Tomorrow, Tomorrow !

Tomorrow is the day!

Yes I know tomorrow is New Years Day but is also the day a fantastic new promotion starts for Stampin' Up! here in the UK.

All of my customers on my mailing list will be getting the details in a letter, with a leaflet and information about my Spring 2009 classes but if you just can't wait until then you need to pop back tomorrow!

Have a wonderful New Years Eve

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

2 lovely cards

These 2 cards need a little explanation the first is from the lovely Christine and she has made a background using floor polish and acetate along with some glitter and ink, it is one of my favourite techniques and she she learnt this when she attended one of my stamping classes earlier this year.  We had such fun making a wide variety of backgrounds even using shaving foam! The class is really popular and I'll be running it again next year.

This second card is from Steph, she is joining my team in January and is a very talented lady, this card is fab she has used the scallop punch to punch out the front of the card and mat and layer a second punch on the back of the card.

Wonderful cards thank you x

3 lovely cards

These lovely cards are from Sharon, Sally and Elaine

Thank you very much x

4 more lovely cards

These lovely cards are from Lynne, Karen, Vanessa and Lydia

Thank you very much x

A lovely gift

At the team training last week Hayley gave me a lovely gift in a handmade bag. It is a card keeper made from 12" x 12" card, stamped and bound. She put celebrate on it which is perfect because I will be using it to keep all the cards for my Inspiring Inkin' team their birthday and their Stampin' Up! anniversaries.

If you would like to know how she made this, it is going to be one of my classes in the new year, if you would like to receive a copy of my class list, please email me and I will put one in the post to you.

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

Tree Ornaments

Hayley made these lovely ornaments and gave them to all the team at our training day for our Christmas tree, I got 2 sets..........well one is for my little girl's tree it's a very pink tree!

They are lovely, made from punched scallops with stamped snowflake images and sandwiched in the middle is an Elizabeth Shaw mints, yum!

Christmas Cake

I made my Christmas cake a couple of months ago and this year my lovely daughter asked if there was something she could do to help with the Christmas preparations.  So I asked her to decorate the Christmas cake, she used fondant icing that you can roll out, star cutters and the most fabulous silver edible glitter along with our usual polar bears and tree.

I finished it off with a Bashful Blue double stitched ribbon and bow!

What a clever girl, thank you Kimberley x

Coaster Calendar Tutorial

As promised here is the coaster calendar tutorial.

You will need

2 Coasters 

4     4" square pieces of Designer series paper ( I have used  Rainbow Sherbert)

Toning 1/4" grosgrain ribbon ( Tempting Turquoise)

A calendar and mat layer of toning card stock

3 flowers punched from co-ordinating colours of card stock I have used Apricot Appeal, Green Galore and Tempting Turquoise and the 5 petal flower punch and Boho Blossoms punch

Brad, piercing tool and mat

Strong double sided adhesive

Cropodile

Sanding block or sand paper

Stick the paper to one side of the coaster, lining up 2 of the edges so you have to trim less.

Trim around the edge of each coaster, then stick down a second piece of paper on the other side and trim again. 

Using your sanding block sand down the edges of the paper, don't use a backwards and forwards motion as this will lift up the paper from the coaster, just keep sanding in one direction down towards the coaster. The designer paper has a white core and this is what you can see on the next picture. You are aiming for a nice smooth rounded edge on all sides.

Lay the coasters on top of one another making sure all the edges match, then using your Cropodile punch 3 holes through both coasters. Because the Cropodile is so strong it will easily go through both layers at once.

Decide which sides are going to be on the inside and thread ribbon through as shown. Tie knots and trim the edges of the ribbon.  The knots will be on the inside of the coaster.

The back of the calendar will look like this.

Layer the 3 flowers on top of one another and stick together with a brad, mat the calendar onto the cardstock.

Finish your calendar as shown in the picture below.

4 lovely cards

Cards from Hayley, 2 from Marilyn and one from Carrie.

Thank you they are all beautiful.

Only 2 days to go.........

Quick post today, I have been busy with magazine deadlines this weekend, mailshots, Christmas parties and of course there is an up coming special event only 2 days away............

Unfortunately the Christmas Fairy has decided not to come and help so stamping and blogging has taken a serious back seat!

I'm almost there with the tidying and the food shopping, everything that needs to be wrapped is and best of all my family are on their way,  we have a full house all over Christmas and I can't wait!

Over the coming days I shall be showing you some of the beautiful handmade cards I have received, many of them are using Stampin' Up! products.  I also have a calendar tutorial for you and of course the launch of something very special on the 1st January 2009.

Before I sign off I just want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas, full of family, love, joy and peace.

Amanda

Warm Wedding Wishes

A wedding day is always very special and the lovely Paula ( Country Manager for Stampin' Up! in the UK) is getting married to Paul.  There is a vintage theme running through their wedding and although Paula hasn't been giving away too many secrets.......she did say that she was using basic grey for her wedding invites so I have made a card for her and Paul in a very simple style I hope she likes it.

I have used the So Swirly wheel over the front and back of the Basic Grey card with Versamark ink put onto an empty ink cartridge, it's really simple to do!  I then heat embossed using clear embossing powder, this give a lovely texture to the card.  I cut off an inch from the front of the card and decorated the back with taffeta ribbon, Whisper White with a band of Basic Grey (which looks almost silver).

The sentiment Now & Forever is from the Occasional greeting stamp set and is heat embossed using versamark ink and clear embossing powder, I then punched it out using the Boho Blossoms punch.

The white scallop underneath is again using the So Swirly wheel and then heat and stick and Dazzling Diamonds glitter for a tiny bit of bling on the front.

