Sale-a-bration is here at last!

Well, it's that fabulous time of year again, when Stampin' Up! give us their best promotion of the year! Everyone benefits - customers, hostesses & new demonstrators, so if you were ever thinking of signing up, now's the time!

Click the pic for full details of the promotion, but basically you can earn an unlimited amount of free stamp sets between now & the end of Feb.

Customers - earn a free limited-edition stamp set for every £45 spent on product (so spend £90 on product & get 2 sets, etc.).

Hostesses - host a £300+ workshop & earn a free limited-edition stamp set, in addition to all the other hostess benefits!

New Demonstrators - sign up during Sale-A-Bration & receive a free stamp set from the current catalogue, up to the value of £38.95. What a fantastic way to boost the amount of product you'll receive in your starter kit!

The stamp sets are detailed in a colour brochure, available for download from my website (pdf format) - just click the picture above & follow the link.

Catalogue Launch Party

My launch evening was actually on 30th September, but I've had a problem uploading photos recently, so I'm only just blogging it!

I held a VIP invite-only new catalogue launch party on 30/9/09. All my guests received a new catalogue, a catalogue sidekick (for marking pages), a little chocolate treat PLUS 25% off the most expensive item on their order that evening.

Recent Workshop Demonstration & Make & Take

Here's the sweet Christmas gift box I demonstrated at a recent Stampin' Up! home workshop:

The box was really easy to make, using the Scor-Pal and the new "Punches Three" hostess set, plus a few half pearls from the Pretties kit.

For the Make and Take, we made these cute Christmas tags, using the Spotlight on Christmas set. A plain white small tag is glued to the back of each, so there's room to write your "to" and "from"!

Cupcakes Galore! Workshop

I recently held a Cupcakes Galore! Workshop - here's what we made:

Cupcake Presentation Box:

Cupcake Gift Box:

Cupcake Cards:

Cupcake Pocket Card:

Me & Shelli!

I had my picture taken with Shelli at this year's convention & remembered that I'd also been pictured with her last year. Having lost some weight recently, I was interested to compare it to the picture I had taken last year and was quite pleased with the results!

Please note that I haven't shrunk - Shelli was wearing higher heels at the convention than she was at the Experience evening, where I met her last time!

Left photo was taken July'08, right photo taken Nov'09.

Stampin' Up! Convention pics

I've finally got all my pics off my camera, so hold on tight as there'll be a few posts tonight!!

This 1st one is to give you a taster of the convention pics I have - there's plenty more on my website & you can get to them by clicking here.

Shelli takes the stage....

The top 3 UK demos - from the left - Jenny Moors (3rd), Monica Gale (1st) & Julie Kettlewell (2nd). Congratulations, ladies!!

The lovely Chris & Eileen from UK Demo Support

Stampin' Up! UK Top Demonstrators of the Year Award

OMG!! I've just returned from the 1st European Stampin' Up! Convention with 2 awards!! One is for recruitment & the other is for being number 15 in the Top 25 UK Demonstrators!! I didn't expect to be in the top 100, never mind the top 25!! I was absolutely gob-smacked!!

Lots more posts to follow this week as I've got lots of project & convention photos to upload!

Shirley

New Stampin' Up! Catalogue Launched

The brand new Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalogue has now been launched. It's full of the most gorgeous stamp sets, fantastic co-ordinating inks, watercolour crayons, card stock, ribbons and accessories. Some old favourites are still in it, but there's plenty of new goodies to tempt you!

Click here to view an online version of the catalogue. If you'd like a "proper" copy, then click here to contact me via my Rubber Stamping Workshops website. You can also use that link if you wish to place an order or book a Stampin' Up! workshop.

Crafters Tabletop Sale, Saturday 10th October 2009

Calling all Crafters!

Crafters Tabletop Sale, Saturday 10th October, 10am-5pm

There will be a Crafters Tabletop Sale on Saturday 10th October 2009 at Timperley Methodist Church, Stockport Road, Timperley, Altrincham, WA15 7UG, 10am-5pm. FREE ENTRY!!!

There'll be plenty of craft goodies for sale at great prices. New & lightly used items, including craft tools, craft kits, card, papers, embellishments, card blanks & envelopes, stamps, ribbon, buttons, inks, paints, punches & more. Plus purchase some fantastic handcrafted items, including greetings cards, card sets, sweets, stationery sets & more - come along & grab a bargain! Meet other local crafters! Start getting ready for Christmas!

Put the date in your diary now!! This is one event not to be missed!

