Helloooooooo!

Sorry I haven't been around lately - been busy finishing my adult teaching qualification - I found out today I have passed! It's been a lot of work and I am so pleased it has paid off.

I have been missing my Stampin Up buddies so have decided to have an open day on the 3rd September. This will be a great opportunity to get first dibs on the 'Last Chance list' - the Stampin' Up sale starts on the 1st September and retired products will be available all month at reduced prices - we are making way for our NEW 2012 catalogue......can't wait!

And while your diary is out , I will also be having an open house on Saturday 15th October to launch the 2012 catalogue.  Be amongst the first to get up close and personal with the gorgeous new goodies, including the new Big Shot dies from the summer mini catalogue and I'll be demonstrating some projects using them. 


Pre order your new 2012 catalogue for £3.50 to pick up on the day or join my Virtual Hostess club to get one free of charge along with free goodies too. Click here for more details



If you can't make it on the 3rd September or 15th October but you are dying to see what's new, why not host a workshop and earn free products? It's a great night in to have with your mates (even if they don't usually craft) and actually have a try of the products and an excellent time to get started on your Christmas cards.  


Obviously I don't want to post my home details here - so please email me if you'd like more details or if you'd like to come to one of my events.

Win a Big Shot!

Inspired by Stampin' Ups new Strength & Hope campaign in aid of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, I've decided to run a prize draw and the prize will be the newest and most exciting addition to our range (drum roll please) .... The Big Shot!!!!!
The money raised from the raffle will be donated to BCRF.

The Big Shot is a sturdy manual die cutting machine used to die cut materials for use on crafts, home décor projects, and even clothing--it's a big deal! You'll love what the Big Shot machine can do for you! Try running fabric through the Big Shot machine to create your own custom pillow appliqués--or make custom fabric flowers to embellish a quilt. From sewing to quilting to home décor, the Big Shot is the perfect tool for many types of crafting. Use our Stampin' Up! exclusive dies to create die cuts and stencils with our artwork and designs for all your craft needs.

The RRP of this fabulous piece of kit is £87.95 (including a 3 year guarantee and personal tuition from me!). But you can get your hands on it for just £3 by buying a ticket for my Big Shot raffle, which will be drawn on the 18th July here on my blog.

You can also get your hands on a raffle ticket by placing an order over £45 (with free p+p), by holding a workshop between now and the 18th June or by joining my Virtual Hostess Club.


Contact me for details of how to buy your tickets.

Stampin' Up Open House sneak peek

We had a lovely afternoon crafting and playing with the beautiful new Big Shot dies and embossing folders that were released in our new mini catalogue.

This card was made using one of Stampin' Up's new exclusive folders 'Manhattan Flowers'. I've really enjoyed experimenting with different ways of using it - and there's not much left to do once you've embossed your card, it's so nice all on it's own. For this card I've applied ink straight from the ink pad onto the debossed side of the folder before carefully placing the card inside and running it through the Big Shot.

You can apply the ink to the folder with a brayer and this gives a softer effect. Using the ink pad straight on the folder gives a much stronger colour and you can even add a little texture if you deliberately leave strokes in the ink. Be careful not to be too heavy handed though otherwise the ink will get in the grooves and spoil the effect.

Our next crafting afternoon will be on the 14th May - if you'd like to come please email me for details.

A non pastel baby card

Hi everyone

Just a quick post to show you a baby card I made recently for my niece. I love the Bundle of Love stamp set, but wanted to try something different with it so I combined it with the very useful Dot,dot,dot  mini background stamp.

The colours I've used are Cherry Cobbler, Baja Breeze,Very Vanilla and Basic Grey. The tiny stamps in Bundle of Love make a cute background  and I've added a little bling with some of our rhinestones.

Well, it's too nice today to stay indoors, so I'm off down to my allotment to sow some seeds. See you soon!

New Mini Catalogue - Welcome blog hoppers!

Hi everyone and sorry for the delay in mending my blog hop post. If all is well you should have arrived here from Sarah's blog.

We are all so excited about the beautiful new goodies in our brand new mini catalogue - including the Big Shot with a fab range of dies and embossing folders exclusive to Stampin' Up.

I am just buzzing full of ideas, here's one that struck me the other day while I was reading a sewing magazine. With the royal wedding approaching there's a new trend for patchwork Union flags and I just had to try it out with our fab Springtime Vintage Designer paper, although it is so nice it was hard to stop looking at it and stroking it and actually cut into it!

