Tea Shoppe Thank You

Woohoo!! I finally have lots of lovely things to share with you. I have been busy beavering away for classes and workshops which hasnt left too much time for blogging. So I am attempting to catch up with all the photos I have been taking by scheduling some posts for the upcoming week.

Here is the hostess gift and card from Wednesday's party with Charlotte. I made another of the fab teabag holders I found on Pinterest using the exclusive Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Paper (only available for another 4 days so get your order in asap!). I've shared that project before though so I thought I would highlight the card I made instead.

                                                                                                                                                           

I love this stamp set from the Summer Mini, Tea Shoppe and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it carries over into the new main catalogue. The colour scheme is Very Vanilla, Lucky Limeade, Soft Suede, Poppy Parade & Peach Parfait. And do you notice the ingenious placement of the sentiment to cover up the fact that the teacups were stamped super wonky? ;0)

I'll be sad to see this designer series paper retire (again) but I'm definitely stocking up before the end of this month.

And in other news, I got my new Autumn/Winter Seasonal Catalogue in the post this morning. It is FANTASTIC!!! I cannot wait to share all the new items with you on September 1st ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)

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An Everyday Enchantment Hostess Thank You

I just wanted to share with you today a Hostess Thank You gift I made for my lovely hostess Andrea last week. I had seen this set on Pinterest and wanted a good reason to recreate it. So when I set about coming up with a Hostess thank you I thought this would be perfect, and it fits perfectly with this months Everyday Enchantment promotion.

Here is the thank you card I made using Tea Shoppe stamp set and the Everyday Enchantment papers. The colour scheme is Peach Parfait, Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeade.



I created this teabag dispenser and filled it with calming fruit teas. This again is focused around the colours in the Everyday Enchantment paper and the stamp is from Tea Shoppe. The ribbon is Peach Parfait Poly Stitched.

 Here is a close up of the tea bag dispenser details. The flower on the top is made from two paper daisies stamped with Calypso Coral and Peach Parfait and sponged around the edges. The centre of the flower is an Antique Brad.

 If you have any questions or would like to take advantage of this months fantastic free ribbon and brad promotion please get in touch directly on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy crafting ;0)
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June Card Class Makes

I cannot believe how quickly time is flying by with a newborn. I say newborn, but Summer is actually nearing 7 weeks now and outgrowing her 0-3months clothes. So she is practically a toddler already ;0)

And while my days are dominated by gazing at her lovely little face and taking her out for strolls I have managed to fit in a little crafting too. I am now back teaching my card and scrapbooking classes and last week I demonstrated at my first 'return to Stampin' Up!' workshop for my lovely crafty friends (Hayley wrote about the party over on her fab blog here). I was surprised at how much I missed my classes and catching up with my lovely ladies. And my lovely Mum and sisters looked after Summer upstairs so I could pop up and stick my head in on her as I was fetching bits and pieces for the class that i'd forgotten (it really doesnt matter how organised I think I am I still have to fetch glue dots or clear blocks or a coloured pen every class).

So here are a couple of the projects we made in this months card class.

This first project was cased from Pinterest made by an Australian demo. You can find her original card here. I absolutely adore this Hostess set from the Summer Mini, Pedal Presents. It stamps so beautifully and is so effective just lightly coloured to match the colour scheme (Lucky Limeade, Melon Mambo and Daffodil Delight). This card also gave me an opportunity to use my fab new Edgelit Die and Framelits too ;0)

We also made this seasonal box using the cone die. I saw this strawberry gift box on a blog and thought it would be great to create this seen as how Wimbledon started this week. I love how the polka dot embossed Real Red looks like a real strawberry.

And while I am blogging I can't resist updating with a quick pic of my (not so little) girl. She loves her rainforest activity mat but as you can see from the second picture, it sometimes gets a bit too much for her and it makes an equally comfortable sleeping place.

Right, hopefully I'll get the opportunity to update again a few times this week as I have taken a few more pictures of projects i have been working on ;0)

In the meantime...... Happy Crafting

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Flower Pot Card

 Here is one of the cards we made at last weekends card class. I've seen various tutorials for flower pot cards around the web so decided to have a go at one. Cajun Craze is the perfect colour for creating the pot base. I then used the Cheerful Treat Hostess Designer Series Papers with the Fun Flowers die to create the layered flowers for the pot. The Lucky Limeade leaves were punched using the 5 Petal Flower punch. Each flower is embellished with a designer button.

