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Sunday 30 January 2011

Term 1 classes still available.

Looking for Scrapbooking classes that are fun, friendly and great value? Look no further!


All our classes (except for kids) are double page layouts which equals to only $12.50 per page! Everything is included. You only need to bring your own basic tools (pencil, ruler, either knife or paper trimmer) + your preferred adhesive. All other items you can try out in our class. No need to purchase items you may never use again.

To get more bang for your buck come and visit me in store or send an e-mail to book for some classes. Some classes are filling fast so hurry to secure your place.

For full details on all available classes sign up to our mailing list or join our Facebook page.

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For term 1 we offer the following classes:
Tuesday - Open Scrap
Wednesday - morning Scrapbooking class
Thursday - morning Scrapbooking class
Friday - every 2nd Friday morning a card class.
Saturday - Morning classes - fully booked for term 1. Every 2nd afternoon Kid's class, every other Saturday afternoon a 1 off class. Could be packaging, could be Mother's Day cards, making clay pens,,,,always something different and never costs more than $10.

Once a month - on a Saturday night lock in. Plus we have various BTP wood classes through out the term.

Tool of the Day - Crop-a-dile!

You can buy stock and have it in your shop for a while with no one giving it a 2nd glance so you start thinking maybe it wasn't something I should stock, and then suddenly in 1 day 5 different  people can be after the same thing.

That's what has happened with the Crop-o-dile the past 2 days. Everyone seems to want one. What is a crop-a-dile I hear some of you ask?
Its a Eyelet setter / hole punch. It can even punch holes in thin metal. We still have a couple in store and they are $10 below rrp!
I will leave you now with a video I found on you tube showing how to use it.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Last of the School Holiday Program

Today was the last day of our school holiday program. I really enjoyed the classes for the past 4 weeks. I can't even say which age group I liked best as all the kids were wonderful.

The most popular was definitely the Wednesday morning and afternoon classes, with most of the kids doing both. They have learnt to cut out little images, inking, faux stitching, border punching, little bit of paper tole, stamping, ripping, shrinky dinks and putting it all together to make a work of art. 

Kids amaze you sometimes with their hidden talents. They can be so creative and don't always follow the instructions step by step as their creativity is unleashed. I even learnt a thing or 2 from them. We have a couple of boys that joined us every week, and a 12 year old boy who learnt card making wasn't for him (the shrinking of plastic is what attracted him to the class lol).

We also had a very talented young lady helping out with the classes. She was brilliant. So great with the kids. I am very honoured that she was able to work with me, and couldn't have done it without her  - hopefully with school commitments and her other job she will still be able to help out with the kids classes and parties.


We have put together a great Term 1 program for all ages. At booking just specify the age so I can tailor the kit slightly if they are younger to help them keep up with the rest of the group. Places are limited as I don't want to over fill the class. Cost $15 per week or $62.50 if you book and pay for the term before the 1st class commences. (saving of $12.50). If Saturday afternoons don't suit you, you can also sign up for our take away classes and you will receive the kit along with detailed instructions to take home. (Help is available if needed).

Here are a few layouts we made during the holidays. Some are still available in kits if you would like to purchase any.


Hair Clips. During the class we made sleeper clips, bobbi pins and alligator clips.
Babushka Canvas Class
1 page layout for the 6-8 year group

Boys layout for the 6-8 year group

1 page layout. The kids cut out their title using the cricut.

Same class as above - ut a boy version. Even though a lot of the girls opted for this one too.

The girl version to the "boys and their toys" layout.

9+ age group layout class. You can't see it on most of the layouts, but the kids definitely gave the foam mounts a good workout!

Our Christmas layout. The kids loved using the glossy accents!

This was the 2nd option to go with the Butterfly layout.

I don't have the other layouts on the computer, will try to remember to load them at a later date.

Term 1 kids classes are on display in the classroom if anyone wood like to have a look.
Feel free to ring or e-mail me with any questions regarding the workshops available.
Hope everyone has a fantastic last weekend of the school holidays :)

Monday 24 January 2011

Project Opera House Cake DAY SIX


Has any of you been following Planet Cakes effort to make the Ultimate Opera House cake for Australia day? The end cake will weigh approx 1.5 tonnes!!! That's a lot of chocolate cake!!

