Hostess by Post Club Launch!!

Today I am launching my ‘Hostess by Post’ Club. This will enable you to place a smaller regular order but still receive all the hostess benefits.

Each member agrees to join the club for 6 months and spend a minimum of £25 on current Stampin’ Up! products each month. When you join, I allocate you a hostess month. The 6 members take it in turn to be hostess and when it’s your hostess month, you will receive the associated hostess benefits of at least £25 to spend on any goods of your choice including the subsidised hostess items at the back of the current catalogues. The higher the sales in your month, the higher the benefits, so you may wish to ask friends and family if they would like to add to your order.

You will need to place your order during the 14 days of the month, and the hostess will be informed by the 20^th how much credit she has to spend. You are able to place your order each month, either on line or via post. You pay with a credit/debit card, or you can put a cheque in the post. The items will then come directly to you via UPS, normally within 3-5 working days. There is a flat rate of £4.95 for shipping and handling, but you could split this with other club members if they are local to you.

If you would like further information or to sign up, please get in contact asap as plan to start my first set of 6 this month and another set in September. If you are interested in joining, but would prefer to spend a different amount each month, please let me know as I would love to accommodate you.

Much Love

Katy x x x

#PLxSU UK Customer Launch

I have been a scrapbooker for 10 years now, but I can honestly say this is the most exciting day in my scrapbooking journey! My life has changed so much in that time, and I've gone from having maybe a few hundred 'special' photos of birthdays, holidays and special occasions to having two little men and an amazing husband who make everyday a day for celebrating...and this is why I am so excited about the uk launch of project life by stampin' up! 

A project life page can be as ornate and decorated as you have time for, on one level, grab the photo pocket pages, a box of card collections, 6x4 photos, and a pen and your done. Alternatively, there's nothing stoping you adding all the embelishments, texture, extras, that make traditional scrapbooking so much fun! 

To begin my project life by stampin up journey, I have chosen to purchase

Variety Pack 12" X 12" Project Life Photo Pocket Pages

£5.95

Everyday Adventure Project Life Card Collection

£13.50

Everyday Adventure Project Life Accessory Pack

£8.95

I also received the project life day to day stamp set as recognition for my fabulous sales during sale-a-bration.

Project Life Day To Day Photopolymer Stamp Set

£22.95

I've launched an exclusive new blog where I will be keeping you up to date on my project life journey as well as giving hints, tips and techniques for making the most of #PLxSU. 

How do you get on this new blog?

Spend £25 or more on Project Life by Stampin' Up! in one transaction, in my store and I'll email you the secret link within 48 hours.  Click the SHOP NOW Bar above and search 'project life'.

Alternatively, if you want to receive a 20% discount on all #PLxSU merchandise and have acces to my exclusive blog - why not join my team! There's a great offer on at the moment, join for £50 and choose £55 worth of products....

You could choose...

Everyday Adventure Project Life Accessory Pack

£8.95

Everyday Adventure Project Life Card Collection

£13.50

Variety Pack 12" X 12" Project Life Photo Pocket Pages

£5.95

Remember This And That™ Rotary Stamp (English)

£5.50

Pumpkin Pie Stampin' Write Marker

£2.95

Pear Pizzazz Stampin' Write Marker

£2.95

Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker

£2.95

Bermuda Bay Celebration Add-On Kit

£8.95

Stampin' Dimensionals

£3.25

....and also recieve 8 copies of the upcoming catalogue to give out to your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues! 

But the fabulous thing is your starter kit is your choice, so choose what ever products you love the most and start an amazing journey!

Click to Join Stampin' Up! Now

And the Winner is....

What a busy week I've been having! Last Sunday I spent the day at the Wellington Street Fair, it was a fantastic atmosphere and I met so many lovely people! It was great having the chance to chat to people about Stampin' Up!

As part of the day, all those who signed up to my newsletter were entered into a prize draw to win a card making kit! I can finally revel the winner is Kate Hutchinson :) Well done Kate! I will be in contact in the next few days to sort out delivery of your kit.

