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Our NEWSLETTER FREEBIE for the week is...

BB Gallery Spotlight– missee

Enter NEWSLETTER FREEBIE in the comments field to be eligible for the Freebies.  Offer expires 11pm EST SUNDAY 26th August.

Technique Tuesday

 

We have 6 of these cool sea life stamps to give away in orders placed this weekend.

 

To be eligible your order must contain any stamp from the BB store.

The theme for this week’s portal is…

Texture

The portal is updated every Friday with unique creations from the Blue Bazaar Design Team focusing on a specific theme each week. To view the portal simply enter Blue Bazaar via the main page at www.bluebazaar.com.au.

This week’s project is by Gloria Froese

Free postage available to every 6th order placed after the newsletter is online until 11pm Sunday 26th August.

1. BB News.

2. g-construct with Gloria Froese

3. NEW in the store.

4. Newsletter Freebie.

5. Products coming soon.

6. Portal Sneak Peek.

Autumn Leaves—  Designing with Style. Designing with 2008 Calendar

Lil Davis—restocks and new acrylic stamps. (September)

Books—We Dare You: Challenges about Real Life (shipping August)

Scraptastic: Ashley Calder (Dec 07)

Type Cast: Creative Page Design Using Words Type and Letters

Find Your Groove: A Guide to Discovering your Scrapbook Style

Out of Bounds: Scrapbooking Without Boundaries

Scrapbook Designers Workbook: Unlocking the Secrets to Great Page Design.

Tim Holtz—Crackle Paint, (expected September) Grunge Board.  (Expected October)

Queen and Co—CHA release. (expected September)

American Crafts—CHA release ordered.

Love Elsie—CHA release ordered. Various release dates—see COMING SOON section of BB shop.

KI Memories—CHA release Pop Culture ordered.

My Minds Eye—CHA release ordered.

October Afternoon—CHA release ordered.

Around the Block—CHA release ordered.

Fancy Pants—CHA release ordered.  (early September)

Heidi Swapp—CHA release ordered.  Partial shipment in transit

Sassafras Lass—CHA release ordered.  (early September) Olive and Friends stamp restock  in transit

Inque Boutique—CHA release ordered.

Prime Media—Ali Edwards Book: Life Artist. (due October)

Heidi Swapp Book—Creative Escape 2007 (due September)

Clip it Up—restock base units.  in transit

Making Memories—clear buttons, alphas and flowers.  in transit

McGill Punch—restock mini file tab. in transit

Nic Howard—restock book. in transit

Gloria Froese—stamp class/kit: September

Kate Mason—journal class/kit: late September

Kate Mason—layout class/kit: TBA

Autumn Leaves—  Designing with Details

Technique Tuesday—acrylic stamps CHA Summer ordered.

Catslife Press Stamps —restocks.

Paper Trunk—CHA release ordered.

SEI—CHA release.

Cosmo Cricket—CHA release.

Tinkering Ink—CHA release.

7gypsies—CHA release.

Zettiology—unmounted stamps. 

Cloth Paper Scissors—  Issue 14

Hero Arts—  wood mounted stamps

Stampington—  Wood mounted stamps

ALL STITCHED UP!

Sewing on your layouts can be purely functional, decorative or both !  Sewing adds dimension, texture & a handmade look to your pages. With a little experimenting & practice you will find the right sewing look to suit your scrapbooking style.

 

Machine sewing

 

Getting started.

A wide variety of looks can be achieved by using  just the basic straight & zigzag stitches on your machine. Before sewing on your layouts, it’s worthwhile experimenting with your machine’s stitch width & length settings on scrap cardstock. (A medium-long stitch length is the most suitable for sewing on paper & card as a very small stitch may cause tearing.) 

Beyond Basics.

If you’ve mastered basic stitching on your pages, the following tips may give you a few ideas to extend your machine stitching skills:

 

Find out what your machine can actually do  -  It took me over 12 months before I tired of straight & zigzag stitches & actually sat down & played with all the other stitches on my machine! I discovered gorgeous embroidery stitches, a blanket stitch & other decorative stitches I now use regularly. Embroidery stitches are highly decorative & make beautiful borders, while blanket stitch is a perfect edging stitch.

 

Experiment with your thread –  the range of machine threads available is amazing & having a wander through a patchwork shop may be all you need to get inspired.  There’s every colour you could imagine, including metallics & variegated shades.  Synthetic blends are lustrous & will add a subtle sheen to your pages.

 

Visit the library –  patchwork, quilting & books featuring textiles from other countries are fantastic source of ideas & stitching techniques.

These basic stitches are excellent for stitching borders, sewing around photos, over acetate, chipboard, ribbon, lace and flowers. You still need to secure these elements to your page before stitching though, otherwise they may move while sewing. 

 

When you are ready to begin sewing on your page, check that you have enough thread on your bobbin (you don’t want to run out halfway around a photo!) and that your machine settings are set correctly to the stitch you want to use.