Sunday 23 January 2011

Shrinky Dinks

Have you heard of Shrinky Dinks? I love them! You can make embellishments for your paper craft with them, make jewellery pieces, make wine charms and keyrings like you probably used to do with chip packets when you were younger! Shrinky Dinks Shrink to approximately 1/3rd their original size and become 9 times thicker. You can shrink them either by using a heat gun or putting them in the oven.

You can stamp and colour them. If you plan on using them as a keyring you will need to punch a hole in it before shrinking as it will be near impossible after shrinkage.

They come in various colours. My favourite is the Frosted Ruff n Ready one. Just recently Shrinky Dinks also released a version that can go through your printer! How cool is that? You can purchase Shrinky Dinks here.









On Tuesday afternoon we are holding a class using the Shrinky Dinks on cards. E-mail / ring me if you would like to join us. Cost $10 which includes everything.

Desk Organisers

Here are a couple of photos from Friday nights Desk Organiser Class.
Jodie used the Sakura Park Collection:




And Leigh made hers using English Rose





Maybe I can convince Celeste to share her one made using Home Made too....
The organisers will still get embellished. You can see a rubber band across the top which is used to help hold it together while the wood glue dries.

The organiser I have on the counter was made using Lilac Avenue.
We have a couple of desk organisers left in store if you would like one. $29.95 for just the organiser.

Have you made anything for your home?

Saturday 22 January 2011

Love Notes Diaries

Do you keep a journal or Diary? Have a look at the KaiserCraft blog. It has some cute projects....and they would make great gifts!
Do you make many gifts or do you prefer to by ready made? If you make them, what is your favourite gift to make?

Friday 21 January 2011

We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Tool

Heard of the Sew Easy but not sure what it is? Have a look at this video...
We have them in store here.





What do you think of the Sew Easy? Do you sew a lot on your layouts / cards?

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Looking for something to do?



There is no better time to get back in to paper crafting as right now! Follow this link to view workshops being run this coming week. Ring now to secure your spot! Don't live in Geraldton? (or would just prefer to Take-away?) Ring or pop in to buy the class kit complete with photo and instructions. Kits are only available AFTER the class has been held.


All kids layouts are available too :) They proved to be extremely popular with the kids (and adults!!)


Hope you have a great day tomorrow!



Sunday 9 January 2011

Manufacturer in the Spotlight - KaiserCraft

Who doesn't love Kaiser Craft? They have now been around for over 21 years! It wasn't always what it is today....grab a cuppa, sit back, relax and I will tell you the story of Kaiser Craft.....

Stephen Kaiser started a little part-time job in wood working to support his (in his own words) meat pie habit during high school. Then around 21 years ago while operating a joinery business, he was asked by his wife to manufacture some small wood products to sell in her craft store. Seeing a niche opportunity, Stephen soon expanded to manufacturing plastic stencils and added other products such as acrylic paint to the company’s core range. Before long, word spread, and the Kaisercraft brand was soon in demand among Bunnings and Spotlight stores Australia wide. (excerpt taken from the Kaiser website)

In 2005 Kaiser Craft changed direction and started bringing out Scrapbooking Products.After a while they had a great design team and their monthly releases started. They had 4 double sided papers in the collection + matching epoxy brads. Their core range also started expanding including paper flowers etc.



Above is part of the Sakura Park Collection, released in 2008 ( I think! correct me if I'm wrong)


In July 2009 Q1 was released.






Q1 was very impressive. I must say this is when I really fell in love with Kaiser. I liked them before....but now I get excited everytime new collections are released as the Kasier designers NEVER disappoint. They are not always exactly to my taste....But that is because Kaiser has such an eclectic selection of collections - I am yet to find someone who doesn't like any of them.

Kaiser only released 3 Q's as it was too much for 1 month, and then you had such a long break in between releases.

2 collections are being released per month. Each collection includes 6 double sided heavy weight paper, 2 speciality papers, coloured rub ons, black rub ons, printed chipboard, die cuts, clear stamps, 6" paper pad, journaling tags. Occasionally somthing may be added or subtracted to suit the collection being released. For example  After 5 only had black rub ons.

