Last chance to join Stampin' Up for £25!

I've been delighted to welcome some new demonstrators to my team, the Inkredibles, in the last two weeks! They have, of course, been taking advantage of the £25 low joining fee that has been part of Stampin' Up's 25th anniversary celebrations - and you can too!

I can't emphasise enough that this promotion is for ANYONE who wants to join Stampin' Up, whether it's to make money by demonstrating these fabulous products OR to be your own customer and get them at a discount. There are no strings attached at all - you simply pay £25 for your starter kit to join and you get to choose £26.95 of products! What a great opportunity this is to find out whether you like what Stampin' Up can do for you - and you can rest assured there are no penalties for dropping if you decide it's not for you.

When you join the Inkredibles, you do so on your own terms. I am here to help my team members get the most out of being a part of Stampin' Up and will give you as much help and advice as you want without ever being pushy. Click here to find out more or feel free to contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Stampin' Up offers lots of chances to earn freebies, but from time to time I offer incentives of my own to my team. Today's project is a tag made to decorate a stamp set that one of my members earned for free. Come and see:

I went chevron-tastic with the gorgeous new Chevron punch and added a little of the chevron pattern from the Regals designer paper stack.  And the chevrons didn't stop there...

I adore this ribbon! I used Island Indigo to match my tag but there are eleven other gorgeous colours to choose from.

Here's what you'll need to make this tag

Stamps: None!

Ink: None!
Card stock: Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Island Indigo

Other: Chevron, Ticket punches, Chevron ribbon in Island Indigo

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

We have had some torrential downpours here in Buckingham - the sort of rain that makes such a racket you have to raise your voice to be heard over it and that looks as if it's falling in a solid sheet. I had to pick something up from a local shop at the weekend and told my husband I wasn't looking forward to getting drenched. "No, it's fine," he told me. "I went there last week and it was really easy to park. I just sailed in." I looked at him. "Really?" I said. "What did you do with your boat?"

See you tomorrow for some VERY exciting announcements!

Calm Christmas trees

This is the first weekend for ages that I haven't needed to go careering about all over England, so a bit of Christmas card-making came back onto the agenda! Less is More has Trees as its theme this week and the 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown wants to see a bit of bling, so I put those two together and came up with this:

I made a post-it mask with my BFF the 2 1/2" circle punch, placed it over a square of card stock and sponged a mix of Soft Sky and Island Indigo inks into it. To transform this into a snowy scene, I punched another circle, this time out of Whisper White card stock, cut it curvily in half to make snowy ground and added two trees punched with one of the Merry Minis punches.

It's the details that finish a card - the textured effect of the sky, the sparkle of glitter on the trees and ground, the pierced frame and the textured card base all add interest. The sentiment is from the Calm Christmas stamp set and I thought it worked well with this scene - you know that lovely hush you get when there's been a heavy fall of snow.

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Calm Christmas

Ink: Soft Sky, Island Indigo, Midnight Muse

Card stock: Whisper White smooth and core'dinations

Other: Merry Minis punch pack, 2 1/2" circle punch, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Essentials piercing templates, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

My youngest son was having a look at one of my rings earlier. When he finished I held out my hand so that he could replace it and he hovered over each finger as if working out which one to place it on. Eventually he slid it onto the appropriate one and I laughed at him. He smiled back. "There was just too much choice Mummy!" he said. It's lucky he's getting the practice now as I can see us all getting a bit fidgety on his wedding day otherwise!

See you soon,

Simply Stars - your chance to shine!

I am a woman of a certain age (well okay, 51 if you must know!) who gave up work to stay at home with my babies and, like many women who choose to do this, found myself out of the loop when it came to returning to work when the children were older. I don't mind admitting that there were some difficult moments when I started looking for work but starting my own Stampin' Up business was definitely the answer for me. It has given me enormous satisfaction, an income, more free crafting supplies than I can ever hope to use (although I really do my best!) and a whole bunch of supportive colleagues many of whom have become good friends. I had no idea when I started whether I could make it work, but I did - and you could too. Normally the starter kit costs £99 but until Monday, you can join Stampin' Up for just £25! It's the perfect, risk-free chance to see if it could work for you. Click here for more info, or contact me by email or by phone on 01280 820593 if you want to bombard me with questions!

My team is called the Inkredibles and that is such an apt name. I made today's project for one of my team members after she promoted to her next Stampin' Up title. She is such a star that I had to use the Simply Stars stamp set for her card! Come and see:

The designer paper strips are from the Quatrefancy speciality pack - I adore these bright papers. I teamed them with the Filmstrip stamp, the stamped and cut-out stars and Stampin' Up's super-sparkly rhinestones.

