Stampin Up Regionals are the best . . . . .

Hi there
I bet you cannot believe I am posting for the second time in a week ? Well neither can I hee hee

I am back from an incredible weekend away with some 300+ Stampin' Up! demonstrators from Scotland, Uk and Ireland who all attended and SU regional event in Telford .

I am a member of the Bloomin Buds Team and our upline is the lovely Jenny Moors from Poole in Dorset. Six of us from the team met at a lovely Premier Inn near the venue and we spent the afternoon and late into the night crafting together and we had a blast. How we have never been asked to leave due to noise levels I will never know because we are always in fits of laughter and somewhat rowdy when we get together. We each brought a shoebox swap with us and we had all made a WOW swap for the rest of the team too. There can be nothing better than sat around a table doing what we love with a bunch of like minded team members.  Our next big get together for the team will be at Convention in Manchester in November so if you would love to be part of the craziest team around the dont hesitate to get in touch and ask for more information about joining us.

So here are a few of our team swaps

 

And here are a selection of swaps I received in return for my own general swap card ( I have misplaced my own sample so will have to locate it and share it with you possibly tomorrow.

 

 

As always I am blown away by the quality of these swaps and love each any every one of them. I am so grateful to all of the other demos who happily share their talents and ideas. Thank you to every person who was kind enough to swap with me. I am inspired.

 

Card Wallet and 4 Matching Cards

The project for my evening card class on 20th February is a card wallet containing 4 matching cards. I got the original design idea from the amazingly talented Jenny over at Stamping Moments HERE
My class will also be using the Garden Whimsy set that Jenny used but I thought I would refresh myself as to how these are made, before my class next Friday. By making a couple of wallets, purely for practice for myself, I am also making something that will be Christmas or Birthday gifts to give someone this year
I decided to try a technique I haven't really used before which is the Resist technique. I used the Pocket Silhouettes stamp set and the images do lend themselves very well for this technique.
I stamped my first images in Elegant Eggplant onto whisper white cardstock. I then stamped a different flower head from the set using a Versamark ink pad and covered with Stampin Up clear embossing powder and heated it with my heatgun. I allowed it to cool slightly and then, using my brayer inked with So Saffron, I went over the whole piece of card. I did this a few times until I was happy with the depth of colour and then I took a piece of soft tissue and wiped over the white areas where the embossing powder was, to remove any hint of ink on those areas. I am really impressed with the finished effect of this technique and will certainly use it more in the future.
These pictures show the wallet and the 4 cards I made for inside.

Mini Photo Album

My good friend Vikki is going in hospital for an operation at the beginning of next month.

I have made her this mini album complete with 12 photos of her gorgeous little boy so that she will have them to look at when she is stuck in hospital and bored out of her mind.

Card Scraps anyone ?

Well as I said yesterday, I am persevering with my craft room clearout and I try to achieve something definite everyday. Yesterday saw me struggling to know what to do with regard to all my C6 and smaller offcuts of card. My A4 and A5 are already taken care of as I have four Magazine holders laid on their back on a shelf ( I have one holder per Stampin Up colour family)

Well last night I had a bit of a brainwave and came up with this idea.

I had one of those little record card plastic boxes ( it had lots of recipes in it that I did years ago but they will be going to a new home with some nice lady who has TIME to cook)

I cut 48 card dividers and attached a tab label to the top of each piece with each colour name written on it( the Stampin Up tab punch is just the bees knees and I am using it sooooo much) I then cut up some plastic cd wallets that were lying around and attached them to the back of each card. So now I have a custom made little storage system for ALL my card scraps. The bigger C6 sort of sized pieces just slot in behind the card dividers but the tiny bits ( I dont part with any off-cuts) are all secure in the attached little plasitc wallet.

The beauty of this is that I can start to check my scraps box now when I am doing a project and go straight to the colour I want to use and see if I have a piece big enough, rather than cut into a larger sheet.

I am so pleased with this and I am convinced it will make me more economic with my cardstock and ultimately it plays an important part in my craft room clean up too.

Beside the Sea

Well we have even more snow today so a perfect opportunity to stay safely indoors in my craft room.
I have undertaken to completely over-haul my craft room this year and clear out absolutely everything that I no longer use. I have to say that since I became a Stampin Up demonstrator I tend to use nothing else....which means I have drawers full of craft supplies that need to go. I am one of life's hoarders so do not usually find it easy to part with things but I am being really ruthless in my quest for a clean and tidy craft space.
Because I find all this sorting stuff so boring and tedious I have decided I am going to just do it at a snails pace and craft too as I go along. So I have made a couple of cards this morning and a little box/bag.

I am now back sorting out my cardstock scraps. I have the A4 /A5 stored in magazine binders on a shelf so I can see every colour. The C6 sized pieces are in a Index card box. My problem is how should I store the smallest bits that range from 1/2" strips up to 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 pieces. I have a couple of those origami style boxes with the pieces stood in at the moment but I don't think this is the best way for a permanent solution.
I would be grateful if ANYONE has any suggestions

Here is the card

Loads of Love Just Moved Card

Thought I would just share with you a card I made last night. Anyone who knows me would see that this card is a mile away from my usual style and colours. I was really amused that I went with such rich colours but I do like the end result so will use the combination again.

1st Class

Well even though the weather was against me in a big way today, my first Stampin Up class went ahead as planned, albeit with only 3 ladies instead of the expected 5.

The first picture shows the three projects we made and the picture above shows the classroom set up before creativity began.

If anyone is interested in actually doing this particular class, I am willing to re-schedule a further date for before the end of this month to suit individuals needs. Please email if you have a particular date in mind.

My next class will involve making a folder containing four cards and envelopes to give as a gift set( Stampin Up sets Garden Whimsy / Loads of Love will be used). The first date scheduled for this class is Friday 20th February. This is an evening class from 6pm to 9pm approximately.

Again, if you are interested in this class but would like a different date and/or time then please do email me to ask.

1st Class brings Snow, snow and more SNOW

Well today was the day of my 1st scheduled Stampin Up cardmaking class at home.

When I picked this date little did I know that we would have THIS much snowfall overnight.

Unfortunately 2 ladies were unable to get here due to the weather conditions but the other 3 ladies were more local and all managed to walk here.