Swaps swaps and more swaps!!

Well I promised to share piccies of the swaps I made for Convention with you, so here they are in full, glorious technicolour! All of the supplies used are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise indicated.

First up the general swaps I made to exchange with my fellow demos from the UK, France and Germany, As usual I had left everything until the last minute so mine were of necessity fairly simple.

I made 100 of these little dove cards - 4x4 of basic black cardstock, the "Peace on Earth" stamp from the Four the Holidays stamp set stamped in Versamark then heat embossed with silver embossing powder. The dove was punched out of whisper white card with the 2 step Bird punch, and the branch out of old olive before assmbling the card using a dimensional to raise the wing and one of the tiny rhinestones from the new Jewels pack for his eye.

Then I also made 50 of these Christmas cones while I was at a craft fair the other weekend - thanks to the lovely Kim Fee who gave me the idea at our training session the other week - these were the first swaps to go funnily enough.....

They were half of a 6x6 piece of Jolly Holiday patterned paper rolled into a cone, a few inches of 5/8 Satin ribbon scrunched onto a 3" length of Sticky Strop with a hanger made out of  a piece of card punched with the word window and gold cord/ linen thread attached with a brad. The little dangly bit was made using one of the Stamps from the gorgeous Winter Post set (stamped twice in different colours and the centre of one cut out and mounted on dimensionals) and attached to the ribbon with a wee gold safety pin (non SU).

Now for the "Card Candy" swap.

"What is card candy?" I can hear you asking - well its basically where we make little 3D embellishments to use on cards, and then package them up like you would find in shops.... the challenge is to make a minimum of 6 pieces of candy which must have at least 2 layers using one stamp set - I chose to use the fabulous Winter Post set again and my swappees can choose to use the topper decoration as a 7th piece of candy if they want! I did end up using Season of Joy for one piece and the topper decoration though (Season of Joy is one of the sets which is bundled up with the offer mentioned a couple of posts below - check it out to see if you can get some scrummy free ribbon!)

The gift item swap was one where we were challenged to make something a bit more complex - the sort of item you would buy at a craft fair. I decided to make everyone one of these gorgeous little card cabinets which I found on a US Demo's (Becky Roberts)  blog. This pic is of the prototype I made for myself using whisper white and real red cardstock but the girls ones were made out of Crumb Cake card with Greenhouse Gala papers for the "drawer" fronts and on the cards and matching pens they got. Unfortuantely - I forgot to take photos of the actual items - but people seemed to like the end result!
 I intend to use mine to store all my adhesives/ bone folder/ craft knives in as the bottom section is staged to lift the back compartment up so its easy to see the contents!

The 3D swap also came from Becky it was one of the items in her fabulous 12 days of Christmas 2010 tutorial. Its a little sweetie holder containing 3 Ferrero Rocher chocolates made out of old olive card and the jolly holiday papers and you may notice my signature item - the puched out doodad from Winter Post features again (I just LOVE that new designer label punch!)

The final swap I signed up for was the business tools one - and I got some fabulous ideas from the others in the group. This was my offering - a "Party in a Bag!"
This is something you can you use when you have a potential hostess who is worrying about how much preparation is involved in having a party. If you hand her a bag with everything she needs for the food and drink she might be pushed into booking. My bags (non SU) were stamped using the So Swirly jumbo wheel and a printed logo label. They contained a bagalope containing tea and coffee bags, a box of brownie mix and in real life the envelope would contain invitations for the hostess to send out. I would also put a catalogue and hostess leaflet in the bag as well. This is a great way to get some product into a potential hostesses hands (I used some of my recently retired supplies to make the contents). As the swing tag says - all your hostess has to do is "Just add Friends!". You can of course put whatever you like into the bags - a bottle of wine and a pack of nibbles might be more appropriate for your hostesses!!

So you can see why I was rather tied up last week - just at the moment I never want to touch another piece of cardstock for a VERY long time ("as if!" - snorts a hubby reading this over my shoulder!)

While its lovely to get lots of swaps back in return - its does mean a lot of hard work - and I am stating here and now that I am not doing anything other than the general swaps next year - I can do without all the stress and angst!

I'll be back shortly with the last swap the CMC or "Convention Memory Card" one which was organised by one of the German Demos......

Wow - what a great Convention!!!