Thank you to all who signed up, there are lots of opportunities to get things for free with Stampin' Up! If you'd like more information about hosting a party or signing up as a demonstrator, get in touch!!

Stampin' Up! 2014-2015 Catalogue Launch Party in Welington, Somerset!!!

I can finally reveal details of the highlight of the year!! 

I'm holding my catalogue launch party on Sunday 29th June, at the Community Centre in Wellington, Somerset. The Community Centre is just a short walk from the Longforth Road (ASDA) Car Park, which has free parking on a Sunday!

So

What's this all about?? Well, I need to clear space for all the new wonderful stash i'll be acquiring over the next 12 months. So I'll be selling my old stock, stash, tools. Some will be used, some will be brand new - there are some great items in there. 

However, here is the twist.....for every £ you spend on 'old' items, you get that to spend in the new catalogue!! 

The new items can be collected from me on/around July 12th or for £4.95 can be delivered directly to you as soon as they are released.

Tickets cost £5 and can be purchased by contacting me. Included you'll get your own copy of the brand new catalogue. You'll get the opportunity to play and create with the new 2014-2016 colours. 

Book your tickets before 11pm on Sunday 1st June for an additional free gift!!

Another Six Sided Sampler Card - May's Selected Stamps

Sometimes its really difficult to decide which of our lovely colours to use when creating. When I get stuck, I turn to the colour coach, it's a great product as not only does it show you an accurate representation of every colour, it also gives you two three-colour combinations and for some colours, their two step stamping match. 

The colours I have used here are Island Indigo, Rich Razzleberry and Crushed Curry. Remember, if you order the six sided sampler stamps through me during May, you get a free card making kit sent directly to you! 

Here are the product's I used to create this!

Six-Sided Sampler Clear Bundle

£28.25

Rich Razzleberry Classic Stampin' Pad

£4.95

Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad

£4.95

Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad

£4.95

Island Indigo A4 Card Stock

£6.25

Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry

£6.25

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

£7.50

Stamp-A-Ma-Jig

£10.95

Sponge Daubers

£9.95

Joining offer £50 - just in time for pre-order

The two main perks of being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator are 20% off all catalogue products and the opportunity to purchase items first, before their general release. The highlight of the year, the new annual catalogue is just over a month away, launching on July 1st but for demonstrators the pre-order begins this weekend!

Why am I telling you this? Stampin' Up! have launched a great offer...

You can even include pre-order items in this, so make sure you get in touch to find out what they are!

What do I get for my £50? You get to choose up to £55 worth of product, from the current catalogue or if joining after May 30th, from the pre-order selection. Plus a business pack, containing the new annual catalogue!! Then once your cooling off 7 days have passed, all orders you place will either give you a 20% discount or 20% "instant income" which is cash paid directly into your bank account.

If you don't think £55 of stuff is enough, don't worry you can still join at the usual £99 and choose £130 worth of goodies.

This offer runs until June 30th, so don't miss out!! join today!!

Love Label meets Positively Chevron with a dash of clearance rack!

I recently went to the Pinkies Birmingham Weekend, and while I was there I completely fell in love with the Positively Chevron Stamp and our White Craft Ink. When a friend needed a last minute wedding card, I knew they would make a great combination.

Here's what I came up with,

Using Crumb Cake Cardstock and White Craft Ink, I used the positively chevron Stamp to create a background for my card. I then used love label bundle - which comes with the matching Artisan Label Punch, some linen thread to create the 'Mr and Mrs' Sentiment. For the envelope I used our Tag a bag gift bag, I created the closure with the Angled Tag Topper Punch on Crumb Cake Carkstock, which i distressed the edges using a Sponge Dauber and Crumb Cake ink. I created the sentiment using Crumb Cake Ink on Whisper White Cardstock. By attatching the tag to only the bottom half, the 'envelope' can be opened and closed easily. 

