Weekly Deals

Good evening,

If you can grab yourself a few minutes in between shopping, writing cards, wrapping presents and eating mince pies, take a look at this week's Weekly Deals. 

The Stampin' Write Markers in the In Colours 2014 are on offer for just £8.81. These markers are so versatile and can be used in so many different ways.

There's two punches on offer this week, the Banner Punch and the Ticket Duo Punch.

I love the two sets of dies on offer, when they are on offer it's a great time to expand your collection, and they coordinate with so many of the stamp sets.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Wish List & Gift Service

Is this what your letter to Santa looks like?

If so, read on....

I am offering a Christmas Wish List service this year. If you have a list of Stampin' Up! items you'd love to receive on Christmas morning, let me know what's on your list, and then pass my contact details onto your friends and family. 

They can then contact me and tell me how much they'd like to spend, and I will choose items from your list.  

Orders must be received by the 10th of December to guarantee delivery.

Parcels can be sent to a work address, or delivered to me for a gift wrapping service then posted on at cost or collected in person. 

Payment can be made via bank transfer or by telephone using Visa, Visa Debit or MasterCard.

Sale-a-bration Prize Giveaway...Win Free Stampin' Up! Products

Good afternoon! I know we haven't even got Christmas out of the way yet, but I'd like to tell you about a fantastic Sale-a-Bration raffle that I am running. 

I am selling 100 raffle squares, for £2.00 each. You can buy as many as you wish, or as gifts for family and friends. You could even tell your friends and family to enter for you! 

You can also earn a bonus tickets in the following ways during November / December:

• Attend one of my classes (1 square)
• Place an order of over £50 (1 square for every £50 spent)
• Book a private class or Stampin' Up! Party for during Sale-a-bration (1 squares)
• Host a private class or Stampin' Up! Party during November / December (2 squares)
• Join my team (3 squares)

The prize draw will be up to £200 of Stampin' Up! products of your choice (or the total value of squares sold) and you will also earn Sale-a-bration freebies too (up to 4 items). There will just be a charge of £4.95 for postage of your goodies. 

This is perfect for everyone, whether you are an experienced crafter or just a beginner. You can expand your craft supplies, or I can help advise you on the best products to choose to get you started.

I will be announcing the winner on the launch day of Sale-a-Bration, which will be on the 6th January 2015. Please share this with your crafty family and friends, the more people who enter, the bigger the prize!

Your order must be placed by the 31st March 2015.

Payment can be made in person, or by bank transfer. I will send confirmation of your number by email so you know which squares you have.

Joining Offer Due To Finish Tomorrow

It's the last day tomorrow to take advantage of this special offer. If you sign up to be a demonstrator by tomorrow, you will receive a free pack of Designer Series Paper for the next six months! 

Please get in touch if you're thinking about joining my team, I'd hate for you to miss out on this fantastic joining offer!

Follow this link if you want to join up now

https://ida.stampinup.com/en-gb/agreement, and just remember to check that my name is on the top right corner.

2014 Autumn - Winter Catalogue is now live!

Good evening!

The Stampin' Up! 2014 Autumn - Winter Catalogue Supplement is now live! There were too many gorgeous products in the 2014 Autumn - Winter Catalogue, they couldn't fit them all in.

The products to keep an eye out for are:

Many Merry Stars Simple Created Kit (138104) £23.95.  

The kit contains everything you need to create 26 3d stars that can be used for gift boxes, home decor, tree decorations, and lots more.

Hello December Project Life Accessory Pack (135833) £12.95
The kit includes:
* 7 alphabet sticker sheets (4 silver foil, 3 red foil)
* 1 sticker sheet of words and phrases
* 3 cork number sheets
* 4 specialty cards, 3" x 4" (7.6 x 10.2 cm)
* 4 printed acetate overlays, 3" x 4" (7.6 x 10.2 cm) 
* 80 sequins in 4 colors and 2 sizes
* 21 die-cut wood shapes and words
* 3 printed glassine envelopes
* 4 epoxy stickers, 1" (2 designs)
* Washi tape, 5 yds. (4.6 m)

Hello December Project Life Card Collection (135831) £8.50
Quickly document and organize memories from each day of the Christmas season. Includes 71 Project Life cards.

