Stamp With Us September Retreat

Stamp With Us are excited to announce their next 2010 Retreat in Haslemere, Surrey.

8.00am Saturday 4th September – 5.00 pm Sunday 5th September 2010 at Branksome Place, Hindhead Road, Haslemere , Surrey, GU27 3PL

PLACES ARE LIMITED TO JUST 35 PEOPLE,

SO YOU NEED TO BE QUICK TO CONFIRM YOUR PLACE.

Classes start at 8.30am on both days and each day will consist of classes taught by

Monica Gale, Natalie O’Shea and Zoe Pierson.

Classes will include a mixture of techniques and projects and will use Stampin’ Up! products. There will be an assortment of papercraft classes and each class will be around two hours long. Previous classes consisted of mini albums, scrapbook pages, boxes, paper handbags and lots of cards. All products are included in the cost – you only need to bring a basic tool kit with you. Full details of what you need to bring will be sent to you a week or two before the event.

Over the experience of the last two events, we have come to the conclusion that most of you would like an all-inclusive price, so we are happy to offer the following:

At Branksome Place, all rooms are for one occupant, therefore, the following prices

apply per person in your own rooms:

To join us all day Saturday and enjoy all of the classes, lunch, dinner, Party Night, overnight accommodation Saturday night, Sunday classes and Sunday breakfast and lunch, the cost per person is £350.00.

If you wish to stay the Friday night to make sure you are refreshed and ready for your early Saturday morning start, then for accommodation in your own single room and breakfast on Saturday morning can be arranged for an additional £70.

Depending upon our numbers, we *may* be able to accommodate a couple Day Delegates, please contact us for more information and prices on this option if you are interested.

At the beginning of your stay, you will have your own table where you will sit for each class and make your “own”. There will be unlimited coffee, tea and snacks available throughout the day. Lunch will be provided each day too with a hot and cold buffet on the Saturday and a Roast lunch on the Sunday.

Please email us for more information and a booking form. Places are not confirmed until deposits are received.

We really look forward to seeing you so that you can come and STAMP WITH US!

Natalie, Zoe & Monica!

Here is my Make & Take that I did on the Saturday night at the Retreat.  We used the Bridesmaid Designer Series Paper to cover a notebook but we brayered it with Close to Cocoa ink first.

We also used the paper to make these cute paper roses too which were also highlighted with the ink too.  Great effect and you got to learn two things - brayering and rose making!

It's a big day tomorrow and I've got a big announcement to make with the launch of the new Mini Catalogue so be sure to tune back!

Have fun!

Here is my other class from the Retreat. An acetate box with a flower and button embellishment made from the Full Heart punch on the front and then four cards using the same layout using different colours from the Pink Flamingo set of papers. See those dinky hearts too? Maybe another sneak from the new Mini Catalogue! Very cute! The stamp set used was the Say it With Scallops set and the matching Scallop Square punch and a good mixture of colours that I wouldn't normally put together!

Tomorrow I'll share my Make & Take that I did on the Saturday night Party Night!

Have fun!

Stamp With Us Retreat class

Here is one of my classes from the Stamp With Us Retreat.  It's a canvas!  For someone who loves clean and simple, for some reason when I am doing my classes, I always seem to do a technique type of class - I guess I want people to come away thinking that they have learnt something and not just been cutting and sticking all weekend!

So above is a canvas that started off white but I sprayed it with watered down re-inker and then watered down Shimmer Paint (new catalogue item!!!).  The re-inker obviously gave it it's colour and the shimmer paint - WOW - if you want shimmer and sparkle, then the Champagne Mist paint is the way to go!  With added ink and paint around the edges to give some definition, I set about doing something different with all of the nine hearts.  There was tone on tone stamping, stitching, felt, embossing, stamping into funky foam, heat & stick and NEW stamp sets.  You may just be able to spy the I (heart) hearts stamp set and the Tiny Tags stamp set and punch.

Just to remind you, all the new Mini Catalogue items will be available to purchase from this Thursday 1st April - woo hoo !!!

What a last week or so.....

Well, it has been absolutely manic for the last two weeks really :)

First of all getting ready for our Stamp With Us Retreat last weekend, then doing it, then getting over it and then leaving my "proper" job on Thursday!