Of course when a girl has been working this hard, she needs chocolate! I love to wrap bars in coordinating papers, stack them and tie them up with ribbon. Have you spotted that gorgeous tag nestling under the seam binding bow? It's from Chalk Talk and I can't stop using it!

To celebrate the title, my lovely teamie was sent a special pin and certificate from Stampin' Up but, from me, she received another handmade charm to clip onto her Inkredibles charm bracelet. I made a little envelope to package it in and added another of the Chalk Talk labels to the front.

I loved making this project for my friend and I know she enjoyed receiving it! Do think about joining during this special £25 starter kit promotion won't you - and who knows, I could soon be making one of these gift sets to celebrate YOUR promotion!

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Chalk Talk, Simply Stars, Filmstrip, Express Yourself

Ink: Strawberry Slush, Pumpkin Pie, Stazon black

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Quatrefancy designer paper, Designer paper stack in Brights, Pool Party seam binding and bakers twine, Basic rhinestones, Itty Bitty punch set, 1 3/8" circle punch, Chalk Talk framelits, Big Shot, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

I hope you have a great weekend lined up. I'm hoping for dry weather so that I can tackle the triffids in the front garden - our house is beginning to look a bit like Boo Radley's house!

See you very soon,

Three minutes Remembering Christmas

It really is true that I sometimes say to myself "Right Mrs, you've got three minutes: off you go and produce a card!" That's how today's Christmas card happened and I will be making a whole lot more of this design in different colours. Come and have a look:

Oh I just love this wonderful deer image from Remembering Christmas!  And who needs traditional Christmas colours when Old Olive looks so gorgeous with Elegant Eggplant?!

This is one of my favourite Christmas sentiments ever! It's not new - it comes from Delightful Dozen, a set of 12 fabulous sentiments to cover a variety of occasions.

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Remembering Christmas, Delightful Dozen

Ink: Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant

Card stock: Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant

Other: Stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

A few years ago my children used to watch a TV programme which consisted of a series of amusing sketches and their favourite, which seemed to recur every week, was 'deer club' where a group of children put on antlers and trotted about through the woods in a group, raising their heads and looking about as if they scented predators and generally behaving like a herd of deer. I was fascinated by this idea! The funniest part was that the children in the sketch would be asked to trendy parties or invited to hang out at the skate park but they would always decline because of 'deer club'. Naturally deer club became an excuse in our own family for the children to get out of doing the chores until one day, deer club just didn't seem to exist any more...

See you tomorrow for a very special project,

A bit of a punchy monster mash

Getting up early on a Saturday morning and indulging in a bit of card making with Less is More seems to be a thing of the past at the moment. I even missed last week's challenge altogether and that very rarely happens! Here I am today though, bringing up the rear as it were, with an entry for this week's Witches, Wizards (and Monsters) one layer challenge (and there's a bonus card too if you scroll down!) Come and have a look:

I could have gone down the halloween route but went monstrously valentine-ish instead! The card is made using two masks at the same time - lots of breath-holding went on while peeling the masks away! The mask for my goofy-looking monster was made with scallop punches (body and head) and circle punches (horns), I sponged over those, while the background is sponged into a mask made using the Labels framelits. Once that was done, I sponged eyes through another mask made with a 3/8" circle punch onto the monster's head.

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I've been careering around the UK looking at universities with  my daughter. Last Saturday we were in Leeds where I was delighted with these wonderful information cards which were being given out in the student union building. Aren't they fabulous?! I think you can easily see the inspiration for my valentines card on the bottom right!

Of course I missed the one layer bit of the challenge at first and made a layered version (SIGH!) so I thought you might like to see that one too!

It made me very happy that the sentiment from Field Flowers fitted the space beautifully and I love the way one of the Essentials Hardward clips finishes the card off  - I'll definitely be using these more often!

Here's what you'll need to make these cards

Stamps: Delightful Dozen (1st card), Field Flowers (2nd card)

Ink: Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, plus markers

Card stock: Whisper White, Pool Party

Other: Scallop oval, 1 1/4" scallop circle punches, Itty Bitty punch circle, corner rounder, Essentials Hardware clips, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

We all love the idea of a monster who isn't really a monster - the beast in Beauty and the Beast, rottweiler dogs being cute, tough guys holding babies... I was thinking about it (in a rare philosophical moment) and it reminded me of this:



I know - never philosophical for long! See you tomorrow,

A bit of a Festive Flurry

Christmas may seem a very long way off... but time spent preparing now means more time available for fun in December! You could easily make a stack of today's card design. Come and see:

You can buy framelits to go with the wonderful Festive Flurry stamp set which enables you to make all sorts of wonderful projects, but sometimes I like to pare things right back to a bit of simple stamping.

