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!