Their Core Range includes: (sorry if I miss any!)
  • Mini Alphas as well as standard sized alpha stickers
  • Acrylic Paints
  • Album Rings
  • Mini ink pads (and only $2 each!!)
  • Card and Envelope Packs
  • Rhinestones (in 24 diff. colours)
  • Rhinestone Strips
  • Rhinstone Flourishes
  • Pearls (in 24. colours)
  • Pearl Strips
  • Pearl Flourishes
  • Grosgrain ribbon packs
  • Organza Ribbon packs
  • Paper Flowers (3 sizes per pack)
  • Paper Blooms (new release!)
  • Mini Acrylic stamps
  • Crochet Doilies
  • Wooden Flourishes
  • Chipboard Alpha
  • Brads
  • Lace Ribbon packs
  • A selection of tools
  • Quote Rub ons
  • and I'm sure there is more...but without my catalogue in front of me I can't remember :)

The 1 thing Kaiser was always big on (and still is!) is wood items. There are so many to choose from. And all at a very affordable price. In fact I find all of Kaiser is very affordable. There are a group of ladies who have signed up with me to receive every new Kaiser release. They receive:
* 2 of each double sided paper * 1 each of the designer paper * all the matching embellishments (excludes 6x6 paper pad - this is an optional extra) the average cost of the kits are $50.00. (So $100 per month if you would like both) Let me know if you would like to sign up for the kits.

I get side tracked too easily...back to the wood. Kaiser's wood products include bins, storage boxes, paper racks, albums, recipe stands, Christmas decorations and so much more!

Mini wooden handbag - great to use as a desk pencil holder

This tree has proved to be extremely popular. They come as raw wood, sand and paint and voila a jewellery stand! They are only $18.95

Decorate your kitchen in style with these great items!

A great memento for kids for their year at school

Recipe card holder

Tags. The designer made these into maths tables. Love the idea!

Looking for some Kaiser? Visit us in store or here.

Nearly forgot to mention the most important facts....they are an Australian company. All the workshop magazines are printed in Australia, and all the wood items are made in their own joinery. All other items are designed in Australia.

Kaiser is still a family owned business and they support many charities. They own / help run many orphanages in Pakistan and the Philippines. Further info can be found on their website here. Check out the user gallery - many many great ideas! Also their blog is full of inspiration and that can be found here.

How about a bit of blog candy? Answer the question below in the comments section and next Sunday a random person will be chosen (using random.org) to win a kaiser bag of goodies valued at $25.

What is your favourite Kaiser collection?

Saturday 8 January 2011

Valentine's Day

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail the other day with the meaning of love as told by 4-8year olds. Such great insights!



'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.

So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too.. That's love.'
Rebecca- age 8


  'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'
Billy - age 4


'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'
Karl - age 5

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'
Chris sie
- age 6


  'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'
Terri - age 4


'Love is when my mummy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'
Danny - age 7


'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mummy and Daddy are like that They look gross when they kiss'
Emily - age 8


'Love is what's in the room with you at Chris tmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)


'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,'

Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)


'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'
Noelle - age 7


  'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'
Tommy - age 6


'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'
Cindy - age 8


  'My mummy loves me more than anybody

You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'
Clare - age 6


  'Love is when Mummy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'
Elaine-age 5


 'Love is when Mummy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'
Chris - age 7


   'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day'
Mary Ann - age 4

 'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'
Lauren - age 4


'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)
Karen - age 7


 
'Love is when Mummy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'
Mark - age 6

 

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'
Jessica - age 8


 
And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.

The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbour, the little boy said,
'Nothing, I just helped him cry' 
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Aren't they great? As we near Valentine's Day I'm preparing a night Card Making class. Who would like to join me and make around 10 "Valentine Friendship" cards? So you will have plenty of cards to give to all the important people in your life.(I think valentine's should be for more than just your significant other.) 
Hope you have a great Saturday!
 
Marijke

Friday 7 January 2011

The History of Scrapbooking

I often get asked how did scrapbooking start....Scrapbooking has been around in some form or other for hundreds of years. But Scrapbooking as we know it today evolved from the very clever people at Creative Memories. Creative memory consultant soon got thousands of people interested in Scrapbooking, then other manufacturers and designers jumped in the wagon and the craft continually evolves and grows from there.

