Last Minute Christmas Gift Idea...

Wow, 3 posts in one week...I can hardly believe it!  Here's a great idea for a last minute Christmas gift Idea.  Every year for the last few years, I have made calendars for the grandparents for Christmas.  They are super simple but very effective and make a fantastic gift!  This is the one I made last year for my mother-in-law.  I pray you have a safe and Blessed Christmas with your families, whatever you are doing and I look forward to an exciting 2011!

Christmas Decorations...

I LOVE Christmas!!!  Not because of the presents I will receive, but mostly for the ones I will give.  I love giving presents so much, that the wrapping has to be just as perfect as the gift.  For the past few years, our theme has been green and brown, my favourite colour combination.  Most people would think this sounds awful...but I LOVE it!!!  And every year, I have to do something different with my wrapping.  So, this year I used assorted wrapping paper in different shades of green and gold and finished them with a Dior bow and matching paper star/flower.  I am yet to complete my gift tags, but I can hardly believe it..I am almost 3 days out from Christmas and all my gifts are wrapped and under the tree...this has to be a first.  I hope your preparations are all coming together and I wish you all a safe and Blessed Christmas and New Year!

Christmas Cookies..

Wow...it's been a while...so with Christmas nearly upon us, I thought I would show you one of my recent Christmas projects!  My little boy just finished his first year of school, so I made these gorgeous little stained glass window cookies for each of his prep classmates (with the help of my mum).  Whilst this is not the exact recipe I used, you can find a similar one here.  And me being me, I had to package them up all cute, with tags made from some diagonal stripe paper that I designed.  There were red glitter tags and bows for the girls, and green glitter tags and bows for the boys.  Much to my delight, Thomas' teacher told me that the kids were very excited to receive their Christmas Cookie packages - YAY!

Thomas' Camouflage Plane Party...

Our precious son Thomas turns 6 six on Tuesday, so we thought we would throw him a birthday party.  It's his first year at school and since he has never had a "friends" party before, we thought...why not!  His favourite colour is green, and he loves camouflage print and all things aeroplanes, just perfect for a little boys party theme.

With this in mind I designed some cute little flight wings and some camouflage print paper, which I used to create his invitations (I will show you these at a later date) and all the matching elements.  I drew inspiration from Thomas' room which is decorated in this theme, adding splashes of red to "jazz" things up.  This came in particularly handy as I was able to use his mat and material covered letters to create the Thomas sign for the backing board.  However, I am by no means a cook, so it was all very simple...aeroplane fairy bread, honey joys in camo print cup cake papers (you will find the pattern here) & marshmallow clouds.

And where would we have been without that gumball machine control tower, filled with green m & m's and jaffa's...this proved to be a big hit for the boys who weren't so keen on playing soccer!  Thanks to my sister, Merrin, for letting us borrow it!!!!!!!!!!!!

And what kind of a plane party would it be without their very own flight wings...I made these super cute badges for each of the boys - Flight Lieutenant for a day...and personalised lolly aeroplanes to go with it.  You can find the instructions for these little beauties here, I just substituted the chewing gum for the camo print cardboard.

We even made paper aeroplanes and had a competition to see who could throw theirs the furthest.  It was so much fun, all the kids had a ball!  Most importantly, Thomas had an amazing afternoon enjoying everything that he loves...friends, food, games, prizes, soccer, presents, lollies and all things planes,  followed up with  a BBQ with the family!  Thanks to my friend Jordan at Polkadot Prints, who inspired me to "go all out".  Be sure to check out the gorgeous Aeroplane party she did for her son Levi - just stunning!  Well there you go...this was a first for me...but so much fun!

Red Earth Scrapping...

Just thought I would let you all know about the opening of Red Earth Scrapping, an online store for all things papercraft.  I had the pleasure of meeting Helen (the owner) back in April at the Creative Block at Printblocks, so I am so excited to see this finally come together for her.  So check out the website and blog or get creative for your chance to win great prizes.

Paper Vogue is back....

Paper Vogue is back...well sort of!  After a long break from distributing ourselves and due to popular demand, Paper Vogue is once again selling direct to wedding and event stores.  We will continue to partner with Printblocks, distributors to the scrapbooking and papercrafts industry and Inviting Business for our smaller customers, however, new and old customers from within the wedding and event industry will once again be able to access us directly.  So, stay tuned for our planned new releases and some exciting media coverage in the near future! For more information, visit our website or email us at info@papervogue.com.

Diamante Ribbon Buckles...

Well, it's about time, but I have finally uploaded images of the ribbon buckles on to the website.  Take a look and you will find images under the products page, as well as some cute new photos in the gallery section to inspire you! A huge thank you to my gorgeous husband Justin for doing this for me over the weekend and to my brother-in-law Ryan for taking the fantastic photos (love your work both of you!!!).