The new 'Lots of tags' Sizzlits dies have fast become a favourite of mine too. I've used one of them for the sentiment, and run it through the Big Shot with our 'Perfect Polka dots' embossing folder.

That's all from me for now - I have lots of new things to show you in the coming weeks, so I hope you'll pop in again soon.

The next stop on the blog hop is Pat - I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip in blogland.

 Hi and welcome to our blog hop - if all is working well you'll have come from Sarah and her lovely creations.


Unfortunately I am having a few technical problems, which I can't fix until this evening (off to a craft show!) so for now I will direct you onwards to Pat, I am sure she has lots of goodies to show you.


Please check back soon to see what I came up with with my gorgeous new stash.

Last few days of Sale-a-bration

Only a few more days to go! If you have these exclusive free stamps on your wish list you need to get a wriggle on. I will be sending an order on Sunday to meet the deadline so email me now if you want to place an order.

Starting in March - my new Virtual Hostess Club

Spread the cost of your never ending wishlist and get a parcel of goodies to your door every month, with freebies and exclusive club events. Places are limited. Click here to find out more.

Thinking of Valentine’s Day

I’ve had a really nice day today, the first time this year the weather has been nice enough to go down to my allotment to prepare for the season. Spending time in the sunshine, gardening with my husband made me all mellow and I rounded of my day off with a nice bit of crafting and prepping for my craft class on Tuesday.

As I said last week, I’ve been trying to be a bit more adventurous with my colours combos and this is what I came up with as a Valentine card, though I think you could use it for an anniversary or even a wedding. 

One of my new favourite stamps is the En Francais background, it gives a lovely vintage feel, especially nice when the edges are inked.

Here’s a close up so you can see the texture wheel in action, it is fast becoming an essential piece of my kit. It gives a lovely subtle spattered pattern without being over the top.

The colours are 

Card -Elegant Eggplant, Rich Razzleberry and Crumb Cake and Early Espresso

Ink - Early Espresso ink

Satin Ribbon - Old Olive satin ribbon (which is just fabulous!)

Stamps – En Francais, Simply Said and sentiment from Occasional Greetings (a must have set).

Embossed with Silver Stampin’ Emboss powder.

Distressing was done with the texture wheel.

Hoppy Sunday!

Hi everyone and welcome to my Sale-a-bration blog hop page.

I hope you enjoyed the project on Becki’s blog and all the great projects on the way. We Stampin' Up demos are so full of great ideas and we’ve had a fun few days thinking up new projects to show you using the exclusive Sale-a-bration stamps available in January and February. Click here to see how to get your hands on these fabulous stamps for FREE!



Here is the card I made with the gorgeous Sale-a-bration set ‘Sweet Summer’. I have a tendency to go with pinks and blue when I make cards, so I decided to set myself a challenge to use So Saffron for a change. It’s a lovely buttery yellow and goes great with Baja Breeze and Real Red gives it a bit of ooomph.

I love this set, on face value it looks so simple, but you can use it in so many ways. The stamps make lovely backgrounds and I got carried away colouring in the tiny leaves with a blender pen – it reminded me of a delicate china pattern on a tea set.



Well I won’t keep you too long – there’s lots to see on the blog hop today and I hope you have a fab chilled out Sunday with lots of inspiration. But do check back to see my projects or sign up to my email mailing list to be informed of future Stampin’ Up promotions and events.

I will pass you on to the lovely Donna next.

There are 4 groups in today’s blog hop – here are the start links for each one.
Group 1: http://sarastamper.blogspot.com/
Group 2: http://my-next-chapter.blogspot.com/
Group 3: http://kerenbaker.wordpress.com/
Group 4: http://www.creatinwithkirsteen.com/

Getting ready to hop!

 Hi everyone!


To celebrate Stampin up's Sale-a-Bration time, us SU Demonstrators have been busy making various cards & projects using the fab stamp sets currently available (for FREE!) during January and February. 

So if you would like to be inspired then please join us on our BLOG HOP taking place this weekend. Check back here for the link to start you off.

Sunday 23rd January at 10am!

I’m sure there will some fantastic creations! 


I’m busy putting together my blog hop page, so for now here’s a quick sympathy card I made with Just Believe. The colours I used were Night of Navy and Basic Grey in inks and card, I think it went together very well. I don’t know if you can see but I ran the Textured Stampin’ Around wheel around the edges, to give a vintage feel. This is one of my favourite wheels, it’s perfect for those who want to try a bit of distressing but are unsure of how to get started.

That’s all for now. I’m looking forward to blog hopping on Sunday – I hope you will join us!