Thursday 4 December 2008

Paper Christmas Decorations and Macleay Island Craft Fair

How are beautiful are these lovely paper Christmas Decorations made by Leonie Conyers. Leonie is an Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and member of our Paper Angels Group. Leonie recently worked very hard to make a beautiful display at her first craft fair on Macleay Island, which is where she lives. Leonie made the decorations using the Scallop Circle Punch and beads from the Pretties Kit.

Leonie and I sourced these fabulous battery operated 30cm fibre optic trees, which are easily decorated with paper circles, folded in half and sandwiched together. This is a great way to make use of your leftover scrapbooking paper. if you are interested in getting one of these trees (not including decorations, ribbon and batteries), please email me on liz@danichbe.com The trees are $5 each.

Here is a photo of Leonie's table, which was packed full of great ideas; including Candy Cane Holders, Chocolate Pockets, Christmas Cards, Christmas Decorations, kits and lots more.

Chocolate Candy Canes

Sometimes it's just nice to be different! Not satisfied with the red and white candy canes, I just had to go searching for some alternatives. This was just so much harder than I thought. I ended up raiding two different Coles Supermarkets to get only 4 packets of Chocolate Candy Canes, which were hidden amongst mountains of other colours! Reading this, you are probably glad that you were not with me at the time for fear of embarassment of knowing someone prepared to go to such extremes! However, there are some understanding souls, such as my friend Ursula who has kindly tracked me down some black & white canes that I am looking forward to packaging. The pictured canes have been presented in holders made with the Holiday Harmony Paper teamed with Chocolate Chip and Purely Pomegranate cardstock. The 'posting' hole was made with the Word window Punch.

Cleveland Christmas Card Workshop


Our Cleveland Christmas Card Workshop was held on November the 9th and so sorry that it has taken so long to put these pictures up. One of the reasons for this, was that I was very silly and picked up one of my workshop bags without bending my knees! As soon as I did it, I knew I was in trouble and by the end of the Cleveland Workshop I was literally hobbling out of the RSL. It has been a hugely successful series of events, with money still coming in for our charity. Above is my table.

Kathy's Table

Kate's table



Jen's table


Felicity's table



Our Prize Winners



Studying the Card Competition



Leonie's table


Robyn and Loren's table







Monday 3 November 2008

Macleay Island Christmas Card Workshop


Well here we are, preparing for the second last Christmas Card Workshop on lovely Macleay Island. Pictured are Leonie (standing) and Robyn getting ready for the arrival of our card makers. As you can imagine, there were some logistics involved in taking all our equipment accross to an island, but it all went very well.


This is my table and we had a great time making our 6 beautiful cards.

Leonie did a great job coordinating the workshop on her island and here she is pictured with her table.



Finally the lovely Robyn with her terrific table, 5 of whom travelled from the mainland.



We really enjoyed our lunch at the Blue Parrot Cafe, with its lovely balcony outlook.





One of Leonie's ladies made a beautiful card especially for the card competition. A very clever choice, since our group is called the paper angels.




Here is Gerane, who lives on Russel Island, and won second prize for her lovely card.








Jackie was the 1st prize card winner, with her cute Christmas emu bursting from a card.







Our lucky raffle prize winners were very happy with their stash of goodies.





Friday 31 October 2008

Pine Rivers Christmas Card Workshop


I can hardly believe this is our 4th Christmas card Workshop. With the lovely Rebecca Ross as our hostess/coordinator, we all had a lovely time. We were especially thrilled at all the entries in the card competition and would have loved to have rewarded everyone with a prize. Raffles were again popular, with well over $400 raised for our charity. Perhaps tempting fate, I decided to climb on a chair to take this photo of my table.


The day was great and the function room lovely, with all the participants enjoying the smaller group environments with a demonstrator on each table.


All the card competition entries were spectacular.



Here is Bec and her table.




The lovely Fiona, who will sadly be moving to Townsville at the end of the year, and her table.



Jen, who also brought her daughter Keira who was a great help to us all - thank you!




Orrell and her table.




One of my lovely customers, Mary, won one of the raffle prizes and is being presented with her goodies by Bec.







Wednesday 22 October 2008

Carina Christmas Card Workshop


OK as far as I am aware this is my youngest customer! Isn't she just gorgeous. Her mum, Fiona, was one of the ladies on my table at the carina Leagues Club. Notice how intently she is studying the Stampin' Up! catalogue - so beautiful and doesn't she have great taste! Wow, was this a great day! We raised $767 from the raffle and card competitions alone, with the ordering percentage yet to be calculated. Thank you to all the demonstrators in our group, who did a spectacular job preparing and conducting our largest of 6 events.


This is the table that I 'taught'. Whilst I guided them through our 6 cards, they were very independent - they had to be with my developing a growing attraction to the microphone - who would have ever guessed - not me! Even our newest cardmaker in this group did a wonderful job - I didn't even guess it was her first time making cards! I just love how we can show people how easy it is to create something beautiful.

Here is our lovely Jen Fraser's table. Jen also had one of her newest demonstrators, Jerry, assisting us all with raffle ticket sales as well as judging the card competition with Orrell. We are very appreciative of both their efforts.



