Just had to share

Found this while I was "studying" and just had to share....

Check out the rest of the amazing and really cute illustrations here at MelonHeadz...

Great freebies too !

Happy New Year Everyone !

TFL, M x

Last minute Helmar Xmas fun

Hello all...

Michelle here in a sweltering hot Adelaide, South Australia.

Just a quick share as we set into the Christmas Cheer here.

We have been madly preparing everything for our Christmas get together here with some of our family.

The house has been scrubbed and buffed to a major shine and the Christmas table has been set up for our big Christmas lunch.

This year we have gone for a little different colour scheme for the table too. I wanted to use my big dinner set as we have quite a few of us here this year and then dinner set is very non traditional Christmas colours.. maroon, forest green, white and royal blue!

So to compliment it all I had to buy some maroon table clothes for the table....

and to tie it all together and personalise it a bit I had a little fun with some Helmar and made this little place cards.

and YES... all the holes in the white scalloped circle were individually punched out... bit of a glutton for punishment, but love the end result.

Job made super easy with a little help from my Helmar Tape Adhesive Runner

and a big dab of Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots!

Have to give a huge hug and kiss to my Darling Husband too..

He scrubbed up all the silver ware till it shined and then our two youngest girls dried it all for him!

We almost forgot about our Christmas table centre piece... was sitting in the shed wrapped up from last year. It lights up and makes the whole thing glow.

So myself and my family,

 I would like to wish

My fellow Helmar Hotties, Tracy, Mark, Helmar

and

our Helmar followers

a

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy festive season.

Looking forward to the new year and continuing to spread the Helmar cheer.

SEASON'S GREETINGS !

Stay safe!

TFL, M x

MAS November Kit

Look what I got to play with from Mad about Scrappin....

Gorgeous Glitz Beautiful Dreamer Pattern Papers, Cardstock and Embellishments.

Was so much playing around with this kit... and there was so many goodies in it too that I could really mix it up.

Here's what I created

Whay not check it out here... there are four kits avaliable at $20 per kit.

WHAT A BARGAIN PRICE is all I can say!

Check it out.

TFL, M x

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas here

Oh my golly gosh.... think I am all Christmas crafted out....

Created 55 of these babies !!!!

In the name of keeping it simple for most of our family friends, I had my own little production line happening here.

My job was made easier thanks to these Fiskars tools

Fiskars Self Inking Stamp Press



Fiskars Squeeze Punch - XL Circle

Fiskars Shape Cutter

and lastly

Fiskars Shape Templates

Now off to address all the envelope to go with all these cards!

TFL, M x

December Challenge "Happy Helmar Holidays!"

WOW, it is December already!

2011 just flew by and we are excited for the Holiday's Helmar style!

Helmar Designer Lydell Quin has another great sketch to inspire you this Holiday month!:

Here's what I created from the very inspiring sketch....

I got down a dirty with an old piece of cardboard box, some Christmas napkins, Helmar Decoupage medium and LOTS of yummy Helmar Crackle medium to create my layout base.... all I can say is DON'T underestimate the humble cardboard box and Christmas napkins.. they can really create a very unique background.. I will definitely be trying this again as it was so much fun!
And we want to see those layouts about YOU! Pick up your favorite Helmar products and show us your Holidays........Helmar Style!!


What a great month December is going to be!

By taking our challenge and uploading a project you are automatically entered to win our random drawing for Helmar products!

Each month we pick a random winner to get some Helmar goodies!

What a fun way to play along! Ready, Set UPLOAD!

All you need to do to be eligible for the random draw is upload your project here!

We pick a random winner each month!

It is that easy to have a chance to win your favorite Helmar products!

Remember to take time for YOU in December and "Happy Helmar Holidays"!

TFL, M x

Getting crafting with the kids for Christmas

This year making cards has been a huge task due to family commitments, Volleyball trip interstate and study commitments adding to the normal hum drum of family life.

I had several bucket loads of cards to get make and time wasn't on our side this year so I enlisted the help of my kids to get them all done. Plus the fact that it was nice for them to be able to tell their friends that they had actually helped make them.

