouring right on the embossed backgrounds. Here I used a waterpen with tri-colour Brilliance Pearlescent ink pad - as it matched the stamped greeting. I jazzed up the white card by notching the corners, using a small circle punch the wrong way. Looks good with the lilac scalloped matt.

Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers-8

Hi - I decided to join this group after reading about it on another blog - looks great!

Getting to know me facts: I am Su, and I live in Gloucestershire in England with my husband and 2 children (9 and 7). I work part-time 2 days a week, as well as working from home with Stampin' Up! We got our first pet over Christmas - an African Land Snail! I am really into stamping, and just love stamps - as the saying goes 'I'm addicted to Stamps', as well as using my Big Shot, Sizzix and Cuttlebug stuff for making cards. I help run a monthly craft club (all cardmaking now) which is great fun, do the occasional demo at another club and am starting a Stamping Club in the New Year.

If you want to join in the fun, the link is http://sisterhoodofthebloggingstampers.blogspot.com - there are 20 in each group, and there is still space in group 8 at the moment.