My temporary scrapping space.

The wonderful Ian was so kind as to take us in when moving away from the dangerous lady and our previous home. Little did he know what I would do to the dining room with my supplies! This is the temporary setup!






I have no cardstock or patterned paper here, and my heat guns and soldering iron are packed away, as are a lot of other things; so hard being limited, I long to be set up again and spread out!!

But don't get me wrong I'm very thankful to have a roof over our heads!

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

A Baublemark!

Another Bookmark - this time a bauble.  I like this one better than Santa!  The best bit is the ribbon is shorter - better for smaller books like the ones I read!

Ingredients:
Twiddleybitz Bauble
Twiddleybitz Tweeny Christmas trees
Fern Colourspray from Twiddleybitz
Green Tara Velvet Glitter Ribbon
Green Tara adhesive trim - Red
Green Tara bouquet
Kaiser jewel
Music stamp
Gold Paint Dauber
Black Stazon ink

TFL
Jen
*<:-)

Who started this?

Just wondering who in their right minds came up with the idea that I should make so many many Christmas Cards each year - now I know who to blame!!!

Where did the Tradition of Holiday Greeting Cards start?

Every year during the holiday season, we send out and receive greeting cards to friends, business partners and family members. But have you ever asked yourself where this tradition originated? We did and with a little bit of research, found a most interesting story behind this custom: 

  

A British investor and civil servant by the name of Sir Henry Cole came up with the idea and produced the first commercial holiday card in 1843. He commissioned an artist, John Horsley, to create a drawing of Sir Henry and his family raising their glasses in a toast on a tree-paneled image.

Being the business man he was, he not only used the cards to send to his acquaintances, but sold over 2,000 cards for a shilling a piece.

  

Soon others picked-up on Sir Henry’s idea and started producing more and more cards. It was not until 1875 though, when the first holiday cards were offered in America. Once the tradition was started and the business took off, it quickly evolved from flower and fairy images to winter and religious pictures and to more patriotic themes during the two world wars. In the 1950s cartoons and humorous cards became popular and today you can choose cards from a wide range of themes, forms and materials.

Twiddleybitz Christmas Blog Hop WINNER!!!

Thank you again to the Fantabulous Miss Tiff for organizing us Twiddlers so well and making the blog hop so much fun for everyone.

Thanks goes to the other Amazing Design Team members who constantly awe me and inspire me further - you are the most talented bunch of women I know and I feel truly honored to be counted among you!

Thank you of course to Mr and Mrs Twiddles for constantly creating wonderful products that inspire me to create and love doing so,  And for believing in me enough to have me on their design team.

And saving the best till last - Thank you to Everyone who joined in the Twiddleybitz blog hop - and to those of you whom left a comment on my blog and are following me!   I hope I don't let you down and you enjoy my creations both now AND in the future!

That means that Janice - is receiving a little extra something this year!!  Janice could you please email me your address details so I can post your pressie in time for receiving it by Christmas!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas Bookmark

For Erin...

Erin is absolutely in love with reading right now!  I am borrowing books from the local library for her at a wonderfully alarming rate :-)  On her christmas Wishlist - Books!  nothing else - just books!

This bookmark is from a cool idea I had once...  the tag hangs freely outside the book at the front, the ribbon is passed between the pages of the book where you stop reading - the flower can stay between the pages in a big book or hang out the bottom of a small book.

Ingredients:

Green Tara - Green jute and sparkly red ribbon
Green Tara - small poinsettias (red on side - white the other)
Green Tara - Santa die cut
Chipboard Tag
Fern colourspray from Twiddleybitz
Holly embossing folder for big shot
Kaiser small red jewels

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Twiddleybitz Christmas Blog Hop!!

Hello everyone and welcome to my leg of the Twiddleybitz Blog Hop!  The last Twiddleybitz blog hop was my first and I made some Christmas Cards - I do hope everyone found this inspirational and was able to make at least one!!!

I hope you've been enjoying our Christmas Blog Hop it so far - so many beautiful and inspirational creations and fantastic prizes!