I used just two of the snowflake images to create this design, adding a simple strip sentiment. The stamping carries over onto the inside of the card too for a little extra detail.

Using matt grey ink instead of silver and candy dots in the same colour as the ink gives the snowflakes a contemporary feel. Have I mentioned how much I adore these candy dots? Yes, I thought I probably had!

This card would look great with one of these fancy tags from p.13 of the seasonal catalogue. They're made with the Festive Flurry set too but these stamped snowflakes are cut out quickly and easily with the coordinating framelits dies.

They make great decorations too. Now that would be a great project for December when everything's been done and you're looking for a little creative fun!

Today's card design popped into my head when I saw the inspiration picture at Merry Monday and the challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown to use any colour other than Red or Green.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Remembering Christmas

Ink: Smoky Slate, Pool Party, Night of Navy

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Corner rounder, candy dots, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

I'm still suffering from car lag after all my driving about the country at the weekend. The journey was enlivened by my daughter's chit chat though and her amusing comments on the place names. My favourite was when we were passing Loughborough (pronounced luff-bruh). "Oh look Mummy," said my daughter. "It's Fluffborough! Home of kittens!"

See you tomorrow,

YAY - using Stampin' Up's Chevron punch!

I really love having a Stampin' Up team and get a great deal of pleasure out of helping my downline to get the most out of being part of Stampin' Up, in whatever way they choose for that to be. New members are always made to feel welcome in my group - and now is a particularly good time to try it out as it's only £25 for the starter kit to join until 21st October! If you'd like to join my group, or would like more info, click here.

Today's card was made for one lovely lady in my team to celebrate overcoming a minor problem. Come and see:

I don't often make cards with no stamping at all - but this is one of them! There's a bit of interest in the card base with the contrast between smooth and textured card stock, and the aperture, and then it's full on colour all the way!

Oh look at those chevrons in glorious Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral and Island Indigo - I can't wait to get more time to play with this fabulous punch!

And the sentiment? Well that's been made from the Expressions thinlits - you can make loads of different sentiments out of these three words using your sharp paper snips to cut the letters apart, and they have a lot of impact!

Here's what you'll need to make this card

Stamps: None!

Ink: None!

Card stock: Very Vanilla in smooth and Core'dinations, Calypso Coral, scraps of Daffodil Delight and Island Indigo smooth

Other: Ovals framelits, Expressions thinlits, Big Shot, Chevron punch, paper snips

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

What an action-packed weekend it's been! I've just got back from more uni tours with my daughter and while it's been fantastic fun, I really could do with a nice few days nodding off on the sofa with a blanket over my knees... However, there's no rest for the wicked they say, so I'll be back tomorrow!

A Gorgeous Grunge autumn birthday

Not all of my friends understand about crafting - can you relate to that?! One of the things I most love about being part of Stampin' Up is that I've made lots of really lovely friends who completely understand the excitement I feel about a new stamp set or the way a piece of designer paper coordinates with some ribbon! It's a great reason to join - and until 21st October joining only costs £25! Click here for more info.

One of my Stampin' Up friends celebrated her birthday last week and, since she invited me to her birthday meal, it would've been rude not to bring along a handmade little something! Come and see:

Note how the Gumball Green Christmas paper and washi tape works brilliantly with Pumpkin Pie and browns for a lovely autumnal look!

I don't know if I'll ever get tired of making cards with washi tape, Gorgeous Grunge and a topper of some sort, like these beautiful leaves from the Gently Falling set:

It's so easy to make them turn autumnal using markers directly on the rubber before stamping.  All the splatters are made with my Gorgeous Grunge stamp set - much easier than really splattering ink! Oh and have you spotted my favourite embellishment of the moment? Yes it's the candy dot! These come in all the fabulous Stampin' Up colours and I can reveal to you that I nearly had to be sedated when they came out!

This is the coordinating tag I made for the little gift box. I used the same stamp sets and washi tape and cut the pretty shape quickly and easily with the Curly Label punch.

I know what you're thinking... So what was in the box?

Well, my friend and I share an addiction to enthusiasm for good, dark chocolate, so that's what it had to be. In fact she got quite a stash of it so we need not worry for her sanity any time soon!