Now, your probably realising I havnt mentioned the scalloped tulle ribbon. This is Crumb Cake tulle ribbon that I picked up from the Clearance Rack. I love the clearance rack, not only can pick up great bargins but because of our products exclusivly coordinate you can get additional things that match the current products we sell! 

Now, the fun with the clearance rack is that you don't know when the stock will dissapear, so if you need that item, you have to buy it straight away! As i type this you can get Cherry Cobbler Ribbon for £3.19 or Gumball Green, Real Red and Whisper White gift tags for 89p!!

Statement of the Heart in Subtles - Stampin' Up! UK Regional Training 2014 Swap

Today is my first big Stampin' Up! event. It's the UK Regional Training day, which means demonstrators from all over the UK are gathering in Telford to celebrate all things Stampin' Up!

When ever a group of demonstrators get together, our favourite thing to do is Swaps! Everyone is invited to create and take something along and swap it with everyone you meet. It's a great talking point and a fantastic oportunity to come away with lots of inspiration and ideas. We all have different styles and skills and it's great to see what different personalities do with the same supplies! I knew I wanted to make the most of this oportunity but I just didn't have enough supplies to create very many items. I decided that creating an image on My Design Studio would be the best way to go about creating lots and lots, without lots of cost! 

As Stampin' Up! demonstrators, we have a mission statement which is known as the Statement of the Heart.  Here is it, 

This sums up everything that Stampin' Up! means to me, I love what I do, I want to share what I love, not only craft supplies, but memories and emotions. Not everyone likes to create, but everyone has the ability to enjoy the creativity of others. If I live my life in this way, celebrating and sharing love, my life and the lives of those around me will be different.

To every demonstrator, the statement of the heart means something different, but it does mean something. By creating a postcard for everyone I meet today, I'm sharing what I love and hopefully giving them something they can love too.

Now that you know why I created this, why not come back later in the week to find out how I created this!

Thanks Much - Six Sided Sampler Card

The six side sampler set is really really great because it's so versatile! Last week I showed you one of the stamps that have been designed for two step stamping, or adding words inside, and today is the turn of the other.

I've used the 'thanks much' phrase that comes with the stamp set, inside the dotted hexagon. I've used whisper white cardstock throughout this project and stamped with island indigo. I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to ensure my pattern was evenly spaced. I punched the thanks much out using the coordinating hexagon punch and securing with a stampin' dimensional to give it depth. 

MDS #100happydays ... a long way to go.....a long way to go...

Family time is such a big part of being happy! Sometimes though, friends are just as important in creating that happiness. The photo's on these pages are all from days out, near and far. With regards to MDS and creating these pages, I used two page templates, deleted the suggested placement of the photos and added photos where I wanted them. I then changed a few things, added a journaling block and wow, it has a completely different feel.

Do these pages look familiar? They should do, I've used this page template before! There are 24 different page templates in the 'delight in the day' photobook, with 100 photos to include, I'm looking at my final book being at least 30 pages. This means I'll be repeating some of the templates, but that just helps the books coordinated look. 

Here are the pages, that I previously used this template for, you can check out the full blog post here.

They were the first few pages I did. I used the templates exactly as they appeared, and chose photos to match. As I progress through the book, i'm starting to choose photos first, and then adapt a template to fit. Is there an obvious difference? I would love to hear your opinions on how the two compare...

Hello sweet friend - six sided sampler card

I've had a lot of fun playing with this months selected stamps, it's even better because you can get a coordinating punch that takes away lots of the stress of lining up patterns and positions if you have a spacific design in mind.

For this card I wanted the stripes all facing the same way, 

Punching the hexagons out also meant that I could give the 'petals' more shape. The central part has been created using two of the stamps from the set. I love how the phrase stamps, hello sweet. Friend, thanks much and my friend fit inside not one but two or the hexagons. Look out for the other example later on in the month!

The stem and leaves come from one of my favourite sets in the 2013-2014 annual catalogue, Betsy's Blossoms (In Wood 131995  £25.95 or in clear 126006 £20.95 )

The colours I've used here are crushed curry, island indigo and Whisper white, I love the subtle effect of crushed curry ink on crushed curry card.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this card....

