Since tomorrow is the last day of February, thought of bidding adieu to the Valentine theme with this cute slice of cake topped with strawberries. I used the Sizzix pie box die for the cake slice and cut it out on Papertrey ink’s dark chocolate cardstock. The icing on the side of the cake was also from PTI pink cardstock and trimmed with EK Success scalloped border punch. As for the pink swirls (read chocolate shavings) I just cut thin strips of the same pink cardstock as the icing and used the quilling technique.

Of course since it was a strawberry cake, I made some strawberries from PTI’s Poppy Red cardstock and the leaves with Simply Chartreuse cardstock also from PTI. The template for the strawberries are also downloadable from google; I then embossed the red cardstock with the Swiss dots embossing folder to give it some texture and voila!

Tuck in!

Here’s another view;

And a close up of the strawberries. They’re filled with heart candies. I’ve made 3 dozen for Rhea’s classmates as the academic year draws to a close.

Here’s a post for the cute Snowmen Candy wrapper bars from Laurie Furnell’s blog I mentioned in my craft fair section. However, instead of candy bars I used a pack of multicoloured pens. I used felt for their little caps tied the ruffled top with little bells on a silver cord and used the same felt for their scarves and gave the ends a ruffled touch as well.

They tied in nicely with the Valentine theme – especially teacher gifts.

 

It’s card time!

This one has a very uncommon colour combination; normally outside of my regular colour choice, but am quite happy with it. What I like about such cards is that it is very general. It can be customized to suit any theme or used as Just Because cards.

I’ve used designer paper for the brown background. The rest are regular cardstock with stamped images. I love cards with dimensional elements. A flat card doesn’t always work for me, so I make it a point to mount the embellishments to jazz it up.

Valentine Goodies!

Here are the detailed pics of the Valentine goodies I made which you can also see in the craft fair pics.

Up first are cute little candles – red and pink wrapped in matching glitter tulle with a scallop tag. These also make great wedding favors.  The colours of tulle in the shops are just gorgeous! One is truly spoilt for choice.

These are the bookthongs I made – pink and red to match the Valentine theme – gift for avid readers. I made these in five colours – red and pink as shown as well as purple, burnt orange, baby blue and corriander green.  For some I used these matching Swarovksi crystals and the others I used matching lucite flowers.

I had a lady buy 7 pieces in different colours of these at the craft fair and when I asked her if they were all for her, she promptly replied that she owned a Kindle so wouldn’t be able to use these! As much as I would like to own a Kindle, I love the feel and smell of a book. 🙂

I made these tall notepads as teacher gifts for Rhea’s teachers for Valentine’s Day. The red and green cardstock is handstamped with this amazing set from Papertreyink called School Time. The apples are also from a stamp set by PTI called Teacher’s Apple. I used the same cardstock to wrap the inside of the pen to match it with the notepad.

I’ve joined an expatriate group here in Al Ain and they recently advertised that a local school was holding a Craft Fair and outside vendors were welcome to come and sell their wares. I jumped at the opportunity and designed and made 13 varieties. I don’ t want to post each of them individually as I will do so later with a tutorial on the same, so for those of you who are interested, stay tuned.

Sales were good but not as good as I expected quite simply ‘coz the turnout wasn’t that great. The products that just flew off the table were the wineglass charms, candy tubes, bookmarks and bookthongs. The rest of items did average sales. However the highlight of the craft fair was that I got quite a lot of orders for birthday parties and two invitations to showcase and sell my items in March and April. So looking forward to that.

For now though here are a few pics of the table. Excuse the photography, need to work on that…

In this pic below you can view the love candles in pink and red wrapped in tulle with a scalloped tag, rosaries for the kiddies and Teachers Remarks – scallop tags with adhesive on the back – cute words of encouragement for students.

These are my favourite – Valentine Snowmen – a set of pens wrapped with a cute snowman face and embellished with a felt hat and scarf – these made great teacher gifts. I got this idea from Laurie Furnell’s blog wherein she’s offering this pdf download for free. Thanks Laurie!

Here’s another view of the table with bookmarks made of cardstock – which all did pretty good business, wine glass charms and candy (these flew off the table with the kids), tall notepads and bookthongs (just like bookmarks but with ribbon and adorned with swarovski crystals and lucite flowers and beads).

On this side of the table – Love Potion (two sachets of Milo – hot chocolate drink, marshmellows and heart candies), my specialty – bottlecap pendants, bottlecap keyrings, wine glass charms (a huge hit and complete sell out) and handstamped set of notecards with matching envelopes.

Cheers!

Of course there were those who also wanted to present their spouses with a not-so-naughty card so was only too happy to oblige. Here’s one I made for a colleague who is a complete coffee addict.

 

 

 

Here’s the back of the card. Love the tattoo ;P

 

I was recently approached (via email) to create a card for a bachelorette party. The client wanted something naughty and fun. After giving it a lot of thought and surfing the net for ideas I came up with a bra and panty card. I showed a sample to my colleagues and some of them were so tickled with the idea that they placed orders for the same but with different colours of lingerie for their husbands and boyfriends for Valentine’s Day.

Here’s a preview of front of the card.

 

 

Love, Amour…

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.
John Keats

I thought this quote tied in nicely with my first set of posts for the month of February. With Valentine’s Day round the corner, the young and young at heart try in their own unique ways to express their heartfelt sentiments to their loved ones. I have been approached by some to create cards and favors for their little rendezvous and parties and I happily obliged.

So here’s a preview of some of the goodies I made that I felt tie in perfectly with the theme of LOVE.