Team Training - Dapper Dad Card 3

Morning.

This is the third and final Dapper Dad card that I'll be sharing from the team training day on Saturday.  I love this one, it's so easy and incredibly effective.  The Argyle Embossing folder has been used to emboss two strips of Night of Navy card stock, and have been placed onto a Very Vanilla card blank so it looks like a cardigan.  How clever!  The bow tie stamped image was stamped with Early Espresso ink onto Crumb Cake card stock, and three of the smaller Silver Buttons were placed underneath in a row to look like buttons on a shirt.  The sentiment which reads "It's your birthday, Oh, What fun! Blow out your candles one by one!", has been stamped onto Crumb Cake in Early Espresso ink, and punched out using the Decorative Label punch.  Bakers Twine was tied around the label, and attached to the bottom of the card with dimensionals.

A close up of the three Silver Buttons, don't they look nice and shiny!

A close up of the bow tie, stamped with Early Espresso ink onto Crumb Cake card stock.

If you've been following my Dapper Dad posts this week, I hope you've liked all the cards, and are inspired to use it yourself.  It's £16.95 for the wood mount stamp set (129195) or just £13.95 for the clear mount stamp (129198).  These stamps are so versatile and can be used for lots of different cards.  You don't have to just limit them to masculine cards, at the training day on Saturday one of my fellow demonstrators suggested "blinging up" the watch using pearls or rhinestones for a ladies watch, I thought that was a great idea.  

Team Training - Dapper Dad Card 2

This is the second card from the team training day on Saturday, using the Dapper Dad stamp set.  Similar to the first card I shared on Monday, it uses Night of Navy, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake card stock.  The shoe was stamped in Night of Navy ink onto Very Vanilla card stock and then cut out using the Paper Snips.    

The Happy Father's Day sentiment from Bring on The Cake was stamped onto a square piece of Very Vanilla in Early Espresso ink.  The Crumb Cake cardstock was embossed using the Big Shot and the Argyle Embossing Folder.  A piece of Early Espresso Bakers Twine was tied around the Crumb Cake, and finished off by tying a Silver Button through the twine.  The shoe was placed on the card with Dimensionals.  

A close up of the stamped image of the shoe, and the Silver Button with the Early Espresso Bakers Twine.

As I mentioned at the bottom of my last post, there's plenty of time to get hold of any of these items before Father's Day, contact me now to place your order.

Team Training - Dapper Dad Card 1

At Saturday's team training event, we made three cards using the Dapper Dad stamp set from the Spring/Summer Seasonal Catalogue.   This was a stamp set I'd not used before, and as always, as soon as I started stamping, and playing with it, I wanted it!  All the ladies go home from training events with wishlists bigger than they were that morning.

The first card I'll be sharing has the colour combo of Night of Navy, Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla card stock.  We all got a bit confused on our table starting these cards, and stamped the wrong colours on the wrong card, and cut pieces to the wrong size. We're too eager to get going sometimes! The watch image was stamped twice onto Very Vanilla card stock, one was cut out and the other just had the watch face stamped out with the 1" Circle Punch.  The watch face was placed onto a large silver button, to produce a very effective looking watch. I love how different items fit together.  This was mounted onto a circle punched with the 2 1/2" Circle Punch.  The Happy Father's Day sentiment is from Bring On The Cake stamp set.  A strip of the Natural Trim ribbon was placed across the front of the Crumb Cake card stock and a piece of Bakers Twine was tied around the end.

The picture below shows a close up of the watch, where you can see the edge of the Silver Button.  Doesn't it look effective and just like a real watch!

Father's Day is on Sunday 16th June, so if you like this card, or any of the products used, please get in touch to place your order.  There's plenty of time for you to play around with them to make the perfect card.

Promotion - Get more free products!

Between the 15th April to the 30th May, Stampin' Up! are running a promotion where you can get more free products.  There's two ways to take advantage of this offer...

Host a Workshop

If you host a workshop which reaches sales of £250, you'll get an extra £25 to spend on products of your choice.  This is in addition to the £40 you'd normally receive to spend.  £65 worth of products for free!  Contact me now to book your workshop.



Join Stampin' Up!

This is a great time to join Stampin' Up! In your starter kit, you'd receive an extra £25 worth of products for free.  You'll get £155 worth of products for just £99.  You would also receive a business pack containing stationary and catalogues worth £45.  What a bargain! Contact me for more information about what it means to be a demonstrator.

Team Training - Tuxedo Card

Evening!

What a lovely sunny day it's been.  I've missed most of it, as I attended a Julie's Jems team training event run by Julie Kettlewell.  The theme of today was cards for men, as it's something I think most crafters struggle with at times.  There's loads of lovely sparkly pretty crafty stamps, colours and embellishments out there for feminine girly cards, so Julie decided to get us out of our comfort zone and challenge us!  We did some crafting, which I'll be sharing over the next few days, and we had some great business training too.  Stampin' Up! is a great opportunity whether you want to be a hobby demonstrator, or turn it into a business.  It's flexible too, it can fit around your life and more effort can be put in when life is less busy.  As Julie pointed out today, demonstrators only get out of it, the effort they put into it.