A Sparkly Special Card

When one of my customers work colleagues contacted me to ask me to make her a 60th birthday card, I knew it would need to be special.

The birthday girl in question makes all the cards for every other occasion they celebrate, so this card needed to be up to her standard! It got me thinking, what makes a card 'special'? 

To make a card special, you could pick colours they like? A theme that incorporates their likes and life style? but when creating for a cardmaker, special to me means different to my 'usual' style. This is what I came up with...

I nearly always make straight forward folding cards, I find the pleasure in designing and decorating rather than cutting and folding, so this was my first idea - I'd create something more 'difficult'. After a little while on pintrest, I found a tutorial on how to make a central step card on great blog by a lady called Grace, you can find the original tutorial here. Her instructions were brilliant, and she even had pictures which helped me translate the inches into cm, so I could use my Stampin Trimmer and not have to get the knife and ruler out!

I then decided that glitter was definitely needed! When creating a card that's traveling around a workplace, through many hands before the recipient recieves is difficult with glitter. You don't want everyone to be covered in glitter, or the birthday girl will suspect. Equally, you don't want the glitter to have all come off before it's recieved and spoil the affect! Luckily our Glimmer Paper is ideal, it doesn't rub off and it even comes in 'Champagne' which just seems fitting for the occation!

In choosing the colours, I headed to the In-Colour groups, they only hang around for two years, so they are pretty special too! I originally thought of Strawberry Slush, but it was too bright for this sophisticated lady, so Crisp Cantaloupe was perfect. I added in a strip of Baked Brown Sugar Ruffle Trim, before adding butterflies cut from the Beautiful Wings Embosslits. I cut the card base, and butterflies from Very Vanilla Cardstock as it complemented the champagne glitter brilliantly. 

In my central step section, I matted and layered using the Labels Collection Framelits Dies and Stampin Dimmensionals. I finally cut the numbers from the Typeset Alphabet and created an envelope to fit this unique card using the Envelope Punch Board.

I'm really pleased with it, I'd love to get your feedback! 

Six sided sampler - May's selected stamps!

This month's selected stamps are the very versatile six sided sampler stamp set.

You can get them in Wood (item 130953 £23.95), Clear (item 130956 £18.95) or Digital (134801 £3.95) You can even get them as a bundle with the Hexagon punch for a 15% discount!

Order through me or via the website www.stampinup.co.uk with me, Katy Freeman, as your named demonstrator during May and you'll receive a free card making kit to make sure your inspired! 

Buttons, buttons, buttons! It had to happen sooner or later...May Scrapbooking Kit

I've just completed Stampin' Start which is the incentive for new Stampin Up! Demonstrators during their first six full months. I'm keeping my product bonus for #PLxSU or Project Life for those slightly less excited than me, but I still think it's important to celebrate my achievements. So what better way to celebrate than include my favourite thing in this months scrapbook kit!!!

May's scrapbook kit contains one 12"x12" sheet of Whisper White Card, one 12"x12" sheet of Sahara Sand Card, one A4 sheet of Whisper White Card, two A4 sheets of Wisteria Wonder, two A4 sheets of Elegant Eggplant and 36 Buttons!!! There will also be an instruction sheet on how to use this kit to create a beautiful layout. The Buttons contains a mix of Subtle and Regal colours, in three differnent types. Your buttons will include Elegant Eggplant, Wisteria Wonder to coordinate wonderfully with this kit but also Island Indigo, which will feature heavily in next months kit!

How to get hold of this kit? You just need to contact me...

I will be running this as a class on Wednesday 21st May, in Wellington, Somerset, at 7:30pm. If you would like to join in, please let me know before the 15th May so that I can ensure your kit is ready for that evening. 

The kit costs £7 and can be collected from me, or posted for an additional £3.50.

Keep checking back to see what I've done with it!

Crossing the half way point! Journaling a really important experience..

