October card class

A few weeks ago, I held my monthly card class at Dock Street Market in Leeds. There's been a few changes there recently, and an additional side room has been created where a small bakery used to be. I held my class in the side room, and it was much better, we had much more space, it was quieter and the light was brighter. I had six ladies come to join me crafting, and on arrival they were given a pack of the card stock they needed to make eight cards (Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade), and a pack of the Festival of Prints papers. I had made a few samples of the cards they were going to make, but I'd left it up to them to design their own. I'd brought along all the festive stamp sets I owned, so they could mix and match. The stamp sets used were Snowflake Soiree, Watercolor Winter, Scentsational Season, Delightful Decorations, and sentiments from For My Family, Petite Pairs, Teeny Tiny Sentiments and Owl Occasions.

Here's a picture of me in action! It's an bit fuzzy, it must be all the crafting that was going on.  Do you like my new apron, it was the first class I'd done since I bought it.

 Here's the cards that I'd made as samples.

Watercolor Winter cards

Morning,

I'm glad it's Friday! I hope you all have nice things planned for this weekend. Here's the second of the cards I made during my Christmas card session. I had some old papers left, called Jolly Holiday, from two catalogues ago! I decided I should use up as much as I could. I used a design that Kylie had asked me to make a card for her Inspiration Station, that unfortunately she didn't get a chance to finish off for the display. It's a card with half the front cut off, with the Label Collections Framelit Dies placed over half of the front. That's not explained very well, but I'm sure you'll understand from the pictures what I mean. For the card backgrounds, I used Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive, and the stamp set was the Watercolor Winter. I'm a real fan of this set now, after using it on a few cards recently. The sentiment is from a retired stamp set, Contempo Christmas. This is one of the sets I've had on my list to sell, so let me know if you'd be interested in taking it off my hands. To finish off the poinsettias, I placed a couple of pearls in the centre of the flowers.

Swaps for team training

I've mentioned the team training day I attended on Saturday in a few previous posts. The first part of the day while everyone is arriving and finding a seat and getting a cuppa, is doing swaps. Everyone has to bring a card front or a project using current products. It can be a bit mad, trying to remember who has swapped with who, and I always manage to leave with a few extra that I didn't give away.

I used the set Watercolor Winter, which I had won in a raffle at the Christmas Stamp-a-stack. I used a Crumb Cake card blank, and stamped on the bottom right corner with Cherry Cobbler ink using the Curly Cute stamp set. A strip of Cherry Cobbler card stock was punched using the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border. The holly outline was stamped in Always Artichoke onto Very Vanilla around the edges, and then using the markers, Cherry Cobbler and Gumball Green, the image was coloured in and stamped on top of the outline. I did try to use the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the images, but this took too long, so I had to just use a steady hand to line it up. I like how it doesn't matter if its not exactly in line, and I like the scribbled effect the leaves give.

Everyone at the training day seemed to like them, and I've started to make a few more to add to my cards for sale box.

Christmas Stamp-a-stack

On Saturday, I went to an all day Stamp-a-stack class run by Julie Kettlewell. Normally her Stamp-a-stack classes are on a Friday evening, and we make 12 cards, 2 each of 6 designs. Saturday, we made 24 cards, 4 each of 6 designs. It was great fun, and every card used the new products from the new Seasonal Catalogue, many of which I hadn't seen in the flesh or played with before. I went along with my Stampin' Up! downline Kylie, and friend Ama, who has had a few workshops and I'm slowly converting into a true addict! One of the nice things about being a Demonstrator is that it's not just about running classes or having workshops, it can simply be about having a crafty session with a few like minded friends. I go to these Stamp-a-stack classes so that I can see the products and make samples that I haven't been able to buy as I'd need another mortgage to get everything I want from the catalogues!

I was lucky enough to win one of the raffle prizes, and chose the Watercolor Winter stamp set from the Seasonal Catalogue. I've got some swaps to do for our next Team Training day, so this set will be perfect for that.

Watercolor Winter stamp set

 

Julie made these lovely bags for us, full of goodies for us to make our cards with, and take home anything we didn't use on the day. It worked well, having our initials on the bag until one point where there were four of us on the table with names starting with A!

I'll be writing my blog posts soon, hopefully my broadband will be fixed this week at long last, and I can start doing these posts properly instead of on my phone.