Cherry 6" X 8" Project Life Album (135834) £8.95
Use with Variety Pack 6" x 8" Project Life Photo Pocket Pages. 
* Heavyweight paper cover with cherry fabric spine. 
* Measures 8-3/8" x 8-11/16" x 2-1/16"
* Two-ring binder

If there's anything that takes your fancy, please visit my online shop at http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/alexspence/ to purchase 24 hours a day! This months hostess code is VFASVY2K. Please remember if your order reaches a total of over £150, please do not use the hostess code as you will earn at least £25 in free products. If you live in the Leeds area, please contact me to place your order if you would like to save on postage and can collect from me or attend one of my card classes.

Recruitment Offer - Free Designer Series Paper for 6 months

Would you like to receive a free pack of Stampin' Up!'s Designer Series Paper, every month for 6 months? You would? Read on.....

During the month of October, when you sign up to be a demonstrator, you will receive this amazing offer.  It costs just £99 to sign up, and you'll receive £130 worth of current products (you can choose what you want) and you'll also receive a business pack worth £45.

Click here to join today.

Project Life - Hen Do Title Page

Good morning,

I hope you're all having a good morning so far.  I have a busy day ahead at work, but I'm looking forward to some more crafting this evening.

I have been doing some Project Life this week.  I did a couple of pages at a team training event a few months ago, and loved it straight away.  I didn't go into to much detail with it, and I just slipped a few holiday photos in the pockets, and some of the journalling cards.  I was hooked straight away, so bought a few more bits and pieces.  I ordered lots of photos, and sat down one Sunday evening while I had the house to myself and started working on photos from my friend Tamsin's hen do in 2011.  I did the same with these photos, organised them, put them in the pockets, and decided where I was going to embellish the pages with extra detail by stamping or using the stickers from the accessory pack.  I really enjoyed that nothing was fixed, or stuck down, and I could move things around as many times as I wanted until I was happy with the layout. I realised there were a few gaps, so I ordered a few more photos.  This is how is stayed for weeks!

I've had some more free time this week, and after two evenings of tidying my craft room last week, it feels like a luxury to be able to come up to the attic room which is actually usable!  I know where everything is, and there's space on the floor, and on the desk! I hope it stays that way.  I've done more up here in the last two weeks than for months!  I decided to get out my Project Life folder, and do some crafting.

I used the Skinny Mini Alphabet stamp set, which comes in the new stamp style called photopolymer.  They are clear, see through stamps which cling to the clear blocks.  This is great for placing letters close together, and there's no need to use the stamp-a-ma-jig.  I used the colours from the Happiness Is Card Collection, Lost Lagoon, Tangelo Twist, and Hello Honey.  The apostrophe is from the Back To Basics Alphabet stamp set, also in photopolymer.  

The Hen Do letters are from the Happiness Is Accessory Pack, which co-ordinates with the card collections.  I stuck these on the outside of the photo pockets.  

The last card was stamped using the Project Life Day to Day stamp set, which contains dates and days and numbers for years, and then used the Back to Basics Alphabet stamp set for stamping Wales.

As you can probably tell from the photos, the hen do theme was 'glamping' and we stayed in yurts.  I won't tell too much about what else we did that weekend, as I'll be sharing more photos as I finish the pages.  Here's one photo / card that I will share though, so you can see what fun Tamsin had from the minute she arrived!  I've used the washi tape (or squashy tape as a little friend of mine called it at the weekend!) to attach the photo to the card, so it creates a flap underneath, where there's some details about the photo.  I need to stamp or write on the front "Lift Me" so I remember the notes are underneath.  I used My Digital Studio (MDS) to create the writing, and once I get the hang of it, I'll do a tutorial.  I had a few mishaps with printing things upside down, but it will just take practice. That's what the hearts are for, to cover up a little mistake! No one will know!

Have a great day, and if you want to find out more about Project Life, please let me know.  I'm starting a Project Life monthly club in October, and if you want to find out more, please head across to my Events Page on Facebook for more details.

https://www.facebook.com/mycardsandcrafts/events

Stampin᾿ Up! Supplies

Table built by craftingbecky.com

Design 1 12" X 12" Project Life Photo Pocket Pages	Happiness Is Project Life Card Collection	Happiness Is Project Life Accessory Pack	Skinny Mini Alphabet Photopolymer Stamp Set
Back To Basics Alphabet Photopolymer Stamp Set	Project Life Day To Day Photopolymer Stamp Set	Hello Honey Classic Stampin' Pad	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad
Tangelo Twist Classic Stampin' Pad	Clear Block C	Clear Block E	Stampin' Dimensionals

Clearance Rack

You might not be aware of this, but Stampin' Up! have a clearance rack, which is updated with new products all the time.  The products have up 80% off, and there's some great items in there at the moment.