Today's layout marked the crossing of the half way point through my 100 happy days photo book. I loved the experience of being happy for 100 days, and in part that was probably due to the experiences I had in my life during those 100 days. 

 

At the beginning of February, I visited America for the first time. That alone, was a very big deal for me as it's something that's always been too far outside of my comfort zone. But what made this trip even more difficult was leaving my twin boys, not in the care of their Daddy, who unfortunately couldn't get the time off work, but to his wonderful parents. You can not imagine how hard looking after toddler twins is, particularly ones that don't sleep through the night, until you are faced with it. I honestly didn't know who I was more worried for! As things went, we all had an amazing experience, exhausting for many, but amazing none the less. I fell completely in love with America and my little niece Tabby. I can't wait to take the boys out there to meet her and experience the joy that American's have for making sure your alright!

Anyway, here is the layout

Does it look familiar? I've used the same right hand page earlier in the book, but it looks very different when the left hand side is changed.

Simply drop and drag - great results with mds!

This weekend has been a busy one! I went to my monthly scrapbooking crop in Exeter on Saturday, completing six 12"x12" pages! I was very very pleased, as my pile of to be finished layouts has been growing recently! Then yesterday i spent the day updating the website, writing documents and scheduling classes. After spending much of the day on the computer, I really wanted an easy drag and drop page for my mds album and this one was perfect! 

Even though it's simple, it's still really beautiful and most importantly fits perfectly in my album! That's 8 more photo's done!

New Classes, Dates, Times Now Online!!

I have updated the Classes and Events page to contain all the latest information, you can view it here.

As a quick guide 

My next scrapbooking class is on Wednesday 21st May at 7:30pm.

The next card making class is on Saturday 14th June at 10am.

These will both be held in Wellington, Somerset. 

The scrapbook class costs £7 including Kit and Instructions or £3.50 attendance only. The kit contains approx £5-£7 worth of product. 

The cardmaking class costs £10 class only or £28 including the wood mount stamp set to use in the class of approx £20-£25 value. Substitute the wood mount set for clear mount and receive an embellishment pack too. If you prefer you can order alternative Stampin Up products to substitute the stamp set used in class up to the value of £20 which will be ordered and be available to collect at the class.

***Special Offer***

Book both June and July's card making class for a discount cost of £18 class only, or £50 including the stamp sets. June's class features the Betsy's Blossoms Stamp Set, Retail Priced at £25.95. July's class will be featuring a brand new stamp set, launched on July 1st - making you one of the first in Europe to use it!

Don't forget i'm also running a papercraft drop in, every other Thursday in May, June and July at For Every Cloud, Bow Street, Langport. Starts 8th May, 10am-12pm and costs £3.50.

More MDS Magic - We're now over a third of the way through!

As I become more confident with MDS, I'm taking longer with each page. Today I've even added extra photo blocks to the layout! With 100 photo's to scrap, i'm trying to get more photos per page but this comes as a huge task, each photo also has journaling that goes with it! I've used the add embellishment button a lot today to add extra journaling space, but using the search function and searching 'delight in the day' I've been able to make sure that everything I've selected will always coordinate. I've also added some ribbon that I found on one of the other pages - copy and paste - voila!

I'd love to know what you think?

I can't believe i'm creating this all from the basic download - it's just £13.95!

You can get it here item 130646

Using the Hip Hip Hooray kit, in the way it's intended!

I'm really loving the Hip Hip Hooray card kit, and as you may be aware, I've been doing a lot of things - off piste, but when I first got the kit, I actually did what it was designed to do - I followed the instructions and made 20 cards.

I will add - although everything you need to create is contained in the kit....you do need scissors if you want to use the twine/cut the stickers down :) We have great paper snips here for £8.95 item 103579.

So you want to see what I created...

 Why not get yours today and have a whole load of cards on hand for all sorts of occasions!! Remember if you order this item from me during April - you get a free 8"x8" scrapbook kit for FREE!!

Shop Now