Jen Wells was busy again and can probably now teach our 6 beautiful cards with her eyes closed, having taught a large table at the Paddington Event! Well done Jen - Thank You.



Kate did an awesome job with her table, and also kindly looked after a lovely customer of mine also.


Multitalented and Mutitasking Amanda did a wonderful job, whilst her husband Nathan held the fort with the children, ,discovering the wonders of the Carina Leagues Club Kid's Room.


Felicity and Megan did a great job with their lovely table.


Robyn did a sterling job, holding the fort after out lovely Loren had a rather unfortunate accident on the way to our event. With a brace and crutches, Loren thought about coming on later! Thankfully she did decide to rest up - we certainly missed her and were terribly worried, however, Robyn worked wonderfully to look after her own plus Loren's lovely friend.


Here is Bec and her table. Next week Bec is the hostess of the event at Pine Rivers Bowls Club! We are really looking forward to it and if you have not yet been to this event, please do contact me urgently as whilst we are at capacity, we may be able to squeeze you in! One of Bec's demonstrator team members, Orrell, generously helped us on the day, and we are very grateful for her efforts also.




Fiona and her lovely table, with Elaine and Diana scoring 2 fantastic product hampers in our raffle. I am missing some photos of lovely Kathy and Ursula's table - so keep posted - i will send some through, as I am hoping Bec might have some.
A sincere thank you to all the customers who have supported and enjoyed our 3 events to date. We have really enjoyed bringing you these events and are thrilled to be part of a great project at the Mater - without your help, this would not be possible.






Tuesday 21 October 2008

Paddington Christmas Card Workshop


Congratulations to Donna Benjamin; a demonstrator from the North side, for coordinating a great day at Paddington for our second Paper Angels Christmas Card Workshop. Held at the Ithaca Presbyterian Church Hall, we all had a great time using our 'Season of Joy' Stamp Set to create the 6 cards designed by our demonstrators. We raised $152 alone from the raffles, with product sales and related donations yet to be calculated. This donation alone helped us to complete one memory box kit for the Mater Mother's Bereavement Support Program as described in our group blog www.paperangels.blogspot.com

Here is our lovely Jenny Wells, with her ladies busy creating their masterpieces. I was just amazed at the organisation of this group of ladies, who are clearly experienced craft retreat people - the tools, the lunch esky and snacks were impressive!

Karen did a great job teaching her group of ladies and it was lovely to have them all there to share a great day.

Here is my group of ladies, who had a great time and made their cards beautifully.
Lastly, here is Donna (left) busy teaching. You did a great job Donna - thank you.

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Chipboard Ornaments


Handmade Christmas Ornaments are lots of fun to make and give the opportunity to experiment with your creativity. Not only do they look beautiful, but are far more economical than many decorations found in retail stores. I love the 'Holiday Harmony' Designer Series Paper that is currently available in our Australian Spring Mini Catalogue (page 19), and used it to cover the chipboard star from the 'On Board' Trimmings Chipboard on page 18. Accessories, such as the 'Styled Silver Hardware' and Purely Pomegranate Satin Ribbon complete the look. The stamp is from 'Many Merry Messages' (try saying that fast!) from the 2008-2009 Idea Book & Catalogue.

You can see why I love Stampin' Up! Products so much! Did you notice how the Grosgrain Ribbon perfectly matches the Artichoke Brads! There is no way this would be possible from a random stash of craft materials, no matter how huge.

If you would like any further information on how I made this ornament, please email me at liz@danichbe.com


Monday 6 October 2008

Christmas Card Season


Well there is exciting news! We have just started our series of 6 Christmas Card Workshops. Our first workshop was held at Victoria point Sharks Sporting Club, with customers and demonstrators having a great time. Everyone completed 6 beautiful cards; designed by Rebecca Ross, Loren Rennie and myself; using the most wonderful stamp set 'Season of Joy'. We had some wonderful feedback from both beginner and experienced stampers, with one of my 'pupils' declaring 6 out of 6 winners! We have been running our Christmas card Workshops since 2006 and we have learnt a thing or two about what makes a great day! One of those things is spectacular prizes and with the assistance from Stampin' Up's Sydney Office, we were able to offer some fabulous raffle prizes, with 100% of proceeds going to the Mater Mother's Bereavement Program. Pictured are Catrina, Kate (accepting for Renee) and Glynn. We are very grateful to Stampin' Up! for their generosity in assisting us with raffle prizes for what is an extremely worthwhile cause.

My friend and fellow demonstrator, Robyn, had great fun teaching the cards to a very talented and enthusiastic group of ladies.

Kate did a marvellous job, although I had to go check regularly to make sure she wasn't getting up to any mischief! Just in case you are reading this Kate, I am joking!

I love being behind the camera as it offers protection from me being in the photo. However, since I was splashing everyone elses photo on my blog, it was only fair to appear in one photo with my lovely group of ladies - thank you for making it such a great day!

We still have 5 more workshops to go and there are limited places available in all, except for Carina

Saturday 11th October - Paddington

Sunday 19th October - Carina

Sunday 26th October - Pine Rivers

Saturday 1st November - Macleay Island

Sunday 9th November - Cleveland

Do not miss out and be very dissapointed! call me on 07 3348 9456 or mobile 0448 896 001 or new email liz@danichbe.com if you wish to book.