Create Something Special for Christmas - mini tutorial

It's getting closer to Christmas! Can you feel the festive time calling you? Thinking about making something with your craft to decorate your home? Feeling a bit vintagy? (yep that's a new word!). I love the look of the white vintage style - and Collections has the perfect items to make that come true. Join me in this mini tutorial making this small wall hanging or decoration for your home. You are not going to need anything really special, you can always substitute what you don't have here to what you do have around your creative area!
It's so simple to make just some small box bases, some left over frames from the "thrinchies", some hearts or stars and any other little embellishments you care to knock up! I think some glitter in silver, perhaps some tea stained muslin in a couple of different shades and some beads/wire old papers and tags, come on "the usual stuff!"

We are going to create three boxes and some embellishments, put them all together and you will have this small shadow box of lovely embellishments to bring out each year at Christmastime.....

Take 3 box bases and join them up using glossy accents or similar. I am using this glue as it's really strong and quick drying, and I don't have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, I need to make this quick and the glossy accents is a fantastic choice for this project. Clip and hold if you want to go faster!

Okay, you now have three box bases together, all you do is join the 3 of them together - in a row for a hanging orientation. Hey that's so simple, are you thinking other ideas for this format?

Hold together with some bulldog or letter clips to make it even faster! Make sure you glue the complete surface and push them all together so they sit nice and flat whilst they dry, which won't take long with the glossy accents.
Using some tissue paper and I love using my butterick patterned one as the colour is so fabulous, glue a strip to the inside of the sides of the box. Do all three of them. Now run around your craft room and look for something textural to put inside each box. There's is got to be something you have made before and have left over. I happened to have some faux fresco, lovely and crackly and VERY textural. Next some dictionary paper, please get the old stuff not the new! Oh and you can always put in some Collections paper, I know it's not got texture but it's really nice, LOL!
You will need some fabric muslin for the sides, so cut a few strips and glue that on the sides, then finish it off on the back just in case someone turns it over - especially your friend, who does this stuff and you need to impress them!
Now grab that left over thrinchie frame................ (you didn't throw it out : ( !!!!) okay just checking! I used two and glued them together and painted it with warm white. Now the frames are just a bit short so I added some scallop edges to the top and the bottom, also painted white....

All you need to do now is make up some embellishments to go inside. I created a padded heart with tissue some muslin and a crystal dangle, a multi layered star with some nice glitter and an elegant label with "25" for Christmas day. Don't forget to add extra scrap chipboard to the back of these so they "float up". The top of the box I used an antique plaque and some beads and wire. For the hanging dangle on the bottom just use the inside portion of the crystal frames and add some beads and wire for charm.... add some words, they always make the project!

Now hang your Christmas embellishment - stand back and REJOICE !!! Wow that was so quick!!

Wedding Stationery

How beautiful is this stationery by Portia, just simple elegant style using Collections bluebirds painted black. It really looks so lovely for wedding stationery or even just a lovely card. I think the photography is also beautiful. Thanks for sharing your wonderful work Portia!

Malaysia, exciting Malaysia

Sharon's beautiful store at the Bangsar Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Last weekend I had a lovely trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to teach two classes at Scrappingville for store owner Sharon. What an amazing opportunity to teach overseas. Lauren my daughter came along for the trip to do a bit of shopping. We left Perth in the wee hours for a 5.5 hour flight. We were met by Sharon and her driver at the airport and it took about an hour to get to KL as the airport is 80kms away. We were so excited to be there and the hotel Boulevard was really lovely, right smack in the middle of two massive shopping centres. Mega Mall, Mid Valley was 1.5million square meters (4.5 mil square feet) and if that wasn’t enough for you there was one just meters away called the Garden which houses so many top end stores. I left Lauren to check out the shopping and I went to the store to set up for classes the next day.