I would just like to say a quick but very genuine THANK YOU to Nic, Andrew, Tiff and the other Design Team members for having me on the team.  I am in constant wonder as to why I was picked!  While unfortunately my personal life is a little "restraining" (shall we say) at the moment, my mind is never far from my Twiddleybitz!!  I have so many projects planned out in my little book but limited time and space atm to do them!  I can't wait to share them all with you but (for now at least) we'll start with my latest and then go one at a time!!!  (I'd love it if you stuck around after the hop :-P)

I have been looking at all the 'card hangers' that have been available in the shops - from the ones that look like a very stretched santa to the silver string will small silver pegs... I've tried a few of these out in previous years and this year decided to improve on them!  I have created my Christmas Card hanger!

I have used an array of Twiddleybitz chipboard pieces and the gorgeous Coloursprays in additional to blossoms and other bits and pieces... I hope you like!  The gold cards and envelopes in the picture are from a class I taught recently at StampAntics in Brisbane - It was my first time back in the 'teaching saddle' and I loved it - I never really knew just how much I missed it!

I also taught a layout class that same day and love the layout sooo much - I really want to share it with you - I hope you like it!  It's one of my all-time favourite pictures of Riley, he is really photogenic so I do have a lot of favourites waiting to be scrapped!  I used a number of Twiddleybitz Chippy pieces and love the sparklies!!

Anyhoo - I really should get on with it! LOL  Please have a looksee at my card hanger, It took a while to create but that was more from arranging and re-arranging the order of the pegs and the embellishments, and mis-cutting the bead string than through any difficulty!!

Please leave a comment below and tell me what you think of my card hanger, and if you sign up to follow my blog as well (or are already following me) I'll put your name in the draw for a very secret and wonderful surprise gift from Santa.

Pegged out at work on our special sound absorbing walls!

The gorgeous candy was put through the big shot, sprayed with Fern Coloursprays and rubbed with Silver to highlight the raised surface.

Poppy spray with a little Lippyliscious and silver rub for the candy, fern for the star with some gold wire and red ribbon, flower sprayed with the coloursprays also.

Lippyliscious sprayed on Poppy for the pegs, fern for the Tweeny trees, walnut and gold for the gingerbread man with large green brads and googley eyes!  Gold paint on the bauble.

Gold paint on the Merry Christmas with 3 red buttons, Fern on the candy and fancy bauble, poppy on the star with music script stamp in black stayzon with gold paint on edges. 

 Fern on the fancy bauble, poppy on the star with music script stamp in black stayzon with gold paint on edges. 

I cut every 15th ball from the gold ball garland (Coles) with tin snips, being very careful not to cut the string, then decided the pegs would be too far apart so cut every 8th ball off as well!  I painted all the wooden pegs, Erin helped me with this - finally ending up the 'golden child' as I knew she always was - literally!!! (spraying would have used too much and taken too long), then I decorated all my chippy and created my flowers.  Before attaching the embellishments to the pegs I made sure I was happy with their order and matching pegs, then glued them on with Pritt gel glue.

Thank you for looking - I hope you've enjoyed my latest creation.  Don't forget to comment and follow my blog to get a secret surprise from Santa  *<:-)

Checkout the Ning throughout the Twiddleybitz Blog Hop for competitions and Prizes, inspiration, and a whole heap of chat!  www.twiddleybitz.ning.com

Your Next Blog Hop Host is Karola Witczac at 6pm AEST.  I can't wait to see her lovely creations!

I'd like to leave you with a little verse that is inside all our Family Christmas Cards this year:

Our Wish for You in 2011





May peace break into your home

and thieves come to steal your debts. 

 



May the pockets of your jeans become

a magnet for $100 bills. 

 



May love stick to your face like Vaseline

and laughter assault your lips!

 



May happiness slap you across the face and your tears be that of joy

 



May the problems you had, forget your home address! 

 



In simple words ............




May 2011 be the best year of your life!!!

Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year!!

Published for Christmas - thanks Santa! SC 84 - p88

Just wanted to share a little toot with you :-)

It's been a long time since I was published and it's always such a thrill to see your work in print.  Scrapbook Creations issue 84, page 88; My two cards are accompanying the wonderful work of the gorgeous Tiff Sawyer (now a Scrapbooking Memories Master by the way - as if we didn't already know how special she was  ;-)).

I encourage everyone to submit your work to the magazines - it's a great confidence booster and it's a double joy - the excitement when you find out you've had your work accepted and then a few months later when the magazine comes out.




Merry Christmas everyone!

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Don't forget your envelopes!

It's lovely to see all the beautiful handmade cards around at Christmas but I do worry. A flat colored envelope at best is what I see holding people's Christmas cards (and cards for other occasions!). I'm sorry but I do not want white, gold, silver, red, or even green envelopes holding my cards!!! I want to see decorated envelopes too!!!!

It is a little limited if you are sending things through the post but not impossible :-). And if you are hand gifting your card - the possibilities for decorating your envelope are endless!!!

Why bother? I hear you ask, well - do you like that special gift just handed to you or do you like to rip off the wrapping paper and joke about keeping it for next year? It's just one of those things that make your card, and your effort just that little bit 'more' and especially if you are enclosing money or vouchers or a store-card.

Here are some envelopes I have decorated - fairly plain for sending through the post, a bit of masking and misting using Twiddleybitz coloursprays and ink, even running the envelope through my big shot!!

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Christmas is coming

A couple of cards...

Very plain but I have limited supplies - it's driving me nuts!









TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

A bouquet 60 years in the making...

It may have taken 60 years but my grandparents have finally cut a wedding cake.  Their 60th Wedding Anniversary was last week.

They met when they were 17 years old, him a butcher's apprentice from Lincolnshire and her a young lady from London.  She was walking down the street one day and he wolf whistled at her, that was the beginning!  They waited until they were 21 to get married - to get approval from their families, which didn't come.  They were married in a registry office on the 11th of the 11th 1950.  They worked hard and had a baby in 1953 (my mum), and moved to Australia in 1955 to start over in a new country, knowing it would be hard but doing it anyway - what did they have to lose?

60 years later they have 4 children, 4 grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren and a tight-knit circle of friends, who were there to help them celebrate and see them finally cut their wedding cake.  There is not a more deserving couple.  Still in love after more than 60 years, a true rarity these days.

 I love you Nanna and Poppy.

Green Tara Sprays included in the bouquet.

Has been really busy...

Packing and moving but will have stuff to show soon :-)


TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Melbourne Cup fascinator

To go with my black n white dress... With a matching ring in the background.





'net ribbon', bead spray, blossoms from Green Tara, shimmer spray from Twiddleybitz, and a pearl jewel from Kaiser. Clip from spotlight.

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

i-top brad maker

OMG I picked this up today and it's my fav new toy!! Make custom brads from just about anything. I've experimented with the traditional holly patterned paper (the newest AED release) and a photo of my little "Eriflower"! You can use, material, lace, paper, photos, the list goes on - check out the details here

I will say, I bought the templates to cut the brad tops out but they're driving me nuts, I'm not the most patient person in the world - good news is though that there are punches available to do it for you, in the 3 different sizes!! I only bought brads for the 16mm and 22mm sizes, with the 28mm staying on my shopping list for a little while longer yet!




TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Christmas Layout

These are close-ups of part of the layout I've done for a class at StampAntics in Brisbane on November 27th at 1pm. Lots of Twiddley, glitter, and techniques - very Christmassy!

Here's the Blurb:
Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 01:00PM
Christmas Layout -- $28.00
Inking, sanding, distressing, tearing, glitter, hot-set powder, flocking, chipboard, layering, patterned paper, cardstock, a recipe for disaster? No!!
A single page layout with hidden journaling, perfect for the santa photos we get every year – but easily adapted to another stunning larger single photo. A multitude of techniques and products that come together in the perfect layout to compliment any photo! If you haven’t used hot-set powder, hold on tight, it’s that extra “something” that you can compare to a secret ingredient in the favourite family recipe!
Teacher – Jenni Hodge
Stamp Antics
Shop 4/210 West Avenue
Wynnum West QLD 4178
Australia
Phone: (07) 3393 3022


Here's the photos: (Sorry - close-ups only!!)

ATC - Typography

Ingredients:
white bazzil linen
Blueberrylicious colourspray
Twiddleybitz grunge alphabet
lil davis foam alphas
making memories foam alphas
cuttlebug embossing folder - numbers
Distress inks - mustard seed, barn door, vintage photo, and sapphire(?).

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels (a review by Me, Jennifer Hodge!)