Stallholders Needed

£10 per stall

Contact me now to book your stall for just £10. Sell your handcrafted goods & your unwanted craft stash (new & lightly used items only please). Event will be well advertised.

Click here to email me if you're interested in booking a stall - be quick!!

Wedding Menu & Seating Plan

You may remember from earlier posts that I made my brother's wedding invitations. Well, the wedding was on Friday & went really well! I also made the menus & the seating plan - here are some pics:

This is the front cover of the menu, made in a very similar style to the invitations. I mainly used Stampin' Up! products. The card is Almost Amythist, which was embossed top & bottom with a cuttlebug embossing folder (sorry, haven't got the name of it). I hand cut the centre aperture with a craft knife, then stamped the hearts & swirls with Almost Amythis ink. It is backed with Whisper White. The word "Menu" & the hearts have been embossed with silver embossing powder (Stampin' Up!). The white grosgrain ribbon is from Stampin' Up! & the lilac organza ribbon is from Hobbycraft. These are just tied in a simple double knot.

This is the inside of the menu. The text was computer generated & printed on Whisper White card stock. The swirls were again stamped with Almost Amythist ink.

Here's the seating plan - made from A2 foam board from Staples. I covered it with some purple organza that I already had. The same cardstock has been used & I've added some gems to bling it up a bit!!! The flowers were made using Stampin' Up! punches & the silver buckle is from the Silver Hodgepodge set.







Here's a couple of close-ups:

The Wedding Book

As promised in the last post, here's a pic of the Wedding Book I made for the wedding we recently went to:

I wanted to make the happy couple an original card, so opted for a book. I love making things in a vintage style & decided to go to town on this book! All pages were aged by sanding, then inking with Ranger Distress inks. The pages are embellished with vintage pictures that I've had for a while, plus ribbon, flowers & pearls. I put our greeting on the back of the book, which I haven't photographed, as this was personal from our family to the couple.

I took pictures of every page, but as there were a lot, I decided to experiment with technology & make them into a movie! I aged the movie to fit with the book theme! Enjoy!

A little childish fun!!

We drove to Surrey on Friday, to attend a wedding, where Rob was Best Man. As I'm on a special 2 week restricted diet (prior to an op, but I won't bore you with the details), I needed to make sure that I'd eaten properly at breakfast, as we wouldn't be eating again until the evening. I ordered 2 poached eggs, tomato & mushrooms & they brought it to me on a HUGE plate with one egg at each side & the tomato in the middle. The plate looked ridiculous - hardly any food on such a big plate - & how they'd presented it made me laugh....... and gave me an idea! All I needed to do was rearrange the mushrooms...........

The wedding was fab! I'll post the wedding book I made as a card next.

Faux Leather handbag

My craft club's full day meeting includes a small project. This month, I decided to demo how to create your own faux leather mini handbag! We used WS Design's handbag template & SU's Chocolate Chip cardstock.

The faux leather look is achieved quite easily - simply cover your cardstock (once cut) with VersaMark, then cover the whole surface with clear embossing powder. Before heating, using a scoring tool, draw lines randomly over the surface, taking care to only remove the unheated powder from where you're drawing. Once you're happy with your pattern, heat with a heat tool until all the powder has melted & voila - faux leather! Embellish to suit!

RSW Demo Team Meeting

I met with some of my team of Stampin' Up! demonstrators today, for a full day meeting in my craft studio. Of those attending, all of us have been promoted since we last met, so I thought a fun day of crafting would be a good celebration! Debbi came up with the fantastic idea of having a shoe box swap! If you've never been to a shoebox swap, then you don't know what you're missing! You simply design a project and prepare enough supplies for everyone in attendance to re-create it! You put everything you need to make your project in a shoebox or similar container, plus any necessary instructions, then rotate around the room completing each others' projects. And what a fab time we had!

This is my project:

I wanted to highlight a slightly different use of punches - sometimes just using something in a different way can help your sales when demo-ing at a workshop. I used the scallop circle & scallop square punches to punch a central window on 2 3x3 cards. I used the Very Versatile Stampin' Up! set & finished with ribbon, punched flowers, brads, silver hodgepodge & Stampin' Glitter. Here's an inside view of the cards:

Here's a close up of the inside of the card where I used the Stampin' Glitter on the tree blossom:

Cute, but simple!

Debbi's gorgeous card used the Carte Postale Stampin' Up! stamp set & the delicate Certainly Celery & Pretty in Pink colours:

And of course, it included ribbon! Debbi just loves her ribbon!! The one used here is white taffeta.