I stamped the insert with a greeting from the exclusive Mini Catalogue Hostess set Swirls and Curls Verses in Melon Mambo ink. All items from the Mini Catalogue are only available until April 30th so if you have your eye on any item remember to get your order in with me in the next month or so (and dont forget you only have a week in which to make the most of Sale-A-Bration and get your free stamps or papers with a £45 order).

Any questions or queries about Stampin' Up! please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249. Always happy to chat crafting and Stampin' Up!

Happy Crafting ;0)
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More customer thank yous

So another Stampin' Up! week begins. I took delivery of last weeks workshop order yesterday and needed to come up with a new 'thank you' design for my customers. This is the card I came up with. I needed it to be quick and simple as I needed to reproduce it 9 times over. As it happens, it was a touch more complicated than I would have liked (the colouring of the 'thanks' was the most time consuming). But I love the overall effect. And this years In Colours are just too lovely used all together like this.

The two stamp sets I used for this are both Sale-A-Bration sets, Outlined Occasions and Fresh Vintage. The colours are: Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade. The butterflies were cut with my Big Shot and the Beautiful Wings Embosslit Die. Each card is slightly different as I used the butterflies differently on each card (cut with Calypso Coral). To finish I embellished with super sparkly Stampin' Up! rhinestones.

Hope you are keeping well and I have three more cards to share this week so I hope you'll pop by again.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Quick Customer Thank Yous

I recently demonstrated for a new group of crafting ladies. They were familiar with Stampin' Up! from the crafting publications but had never actually crafted with our stamps before. Their order arrived late in the afternoon and my partner had offered to deliver their box on his way to work in the evening. Which only left me a few minutes (in between cooking dinner and unpacking the order) to create some quick and easy stamped thank yous. I always like to give a handstamped thank you with every order as I appreciate each and every order from all of my customers.

Seeking inspiration I went up to my craft room and spotted a pile of pre cut Very Vanilla Top notes and the brand new unmounted Charming stamp set. I've seen this flower image stamped over the backing words stamp on several blogs recently and really love the effect. So I picked up my Pool Party (told you it was my favourite colour of the moment) and Elegant Eggplant and set about creating these quick thank you cards. I stamped a thank you on the inside with Wisteria Wonder and finished by embellishing the flowers with some tiny basic pearls.

Not the most complex of notelets but I managed to stamp them and write them just in the nick of time for my partner to deliver the order ;0)

Hope your week is treating you well so far.

Happy Crafting ;0)

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Here are two versions of the make and take for tonights workshop.  This was inspired by this card over on Julie's blog. I loved her colour combo of Lucky Limeade and Elegant Eggplant but had to substitute for cardstock I actually had in. So for mine I used Old Olive and Rich Razzleberry.

I love the contrast of the Razzleberry stamped over the top of the Olive. Such an effective but simple stamping technique. I also liked Julie's idea of adding extra embellishment to another sample to show how you can bling the card up a little (simply through adding a bit of ribbon and rhinestones). The stamp set used for this card is exclusively available in the Stampin' Up! Spring Mini Catalogue which is only available until April 30th. With Sale-A-Bration running until the end of March, now is the perfect time to get hold of limited items available in the Mini. Just get in touch if you'd like any further information (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

Happy crafting ;0)

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Hostess Thank You

Thank you for all the lovely congratulatory messages. They are very much appreciated ;0)

Now on to some Christmas crafting. I must again apologise for the poor lighting of these two photos. I was taking these late last night so that I had something to post today and the result is slightly 'off colour'. Bring on the Spring and some nicer lighting conditions (although I must confess to actually really loving these damp days and dark nights- a good excuse to cosy up under the duvet with a good film or a book).

I demonstrated at my friend Hayley's annual birthday workshop last night. I designed two little make and takes for all the ladies to have a go at which didnt leave much time for a demonstration. So instead I made this little hostess thank you set in advance and just showed the ladies instead. I picked Pool Party & Night of Navy as my colour scheme to give an icy winter feel to the two projects.

The card was made using my favourite technique again. I created a Post It note mask with the Curly Label punch and then sponged Pool Party and Marina Mist onto Shimmery White cardstock (I love this C/S as it gives a nice icy feel to Christmas-y cards). I then stamped the largest snowflake from Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy over the top. I then stamped the 3 smaller snowflakes as a background. The Thank You sentiment is taken from Curly Cute.