I've just spent the morning in South East London in the rain watching Ethan play for his school football team.  Their team were the County champions (wooo hooo) and met with the other Counties in the South East.  They played brilliantly but the standard of football was very high and unfortunately they didn't win but although disappointed they were chuffed that they got as far as they did - better than all the rest of the school teams in their county which is quite an achievement in itself.

So, back to last weekend - the second Stamp With Us Retreat - Wow! What a weekend!

Here are a couple of collages that Monica has put together with some of the photos and classes that she did.  I'll be back tomorrow with photos of my classes.  It was the lovely Gill's birthday on the Sunday and we made sure she thoroughly enjoyed herself, she had cards, presents, balloons and cake - what more can you ask for an 85 year old (wink!).

So, as you can see, we thoroughly spoilt them and I didn't think we could improve much on the first Retreat but I think this time we actually did!

If you want to join in the fun in September, watch out for more details coming this week.  I am going to try to be better at updating my blog now that I am officially a housewife again LOL!

Enjoy the weekend!

More good news - it just keeps on coming!

Well, there seems to be lots of good news around at the moment which makes a change, I have to say!  Aswell as my fab news as the new CARDS Mag Editor, I have also a couple of weeks ago promoted with Stampin' Up! too - not bad for someone who considers themself still "playing" at it!  I joined three other Demonstrators in the UK to promote to Silver 3 status - only Monica holds the Gold 1 level and I'm doing my best to catch her up LOL!

It's Mothers Day in the UK today so for some mad reason, whilst the sun was shining, we decided today was a good day to go out for a family bike ride. The first of this year with the destination of a pub! It was my old haunt of the "Tavern on the Green" in Pound Hill for those of you local enough to know it and I have to say that it took me back to my youth where every Friday night was spent in this packed pub trying to meet my future husband LOL!

It's also Stamp With Us Challenge time and this weekend it was all about Male Cards.  Above is the card that I made - very simple, but hey, that's me!  Catch the other girls cards at http://www.stampwithus.blogspot.com/.

Next weekend is also our Stamp With Us Retreat so I am busy getting ready to go to Stratford Upon Avon for the weekend.  Scrap club tomorrow night too and it's all go go go!

Anyway, gotta glass of wine in my hand and Mothers Day dictates time spent with the family, so catch you all later!

A dream come true :)

When I walked into a craft shop in the States several years ago and saw this magazine, I fell in love!  I LOVE magazines and with this one together with it's sister mags Scrapbook Trends and what was then Paper Trends - I was in heaven.

The copies of the mag did come over to our shores but they were £10 + per issue and when you liked all three, it got quite expensive and I had to stop getting them - although I still have all my copies now and still look back at them even now :)

So, when Redline Publications got the International licence for these mags and I could now buy copies in my local WHSmiths and Tesco's etc - I was happy once again - and just £5.99 too - woo hoo! (Soon to be £4.99 too I'm lead to believe!)

So, yes, several wishes were granted, but what was the dream?  Well, having been the Editor of several magazines in the past, I was extremely happy when I was asked before Christmas to be the new Editor of Cards Magazine - WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

So, the latest "Spring" issue has me at the forefront although there's no photo and if you didn't know how I sign my name, you wouldn't know it was me either unless you read the very small print! It's the same US content but with a splattering of UK info and that is the way that the readers (me included!) want it kept.

So....that is one of the things that will be keeping me busy when I start working from home :)  More info to follow on other bits - Enjoy!

Flowers flowers everywhere :)

The sun is out is seems this week and Spring may be trying it's best to arrive:)

This has been another busy week for me - is there any other?  I have handed my notice in at work and whilst I had to give 8 (!) weeks, there is now only three weeks to go - arrghhh!!  I am hoping that my weeks will become a little less busy but I'm not sure that they will.  I have lots planned and can't share everything *just* yet but I'll be working from home again and continuing to build my Stampin' Up! empire too LOL!

Anyway, the scrapbook layout above has two purposes.  Firstly I was called at 9pm on the night before going to the Make It Show.  They had been let down by a workshop and is there anyway I could pull together a workshop for 20 for 1.30pm the next day!  Of course, I said - no problem - yeah right!  Luckily I had some class supplies at home and between Zoe and myself on the first day of the show, we came up with the above layout.  The description of the workshop that people were expecting was that it had to have a surprise and a technique and had to be finished in 45 MINUTES!!!!!! Wow, no pressure then LOL!  But we did it and the class loved it.  The surprise was the lift up photo mat and the technique was one of Monica's lovely blooms made from the Stampin' Up! Scallop Circle punch.  We had to do another workshop on the Saturday for 20 too but we had to use Old Olive Green that day as whilst I hold a good collection of products at home (just in case, you understand!), I didn't have enough of the pink after Day 1.