Every year my son give a card to everyone in his class and makes gingerbread people to give them. We made the gingerbread people this weekend and hope to get their button "stuck" on with royal icing through the week.. that is the gingerbread people survive the week with Miss Tarryn on the prowl... she LOVE gingerbread and consumes it like no one I have ever seen!

So.. I order to get Nate's cards all done in record time we decided to keep it simple. Some simple punching and inking and then it would all be done.

While I had precut the main pieces I set Nate to one side with a couple of Fiskars punches (XL Scalloped Circle Punch and L Round and Round Punch), and told him we need 26 of each. He had a jolly old time punching his little heart out!

Now I can tell you will all the stamping that was involved (tree for circle and greeting inside the card) I WAS NOT going to do it all with my little stamp blocks.. the job was made a lot easier by my son Nate being able to use my Fiskars Stamp Factory.. no mess and he was able to do it all by himself as it was a breeze for him to use.

We added a little bit of kindy glitz to the cards and then they were all done in a couple of hours!

And for the Calisthenics girls we went all girlie. Lots of pink, purple and sparkle... what Cali girl doesn't like sparkles!

I had to do these one's myself as Kiah and Tarryn weren't able to help quite as much with these.... they did however choose the papers, add the trees (with a little help) and SUPERVISE... hehehehehehe.

Must say that thanks to Fiskars my card making this year was made a lot easier! Was a breeze to get all these cards made in one day and I am glad to be hanging up my Christmas card making hat for the year!

Happy Festive Season Crafting, M x

Getting your glue on !

I love watermarking on card stock to create my very own background. I also love embossing on my card stock too.

The problem I have found though with watermarking on some card stocks is that it can be very hard to see.

Also the issues I have with embossing is that it ONLY embosses the area that has been inked.

Now that may not seem like much of a problem.. but on some of the darker card stock colours it can be very hard to see the fine detail in some stamped images.

Well... thanks to Helmar Acid Free Glue and a fine paint brush I have managed to solve this problem and create my own unique background.

I start by water marking the image onto my card stock base. Then I use my paint brush to "paint" my Helmar Acid Free Glue all over the stamped image (making sure to only paint the image stamped) I must say it was rather therapeutic!

Once the glue was dry I then highlighted the card stock base by rubbing the card stock with ink.

The glue areas resist water based inks and therefore have a glossy raised look almost like the embossed card stock you can buy.

Here's my finished layout with the glue "embossed" background

Close up of the glue "embossing"

I love this technique and thanks to Helmar Acid Free Glue it is such and easy thing to do.

Why not give it a try. Such a great technique to use when you have run out of embossing powder or for when you want that store bought embossed paper look.

Don't forget to head over to the Helmar Design Team Blog to see what everyone has been creating.
TFL, Mx

TSO December Technique Challenge

This month I am lucky to be able to choose the Technique Challenge for The Scrappers Outlet.

Here's what I have chosen for the technique - Herringbone Technique
(might I say it was so much fun creating a sample card that I have also created a whole layout using this technique! Very fiddly but well worth it I think!)

Here's how you do it...

Step 1
Trim a piece of card stock to the desired size of your background. Run through Xyron® with a permanent adhesive cartridge.


Alternative:
If you don't have a Xyron, cover the card stock with any strong double-sided adhesive or glue.


Step 2
Cut three or more different patterned paper pieces into thin strips of equal widths - the pattern looks best with widths between 1/8" and 3/8".

Step 3
Pick one of the darker paper strips and adhere it to the cardstock base diagonally. It will divide the cardstock piece into two triangular sections


Step 4
Adhere another strip from the same patterned paper across one of the two sections, forming a T
Take a third strip from that paper and adhere it diagonally across the other section. You now have four triangular spaces on the card base.

 Step 5
Roughly trim the paper strips. It will make the next steps a bit easier.


Step 6
Pick one section of the cardstock and start filling it in.
Take a different patterned paper strip and adhere it next to one of the main strips.
Take another strip from the same pattern and adhere to the opposite side of the triangle.
Step 7
Repeat Step 6 with strips of a different paper pattern.
Continue to add paper strip pairs until the first section is filled.