I had such a great time teaching at Scrappingville as there were so many keen girls wanting to know everything about Collections. Many of the girls had actually been to Uni in Perth! We had about a 3 hour class then we had a nice lunch and in the afternoon we did some make and take spools, which the girls loved and made more than one! A few of us ended up at dinner upstairs in a wonderful Chinese restaurant with so many delicious courses thanks to Wendy! It was so great to get to know the girls a little more. Saturday was a huge class with lots to learn making assorted size tiles on a triple layered frame. Again an amazing lunch provided by Wendy (thanks!!!) of local dishes to die for and some little dessert cakes called kuay made of glutinous rice and flavoured with pandanas leaf etc! Yummy. If I could only get the recipe for that fried chicken, it was so jam packed full of flavour, I managed to eat all the crispy bits as well. I think I ate Nasi Lemak nearly every day, cos’ I did eat it for breakfast! After lunch and the class I did a long demo and made a piece using tiles and the ‘leftover frame’ in the Collections style. After the class we did lots and lots of photos!

Here's Naddy taking a shot of TohEe, Wendy, me, and Tea. The girls did like their photos!
On Sunday Michelle took us to China town for some shopping, food sampling, purchased some knock off tiffany jewellery and then we ended up at a local shopping centre and spent a few more dollars! Then Michelle dropped us off at the Pertronas Towers so we could go up and see the view but alas all tickets had been sold so we only got some photos of the buildings. They are so tall about 88 storys that it was hard to photograph with someone in it!

Petronas Twin Towers are bigger than big!
Lauren practically had to eat the footpath to take this shot to get both of us in it! LOL!
Breakfast was huge and so many choices, it was hard to know what to have, so we did try many of the dishes on offer!
During the class this girls worked hard to complete the project and so attentive as well!

The hospitality of the girls was amazing and Lauren and I are so grateful because we had such a wonderful time. Whilst I was teaching Lauren was discovering all the wonderful shopping centres KL has to offer including KLCC and the Pavilion. KL is such a large city and the metro area there are about 7 million people so you can imagine how diverse the shopping is compared to Australia. Food was incredibly cheap and diverse; you could really get anything you wanted there at these amazing huge shopping centres.
Sharon’s shop in the Bangsar Shopping Centre was delightful and reminded me of a boutique store Crabtree & Evelyn as it had the most beautiful recessed arches filled with wonderful samples and products. If you ever get to KL please go visit the store as it’s right near the city and all the wonderful shopping centres and Sharon’s hospitality was nothing short of AMAZING! It was a pleasure to come to KL and I would do it again in a heartbeat! (hint hint). Check out the video for some photos and footage! Thanks for looking Julie xxx

Catch Up! Hyden Retreat

Well it's been a mighty busy month for me, so that's why I haven't had time to post, so here is some catch up posting!

At the end of last month I had the wonderful opportunity to drive to Hyden in WA to teach a class to the fantastic girls that came together for a retreat organised by Karen Smith of Scrappin Outback. Hence the name it was really in the outback of WA. There were ladies from all over WA attending, not sure of the exact total but there were more than 40 ladies. I had a wonderful time and the girls were very attentive and were such a wonderful group to teach. The food was also yummy, loved the roast spit night and the tabbouleh salad! I did a long demo on the Saturday night followed by a 3 hour class on the Sunday. After the class I drove to the Wave Rock which is a very popular tourist attraction for the town. You can see in the video the highlights and some footage of the rock. A little crow walked with me to show me the way in. (how cute!) On my departure to Hyden I did get a bit lost coming out of the city (did not read the map well enough!) so I did an extra 60kms more thank I should have. The drive is about 3.5hours and it took me 4 hours coming back without stops as I took it easy as I was pretty tired. I did manage to clock up 750km for the trip. It's the longest single drive I have done myself as I am a bit of a city chick! It was so nice to meet Karen and I thank her for her wonderful hospitality, so much a part of the kindness you get with the country gals! Stay tuned in the next day or so for details of my trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!