 

To finish, simply cut your thread, use reverse to make a little backstitch or if you prefer a really neat finish, use a hand sewing needle to take the thread to the back of your page & secure with a tiny piece of double-sided tape.

 

If the needle on your machine becomes tacky as result of sewing through adhesives, a quick clean with a baby wipe will help.

 

Even though only zigzag stitch has been used on the ‘friends’ layout, a variety of different looks was achieved by changing the thread colour, stitch width & length settings. When changing thread colour constantly, there is really no need to keep changing bobbin colour as well. Here, the bobbin thread stayed white while only the top thread was changed; much quicker & easier!

Above on the ‘oh brother’ layout,  blanket stitch was used as a border, a variety of coloured threads highlight the circles cut from the patterned paper &  hand sewing & a little machine embroidery accentuate the scalloped border.

Hand sewing

Getting started.

The basic hand sewing stitches are straight stitch (the one Elsie likes to use) and back stitch (the stitch used on the mini album cover below).  You need to make the holes in your paper before sewing.  Once you have decided where you are going to handstitch,  make the holes by using a sewing machine (not threaded!) or a paper piercer (awl) and corkboard/pushpad. For straight or slightly curved lines, I find a sewing machine easiest, but for more detailed designs a paper piercer & corkboard is best.

 

Simply place your layout over the corkboard & carefully make your holes with the paper piercer. The sewing designs can be made using stitching templates, following the pattern of a stencil, mask, or your own design.

Stranded embroidery thread is an excellent all-purpose thread to use & is available in a huge variety of colours, including metallic & variegated shades. This thread is made up of 6 fine strands of thread. You can separate it & use anything from 1 to all 6 threads, depending on what thickness you require. A standard size (no.24) tapestry needle is excellent for using with this thread.

On the mini album, only a small amount of handstitching was needed to give dimension to the palm tree. Three strands of DMC embroidery thread were used & wooden beads were attached while sewing.

Beyond Basic

Trying new stitches such as cross stitch, French knots & other embroidery stitches will take your hand sewing beyond basic. These stitches are not only decorative, but will add texture, depth & interest to your page eg.  French knots are great for using as flower centres, frames & borders while cross-stitch is perfect for securing tags, labels & alphas.

 

Handstitching is not only limited to using with embroidery thread either, string, silk ribbons & fibres for different effects.

 

To achieve a soft look on the ‘adore’ page, machine embroidery was used along with handstitching on the flowers & leaves. A thicker topstitching thread was used to stitch around the edge of the page & zigzag stitch not only frames the photo but is securing a layer of tulle to the page.

 

On the small flower, I have used a ‘French knot gone wrong’ stitch!  This was discovered this by accident;  it’s made by making a French knot as usual, but intentionally making large, loose loops. So you don’t have to be perfect sewer, mistakes can be good!

Technique Article—Cherie Theodosiou

*Blue Bazaar SALE starts Thursday 30th August*

Just a quick announcement that our belated End of Year financial SALE will start next Thursday. We will be progressively adding products on SALE over Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Multiple orders are more then welcome as products are added each day.

 

This SALE is a credit card only sale. If you do not have a credit card and wish to purchase sale items, then you may like to purchase a Gift Voucher up front to use on your order.  You will need to purchase and pay for your gift voucher by Tuesday 28th August. Any money not used on your sale order can either be issued as a store credit OR refunded to your bank account.  We have introduced this “gift voucher-sale” option after feedback from those who do not own credit cards. To ensure your order is handled quickly and without the possibility of administrative delays, credit card should be used.

 

This week has been a very busy week in the store with a lot of new arrivals. We have had a lot of stunning new stamps arrive and some new CHA release products arriving also. You can find all new stock easily by visiting the website and looking through the AUGUST NEW categories.

 

In this weeks newsletter we have some great give aways from Technique Tuesday as well as two inspiring articles from Design Team members Cheri and Gloria. I hope you enjoy both of these articles. Thank you to Cherie and Gloria for putting them together for us!

Technique Tuesday Giveaway

We have 3 giveaways this week for all stamp lovers.

 

1. We have 6 Limited Edition sets of A Gift from the Sea. This prize features as our NEWSLETTER FREEBIE this week. To be eligible to win this stamp set, place an order from now until Sunday 11pm 26th August. Your order must contain any of the stamps that we carry in Blue Bazaar

 

2.   We have 5 copies of the Technique Tuesday Idea Guide to give away.  To be eligible to win one of these books, we would love to see some stamping from you in the gallery.  Post your creations using stamps in the STAMPING gallery from now until Sunday 11pm 26th August. We will pick 5 random winners from the uploads on Monday 27th August. You can upload both old and new projects. We don’t mind but we would love to see your stamping ideas!.

 

3. We have one O Happy Day stamp kit which contains a stamp set, acrylic block and 2 ink pads, to give away. To be eligible to win this stamp kit, we would love to receive your feedback on your stamping habits.. We have set up a thread in the GENERAL SCRAP CHAT section on the message board with some quick questions for you to answer.  A random winner will be chosen Monday 27th August from those who respond.

 

Good luck!