Step 8
Flip cardstock and trim paper strips. Don't trim all the way to the cardstock just yet.


Step 9
Fill in the second triangle with paper strips.
Fill in the the third section.
Trim the strips between each section. You can use the longer leftovers to fill in the next triangle.


Step 10
Fill in the last section.


Step 11
Burnish the background before cutting it to the size of your cardstock. This will prevent smaller strips from falling off.


Step 12
Use the finished background on project.

Here's the card  I created using this technique.. such a great way to use up your scraps too!

Head over to The Scrappers Outlet to check out the other challenges for this month.

TFL, M x

TSO November Kit

I received lots of bright and bubbly stuff to create with in last months kit from The Scrappers Outlet.

I had such a great time creating away and getting very messy in the process.

Here's the end results...

Can you spot the Fiskars Punches that got a work out for my first layout ... Yep.. my favourite punches.. Fiskars squeeze punches.. XL Tag Punch and L/ M Round and Round Punch!

TFL, M x

SWV December Sketch Challenge

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Scrapping with V...

Seriously, only 20 days until Santa arrives.

For those of you who need a distraction from the Holiday Season craziness we present

"The December Sketch Challenge"!!!

Here's my take on this sketch

This competition closes at midnight 31st December 2011.

The winner will receive a kit from Scrapbook Kits with V store.

Please email your entries to scrapbookkitswithjules@gmail.com.
 
Winners will be announced early January 2012.

Helmar Holiday Hop

It’s that time of year where we all start thinking of the holidays so what better way to get your Holiday spirit than a great Helmar Holiday Hop?

Filled with so much Holiday cheer and some amazing projects featuring all the different Helmar Adhesives.

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Helmar Holiday Hop.

If you have been following along, you should have hopped here from L. Grace Lauer’s blog.

If not, you just have to stop at the Helmar Blog and start from the beginning.

There are goodies along the way and we don’t want you to miss a thing.

Getting ready for the festive season has been lots of fun in our household. With four children, everyone is eager to be involved and get busy creating for Christmas.

This year however there has been one change in our household in the countdown for Christmas. We have discovered that our youngest child is unable to eat chocolate (quite a hard thing when she lives in a house of Chocoholics... hehehehehe). Do you think I could find an advent calendar anywhere that doesn't have chocolate but still lets my kids satisfy their sweet tooth !!!!! NOPE !!!!

So this year, we I had to get creative with a little help from Helmar. I decided to make our own advent calendar that the kids can change around the days easily and have popped a bowl of jelly bean next to the calendar for the little sweet tooth's!

Was quite an easy task with a little help from a child's paint by numbers mini canvas and easel and some of my favourite Helmar adhesives

and here's my calendar

Make sure you leave a comment at every stop because the elves of Helmar will be giving away prizes to some lucky Helmar fans.

Now hop on over to Angie Blom's Blog to see another amazing Helmar Holiday project.

The Holiday Hop will be open for comments until 11:59P.S.T December 4th , so take a look and enjoy a little holiday spirit from all of us on the Helmar Team.

Thanks again for stopping by today and Happy Holidays.

TFL, M x

MAS November Challenge

Better late than never.... haven't had a change to post this challnege form last month after having been flat out with placement for my course.

This was the challenge for last month at Mad about Scrappin....

We were challenged to create a layout using three stamps...

My stamps used were .. the paper lace created by stamping then handcut, flourishes stamped onto acetate and then lastly the flowers which I stamped several times onto water colour paper, water coloured then layers with Helmar Liquid Scrapdots.

Loved this challenge.. though the real challenge for me was trying to pick which THREE stamps to use... I may have just a few stamps... hehehehehe.

TFL, M x

TSO Teaser for December Kit

Just a little to wet your taste buds....

If you want to see more you'll have to grab the kit...

Head over to The Scrappers Outlet to check it out!

Full instructions included too so that you can get creating just like me!

TFL, M x

Guess what is ALMOST here !!!!!!