Here's what you'll need to make this project

Stamps: Gently Falling, Gorgeous Grunge, Express Yourself

Ink: Gumball Green, Summer Starfruit, Pumpkin Pie, Early Espresso

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla

Other: Markers, Season of Style washi tape/designer paper, Pumpkin Pie 1/8" taffeta ribbon, linen thread, candy dots, Curly Label punch, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night,

but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help.

You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

Customers placing orders of £250+

will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!

If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get

freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues,

why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?

When I had my first baby, my lovely daughter, I knew absolutely nothing about practical parenting. I would have crossed crocodile-infested waters and protected her from The Hooded Claw but it took a long time for me to learn to carry at all times the armoury of wipes, changes of clothing, toys, snacks etc required to take a mum and tot smoothly through a day! My daughter's babyhood was punctuated with my mistakes.

Once, for example, on her second birthday, I invited all her little pals and their parents round to celebrate and proudly brought in the gorgeously rich, dark (adult!) chocolate cake I'd made for the occasion. For some reason, I assumed none of the tots would be eating cake but they all did and, well, let's just say that their parents reported that none of them were interested in sleeping for some considerable time afterwards!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you very soon.

Hugs,

Wishing You a happy little birthday

I thought all my children had grown out of the 'I'm just off to a birthday party, do you have a card' phase but you'll be glad to know that my youngest son is still flying the flag for disorganisation! Please welcome for my Three Minute Thursday slot this week a little card made in seconds for a 13 year old boy:

It struck me that the pile of presents image in the new Christmas stamp set Wishing You would work equally well for a birthday card and would appeal to a young man of 13! I coloured the rubber with markers and stamped on some scrap card stock before cutting them out speedily with my sharp paper snips.

I reached for Stampin' Up's handy pre-cut card bases for this project, stamping the sentiment using a stamp-a-majig and attaching the presents with dimensionals for a bit of interest. Phew! Card made! I just had time to wrap a large bar of chocolate in some retired designer paper and off we went - all ready to party!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wishing You, Morning Meadow
Ink: Cajun Craze classic ink and marker, Garden Green, Island Indigo markers
Card stock: Whisper White, Note cards and envelopes
Other: Paper snips, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.
• Customers placing orders of £250+ will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!
• If you'd prefer to spread the cost of your crafty stash, but still get freebies as well as handmade gifts and cards and complementary catalogues, why not consider joining my Stampers 6 club?


My daughter has been fretting about what to wear to a halloween party and spent much of the weekend discussing ideas for various costumes. I entered into the spirit of this of course, but when I asked where the party was being held was startled by the reply: "Oh I dunno. I haven't been invited to one yet!"

See you tomorrow,

A Morning Meadow kind of a birthday

Don't you just love birthdays?! Another of my girlfriends celebrated a birthday last weekend and I made this card with her in mind:

Stampin' Up has come up with some gorgeous hostess stamp sets this year and Morning Meadow is one of my favourites. Hostess sets are exclusive designs at amazing prices that are available for you to 'buy' with hostess credits. So how do you get hostess credits? Well, when you place an order of £150 or more you automatically earn £25 in hostess credits which you can spend on anything you like in any current catalogue including these special hostess sets. And the larger the order the more hostess credits you earn! (In fact this month, there's a special offer on which means you'll get an incredible £65 in hostess credits with an order of £250 - so go on, show all your friends a catalogue now!)

The card was made with a card base in sumptuous Bermuda Bay - what a beautiful colour! - and a polaroid-style frame in white contrasts nicely with it. I backed the frame with a piece of Pool Party card stock stamped with one of the Morning Meadow plant images in Early Espresso ink. The other flower from the set was stamped in Crisp Cantaloupe, cut out with the coordinating Pansy punch and decorated with one of the beautiful Boutique Details. The sentiment is from another hostess set called Express Yourself - I love its flowing font style.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Morning Meadow, Express Yourself (hostess sets)
Ink: Crisp Cantaloupe, Early Espresso
Card stock: Bermuda Bay, Whisper White
Other: Pansy punch, corner rounder, in-colour Boutique Details, Square framelits, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.
• Customers placing orders of £250+ will get a whopping £65 worth of freebies during October!


My eldest son has just taken delivery of a new phone (to replace his old one that got drowned while he was out playing basketball in torrential rain.) He took a photo of me which will appear on screen when I phone him (which is frequently because although he is permanently hungry, he never seems to arrive for meals at the right time!) He labelled it 'Mother'. He has taken to calling me this in a scathing tone. "You never used to call me mother in that way," I said reproachfully. He grinned at me. "If my mates got hold of my phone I think they'd think I was a bit weird if it said mummy-popsicle," he said. It is a fair point.

See you tomorrow,