{Me}

As a big thank you to my loyal customers and blog readers from now until the end of November (Monday)I'm offering the standard 20% demonstrator discount on all the products in the soon to finish Spring Mini Catalogue*.

This is a big farewell to lots of gorgeous stamp sets and products. With our extended Stampin' Up! year we will have to wait until September 2010 to see if any of them make it into the new Idea Book & Catalogue. Why wait? Get them now at the full discount.

Don't have your own copy of the Spring Mini? Click here to view it online.

This offer is being offered to you through myself and is not a Stampin' Up! discount.

I can guarantee to you that the following items will not make it as they contain current In Colors.

Corduroy Buttons - Kiwi Kiss and Baja Breeze (now $15.60 each pack)
Summer Love Rub-Ons (now $17.56)
Walk in the Park Designer Series Papers (now $13.56)
Parisian Breeze Specialty Designer Series Papers (now $18.36)
Ski Slope Designer Series Papers (now $13.56)
Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain ribbon (now $15.96)

Items that I will really miss:

Birthday Wish single stamp (now $11.16)
Elegant Thank You single stamp (now $11.16)
Great Friend stamp set (now $25.56)
Scallop Oval punch (now $24.76)
Unchartered Territory stamp set (now $27.96)
Tree Trimmings stamp set (now $19.96)

This discount will also be available to any one attending my Farewell to the Spring Mini/Welcome the Summer Mini event on Monday evening and placing an order from the Spring Mini.

*Conditions of discount.
All orders must be completed by 11pm on Monday November 30th. If you email me an order and have not heard back from me by 9pm on Monday 30th please call me on 02 9476 4547. Payment for new customers must be by credit card. Current customers are also able to use Direct Deposit. I can not place any orders after November 30th.

Normal price postage and handling applies to all orders. Postage and handling will be 5% or $5.95, which ever is the greater, of the full priced product not the discounted price. Those local to me and picking up their order please add 5% to your total.

Is your Summer Mini Catalogue in this pile of envelopes? It is if you've already contacted me asking for a copy. These went postal today with these cute little cards attached.

If you'd like your own complimentary copy just contact me and I'll put one in the post for you tomorrow.

Check back tomorrow for a final hurrah for the current Spring Mini.

When I first saw this tutorial on SplitCoastStampers I knew that I had to make them! Even more exciting was when I saw that the tutorial was written by one of my team, Carol Dunstan.

I decided to make a slightly wider single ball decoration too and used sixteen 4" by 1/2" strips of Bella Rose DSP to make it.

This was the project I shared with my customers on Day 2 of my 12 Days of Christmas emails. It's not too late to sign up - just email me today and you'll receive all of the emails to date.

A few months ago I was designing a Christmas card for a Stamp A Stack and after I'd made it decided that I'd use it for my own Christmas cards this year instead.

Let's just say that I probably should have thought about it a little more when it came to reproducing it on a mass scale! I still really like it but I'm glad they're all finished. The box above contains the 315 finished cards.

Here's what it involved!

315 baubles silver embossed, cut out and raised on dimensionals
630 baubles stamped
945 strings drawn
approx 1890 tops of a tree stamped - see that was the bit I really should have thought about more!
315 greetings stamped involving 2 stamps each time that needed the Stamp-a-ma-jig to position them!

I worked on them over the last couple of months and took bits of them with me when ever I knew I'd have a spare minute.

So they just need a printed insert putting in them and then writing and mailing!

Why so many cards? I like to send one to everyone in the INKlings team which is around the 170 mark and the rest go to friends and family. It's an expensive trip to the Post Office!

Now I just need to make some swaps for Stampin' Up! Regional Training session this Saturday!

PS If you got a card from me last year and you've changed address since then please let me know.

Here's another card using Unchartered Territory. This time I've added the grass from Inspired by Nature. I simply coloured in the boat using a black marker. I've used the white gel pen to add the moonlight to the sea.

Unchartered Territory is only available until the end of this month. It's one of the stamp sets from the Spring Mini Catalogue which finishes on November 30th. Don't leave it too late. Order yours today.

This card was inspired by a photograph on Jessica Watson's blog. Jessica is attempting to sail around the world single handedly and if she does, she will be the youngest person to ever do so.

Her boat, Ella's Pink Lady, is a little larger than this boat from the Unchartered Territory set but it is pink! I'm sure the waves are larger than this but I wish her smooth sailing!

Jessica has received her fair share of bad press and I must admit that when I first read about it I wasn't sure what my thoughts were on her adventure.

After more thought and reading her website I'm fully behind her now. I'm sure that the preparation behind her challenge has been huge and I'm sure her parents are anxious for her but as her passion in life is sailing and this is something she wants to do I wish her every success.

I can only hope that when my boys are 16 that they are as independent and motivated to pursue their own dreams as Jessica is.

Apologies for the delay in letting you know which advert.

It's the current advert for Blackberry. The music is a cover version of Love, Love, Love by the Beatles but it's the tag line, "Do what you love, love what you do." That really strikes a chord with me.

Here's a link to the YouTube montage advert of all the ads.

It's hard to explain what Stampin' Up! has brought to my life but I know for certain that I couldn't imagine life without it. At one of our conventions our CEO, Shelli Gardner, told us a wonderful story. It went something like this... At a Stampin' Up! event cameramen were being used to film the proceedings, they weren't Stampin' Up! staff but paid to work at the event. After filming demonstrations, speeches etc the cameraman turned to Shelli and said, "It's not about the stamping is it?" Even he had felt the amazing fellowship that exists between so many demonstrators. My fellow demonstrators that read my blog will agree that as the cameraman said it's not just about the stamping.

