Bethinking

The Willy Wonka Party

Last weekend Felicity turned 8. She has been planning her Willy Wonka party for a year now {since the day after last year's Cowgirl Party!} so here are some of the ideas that we put into place...

For the decorations, we set up "Wonka Land" on our back deck. To get in you had to go through the gate that was decorated with strings of coloured lollies, then along the path lined with giant balloon lollipops.

In Wonka Land there were edible things to find (tea cups with Jelly and Custard, mini candy canes, lolly snakes hanging from the ceiling) as well as areas to explore and treasures to find.

For games, we firstly held a treasure hunt in Wonka land, where the girls had to find golden coins that would operate the very cool giant gumball machine.

Then we played a game or two based on each character from the story. The Chocolate Game for Augustus Gloop, Balloon-filling and popping games for Violet, Rob the Nest with Good Eggs and Bad Eggs for Veruka, Fizzy Lifting drink experiments for Charlie, and a tv quiz for Mike TeeVee.

After the games there was, of course, food. The food was found at "Felicity's Sweet Shoppe", and the girls loved choosing their sugary treats from the Candy Bar! There were homemade treats, such as Veruca's Pink Macarons, Cavity-Filling Caramels, Edible Marshmellow pillows and Rainbow Drop brownies, as well as some Wonka brand Candy, just for fun. We also made Gummy Bear trees, and Fizzy Lifting drinks based on ideas from the original movie. The chocolate fountain was also a hit!

Finally we had the cake, which was a giant lollipop design that Felicity chose. The girls were sent home on a major sugar high, but having had heaps of fun. It was a fantastic celebration for our favourite 8 year old girl!

Thankyou Lollipops

Felicity had her "Willy Wonka" themed birthday party a couple of days ago. I'll upload some general photos from that soon, but I just wanted to show you the thankyou gifts that we made for the friends who came along.

These were inspired by Becky Roberts at Inking Idaho. They are a great way to use up empty button or brad containers {I'm sure you can imagine how many of those I had lying around!} I've used my crop-o-dile to punch a hole in the container, then attached a lollipop stick. The container is filled with treats, then decorated using pinwheels made with the fabulous pinwheel die, and some punched out circles and scallops. The colours were bright to go with the Willy Wonka theme - Melon Mambo and Elegant Eggplant.

After they were assembled, I wrapped the lollipops in a medium sized cellophane bag, and tied them with some Melon Mambo ribbon. They were a great thankyou gift to go with the Willy Wonka theme.

Pool Party Vines

I've been loving the cute Madison Ave stamp set and it's matching Vine Street embossing folder {both from the Sale-A-Bration brochure}. I made a bunch of these bright, cheery cards to send out to people with copies of the new Seasonal Catalogue.

My favourite part of the card is the background. Pool Party is my favourite colour {as I'm sure many of you know!} and we now have Pool Party core'dinations cardstock, which is beautifully soft textured cardstock. Here I've sanded the cardstock after I embossed it, which reveals the slightly different core colour and gives it a velvety look and feel.

Also on the card I've used the Pretty Petities Sale-A-Bration set and the matching Petite Curly label punch. So far this is the most popular SAB item among my friends!

 

Mailbox Class

Here's what we'll be making at my next project class, which is on February 15th at my place. It's a sweet little mailbox that holds 3" x 3" note cards. I'm planning to use mine in my kitchen, to leave little notes of encouragement for my kids {well, for those who are old enough to read!} Maybe they'll catch on to the idea and leave some notes for me, too? 

At the class we'll be making the box, 4 cards and 4 envelopes. You'll learn how to use the diagonal score plate to make your own envelopes from our designer series paper.

Class Details:

Date: Friday 15th February

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: my place in Turramurra

Cost: $20

Please let me know if you'd like to book into the class, or if you can't make it on that date, you can always get a few friends together and I'll bring the class to you.

Sale-A-Brate with ESAD

Sale-A-Bration is Stampin' Up!'s biggest promotion of the year! This year it's the best ever - there's 19 different products to choose from for your free Sale-A-Bration gifts. It's also Stampin' Up!'s 25th birthday this year, so they're giving extra gifts with SAB orders, such as free Silver glimmer paper for a $300 order, or 25% extra in your Starter Kit when you join Stampin' Up! during this promotion.

Some of the Demonstrators at ESAD are having a Blog Hop to show you some of the fabulous SAB products. You may have come here from Monique Fielder's blog. ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin' Up! demonstrators. We do love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know-how, and cyberstamps, and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed. So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to click here to join our wonderful group.

