A BIG thank you!

Yesterday I held a Stamp’n'Chat afternoon where a few friends (customers and other SU! demos) came over and we made some Christmas cards to donate to Camp Quality. It was a lovely afternoon with good company as we stamped – oh and some lovely scones too if I don’t say so myself!! . And, guess what?! We ended up making 120 cards!!!! How amazing is that for under 3 hours! I’ll get them out and photograph them later so you can see what they look like.

For now, though, here’s some pictures from Fiona’s challenges on the INKlings Cyberstamp night a week or so ago.

Challenge 1 was a sketch challenge and for some reason I went all pretty and girly with pinks and purples and a little bit of silver matting!

Challenge 2 was to make this little purse (should have been a bit bigger but I couldn’t make my printer enlarge it!). Isn’t it cute? I used more of the Tea Party DSP – it is so delicate and girly, perfect for a little purse!

Thanks for visiting! K

Stamping Circles

A big ‘Hi!’ to any of you that visited us at the Salisbury Craft and Hobby Fair today (or yesterday)! It has been lovely to meet so many people (including other SU! demonstrators!) and see their eyes light up at all the ideas on our stand! If you did visit us you would have seen the gorgeous business card holder cards (sorry,  I couldn’t figure out a shorter description!) that Laura designed! They use Circle Circus, Confetti White cardstock, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze and Riding Hood Red inks and the Slit and 1 1/4″ circle punches. We do have a special bundle price available for you to purchase the inks, cardstock and stamp set for only $100 (including postage) so please contact me if you’ d like to purchase this bundle.

Circle Circus was a stamp set I was really not keen on when I first saw it and then we got it for free at Convention – well, who’s going to say no to free rubber?! Not me! Anyway, I’ve been doing some playing with it and now I think it’s one I will get a LOT of use out of!! LOL! Here are a couple of my cards….

Thanks for visiting! K

Salisbury Craft and Hobby Fair 2009

Yep, that’s where I’ll be this June long weekend! Well, not on Saturday, but I’ll definitely be there on Sunday and Monday! I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new customers – and seeing current ones too, so please stop and say ‘hi’ if you are there! I will be working with Kirsty and Laura who are 2 other SA SU! demonstrators and they are both so friendly and talented, I’m very lucky that they asked me to join them at the fair! I am sure you will  enjoy our display and Make and Takes!

We have 2 special bundles available to order – come along to Stall 41 to find out more, there’s also IB&C’s and some retired sets too! Lots of lovely ideas and samples to check out….. plus, we’re right near a chocolate stand, so after you visit us you can go and sugar up!!! LOL! Just kidding! There’s over 140 stalls and admission is only $4 for adults, $3 for concession and children under 15 are FREE! That’s a bargain price for such a big craft fair!

Speaking of sweets….. here’s a card I made fro a SAS a couple of weeks ago! I was playing around with it and couldn’t get it quite right until I decided to crimp the DSP across the front! Much better - and it reminded me of a patty pan wrapper! Oh dear, I must spend less time thinking about food!!

See you at the fair! K

New team members!

Last month’s special certainly convinced these girls that joining SU! would be a great idea! Welcome to Lauren and Emma! They join Alison, Katy, Michelle and myself in a little team I have called the Valley Stampers. It is so exciting for me to actually have a group of girls that were excited by SU! and wanted to enjoy it themselves! I’m looking forward to a ‘Team Day’ soon so they can all meet each other!

Lately I’ve been playing with my Upsy Daisy set and the Urban Garden DSP. They are both gorgeous and I love the colours in the DSP! Here are two cards I’ve made recently…… Shame I took the pic of the pyramid card before I added some felt flowers (Old Olive and Baja Breeze) with a Rhinestone centre, but you get the picture!

So now you can see why I decided I had to change my blog header too! Have a great week! K

Fabulous time to host a workshop!

Why is that you ask? Because The Stampin’ Up! June and July promotions are that you will receive a bonus $40 to spend on products (above the usual rewards level) when your workshop sales go over $600!!! How great is that?

Contact me ASAP to book your workshop before I run out of dates!!!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sending lots of happy wishes to all you mother’s and nurturers out there – you don’t have to be a biological mother to be a mother figure to someone and I hope you all get a little spoiled in reward!

Here is the card and gift I made for my mum, I kept the card simple because of the decorated purse/envelope and in the purse I have put the card, a printed poem about mothers (read on to see it) and a 20 pound note as they head off on a trip to the UK and Europe next week and I thought spending money would be a useful gift!

I used my eyelet border punch to create the faux lace edging – a technique shown to us by the lovely Ngaire Anderson at convention.

And I’d just like to share this lovely poem. I saw it on the cover of the latest “Australian Country Threads” and it made me buy the magazine (that’s my excuse, anyway!!)

Mum

As I look back on my life

I find myself wondering,

Did I remember to thank you

For all that you have done for me?

For all the times you were

By my side to help me celebrate my successes

And accept my defeats –

Or for teaching me the value of Hardwork, good judgement,

Courage and honesty –

I wonder if I ever thanked you

For the simple things –

The laughter, smiles and quiet times

We’ve shared –

If I have forgotten to express my gratitude

For any of these things,

I am thanking you now –

And I am hoping that you’ve known all along,

How very much you are loved and appreciated.

To you, Mum, I love you….