On Saturday I get the chance to catch up with many demonstrators at the Stampin' Up! Regional Training Day in Sydney. Imagine putting together so many people passionate about the same thing in one room - it's always a fantastic day. This year I've been asked to give a 5 minute business presentation to the session - if you'd told me 4 years ago I'd be standing in front of a large audience talking about how I run my business I would probably have thought you were mad as I'd have been far too nervous to do it! Instead I'm really looking forward to sharing my experiences and it all comes down to the fact that I now, "Do what I love, love what I do."

Come join the fun, join the SU! family.

Check back soon for a card that was inspired by someone else that lives by this motto.

There's an advert I keep seeing a lot of at the moment which is not for Stampin' Up!but every time I see it, it makes me think about myself and Stampin' Up!

I'm not sure if it's an ad on TV as I most often see it when I'm browsing the news online and watching news video clips.

The tag line for the advert and the music they play during it perfectly summarises my feeling for Stampin' Up!

Can you guess which advert is?

Here's a card to provide a clue.

Last Friday my team, The INKlings, had their monthly Cyberstamp. This month was hosted by Clare McIlhatton. Clare loves the colour orange so we knew we were probably going to be facing an orange challenge!

We weren't disappointed! Whilst we were given the option to tone the orange back to a More Mustard or Pumpkin Pie, the challenge was to use Only Orange, Basic Black and Whisper White. Only Orange is a long way out of my comfort zone but I had a go!

The card above was my creation. I love the Choo Choo set and will miss it once this Spring Mini ends at the end of the month. At $29.95 for the 4 parts of the train (and a puff of steam I didn't use on this card) it's great value. Why not order your set today.

I used the rotary blade in the Cutter Kit to create the hills in the background and Trendy Trees supplied the lone tree.

Could be a while before I create a card with so much Only Orange in one go!

This card is bigger than your average! The white cardstock is almost a full A4 sheet. A friend asked me to make a large card for her so that a group of friends could sign it for the birthday girl. The alphabet is the Big Deal alphabet which is such a great alphabet. I cut out each letter and mounted them on dimensionals before covering them with Crystal Effects and sprinkling on Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I'm not sure you can see the gliter on them.

A couple of jumbo eyelets some ribbon, hat pin and beads and it's ready to go.

Do you need to make lots of cards quickly? Would you like to make lots of cards quickly and be able to step a few special ones up? The cards above are perfect for this. The image is stamped and punched out - so is very quick to repeat multiple times. To step it up on the card on the right I've used the ink pad directly to the Kiwi Kiss cardstock, mounted the greeting on Stampin' Dimensionals and then tied some Riding Hood Red grosgrain around the top.

What's even better is that from now until the 14th of December when you purchase the basic materials to make this card you will qualify for either a free Scallop Square or Boho Blossoms punch.

Contact me today if you'd like to make a start on your Christmas cards and earn yourself a free Scallop Square or Boho Blossoms punch.

Basic materials:
Kiwi Kiss A4 cardstock
Whisper White A4 cardstock
Cute and Curly Punch Bundle
Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad

Extra materials used:
I Wish Simply Scrappin' Kit - but any DSP that co-ordinated would also work.
Stampin' Dimensionals
Kiwi Kiss Classic Stampin' Pad
Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain ribbon

Masculine cards are probably my biggest challenge but this one was a little easier! The recipient appreciates stamping! I've used Cheep Talk and Inspired by Nature for the card.

By using my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to stamp the branch and then leaving it in position to repeatedly stamp the branch I was easily able to get the Chocolate Chip to cover the Kiwi Kiss of the grass. I then stamped and cut out the bird and the leaves and added Dimensionals to them to lift them off the card. The bird does have legs but that would have been too hard to cut out neatly so I stamped the bird without inking the legs!

A bit of hardware and some twine and it was ready to be popped in the mail.

This is the box I used for Challenge #2 on the Girls' Night In but it was actually made a while ago and submitted for publication. This set didn't make it as it was felt that they may be too stark for styling purposes.

I'm never too disappointed when something isn't accepted. I don't often sit down and think to myself that I'm going to make something for a magazine. More times than not I've made one card, had some left overs so made a second and then when I've looked at them together I realise that if I made one or two more and I could have a set!

As promised here's a set of cards I submitted for publication at the same time as the set below but they didn't make it.

It has been a while since I've used traditional Christmas colours but I wanted to use the gorgeous Kiwi Kiss/Very Vanilla satin ribbon on them so that was my starting point.

They're such a cute set of stamps. I think I'll have to get them out again soon and have a play!

When I first saw the catalogue this set jumped out at me. I loved the clean lines and the symmetry of the images.

These cards were published in Australian Stamping & Papercraft Magazine Vol 15. No. 5 which was a couple of issues ago. I used the symmetry of the images to make them 3D.

I've been asked before for tips on how to get work published. One thing to remember is that magazines work a long way in advance. These cards had to be in to the magazine in June for an October/November issue. The biggest tip is to not get disheartened if they don't get accepted. It might simply be a case that the magazine has had too much of a certain technique, colour or project recently and they have no room for your work. Over the next couple of days I'll share with you some of the work I didn't get accepted!

Apologies for the display problems. Normal service will resume soon!

Here's a fun set of cards and matching box that would make a great gift. They use the Sip by Sip stamp set. The envelopes are made from A4 copy paper and I've lined the envelope flaps with matching Designer Series Papers. They'd make great end of year gifts for teachers, sports' coaches etc. You could even buy a lovely coffee cup and match the box and cards to the cup colours.

How's your Christmas shopping going? How would you like a free Scallop Square punch for your own stocking this Christmas?

All you need to do is spend $85 on product in the Stampin' Up! Christmas Gift Giving Guide before December 14th and you'll receive a Scallop Square punch absolutely free.

Click on the Gift Guide above above to enlarge the flyer and read it in more detail.

Contact me today to place an order.