For a bit more detail on the history I went to one of my favourite pages - wikipedia.

Here is what they say:
With the advent of affordable paper, precursors to modern scrapbooks became available to a wider array of people. Beginning in the 15th century, commonplace books, popular in England, emerged as a way to compile information that included recipes, quotes, letters, poems and more. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator's particular interests. Friendship albums became popular in the 16th century. These albums were used much like modern day yearbooks, where friends or patrons would enter their names, titles and short texts or illustrations at the request of the album's owner. These albums were often created as souvenirs of European tours and would contain local memorabilia including coats of arms or works of art commissioned by local artisans.[1] Starting in 1570, it became fashionable to incorporate colored plates depicting popular scenes such as Venetian costumes or Carnival scenes. These provided affordable options as compared to original works and, as such, these plates were not sold to commemorate or document a specific event, but specifically as embellishments for albums.[1] In 1775, James Granger published a history of England with several blank pages at the end of the book. The pages were designed to allow the book's owner to personalize the book with his own memorabilia.[2] The practice of leaving pages to personalize at the end of books became known as grangerizing.[2] Additionally, friendship albums and school yearbooks afforded girls in the 18th and 19th centuries an outlet through which to share their literary skills, and allowed girls an opportunity to document their own personalized historical record[3][4] previously not readily available to them.
The advent of modern photography began with the first permanent photograph created by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.[5] Photography became available to an ever-widening population with the invention of George Eastman's paper photographs in the late 1880s and the mass production of the Kodak Brownie, a camera designed to be simple (and inexpensive) enough for a child, in 1900.[6] This allowed the average person to begin to incorporate photographs into their scrapbooks.
Old scrapbooks tended to have photos mounted with photomounting corners and perhaps notations of who was in a photo or where and when it was taken. They often included bits of memorabilia like newspaper clippings, letters, etc.

Hope this has given you a little insight to the humble beginnings of Scrapbooking :)

Monday 3 January 2011

Products Due in Store - January and February

What an exciting start to the Year! Kaiser is increasing their core range as well as bringing out 6 beautiful new ranges. Can't wait to see it all in real life!
We also have a number of goodies on a truck heading our way from the very wet Queensland.
Due in January:

Maya Road

Plenty of flowers, chipboard and Trinket pins from Maya Road

Hero Arts

A stock up of a some wood mounted stamps.

EK Success

Plenty of border punches, shaped punches and the Brand New release Tinkerbell papers.


As well as some papers and sticker featuring Princess Tianna.
Other Disney papers and stickers include: Nemo, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc, Incredibles.

Bazzill Stitches Templates:

* Rub Ons  from Making Memories, DCWV and Pebbles Inc.

 * A3 and A4 sized Jac Paper (perfect to use with your cricut and cuttlebug when cutting lettering!)

* 20 different colour of round brads in 2 sizes

* + some other items I can't remember of the top of my head.

February:
I will send out an e-mail this week with the 2 new collections from Kaiser for pre-orders. Everyone who pre-orders a full collection will receive 10% off.
Kaiser is adding quite a few products to their core range in February, including 
* 17 colours of Paper Blossoms.
* 20 New wood Flourishes



* 6 papers - Timeless:





 * 16 new quote Rub ons

 * 15 new wood items:




+ 2 new collections! Might have to re-arrange the shop again to be able to display it all :) 

Hope everyone enjoys their final Public Holiday Day...well until the 26th January then :)

Saturday 1 January 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope everyone had a great ending to 2010 and have welcomed 2011. My husband is very excited as this is "his" year - his birthday is on the 20th Nov.

So to start the year off well, I am spending all day Monday updating my website. I have so many products to add....but when I went to add the cuttlebug folders yesterday I realised I have sold quite a lot of them already...so I guess a mini stock take is due first.

Kids classes are starting this week. A couple are already full, so come and see me if you would like to book any before your favourites are booked out.



I'll leave you now with 2 images of our planned BTP classes. The first is a kid's class for 12+. Make 4 canvases using various techniques featuring the Babushka Dolls. (There will be a boy version too - up soon) 
The 2nd is a Desk organiser class which will be held by Celeste. Its a Friday night class, supper included. Contact me, or come in to the store to book.

Good night!
Marijke