With 19 different products to choose from, it was hard to decide what to get first with my freebies! I love the Sycamore St dsp, though, especially as it can have lots of different looks. Here it's really bright, and it's teamed with the Madison Ave and Itty Bitty Banners stamp sets, which are both also SAB free products.

 

For the scrapbook page, I focused mainly on the Pool Party, Starfruit & Razzleberry combination, so it's not quite as bright as the card. I liked this colour combination, so I used it again on the next card. This card uses the Madison Ave stamp set again. {Did you know that the flower from this set can be cut out perfectly with one of the Floral Frames dies? Love that Stampin' Up! product coordination!} A couple of other SAB products have also been used here. There's the Vine St embossing folder, the Pretty Petites stamp set, and the oh-so cute Petite Curly label punch. I think this punch is my favourite SAB item, but it's hard to be sure about that...

 

 

For my last card, I used the Vine St embossing folder again. I embossed a piece of white cardstock, then rubbed across the raised pattern with some Gumball Green ink & a sponge dauber. The elephant from "Patterned Occasions" wanted to be pink, so I went for a bright Melon Mambo. A little bit of paper piercing around the elephant gave her a frame. To do that, I used the "Essentials Paper Piercing Pack", which is yet another product you can earn free until the 22nd March.

By my count, I think I've managed to use 10 of the 19 different SAB products on these projects... so that should give you an idea of some of the great things available from Stampin' Up! at the moment. Now for more fabulous ideas, please continue hopping onto the blog of Tanya Bell!

Australian Papercrafts Festival

What are you up to this weekend? I'm heading out to the Australian Paper Crafts Festival at Penrith, and I'd love to see you there!

If you are going, make sure you check out the Stampin' Up! stand. There'll be lots of demonstrations, fabulous displays, a make 'n take and a chance to place orders & win prizes. If you do drop by, please make sure you say, "Hi!" - I'll be there all 3 days so it would be great to see some friendly faces.

Halloween!

The girls and I have been getting ready for Halloween tomorrow. We've been making treats for friends, treats for teachers, and of course for the trick-or-treaters who may come to our door! The decorated glassine bag and the Halloween bag are the other two projects that we made at my Halloween class last week.

Even the ducks that live on our front porch are dressing up to get into the Halloween mood...

Wicked Cool

Tonight I'm holding my first ever Halloween projects class. There are some really fun Halloween-type stamps in this year's catalogue, including "Wicked Cool" on p. 28. This Witches' hat is one of the projects we'll be making, and the broomstick, {inspired by p. 29 of the catalogue!} is another. 

The hat is made using the Petal Cone die, and the scallop circle die - easy! The spider's web embossing folder is one that I never thought I'd own, given my major arachnophobia, but it looks great on the hat!

The little broomsticks are very easy to make, so I could be making a few of these for friends who come trick or treating. The skinny cellophane bags are fantastic for holding small treats that can be decorated in a cute way like this. In our suburb lots of the kid's school friends come around trick or treating and it's always a fun evening seeing the kids dressed up and meeting new neighbours. Our girls are very excited that it's almost Halloween!

 

Nutcracker Ballet Party

I realise that it's October, but back in August, Annabelle turned 4 and we celebrated her birthday with a Nutcracker Ballet themed party. I thought I'd share a few of the photos here!

We set up our "ballet studio" in the lounge room, with a mirror, barre {thanks, Stu!}, some ballet photos on the walls and a string of home made tulle pom-pom fairy lights. As you entered, you were greeted by the tulle wreath, and Annabelle's duck, who had dressed up for the day in a tutu and a balloon!

The girls did some exercises at the barre, and some of them won mini tutus for their dolls as prizes.

 

They danced in "The Land of Snow and Ice" as Snow Fairies, wearing their snowflake hands that I'd made them, using the Stampin' Up lace ribbon border punch to make snowflake rosettes. Annabelle particularly loved being a snow fairy!

After we'd finished all the games and dancing, we visited "The Land of Sweets", which was full of delicious treats, most of which were pink. There was cake for the birthday girl and then homemade party bags as thank yous for the guests. Thanks to all the friends who came along to help celebrate Annabelle turning 4!

 

Free Ribbon?

Did I mention yet that this month's fabulous special from Stampin' Up! is free ribbon? For every $60 that you spend on products from the Annual Catalogue or Holiday Catalogue, you will receive a roll of In-Colour Stitched Satin ribbon, 9.1 metres in length. You can choose from one of the 5 colours available.

The ribbon retails for $15.95, and is gorgeous! Of course, if you and a couple of friends put in orders totalling $300, then not only would you receive 5 rolls of free ribbon, you'd also get the $50 hostess benefits to spend, too.

Please email me with your $60 order, and I'll get your ribbon on its way to you!