If you're into crafting for Halloween, or want to do some Christmas Journalling, check out these items.

Please check back regularly, and if there's any items I think might be of interest, I'll share them on here.

Halloween Stampin᾿ Up! Supplies

Table built by craftingbecky.com

Black & Orange Stampin' Glitter	Halloween Banner Simply Created Accessory Kit	Pumpkin Pie Goodie Gear Simply Created Kit	Witches' Brew Designer Series Paper
Spider Web Textured Impressions Embossing Folder Die	Witches' Brew Designer Washi Tape

Weekly Deals

Here's a screen shot of this week's Weekly Deals.  Check out those bargains!

To purchase any of these items, follow this link to my online shop

Good Greetings Promotion

Good evening,

I hope you are all well.  I'm just letting you know about a new promotion that Stampin' Up! are offering until the 31st October 2014.

If you hold a Stampin' Up! party, and achieve sales of £200, you will receive a free stamp set called Good Greetings, which contains 19 sentiment stamps for all occasions.

If you don't fancy hosting a party, and you just have a really big wish list, and fancy treating yourself, you can earn this stamp set too! Go on, treat yourself!

Click here to go to my online shop

Greetings from Denman College

Good morning!

I have woken up early, with little sound except the birds singing. Living in a terraced house in Leeds, I'm more used to traffic and sirens from the fire station at the top of the road! I'm currently at Denman College in Marcham, Oxfordshire, the Women's Institute venue which hosts a huge range of cookery, craft, and lifestyle classes. I was lucky enough to win £200 worth of vouchers a few years ago from my WI Buns & Roses in Leeds City Centre, and I found a course on Free Machine Embroidery that I'd always fancied trying, but never plucked up the courage to try at home! I booked myself and my friend Kylie Henshaw on the course as a nice treat! 

We arrived yesterday at 12:00 and we shown to a room where we could drink tea, and was stocked full of craft magazines. Perfect! We then went for lunch, which we chose Paprika Chicken, potato wedges and roast vegetables. It was lovely! We realised at lunch that we were the youngest two at Denman, but all the older ladies made us feel very welcome, and were thrilled we were there, and loved hearing about what Buns & Roses was like. We then had a wander around, and then went to our welcome talk, and met our tutor Claire Muir.

Off we went to the textiles block, and found our spots. Claire explained what we would be doing, and we all marvelled at her samples, thinking we'd never be able to make our work like hers! Here's my sewing machine, in the bright sunshine all ready to go.

The difference with free machine stitching is that the feed dogs or teeth are dropped, or on some machines they come with a little plate that sits on top of them. A special foot also has to be used.

After a quick demonstration, Claire made sure all our machines were ready and then off we went. It felt very strange at first, being able to sew in all different directions, and my first attempts were a bit clunky!

We kept practicing for a while, and it was great to see what the other 11 ladies on the course were producing with their machines.

We then had coffee and of course cake! We were realising that food was a big part of the stay at Denman! At the welcome talk, we'd also been informed that the bar would be open before dinner, and that all the profits from the bar went straight into the carpet cleaning! Sounds like a perfect excuse for a tipple or two.

We then were given a piece of fabric with a stamped image of a butterfly, to decorate as we wished. This is what I came up with. 

It was great fun, and everyone in the room ended up with unique designs. 

I cannot wait to get home to see what Stampin' Up! stamps I can use on material to stitch over!

Next we tried adding some texture using Merino tops wool. This was quite tricky but I think I mastered it! I'll be raiding my sisters felting box when I get home!

We then stopped for drinks and dinner, which was lovely. I sat on a table of 8 and everyone chatted away about their WI's and where they were from and we heard about their previous visits to Denman. I had come with a friend, but I felt very sure that if I'd come by myself, I'd have made friends very quickly.

After dinner, we had another hour or so on the machines, and we did a bit or ironing! We chopped up small pieces of silk onto our material, and then stitched over the top.

Claire practically had to throw us out of the room at 21:30, I'm sure we could have kept on going for hours! We headed back to the bar, chatted and got to know each other a bit more, and then headed to our rooms.

Right, it's nearly time for me to get up, shower and then head to breakfast (more food!) I'll take some more pictures today, and will be back with another blog post about my stay soon.

If you don't already "Like" my Stampin' Up! page on Facebook, head over to http://www.facebook.com/mycardsandcrafts as I'll be posting pictures throughout the day on there.