Shop with us!!

prizes, contests, offers--crazy cool prices!!

Spend $50 on Hero Arts and receive a Free gift from Hero Arts

Vagabond in stock now!!!!!! ONLY $199.99 and FREE shipping!!

Tim Holtz Tattered Florals are in stock again!!! Our price is only $13.85!!! (MSRP $19.99) WHAT A SAVINGS

NEW TO OUR STORE: the gorgeous Mackinac Moon range!!! Check it out!!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas wishes

Happy Christmas Eve!!

This is just a short post as I don't want to keep you from your loved ones at this special time of year, but we at a2z Scrapbooking Supplies wanted to wish you all a very safe, wonderful and Merry Christmas.

Even though I'm sure many of you are just waking up or are going about your busy mornings, I (here in Australia) am just about to head off to bed.  Despite definitely NOT being a child any more, I still made my wish to Santa, I love the magic and possibilities that come with this special time of year.  If you can't believe in something unbelievable, then when can you?! Just now as I'm typing this to you, I heard a bump noise on the roof and for an instant my heartbeat quickens and I think "Could it be...?!" I'd prefer to believe than not personally.

Whether this time for you is a religious one or simply a time in which to spend some precious hours with loved ones, I hope you enjoy and are able to be filled (and fill those around you) with the spirit of Christmas--in it's truest form.  Not in the gift giving, but in the smiles of your loved ones, the laughter of children AND adults, the peace that can come if you truly seek it.  I hope your Christmas day's are filled with whatever you hope for.

I only finished this picture a few days ago, it's using all Whiff of Joy Stamps and a few Distress Inks for the backgrounds (and of course, Copic Markers) but I love the sense of serenity it evokes; the joy, the hope.  To be watching over any baby is precious and fills us with a 'something' most can't describe well, but to be watching over this baby--oh my.

I'm not (pardon the phrase) overly religious any more but I think that Christmas is a time to believe. No matter what it's a belief in. This picture (if I may say that of a stamped image) makes me feel belief. There is a relief, an outward sigh, a calmness I feel when I look at it.  I had planned to give it away as a gift but I couldn't let go of the sensation of peace it brings me, so it's now sitting on the wall directly in front of my craft desk. Bringing me that which I wish for you all this Christmas--peace, joy and calm.
                                                                   ---ooOOoo--

We will be back before New Years but in case you don't check your emails or aren't near a computer for the next week or so (as I'm sure will be the case for many of you), please do stay safe over this holiday period and have a truly Happy New Years.

With all our best wishes to you all and your precious people--

Merry Christmas.

Linda and the a2z team xx

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Barbi's Apple Praline Pie--Diabetic Friendly!

Hello lovelies!!

How are you all faring in this sometimes-stressful season?? 
I hope you're all able to make even a little time for yourselves, whether that be slipping off to your crafty nook or even just taking a few minutes for a quiet cup of tea/hot chocolate (whatever your favourite is!)

It is RIDICULOUSLY hot here in Perth, it will be...(wait for it)...38 degrees on Christmas day...that's 38 degrees CELCIUS... that is 100.4 F... *don't all rush to buy me a plane ticket to the USA where I can sit in the snow and cool down!!*--actually, feel free to! lol.

Anyway, given that this is a time for family, friends, laughter, love and quite often, a bit of food (or more than a bit! *wink*), I thought I'd share with you the favorite recipe of our good friend Barbi!  I got this recipe from her many MANY weeks ago and I'm sure she thought I forgot about it, but I didn't--I've been saving it!
As I'm sure you all know (but just in case you didn't), we at a2z Scrapbooking Supplies, donate towards Coeliac Disease and Behcet's Disease research--some of our volunteers suffer from, or have family members with these diseases too.  So at this time of year when so many people are being indulgent with their food, people who have Coeliac or Behcet's Disease (which can often lead to diabetes due to the medications required), aren't able to just forgo their normal careful eating.  