 The hostess gift element of the set was this luminaria. I followed an online template for the basic shape and then customised this to use my own colour scheme and stamps. I had previously bought two packs of the battery operated 'flickering candles' from Ebay but not gotten around to using them. Now I have seen the result I will most definitely be investing in some more I think.

I did try and get the luminaria lit up but I just couldnt get the lighting and settings on the camera quite right. I created it using Night of Navy as the base. I punched the holes using my largest circle punch. I then cut 4 pieces of vellum to fit and stamped with Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy. For the trees around the bottom I used Not Quite Navy as the base card stock then stamped the multiple tree stamp from Lovely As A Tree along a strip of card (using Versamark). I then covered this strip (on which I stamped the image three times) with silver heat embossing powder and embossed for the icy finish. The last touch was to sponge dauber white craft ink along the base of the trees to give it a snowy look.

And just one final quick bit of info. Stampin' Up! have launched a Hostess incentive which runs through till December 15th. If you host a qualifying workshop (£300+ sales) anytime within this period you will receive extra product for free. The product bonus is the lovely Paisley Petals stampset and coordinating Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper. What a great way to celebrate hosting your own Christmas workshop!

If you have any questions on Stampin' Up! please let me know and I'll try to help as best I can (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

In the mean time, happy crafting ;0)

-X-

Lovely as a Tree Thank You

I demonstrated for a lovely group of crafty ladies on Friday evening. I prepped in advance this Thank You card for the hostess using one of my favourite (and so effective) stamp sets, Lovely as a Tree. The theme of the workshop was Christmas crafting so I decided to design a card with a Christmas-y feel but not overtly red/green/Christmas.

I stamped the row of trees in Baja Breeze and Pool Party (one of the exclusive new In Colours launching October 1st) and then stamped the single tree in Night of Navy. I cut around the single tree and sponge daubered the edge in Baja Breeze. I raised this tree with dimensionals to give a bit of depth to the design. I then finished by using Dazzling Diamonds to embellish the trees and to give a snowy ice feel. I also used my Shimmer Paint to ice the base of each of the trees. The final detail is the Concord Crush Poly Ribbon around the top of the card.

The sentiment is from Thank You Kindly.

Happy Crafting

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Why become a Hostess?

At Stampin' Up!, we love our hostesses!

When you host a workshop, you'll receive a free Idea Book & Catalogue from your demonstrator. But that's not all; based on the sales of your workshop, you can also earn:

• Free stamp sets


• Free Stampin' Up! products of your choice

There's one more benefit to hosting a Stampin' Up! workshop. Not only will you receive great training from a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, a free Idea Book & Catalogue, and the chance to earn free stamp sets and products, you'll also build wonderful memories and long-lasting friendships during an evening filled with fun, friends, and creativity.

What is a workshop?

A Stampin' Up! workshop is a stamping event where you open your home and invite your friends to enjoy an exciting demonstration provided by a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. When you host a workshop, you'll see new project ideas, learn different stamping techniques, and have fun with people you enjoy.

For more detail you can find information on hosting a workshop on the Stampin Up website:

http://www2.stampinup.com/gb/eng/553.asp

If you think you might be interested in hosting (and earning free hostess sets and products) please feel free to contact me. Alternatively, I am looking to run further open house demonstrations at my home in Newport. If you get in touch I will happily give you further details.

First Open House Workshop Saturday 27th February ;0)

In celebration of booking my first workshop (Saturday February 27th- just in time to make the most of Sale-A-Bration ordering) and in helping me to promote it i have been trying out various templates and 'Make and Take' ideas.

Last night I was experimenting with my Bold Colours cardstock and Fast and Fun Notes Stamps (P.34) to make a thank you and a birthday card.

Pink Passion card, Fast & Fun Notes Stamp, Silver Calligraphy Pen & accessorised with Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon.
Pink Passion card, Whisper White Grosgrain ribbon coloured with Orchid Opulence and Lovely Lilac, Fast & Fun Notes Stamp. Background- Pink Passion ink used with the Whimsy Stampin Wheel.

A card I made a few nights ago once I had received my Loads of Love Accessories (P. 31) stamp set. I accessorised this with 3.2cm Old Olive Striped Grosgrain Ribbon and 1.6cm Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon.