I am so excited to announce that I will be teaching a full day workshop with my dear friend Lynette Carroll for Stamp Antics on the 10th December. The details and information on where and how to book are below. I can't wait to see you all there!
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Love Life & Create
Michelle
This vintage inspired Creation started when I found this frame in one of my favourite stores, Vintage Era. It was actually a tile trivet, but when I saw it in the store I saw a whole lot more.
I created the background using Graphic 45 Le Cirque, and also used this to cover my Dress Form. I also blended a mix of Tim Holtz papers with Collections Elements papers and Imaginarium Designs chipboard. I can't tell you how much fun I had creating this project with the choice of so many fantastic products at my fingertips!
I used Smooch to colour the dictionary page and to give it a little shimmer, then just folded it accordian style to make the skirt.
Love Life & Create
Michelle
I recently spent the week in Sydney working, and was so inspired and excited by walking through a park in Leichhardt. Spring was really in full view and the sun was shining, and it really reminded me of how lucky I am. I absolutely loved these beautiful blossoms, not to mention how cute this house was, it is not something we see where I live in Brisbane.
I also loved all the beautful roses in the same park, the ice pink one below was my favourite. Next time you are out and about make some time to walk through the local parks and gardens, take your camera, and enjoy the view.
Love Life
Michelle xx
It's that time of year again when the birthdays come around and I turn my mind to cake creations. This year I decided to try my hand at cake pops. They appealed to my creative side, being so cute and pretty, with so many decorations and colours to choose from, not to mention the different flavours you could create for cake part!
So my research began, first the internet, then with friends, I borrowed Bakerella's Cake Pop book for some inspiration and guidance (I have now bought my own copy) Then I decided to try a friends Tim Tam recipe as well as the regular cake recipes that were in Bakerella's book.
I went online to order some supplies and Cakes Around Town had beautiful glitters, lots of different coloured chocolate melts and all the accessories I needed to complete my project. Their service was also fantastic, super quick and I got everything I needed! Another very valueable item was a block of styrofoam which I bought from the $2 shop, you will need this to hold the pops upright while the chocolate dries.
I made all my cake pop mixture and rolled the balls and refridgerated them all overnight before dipping in chocolate. The Tim Tam pops were much easier to work with compared to the cake, they set a lot harder.
I used my set of Pastel Sundae glasses and filled them with clear beads to hold the cake pops upright! I also thought they looked super cute on the table in these glasses.
I hope this inspires you to give cake pops a try, they were certainly a hit with all the adults and children of all ages!
Love Life & Create
Michelle
I really treasured my time at the Scrapbook and Papercraft Convention last weekend, for so many reasons. It was the first show in many years that I have not worked, I said goodbye to Print Blocks earlier this year to move on and broaden my horizons.
I was so genuinely happy to see all the wonderful people, customers, friends and associates that I have met working in this fantastic industry, it really is just like one big happy family.
My husband was diagnosed with Cancer a couple of months ago, and my life has been very busy working and looking after my family. So I can't tell you all how much I appreciated this time to wander through the show, with my best friend and socialising and chatting with everyone.
I was so inspired when I came home from the show, I found myself back in my craft room and creating again. This will take pride of place in my craft room. I created this using a combination of Prima flowers and Papers and Melissa Frances chipboard letters and background papers.
Always remember to dream!
I hope you enjoy my creations, I promise I will try to post more often, I have plans to teach some classes later this year.
Love Life & Create
Michelle xx
With Christmas just past, and our New Year beginning, I too am looking forward to new beginnings in 2011 and exciting new things to come this year. After 7 years at Print Blocks, I have decided it is time to look for new opportunities this year, and have begun my search for a new job. However I know my love for this industry will not change and I will still continue my love of all things crafty! I really enjoyed creating all my hand made Christmas cards, and decorating my house and table for Christmas day.
I loved this Santa, and had to carry him home from our Holiday in Hawaii, he just fitted in so well!
Decorating the table is also one of my favourite things to do for Christmas Day, I handmade all the favour bags on the Sizzix eClips, filled them with scratch-its and chocolates, then bought colour co-ordinating bon-bons and napkins!
Here are some pics of my Christmas cards, I used the Bo Bunny card kit, and the Fancy Pants card kit, and added some vintage pictures from Graphic 45 and Crafty Secrets.
I hope you have all had a Merry Christmas, and I wish you and your families all the very best for a safe, happy and healthy New Year!!
Love Life & Create
Michelle
Christmas is everywhere at my house at the moment, I have been enjoying creating my favour bags for Christmas day. With the new Sizzix eClips machine it made it so much easier to create these cute little bags to fill with goodies! My colour scheme for Christmas is black and silver, so I created these favour bags for Christmas breakfast with this in mind. The eClips machine cuts as well as scores which is so fantastic, and made creating these bags super easy!
While on a roll with creating the bags, I continued on with creating some Christmas cards for my nearest and dearest! Hope you are inspired to make some cards for your loved ones, it really is a special way of showing you care.
I apologise if the photos are not to great, I am looking forward to getting a new camera very soon, these were taken on my iphone.
Will post more card ideas in the next few days.
Love Life & Create
Michelle
With the weeks flying by as we head towards the Christmas season, I was eager to start crafting my Christmas cards. One of my favourite collections this year was the Brenda Walton Evergreen collection by K & Company. The cute vintage elements were just so easy to work with, and within 3 short hours I had whipped up 4 cards. I also set up the sewing machine and added some stitched lines to add an extra little touch. My chunky Martha glitter also featured well, as it just blended so well.
The elements I have used on the cards come from the die cut shapes pack. There is a mix of acetate and die cut paper printed shapes, I trimmed around the acetate tree which gave it a better look, and shaped the Santa (with Shaping tool and mat) and used Helmar Liquid scrap dots so it would hold it's dimension and shape!
I have added each card idividually to my gallery just in case you need some added inspiration to make a start on your Christmas Cards.
Love Life & Create!
Michelle
I am not sure where this month has gone, it is nearly the end of October and the time has just slipped away. I have had an exciting month, having a quick trip to Sydney last week to appear on TVSN shopping network with our awesome Cricut Cake Machine! Lucky for me I had experience with the machine making my Guitar masterpiece, so felt really comfortable showing how easy it is to use this machine.
I have also spent a lot of time spring cleaning my old craft room and moving into my NEW craft room, which has been a long ongoing project for me, I got a new desk for my Birthday and this spurred me on again to get the job finished. I never realised just how many supplies I actually had until I had to move them all into my new room and sort them.
Another major highlight for me, was the day our Cricut Imagine machine arrived at the office. It was so exciting to unwrap, and play! I will be honest, when I saw it at CHA I thought it was good, but did not feel I needed it. Well I have to say I have officially changed my mind, this machine is amazing. I was so impressed with all the options and things you can achieve with it. The touch screen interface is so easy to work with, can't wait to have more time to play with it.
I made a quick Birthday card, the colours and styles on the cartridges are also great, so many choices, not enough time. There are Art cartridges with Shapes and pattern designs and there is also just Pattern paper design cartridges, which work well with all the original type of Cricut Cartridges available.
This was so easy to create, and you can cut it in one piece or in layers and then use foam mounting tape to create the dimension. It is so much easier cutting this out on the Imagine compared with changing papers every time you need a different colour.
Just Imagine the possibilities.....
Love Life & Create
Michelle
Last week I decided to give cake decorating a bit of a try! Having never used the plastic icing before I was a little hesitant, however with a lot work and a bit of help the effort was well worth it.
For those of you that have a Cricut machine, you may find it very useful to use some of the patterns on your cartridges to cut a pattern for your cake. I used one of the guitars from the Hannah Montanna cartridge. This is where the Gypsy comes in really handy to work out the size of the pattern against the size or your board or base to put it on.
I then baked my mud cakes for the actual cake, I selected the Betty Crocker packet mud cake, as this was a good solid base for the icing, and it is a really nice cake too!
With a really sharp knife I cut out the pattern, my cake was in three pieces, then I frosted it together. I made a vanilla butter frosting and covered the whole cake.
Once frosted, I was ready to embark on the black plastic icing. I have to say this was the part that scared me the most, it was not as hard as I thought, once I worked out how to roll it out without sticking it to the bench! As I was decorating the majority of the top of the cake, I covered it in 3 pieces, and once finished your really couldn't see it!
This is where I left it until the following night, where I broke out the Cricut Cake machine and decorated the rest of the Guitar. The Cricut cake tool kit is a must, it was so useful. I used the brush to cover the cutting mat in a thin layer of margarine to hold the icing on. Brush it on until it is basically clear and you can't see any yellow!
Rolling out the white plastic icing for the main part on the guitar took a couple of tries before getting it to the perfect thickness (which was quite thin), it cut beautifully, and was easy to remove from the mat.
I layered this onto the top of the cake, using some apricot jam as my glue! The small white part I set aside to paint in edible silver paint. It is the section I used to adhere the strings at the base of the guitar. I hand cut the frets, and knobs, buttons for the guitar and had painted these also.
Positioning these onto the cake, took great patience and the majority of the time, carefully placing each one, glueing with jam! I also used toothpicks for holding the knobs onto the side of the guitar.
I used little silver cachous to add the silver embellishments just under the strings, and metallic silver thread for the strings. I was very happy to see it finished, and my son, even happier the next morning. I also have to say, so many people commented on how cool our cake was at the skating rink that day!
I hope this inspires you to make a cake outside your comfort zone, and like me find it is not that hard at all, using the Cricut certainly made life easier.
I will post more step by step photos in my gallery.
Love Life & Create
Michelle