So, after managing the challenge, it just so happened that Zoe and I realised that the layout was very similar to this weeks sketch challenge on STAMP WITH US!  Result - my challenge entry was done LOL!

Thankfully, I had Monday as my day off of work and I was very shocked, very excited and very pleased to open the door to the  below - flowers and chocolates, what more could a girl want or need!  These were from my lovely downline Cate who had worked very hard on the stand on Friday and Saturday.  Shouldn't I be sending her flowers, you might ask?

Well, as the lovely Stampin' Up! upline that I am ( :-) ) I had organised the whole stand, organised the Make & Takes, organised the workshops, organised the displays, the tables, the samples, the raffle prize, the raffle forms and paid for it all myself!  Cate and several more of my downline, got the opportunity to come on the stand and put their details in the customers hands.  Now Cate only lives 10 minutes away from where the Make It Show was so she was able to offer local people workshops, classes and more and let's just say, I'm sure that Cate will be doing very well with her SU! business soon!  So it was a show of her appreciation - thanks Cate - your hard work was appreciated too :)  I wouldn't have survived the weekend without

20% off punches and a *NEW* Punch - for this month only!

Great news if you love punches - This month's offer from Stampin' Up!® ... and a brand new punch!

During March, if you buy a qualifying stamp set, you can purchase the co-ordinating punch for 20% off!

Plus, if you hurry, you can be one of the first to buy the new Full Heart punch - now available in the UK for one month only (or while stocks last). This punch won't  be available again until the new catalogue is released later this year!

Qualifying stamp sets and punches are:

Simply Said - £22.95

Full Heart Punch - £10 (normal price £12.50)

If you already have the Simply Said Stamp Set, don't worry - the Full Heart Punch is also available separately at its usual price of £12.50.

In The Stars - £24.95

Large Star Punch - £10 (normal price £12.50)

Flight of the Butterfly - £23.95

Butterfly Punch - £10 (normal price £12.50)

Say It With Scallops - £14.95

Scallop Square Punch - £10 (normal price £12.50)

Oval All - £14.95

Scallop Oval Punch - £10 (normal price £12.50)

The other good news is that you can mix and match - ie, if you buy any of the above stamp sets (including the French or German versions), you may purchase any of the above punches as the discount price. The only restriction is that it is one discounted punch per stamp set.

BEWARE: if you've fallen in love with the Full Heart Punch, please don't delay. Demonstrators are already showing a huge amount of interest in this punch, which usually means it is likely to sell out quickly. And once this batch has gone, the punch won't be back until 1st October.

So, here we are at the Make It Show

Well, what can I say?

Busy is an understatement!  Here is my stand before the crowds arrived.  We had displays all along the back wall with a table for doing demonstrations and a table for Make & Takes.  It looks so peaceful doesn't it all nice and empty :) ?

Then the show opened LOL.........

Here is the lovely Zoe (aka Mrs Wonka) doing what she does best - giving the crowds what they want.  She is a fabulous demonstrator and everyone loved what she was doing.  We had lots of plans to demo all sorts of things but the two things we kept getting asked for was the two step stamping with the Flight of the Butterfly set and matching punch and making flowers using the scallop circle punch so Zoe stuck to that!

And here is what the stand looked like for most of the time that we were there! I was completely shocked by how busy we were.  Luckily there were 5 of us there on Friday and 6 on Saturday and it was definately needed! 

The girls from my Stampin' Up! team all worked very very hard and were professional at all times (sort of!).  Over 200 Make and Take's were done on just the two days and there wasn't much time at all that we were sitting twiddling our thumbs! 

Unfortunately, due to proposed weather conditions, the show was cancelled on Sunday as it is held in what is effectively a big "tent".  It can withstand winds of up to 80 miles per hour, but 90 mph were forecast and Health & Safety wasn't going to chance it.  So, although it was disappointing, I was very grateful for the lie-in on Sunday morning and an extra day to myself.

It was very hard work but great fun and lovely to spend some more time with a great bunch of gals!

Should be back to updating the blog a little more frequently now that the manic February is over!