Therefore, this recipe is *happily* "diabetes friendly" and I'm sure delicious to boot.  I haven't made it yet, but I will be attempting my FIRST apple pie for my dad in the next day or two :) (wish me luck!)

So, without further ado, here is Barbi's favorite Apple Praline Pie and her (super easy to follow) instructions:



APPLE PRALINE PIE (DIABETIC VERSION)

***crust***
1 box Pillsbury pie crusts

***filling***
6 cups thinly sliced peeled apples
3/4 cup Splenda (regular, not the baking kind)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

***topping***
2 Tbl Skim Milk
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Heat oven to 350°F. Make pie crusts as directed on box for Two-Crust Pie, using 9-inch glass pie plate.

In large bowl, mix apples, granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt; toss lightly. Spoon mixture into crust-lined pie plate. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter. Top with second crust; seal edge and flute. Cut slits in several places in top crust.

Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until apples are tender and crust is golden brown. Cover edge of crust with strips of foil after 15 to 20 minutes of bake time to prevent excessive browning.

In 1-quart saucepan, melt 1/4 cup butter; stir in brown sugar and half-and-half. Slowly heat to boiling; remove from heat. Stir in pecans; spread over top of pie. Place pie on cookie sheet.

Bake 5 minutes longer or until topping bubbles. Cool at least 1 hour before serving.


Here is a little bit about Barbi for you to read while the apple pie cools *if you can wait that long*

ABOUT ME:
My name is Barbi and I love to cook, unfortunately I love to eat too. Since being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes I have attempted to live a healthier lifestyle and a big part of that is food. My husband and I love to try new recipes. We love down home cooking and all the comfort foods you remember as a child. I started my blog to feature our attempts to make these recipes, whether they be my own tried and true ones or new ones we find along the way, healthier in some way. Though not every recipe on this blog is Diabetic friendly the majority of them are yet they can be easily adapted for those not looking for Diabetic related dishes.

ABOUT THIS RECIPE
I saw this recipe for Apple Praline Pie on the Pillsbury website and thought it looked so good but being Diabetic I really have to watch my sugar so I decided to try and make this as carb friendly as I could without losing its taste. Since my dear husband is the dessert maker in this house I asked him if he would make it for me but with a few substitutions which he was happy to do.

It came out delicious and was enjoyed by all even though I am the only one watching my sugar intake. If you want the full sugar version you can find it on the Pillsbury website.
                              
                                                                         ---ooOOOoo---

Anyhoo, hope you enjoyed!! I thought it might be a nice addition to your Christmas dessert menu (or give you something to bake if you didn't have any ideas yet!!)
Talk to you soon sweets!! (we have a VERY exciting competition on the way too *cough* Copic Markers *Cough Cough*

Linda xx

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Demo & more!

Hey!!!

So I know I promised more of the goodies from the Hero Arts 2011 Catalog the next time we 'spoke' but we've been dealing with some major technical difficulties due to some *EXTREME* weather in Indiana--which has been causing havoc with our Internet (and thus being able to get things loaded into the store!!)

However, we're VERY hopeful it will be rectified soon and everything will be up and running perfectly and we'll be able to get the rest of the goodies on the store site asap. For now there are a few VERY gorgeous items in the new 2011 Catalog category HERE.  As soon as the rest of the catalog is available on the store, we will be hosting a VERY nice little contest...I can't wait to share it with you all.

Until then, I thought I'd show you something VERY cool that we now have in store!!




How amazing does this look?!

You can find the entire range HERE.

There is definitely one of each of these on my wishlist to Santa *wink*

Next I want to show you a sweet card that one of our gorgeous customers Nancy made and entered into a competition. Here is her darling card:
For the other cards that were entered into the competition, you can go HERE. (But of course, we know you'll help a fellow a2z Scrapbooker and crafter and vote for Nancy, just like we did :))


And how about this beauty made by the lovely Ioanna?!
 Now apparently Ioanna is just new to Copic Coloring--but I'm thinking she's a bit of an artist at heart. How amazing is the coloring?!