Yes there were the niggles like dodgy moments at the hotels (Dawn was put into the wrong room at first - with some almost strangers), the imbuggerance of coaches to and from the venue, and the cramped conditions in the main stage but I had a whale of a time - and I'm sure others did too! Given that everyone had to either drive themselves or catch coaches between the hotels and the venue - I don't feel too bad about opting to save money and going to the travelodge for £25/ night


I've come home with some lovely goodies from all the swaps - both general and organised, and it was great to spend some time with the friendliest and most amazing SU team in the UK (that's the Tartan Stampers BTW!)!! Photos will follow once Lorraine sends them to me!


I've already told Dawn about my big adventure on the way home but will share it with you.... its almost worthy of Mammy Hen! (Mary)


The SatNav took me home via a most circuitous route - back up to Orpington, onto the M25 there - off at Sevenoaks (which is only a couple of minutes from my sister's house...) and then a quick dash down the A21 to Tunbridge Wells all in all about 35 minutes or so from the palace to the takeaway.


I stopped in the next village to fill up the car and pick up a takeaway - and while I was waiting for the food, I decided to dig out my house keys as Rog isn't very good at leaving the motion sensor outside light on at ours..... imagine my horror when I realised I didn't have the keys in my bag - especially as Rog and Katy were down in Portsmouth on a sailing weekend....... and his car was in Southampton...


I rang Roger, to ask him where he had put our emergency spare key (he hides it somewhere in the garden), and was even more appalled to find out that he hadn't put it back after the last time he'd needed to use it.... there I was, clutching my lovely Chinese food and locked out of the house with no prospect of being able to get in until Sunday evening...... He even admitted that he realised I must have forgotten my keys as he saw my very large key chain - complete with 2 Kipling monkeys hanging on the key board in the hall. He got yelled at for not telling me or leaving the spare outside ready for me!!


Then I remembered - my sister had a spare key (remember me saying I passed close to her house on the way back.??) Only trouble was - she'd told me on Wednesday evening that she and her family were off out to a fireworks do... Anyway - I rang my brother in law on his mobile (unlike my sister he carries it with him AND keeps it switched on all the time!!)  to ask what time they expected to be home as I needed either the spare key, or if they couldn't find it - a bed for the night! Imagine my relief when I heard that while he and my niece were indeed doing a moonlight walk around a forest in the dark....my sister had opted to stay home - so I could go and get the spare key any time I liked.


Anyway - I got back in the car - and retraced my steps back to Sevenoaks to be greeted by my sis waving the spare key in one hand and a large vodka and coke in the other.... she had a plate ready so I could warm up my congealing takeaway - and I spent a lovely evening keeping her company while we heckled Strictly and X facor.... before finally going back home and into my own bed. around 11 o clock!


Hope my fellow demo's trips home were slightly less eventful - and here's to next year at Disneyland!!

Bundled up for Christmas Promotion

How would you like a Christmas present from Stampin' Up?


Well from the 1st November until the 29th December you can have just that as SU are giving away free ribbon to customers with an order for selected bundles of Christmas products.


With every bundle you buy - you get to choose one of the fabulous ribbon packs on offer and there are 4 different ones available (Click on the pic to see a bigger one).

So what are the bundles which qualify for the goodies?

Well here they are - and look out for the lovely patterned paper which isn't in the catalogue in one of them!

Tempted? I know I was and my order went in first thing this morning so I'm hoping it gets here before Convention!

Let me know if I can help you with your orders 07973 969153 or ExStitch@aol.com

Convention is coming!

Well next weekend sees the biggest event in the Stampin' Up (Europe) year - the Annual Convention.

Convention is one of the biggest social events for all of us SU Demonstrators as we get to meet and/ or catch up with the rest of our teams, make lovely cards and projects, take lots of photos of the inspiration boards and generally have a blast.

This year, its the UK's turn to host it and its happening not far from me at Addington Palace near Croydon and at the moment I'm busy creating all the In Love with Stamping forum swaps I signed up for. So far I have made 90 CMC (Convention Memory Cards)  for a swap organised by one of the German Demos, 6 gift items, 10 3D swaps, and at the moment am just finishing off the business tool swap. I still have to make 10 sets of card candy, and then all the general swaps so I left those to the end as they are the ones I don't have to make a definite number.

Obvously everything is a big secret at the moment - but watch this space next week to see what I made - and more importantly what I got given in return!

Now off to consider the next big crisis - what do I wear to the awards dinner? Long? Short? Black? Colour?