Helen's card was made using the Sense of Time Stampin' Up! stamp set:

This is the 1st time I've used this set since I bought it. The colours here are Very Vanilla & Not Quite Navy. The background was stamped with Versamark. A nice, simple card to make & effective for those men we jut love to make cards for!

Lastly, Margaret's card had the WOW factor:

This gorgeous chappie was made using various Stampin' Up! punches - isn't he lovely??!! A fun Christmas card - the 1st I've made this year!

Thankyou, ladies for coming along & making the day fabby!

Shirley

Milestone Birthdays!

Don't you just love these photo stamps??!! I have several now, but this is my latest & I thought it would be great for a couple of milestone birthday cards I made for 2 of the ladies who come to my club, who were having special birthdays. Jane's celebrating 60 years & Aviva's celebrating 50 years!

I thought the wording (I won't tell if you won't) was pretty apt for these birthdays & it gave me the idea of hiding something - so I came up with this:

The front flap lifts up to reveal the age! To create the blank background, I simply masked the area with a cut-down post-it note when I rollered the rest of the card. I stamped inside the card using the Happy Everything Stampin' Up! stamp set:

I made the 2 cards at the same time, which really speeded things up & the only difference was the age stamped under the flap.

If you're interested in joining the craft club, or finding out more about it, you can follow this link.

Shirley

1st Holy Communion Card

This is the card I made for a friend's daughter's 1st Holy Communion. There is no stamping on this card, as I felt I didn't have anything appropriate, but the card stock is SU (Certainly Celery & Pretty in Pink). I thought the colours matched well with the colours in the picture. The picture of the girl is actually a rub-on - I was really pleased with the quality! I can't remember who makes these rub-ons, but I got them from the QVC shop in Warrington!

Honest Scrap Award

Today I received my 1st blog award - hooray!!! The award has been passed onto me by Helen at Visual Diary of a Virgin Blogger. Thankyou Helen, for giving me this award!

The conditions of this award are:

• I must thank the person who gave me the award, list their blog and link to it
• I must list ten (10) honest things about myself
• I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog
• I must select at least seven (7) other worthy bloggers & list their links
• I must notify the bloggers of the award

Sooo.......10 honest things about me:

1. I'm addicted to buying craft stuff!!
2. I'm the world's worst procrastinator......so I'll finish the list tomorrow!! LOL!
3. I get loads of ideas but never seem to get enough time to get them all off the ground (maybe partly down to no.2??!!)
4. I believe in ghosts
5. I spend far too much time trying to get things just right - like the amount of time I've spent thinking about the things to go on this list - & I'm still only at number 5!!
6. I hate spiders, beetles & all creepy crawlies!
7. I can do the splits - yes really!
8. I've got all the Friends dvds & have watched every episode countless times - & I still change channels to watch it on E4 when it's on!
9. I like karaoke & do it at every opportunity!
10. I once wrote a play in one evening

Here are the people I've chosen to pass this award onto:

1. Teri
2. Jenna
3. Godelieve
4. Jenny
5. Maria
6. Leslie
7. Amanda
8. Stamping Caz

Thanks again, Helen & I'm looking forward to reading the lists of the people I've passed the award on to!

Shirley

Port Sunlight

Just got back from the HSNW Spring Stamp Festival at Port Sunlight on the Wirral - what a great afternoon!! It was a crafter's paradise - lots of stalls, lots of demos & lots of goodies to buy!!

I bought a gorgeous pink bag at the Glitter Girls stall (I know - yet another bag for my collection!!), a funky pink storage box, quite a few stamps & some other bits & bobs.

The next one's in October - can't wait!!

Shirley

Golden Oldies!

Some more cards using items from the new Mini Stampin' Up! Catalogue - this time using the Golden Oldies set. All images were watercoloured using SU's Watercolour Wonder crayons & have been mounted on the new Washington Apple DSP.

I've used the faux stitching technique on the 1st card, plus some of the new designer buttons. The 2nd card is very simple, just mounting the image & creating a scalloped border using the Scallop Edge punch. I created the playing cards on the 3rd card using Sizzix Sizzlits - not sure of the name of the set, but it's the one with the playing cards & gaming chips.

It's nice to be able to add a touch of humour to cards!

Fresh Cut Notes

I love the new Fresh-Cut Notes from Stampin' Up! I made this card using the Fresh Cuts stamp set, which I think is gorgeous. I used the card as a stencil on the back of the envelope & sponge-daubed the flower with inks - this made the envelope match the card & also added some soft definition to the flower in the front of the card.