 Loving the dimension of this gorgeous card.
 

And look at the inside!! I can't decide which is prettier the inside or the outside!!

here is the list of what she used (get ready--it's a long one!)

Talk to you again soon my lovelies--hope you're all staying warm!

Linda x

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Hero Arts Catalog is here!!!!!!

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I'm so excited!!! (so much so, in fact that I can't even bear to write my usual greeting to you all *teehee*)
The new 2011 Hero Arts Catalog has just gone live and we have BRAND SPANKIN' NEW PRODUCTS IN STORE NOW!!!!!!!!
(can you tell I'm excited?!)

Over the next few days we'll be introducing you to more and more new products, but for today, let's start with these beauties:


Hero Arts Floral Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers

Hero Arts Blush Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers

Hero Arts Sunshine Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers

Hero Arts Foliage Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers

Hero Arts Sea Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers

Hero Arts Earth Memento Dual Tip Hues Markers


These are Memento Markers that are just so brilliant for making amazing things and producing awesome results.  You can use them for 'standard' coloring (similar to Copics), they dont smear or smudge or bleed BUT...you can also color right onto the stamp itself for really detailed amazing coloring on your stamped images.

Look at this amazing card by Jennifer McGuire, Hero Arts Director of Education (and uber-talented stamping genius!)

*sigh* happy place :)

Like I said, this is just a quick post with picturey goodness, but there will be more products we'll be sharing with you VERY soon, so stay posted! (Or better yet, sign up for our updates to come straight into your email inbox!!)

Right--I'm off to place my order for some of these babies.

Talk to you soon darlings!

Take care

Linda x

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas

Hello dear friends!!

This will just be a short post, but a goodie!

You simply MUST check out Tim Holtz in all his genius with his 12 Tags of Christmas.

You can see his blog HERE.

Check these out:

Day 1

Day 2


Day 3
Day 4

Day 5
Day 6

Day 7
Day 8

He has made some truly amazing creations. SO INSPIRING!!

Of course, we've got everything you'll need in the store, so make sure after you've compiled your 'must-have' list of goodies, you click over to the store, or click HERE to go directly to our Tim Holtz selection.

*sigh*...I'm off to get inky :)

Don't forget to share your creations on our flickr site!! We'd love to see what you make with all this inspiration floating around in your head!

PS The photo titles ('day1' for example) is a link to that day's blog update on Tim's site :)

Talk to you soon sweets!

Linda

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Winners!!

Hello!

Has everyone recovered from all that turkey and potatoes??

I'm sure you burnt it all back of with all that fantastic bargain hunting in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend sales! I hope so :)
come on, admit it, this was you, stalking the a2z store site right!?

Today's post is a quickie and a goodie--it's the announcement of the winners of last weeks contests!!

The Sign up/Followers Contest
Thanks to randomgenerator.org (who wont let me copy and paste the little window into this blog update) but DID help me find a winner chose:

Number 4!! That's Barb!!! WOOHOO!! Congrats Barb!

You've won a Huge Hero Arts prize pack worth over $50!! 
You'll be receiving these stamp sets in the mail very soon:





WOW! What a loot!

The next contest was the Word Scramble. We only had 3 entries, but thank you ladies for taking the time to unscramble the words and email me your answers!! You were all correct and we'd love to give all of you a prize, but this time, we only have the 1 to give away (maybe next time though eh?!)

The winner is : PATTY YANG!!!  Congrats Patty!

Your prize is the Tim Holtx Snow Flurries Embossing Folder (a favorite of mine!)

There were 2 more contests running last week, but no-one purchased our mystery prize from the ribbon category (which we'll keep a secret in case we decide to have another contest in the future).