Decisions! Decisions!

New Year, New Starter Kit!!

Have you ever thought about being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator?

It's never been easier or cheaper to sign yourself up for a sizeable discount on everything in the Stampin' Up! catalogue, but if you do - no only do you get a discount on everything you buy (starting with the fantastic Starter Kit), but you have the opportunity to make yourself some cash by selling the fabulous products to your family and friends - and friends of friends - and friends of friends of friends... well you get the idea!

The picture above is the fabulous starter kit you get when you sign up - the fee is just £119 and the products in the kit are worth a stonking £230!!! Better still - you can personalise most of  the kit to include your own choice of inkpads, stamps, cardstock and paper so you can get a wonderful box of goodies you KNOW you will love at a fabulous price!!

and in the words of the dreadful comedian Jiminy Cricket...... "And there's more!"

If you sign up with me - when you put in your first order of £150 or more - I will give you a joining up gift of a stamp set of your choice (up to £30 value), an inkpad and  a pack of A4 cardstock!

Go on - get in touch for a chat - what do you have to lose??

ExStitch@aol.com/ 07973 969153

Launch night!!

Well, I had convinced myself that nobody was going to turn up for the event - but how wrong could I be?? In the end I had 11 lovely ladies turn up to get their new catalogues, do make and takes and put in some rather juicy orders.

Thanks to the High Wycombe training session last month I had a lovely display board showcasing lots of goodies made with the current stamp sets so a huge thank you to everyone who swapped with me then - your work was greatly admired by all who attended. That's the display up above, except the Serene Snowflakes card in the middle of the left hand board wasn't skew whiff on the night!

We did 2 make and takes that evening - a card and a little gift pouch. The gift pouch was based on an unnamed swap from someone else at High Wycombe, so thanks for that one!

The card was the training M&T but I changed the colours to the catalogue's suggested Christmas Suite of Old Olive, Very Vanilla and the lush new Cherry Cobbler.... My fabulous upline lent me her bauble punch for the evening (thanks Dawn!) as I was panicking. I had merrily planned to case the HW swap - little realising it would feature a punch that we in the UK couldn't even order until the 1st Oct, fortunately Dawn had got hold of it on one of her many trips to the US. This card was great to do as a M&T as it showcases the stamps and the matching punch and the matching ink and cardstock. This was also the first time the customers got to see the new Clear Mount stamps as we used the new Contempo Christmas set with the fabby new acrylic blocks!

The wee pouch featured the new Newsprint designer paper and taffeta ribbon, teamed with a Very Vanilla base and Cherry Cobbler again. It was only after I had put the pouch together that I realised I hadn't stamped the base card using the Artistic Etchings stamps as I intended. Never mind - the ladies all loved the idea of being able to make their own gift packaging from now on!!

On the subject of clear mount stamps - I looked at the new acrylic blocks which came out with the new catalogue and thought - Huh! Its just a lump of plastic why bother when I already have loads of acrylic blocks? Then I tried one for myself and I am hooked!! The SU blocks ARE different in that they have finger grooves all the way round which means they are really comfortable to hold - and not only that - they are much chunkier than my cheap and nasties. I for one can heartily recommend them to you!

I now have just ONE place left on the Stamper's 6 starting up this month - if you are interested please get in touch. Be a hostess and get the goodies without the hassle of a party!!

Well the "BIG REVEAL" is finally here!!

Well at long last the 1st October is finally here - and that means the UK Stampin' Up! demos are allowed to share the lushness that is the new catalogue!

This year we have 114 pages of lushness to share with you all - that's 16 more than last year - and with the colour renovation there is oodles and oodles of new stuff to tempt you!

Here is a large pic of the front cover and if you click on the little pic to your right - you will be taken direct to the browsable online catalogue.

However nice the online catalogue is though nothing beats having a nice big real catalogue to take to bed with you, pop into your bag to read on the bus or train, or just sit flicking through deciding on your wish list!

If you would like me to send you one, please get in touch and for £6 (including P&P) I will pop one in the post to you staright away. This charge is fully refundable on an order of £60 or more so go on... drop me a line on ExStitch@aol.com or ring me on 07973 969153 and it will be winging its way to you tomorrow ... you know you want to!!!

I am rushing to get everything ready for my launch evening tonight. If you are in the vicinity of Horsmonden in Kent between 6pm and 9pm tonight - please feel free to come and join the fun. Full details available below!