Inside I have cut a piece of Whisper White and then wheeled 2 of the corners and again used Heat and Stick and Dazzling Diamonds.  Apologies for the lack of focus in the picture......

Not a traditional wedding card, but simple and elegant and I am very pleased to say she did love the card.

Happy Stampin' 

Amanda

Promotions for the team

During November lots of my team promoted I always make them a card to say well done.

Here they are and look, new stamp images.........I wonder what they could be??

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

Technique Class and a man!

On the 3rd Tuesday of the month I hold my technique classes, these are opportunities for my club customers to learn more advanced techniques that we can't usually cover in a home workshop.  My club customers sign up for eight months and agree to purchase £20 of products from me every month.  

Not only do they get their products, but also all the hostess benefits for one month out of the eight and of course this free technique class where we make a card, a 3D item and learn 2 techniques.  We make a sample of each of the 2 techniques which are stuck onto instruction pages that fit nicely into one of our 6x6 albums. The finished product is a fabulous reference guide.  

I encourage my club members to bring along friends so they can see what we do at club and this Tuesday was a very special occasion, not only was it Anne's 35th birthday ( oops not sure if I should have said the number.....) but she brought along Chuck.  Chuck is a gentleman and I am very honoured because in 20 years I have never had a gentleman in one of my papercraft classes, several have watched my demonstrations but never stayed to class.

I even have proof!

If you would be interested in joining a technique club, I do have several customers interested in the North Hampshire / Berkshire area, postcode RG7 -14 ish for an evening club, please do email me if you would be interested in joining them.  

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

2 Team projects today and one of mine

More team projects today, this time Tessa and Elaine.

Tessa's card uses the fab Loads of Love truck with her Stampamajig to make a great moving house card.


Elaines card made sure we where seeing stars for the morning, isn't it fab!

And finally a Coaster Calendar, this was my shoebox swap project, I will be doing a mini tutorial on this over the weekend.

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

3 team projects today

Here are 3 of the projects from my lovely team shoebox swap.

First up is Naomi with a fab Summer by the Sea card.

Then Helen with a pocket Silhouettes Bagalope, I'm running a Pocket Silhoettes class next year and I can see a similar project will be part of it!

And finally for today the lovely Hayley and a card using the canvas background stamp, stem sayings and Oh a stamp set you haven't seen before..........perhaps you'll have to pop back nearer 1st January 2009 to find out more!

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

Inspiring Inkin' Team Meeting

Saturday was our very first Inspiring Inkin' team training day, we had a wonderful time, full of fun and creativity.  Today I will share with you some of the projects I designed for the team and  over the coming days I will share with you the projects that my very talented team designed for the shoebox swap.

First up, the notebooks, you may remember from my last post that I had an accident with a pair of scissors.......well it was over the notebooks I bled, so I had to remake 6 of them!  Here are the newly designed ones!  Although our day was designed to be lots of fun, there was quite a lot of training elements too, finance and hints and tips on building a successful business was our theme this time, so they all needed a notebook for their notes!

Now CD's, I have been building a team website with the help of my brother and we hope it will be finished over Christmas but meantime I had lots of documents I wanted to share with my team so they are all on these CD's, it includes all the worksheets for all the classes I have run this year and lots of other support documents on building a successful business.

My projects, we didn't get time to complete everything but these are the some of the projects I had planned, more details to follow for them individually later this week.

And finally, I only managed to snap one picture of people!  But I did manage to catch 2 new team members on the left is Naomi, she's next to her lovely up-line Hayley and then just in the background is Tessa.  What a fab team x

More tomorrow

Happy Stampin' 

Amanda

Oops and Wow !

Oops

Yesterday I received a parcel I have been eagerly awaiting and it was sealed with some strong parcel tape, instead of being sensible and carefully peeling the tape back I used my Stampin' Up! paper snips........Now if you have been at a workshop with me you will know how much I love these scissors, they are really, really sharp have fantastic points on them......can you see where I'm going with this story?

Needless to say I slipped and wholeheartedly stabbed them into my left hand between my thumb and first finger you know the fleshy bit.  Argh!  There was lots of blood, speedy children who got a "clean" t-towel and a trip to casualty.  They stuck me back together, with a warning that my hand will end up being very painful, black and blue and swollen for days, but thank heavens no lasting damage.

That was an oops, but I was more upset that I had bled all over the projects I had been making for my downline that are coming to a meeting tomorrow! So I've had to pull them apart and start again, which is slightly tricky since my left hand is bandaged, swollen and hurts!  You've got to laugh, how silly am I!  So the moral of the story is don't open parcels using your Paper snips, and never ever over your completed work!

Now to the Wow

Over the past few months I have had several projects in Making Cards Magazine, in the January 2009 issue I have 3 projects all of them using some wonderful Stampin' Up! products, one of them is also on the front cover!  If you would like to find out more about the magazine the website is here.

I am also one of the designers who is running workshops for them at their weekend events to find out more visit the website here.  

2009 is shaping up to be a fantastic year already.

I'll be back tomorrow with creations for you as I'll be able to show all of the things I have been making for the team who are coming to my training tomorrow.

Happy Stampin'

Amanda

Oh My, Oh My Oh My..........

Regular readers of my blog will know that I recently achieved an award and recognition from Stampin' Up! for my recruiting during the past year, I have the most wonderful team!

Today the post lady brought me a package from Stampin' Up! It was an envelope with a little box inside........

A turquoise blue box with a white ribbon............do you know what that means?.....

A Tiffany box ! Oh my.......... A Tiffany box !

So would you like to see what is inside?

And what is inside the pouch?

A beautiful Silver pendant and chain from the Tiffany notes collection.  The pendant is 4cm in diameter and so beautiful, I am so honoured, I absolutely love it and will be wearing it constantly!!!!