(Author Unknown)

Enjoy your day! K

I’m ba-ack! :)

Thanks for your patience with my prolonged absence from blogging! We have been on a much needed family holiday and I squeezed in a work conference along the way as well as the most important event…. The Stampin’ Up! Convention!!! 2 days of meeting stampers and scrappers from around Australia and New Zealand – plus some SU! staff from the USA and Australian offices! We got to stamp, we got to hear about new techniques and see new ideas for projects and ….. we got to meet each other!!! I met LOTS of other INKlings from around Australia and it was so nice to finally see them in person after chatting online for 18 months! I have photos of our Make’n'Takes (it was nice to be a ‘guest’ and do the projects for a change! LOL!) and lots of other news to share, but I will ration it out a little over the next week as the jet lag ( hey, Canberra to Adelaide is a change in timezone!! LOL!) has got me beat and I’m struggling to get the washing done and the emails answered. So I promise there will be more soon!

For now, however, I want to share a fantastic May promotion with you! May is Scrapbooking Month at SU! and to celebrate there are TWO fantastic offers!!!

Offer ONE – Buy 3 selected packs of DSP (shown below) and receive a 4th pack for FREE!!! Thats a saving of $16.95!!! How many origami boxes would that make??!!!

Item	Page	Description
112042	132	Urban Garden Designer Series paper
112470	132	Haiku Designer Series paper
113976	132	Pink Flamingo Designer Series paper
112468	132	Sweet Always Designer Series paper
113992	133	Tea Party Designer Series paper
113975	133	Raspberry Tart Designer Series paper
113966	134	Good Morning Sunshine Designer Series paper
112469	134	Holiday Treasures Designer Series paper
112041	134	Bella Rose Designer Series paper
113974	134	Bella Bleu Designer Series paper
113978	135	Urban Oasis Designer Series paper
112461	135	Washington Apple Designer Series paper
112039	135	Windsor Knot Designer Series paper
113980	135	Candy Lane Designer Series paper

Offer TWO – Special Joining offer of only $150!!!! You receive the usual business products and a smaller product kit containing:

Item Code	Description	Retail Value
112231	Schoolbook Serif Alphabet stamp set*	$77.95
113059	Simply Scrappin’ Petal Party	$36.95
108697	Earth Elements Assorted textured card stock (12″ x 12″)	$21.95
105216	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin’ Pad	$11.95
103179	Craft & Rubber Scissors	$37.95

This is a great way to join if you already have quite a few of the products in the usual Starter Kit and you will still be entitled to all the benefits as if you purchased the usual one.  Email or call me today to find out more!

Pocket Silhouettes Card

Ooh, I really like this Pocket Silhouettes set! Here’s a card I made use Red Riding Hood, Chocolate Chip and Whisper White – I decided to try the shadowing like Jayne did with her gorgeous Upsy Daisy Card , however I used the Choc Chip ink instead of Sahara Sand.

What do you think? I will also have another Pocket Silhouettes card to share with you later this week, but I want to show it off at my launch tomorrow first!

Back soon! Happy Sunday! K

KW #49

Wow! I finally got one of these done on time! It really helps when you are desperate to do some stamping and want to play with the new colours!

Hubby offered to take the boy and go for a ‘boys hour’ and play with the remote control car down at the local shopping centre carpark and I couldn’t resist stamping instead doing of the dishes/washing/ironing/etc!! Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do! Right?!

Anyway, Kristina’s Challenge #49 was:

and here is my card using the colours and the Wanted Stamp Set……

I layered Vellum over the stamped background to mute the colours a little and used black brads to fasten the vellum to the cardstock. I also used the narrow black grosgrain ribbon to break it up a little. Here is a closeup of the embellishment….

I took a tip from my very helpful upline, Jayne, and inked up the circular stamp with Kiwi Kiss and then used a cotton bud to wipe the ink of some areas before re-inking those areas with my Rose Red Marker. Thanks Jayne!

Thanks for visiting! K

cake + cake = tummy ache!

Well, I promised some pics of the birthday cakes and my computer is finally playing nice so I get a chance upload from my camera and check them out (I will respond to emails later, sorry! It wouldn’t let me send any the last couple of days!)

On Saturday we had a Number 3 cake with spiders!! Aidan liked the spiders on the ’7′ cake and so we decided they were a nice easy way to decorate his ‘3′! (I have been told that I must make mention of Owen’s help with the spider webs! I was having so much trouble with my shakes getting the webs right, so he piped the spirals of the webs for me!)

Then on Sunday we were having a picnic in the park and I picked something easy to transport as well…..

So easy! Just a round cake (I flavoured half the mixture chocolate and mixed the batters so it was kind of marbled) and then I iced and crumbled up honeycomb to go on the top like rocks at a construction site. Aidan was most amazed to see his truck on top of his cake! And here is the birthday boy himself……….

Doesn’t he look like an angel?!! LOL!!! Hmm, pictures of the sugar highs after the cakes and treats would show a different story!! With all my cake baking (thankyou Women’s Weekly Triple Test Kitchen!!) and the slices/pizzas/tarts I’ve made this weekend, I am surprised any of us can move after 2 days of party food! We haven’t really even eaten any Easter chockies!! *gasp* Aidan doesn’t even really know about the Easter Bunny other than his ‘Easter Bunny Bucket’ (his word for Basket!) that he made at Sprouts. He has seen some chocolate eggs, but we’ve said to leave them until later and he hasn’t fussed – thank goodness. So today will be a day to finish up a few leftovers….. and to try and get some veggies snuck in somehow!!

Okay, thanks for reading the ravings of a slightly obsessed mummy – promise I’ll share more stamping with you soon!!!  K