We also had a special guest today, Paula Gorry who is the UK Business Development Manager at Stampin' Up! UK.  It was really nice meeting her and chatting to her, and hearing about how Stampin' Up! operates.  She did a crafting demonstration for us, and we all learnt a few tips and tricks.  It's great seeing other peoples ideas, and seeing things we wouldn't have thought up ourselves.

We always do swaps for out training events, and as the day was based around cards for men, so were our swaps.  I spent a bit of time on Pinterest getting a few ideas together, and decided to use a tutorial to make a tuxedo card.  The link to the tutorial can be found here from Lynn Pratt, an American demonstrator.  Normally when we hand out or swaps, it's a mad half an hour of going around the room trying to find who we haven't swapped with yet! Today we did it in a more structured manner, which worked well.

I used Basic Black and Whisper White card stock to make the jacket and the shirt. I printed out the template and traced them onto the card stock and used the Paper Snips and the Paper Trimmer to cut them out.  The Simply Scored Board and the scoring blade on the Paper Trimmer were used to score the lines.  I used the Dimensionals to stick down the collar edges on the jacket and shirt, and one to hold the two sides of the jacket down.  The bow tie was cut out and also stuck down with Dimensionals.  Lastly I used the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die with the Big Shot to cut out the button for the front of the jacket, which was also attached using the Dimensionals.

I made thirty of these, but forgot to take a picture of them all finished, so here's a picture of just one of them.

Below is a close up picture of the button cut from the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die.

Here's a photo showing the shirt part of the card pulled up from inside the jacket.  This could be the area the message is written on, or could have a sentiment stamped onto.

Exciting News - Colour Refresh

I have some exciting news to share with you!  Stampin' Up! have announced that the 2013-14 Annual Catalogue will contain ten new colours!  Six of these are returning colours, from the current and retired In Colours, and four of them are brand new colours.  The returning colours are Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder. The new colours are called Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Smoky Slate and Soft Sky.

The tables below shows how the colour collections will be changing.  It shows the colours that are being discontinued, as well as some of the colours are moving to a different collection altogether.



These will be available to purchase from the 1st July.

If any of the retiring colours are your favourites, don't delay in placing your order today, for ink pads, card stock, ink refillers etc, as they will no longer be available to purchase after the 30th June, and may sell out quicker if demand is high.

The new colours will be available as a kit.  You can order the New Colour Cardstock and Pad Kit (131293), which includes 10 Classic Stampin' Pads and 20 sheets of A4 cardstock; 2 of each 10 colours.  The Stampin' Markers are also available as a kit (130034), which includes 10 markers in each of the new colours.

Please get in touch if you would like any more information about the colour changes.

Leave me a comment on my blog to let me know what you think - are any of your favourites retiring and you'll not be able to live without them or are you ready for a change?

Discontinued Products - Watercolor Pencils and Crayons

Stampin' Up! have announced that they are due to discontinue the Watercolor Pencils and Crayons, due to unforeseen problems with their supplier.

This means once stocks run out, you'll not be able to place any orders for them.

The following products are available while stocks last-

101879 - Watercolor Pencils

119802 - Subtles Collection Watercolor Wonder Crayons

119803 - Regals Collection Watercolor Wonder Crayons

119804 - Brights Collection Watercolor Wonder Crayons

119805 - Neutrals Collection Watercolor Wonder Crayons

Chalkboard cards

I attended a monthly team training event on Tuesday, and I didn't quite get my crafting finished. As I've been terrible at finishing anything recently, and have done no crafting at home, my Stampin' Up! Up line Julie, set me homework to make me finish them! She said I had to finish them by Sunday, or else I'd have to stand up on the stage at Saturday's team training! She didn't say what I'd have to do though!

So here's my cards. I've only five minutes before its not Sunday anymore, so I'll update this post later in the week to share what products were used in these cards.

Coming Soon - Wood Mount Boxes

Afternoon!

I hope you've not missed me too much! I've had yet another break from crafting and blogging, life gets in the way sometimes doesn't it!  I need to get my head back into feeling relaxed when crafting away, instead of feeling like it's another thing to worry about sometimes!

I've got a few posts coming up letting you know what's going on in the world of Stampin' Up!, and hopefully soon I'll have some lovely creations to share with you to get you inspired.

Stampin' Up! have announced they are introducing new wood mount stamp set packaging, similar to how the clear stamps are currently packaged.  This will mean they'll sit better on your shelves next to your clear sets.  In the same way that the clear packaging has the stamp images on the spine, the wood mount packaging will be similar, so it will be much easier to find that stamp quicker.

All new wood mount sets will be sold in the new packaging, and you can purchase empty cases too so you can transfer your old sets too.

A pack of four half sized cases will be just £5.95, and a pack of four full sized cases will be £8.50.

Click on the video below to find out more.