The other contest was a chance to win a Tim Holtz Townscape Die or Seasonal Stickers by spending $25 or more on any Tim Holtz products, but we're still finalising all the orders taken over that weekend-and week following it-and we'll get back to you VERY soon with the winner of that prize. (Please remember that our staff are all volunteer and some suffer from Behcet's Disease-which can be completely debilitating at times-this is a VERY busy time of year for us, but we are doing our best to have all orders processed and shipped as quickly as is possible. We know you understand and thank you for your patience :))


Congrats to the two winners announced today! Barb and Patty, if you can please email me at lindatrace@a2zScrapbookingSupplies.com with your address, we'll get your prizes out to you asap!

Thanks everyone!! Have a great week :)

Linda xx

Monday, November 29, 2010

Whiff of Joy

Hi again dears!!

Today as I'm sure you all know is CYBER MONDAY!!! (Kinda sounds like robots are taking over the Earth dontcha think?! *wink). Anyhoo, apparently over there in the big ol' U.S of A, Cyber Monday is the day when everyone gets online and snags a bargain or two...or twenty  *lol* 
(actually I like the explanation that it's the day where everyone shops online instead of does their work lol!).

So lets get right to it shall we?! I'm going to show you some stamps that are new to our range at a2z, but we're SO very excited to have them in our store! I personally am a HUGE fan and I'm super-happy that I get to introduce them to you:

Whiff Of Joy

Whiff of Joy A Little Bit of Magic Might Help
 I just love this little elf girl image. Super super cute. I love that she would work perfectly for many times of year and many 'reasons' to send a card.  She'd also be ridiculously cute on a layout if you did one about a child having a (minor) illness like the measels or chicken pox.--or even a scratched knee.  My daughter has to have a bandaid put on EVERYTHING even if it's just a bumped finger lol!

Whiff of Joy Henry Celebrating Mouse Stamp
 Whiff of Joy has such an array of images that range from beautiful to cute. This one takes the cake *pardon the pun* for the cute ones! Just look at his huge ears!
Whiff of Joy Ice-beary Greetings
 Perfect for Christmas cards!! Even a winter themed layout--what a gorgeous little bear!
Whiff of Joy Oakley Sitting
This little Oakley Sitting image is one of my favorites.  Plain and simple. I love his shoes, his little pants, his cute messy hair. *love*
Whiff of Joy Fence Stamp
Using Inkadinkadoo or Copic Masking paper, you can have Oakley sitting on this fence (or in front of it).
All you have to do is stamp Oakley onto your cardstock/paper, then stamp him again onto masking paper, cut out the image (stay right on the line with your cutting, if you cut just outside the lines, you'll have a 'ghost-line' where your next stamped image wont quite sit properly).
Peel the backing off the masking paper stamped image, then 'stick' it onto the original image you stamped on your cardstock. Next, using your stamp-a-ma-jig (or just stamp freehand), stamp the Fence over the top of the masked image of Oakley.  When you peel up the masking paper, it will look like Oakley is sitting on top of or in front of (dependent on where you sit him) the fence!  (I'll do a tutorial on this in the next week or two if you like--let me know in the comments :))

Whiff of Joy Angel Delivering the Christmas Tree
 Just look how beautiful she is. Need I say more?
Whiff of Joy Baby Jesus Stamp
 Perfect for Christmas!!
Whiff of Joy Ben and Nora - New Year Couple Stamp
These are new to Whiff of Joy--and they are CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!  I can't wait to get my hands on this one :)
Whiff of Joy Cheers to You
 Cute for tags, place cards, backgrounds...the list goes on and on!!
Whiff of Joy Willow with Toddler
I just got this beautiful beautiful stamp in the mail today *claps hands* I canNOT wait to use it.  It's so beautiful. I'l be using it on a layout about my daughter. It will come in handy when a friend of mine has her baby (she's due soon!)


To see the rest of our Whiff of Joy Range, click HERE.

Well loves, that's all from me today! hope you head over to the store and find yourself everything you need and want at fabulous prices!

Talk to you soon sweets!

Linda x

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Just Rite, Hero Arts Stamping goodness at fabulous prices!!!

Hi again!!

I'm going to cut straight to the chase now: Have you seen some of the fabulous prices we've got for all your favorite stamp companies?!

Check them out:


THESE are my favorites:
so perfect for so many things!! You could use these on place cards, christmas cards, as cute little tags!!        

 and how about these?

SO VERSATILE!!!
These are fantastic too--so great that you can custom make your stamps JUST how you want them :)


Now, anyone who follows my personal blog or has been watching this blog for a while, would have figured out that I'm crazy for Hero Arts and with these beauties--who would blame me?! Take a look at my faves:

Hero Arts Canvas Stripes
 So versatile. It can be masculine, pretty, babyish or mature. I just love the possibilities with this one :)

Sunny Smiles Stamp Set

 So pretty!!! I can just see this as a card, on a letter set, in so many different colors, using many different techinques--I love stamps that give me a lot of choice as to how I use them :)

Now for some of my favorite Christmas ones... These are so cute. I'm using them a LOT.

Christmas Cookies

Hero Arts Christmas Trio

Hero Arts Decorated House Stamp

Hero Arts Happy Holiday Tags
Hero Arts Winter Butterfly Stamp
 
To see our entire range of Christmas and holiday themed Hero Arts stamps, click HERE

Make sure to check back later on for another post all about Whiff of Joy Stamps--so beautiful!!

 Talk to you soon sweets!

Linda xx


Friday, November 26, 2010

Tim Holtz TIIIME!!! Games, Prizes, AWESOME PRICES!!!

Happy Black Friday to everyone!!!

I hope it is filled with fabulous prices and excellent bargains! (Not to mention an easy day for those tummys that I'm sure are still full from yesterday's Thanksgiving Feasts!)

Here at the a2z Blog, Black Friday means Tim Holtz!!! *woohoo!!!*


Today's game: Tim Holtz Word Scramble!!!

The Prize is a fabulous Tim Holtz --
Snow Flurries Embossing Folder worth $15.99!!!

Tim Holtz Snow Flurries and Snowman Embossing folder
Solve the word scrambles below and send your answers via email to lindatrace@a2zscrapbookingsupplies.com and the winner will be chosen randomly from those who correctly unscramble all the words!
**Editors note, there were a couple of incorrect letters in the original post. THey have now been edited out and are correct-sorry for the mix-up!

1. ganisnourcitfo
2.vracde mtnonsaer
3. msrstpae yosuonamn
4. dggronabuer
5. gdeaa ktsctei
6. ytin tcetahra
 *** these are ALL the names of Tim Holtz products.  HOWEVER some are not the entire name, for example Tim Holtz Distress Ink Fired Brick --would be too long, so it would just say "Fired Brick" (but scrambled).  If the scramble appears as two words (i.e. there is a space between), then the name is 2 words (like 'Fired Brick'). If it appears scrambled as one word, then it is a one word name such as 'Masks'.

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT POST THE ANSWERS AS A COMMENT TO THIS BLOG POST!! (You'll give the answers away to everyone!!) email the answers (in the correct number order as seen here) to the above address, with your full name.  Please also put "Tim Holtz Scramble" in the subject line :)

Winners will be chosen at random from all correct entries. ALL words must be unscrambled correctly to be considered eligible for entry into prize draw.  If any words are unscrambled incorrectly, then no entry into the draw will occur.  You have until Monday 8pm EST.
GOOD LUCK!
 ---ooOOOoo---
How about another EASY way to win more Tim Holtz?!  
Simply make a Tim Holtz Purchase of $25 or more this weekend and be entered in a contest to win Tim Holtz Townscape Die  or Tim Holtz Seasonal Stickers!!!

And finally, what about a list of your favorite Tim Holtz products (and their links of course *wink*)  at RIDICULOUSLY LOW prices?!

PHEW!!! I don't know about you but I'm exhausted from all these bargains!! Maybe I'll have *JUST*  enough energy left to buy some of these for myself (teehee)

Talk to you soon lovelies!

Linda x