I have been a stamper for almost 20 years now, and the versatility of products created for the stamping industry never ceases to amaze me. The new Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels brought to Australia by Twiddleybitz are no exception. The vivid colours in this range of ultra thick embossing enamels are only one of the great things about these products. Colours available are - Diamond Clear; Deep Gold; Light Gold; Rich Silver; Fire Opal; Citrine; Sapphire; Peridot; Pink Sapphire; Amethyst; Jet.

These Jewel Enamels are beautiful to work with, and while there are similar products on the market, these are fast becoming my favourites! One thing that sets them apart from the competition are the bottle sizes available; not too much and not too little but just right - available in 30 gram pots for a recommended retail of $13.99.

Jewel Enamels give fantastic coverage on many mediums including cardstock, chipboard, and metal. Effects you can create are unlimited by this medium - you can melt, re-melt, stamp into, mix colours, personalize brads, and use in good quality crafting moulds. Another technique is heating using a melting pot or ironing between two layers of baking paper or pouring into cold water for a lava effect.

Made a mistake? Yet another great thing about Jewel Enamels is that if you make a mistake, just re-melt and keep going! You can manipulate with a soldering iron or cookie cutters, suspend beads, glitter, or just about anything in it while molten before cooling down; the possibilities are endless!

Team your Jewel Enamels with Twiddleybitz chipboard and Colour sprays and you'll have projects and embellishments that "WOW" every time! I would definitely recommend adding Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels to your crafting supplies, you will love them and never look back!

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Revolution ATC for swaps

Forgot to post this...



The Panda Revolution!!! Random image from the web, attached to red bazzil and edged with barn door distress ink.

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Green Tara Competition Time!!!

Go to the Green Tara blog (it's been refurbished!!) to get details of this great new competition, super easy to enter and great fun too!!

Click HERE!

I'd just like to thank Angella for all her hard work on said blog, you are one very talented lady and I'm honoured to be on the design team with you!

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE!!!

GREEN TARA COMPETITION

The Green Tara Design Team have decided that we are having a competition. So we are having a competition! If you have seen details of this on our blog, please ignore the deadline of end of September. I think that this is rather short notice for all you busy people. So NEW DEADLINE is end of October. This time you have more scope than in our last competition. All you have to do is create! Layouts, cards or off-the-page projects are all acceptable and the only necessity is that all creations must incorporate Green Tara products. Submission of entries is by email toinfo@greentara.com.au so please make sure your photo does your project justice. The prize is a basket of Green Tara products valued at $500.00 (wholesale price) and the competition will be judged by the Design Team (so sorry girls you can enter but you can't win!). Here's a wonderful example of a layout that Linda created using lots of GT products. We particularly love the use of the scrunched pink and white mulberry paper. Linda is part of our Design Team.

For Me

Erin made me a thankyou card the other day. I gave her the make n take I did with heaven scent at Paperific. A bookmark - background blended with distress inks, stamped with a bird in a tree.

She liked it so much she gave me this card and I just had to share:


Yes it's my head and yes, she asked before cutting, and before using any of the elements on it.

And the message inside:



I love you soooooooooooo much babygirl xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Fathers day

Dad loves his tigers. Picked this stamp up at heaven scent at paperific. White card, some distress inks and wallah!!
I decided to make a 'peephole' in the envelope so he saw his tiger - it was a hit!



TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Another card...

My beautiful bestest friend's third little angel turned 1 this weekend. She's the spitting image of her Poppy (may he rest in peace), and we know he's watching over her and was enjoying the party today too. I made this little card for her; sweet, gorgeous Skye.

Mwah! XXX
Jen

Omg!!!

I love love love these new ultra thick embossing enamels from Twiddleybitz. There are currently 10 colours and a diamond clear available - stay tuned for more examples, tutorials and a review or two!!!





Ingredients:
Blossoms from green tara
Twiddleybitz colour sprays - Lilac lustre, silver, and plumliscious
Twiddleybitz Colourful thoughts jewel enamels - saphire, and pink saphire
Brad from FTI covered in jewels
Clear Music stamp
Black Stazon ink

Mwah! XXX
Jen

A Birthday Card

For a friends' mum, whose birthday is today. Happy Birthday Pam!! She loves Teddy bears so...


I couldn't resist doing the envelope too.


TFL, Mwah! XXX
Jen

Some more Paperific Projects :-)

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