Wow Wow Wow

Well, what can I say?

Last week I spent alot of time playing with paper and spending time with friends.

It was the 2nd Stampin' Up! Convention in Addington Palace and I had a ball!

There is so much to share, but I could be here all day, so as usual, I will put down some bullet points as you may have seen alot of things on other blogs by now too :)

So, the Thursday night before Convention, Monica & I held a party for our Downlines and a few friends - that will be 120 people then *shock*.  It did get a little bigger than expected but we were suckers for not wanting anyone to miss out :)

Here are the Goody Bags that I put together for my downline:

I do like to spoil my ladies.  We are called the Stampin' Star Team and so everything was Star themed including the fluffy head boppers that I mad them wear :)  I'll share photos of what was in their bags another day soon, too much to share today!

So the party seemed a success in the seconds that I had to breathe and take it all in, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and enjoyed a place where alot of us could gather before convention.

It wasn't too much of a late night, but I just couldn't get to sleep, so with three hours sleep finally under my belt, we finally arrived at Addington Palace.  After last years experience of letting everyone else queue to check in etc before we did, we used that to our advantage and did the same this year.  The main stage wasn't opening until 11.45am so we got there at about 10am.  We collected our Convention bags with our goodies in (the fabulous Just Believe and Party This Way stamp sets, a programme, a pen, a catalogue and some pins / badges for my achievements).

We had a variety of sessions during the day, a mixture of business talks together with some creative presentations which made be laugh so much by the lovely Michelle Last and Julie Kettlewell - two ladies that I had the pleasure of spending some time with in Monaco and they both make me laugh so much!

The afternoon session over ran a bit so we didn't have quite the time to nip back to the hotel and get ready that I was expecting, but it was time for a quick bath, make up and hair and then we were off again.

I had a fantastic time during the evening.  Thanks to both my team and my customers, I was lucky enough to be able to walk across the stage several times this year.  You get to go up for achieving next year's Incentive Trip to Prague, for achieving over £10k of sales, for Recruiting, for Leadership of a team and overall for being in the Top 25 Demonstrators.  In all categories, I did better this last year (my second year) than I did in my first year so I was ecstatic to get into the TOP 3 of the company for Recruiting.  This means that not only do you need to grow your team, they all need to achieve a level of sales too and I thank every single one of you lovely ladies that chose me as their Upline to help with their Stampin' Up! journey!  I received a rose and a Cole Haan Designer handbag which is just beautiful and smells divine (photo courtesy of Julie as she got one too!).  I also received another four stamp sets to the two that I already aswell - thoroughly spoilt!

I was very proud to retain my rank as 5th Demonstrator of the Year - so again, thank you if you are one of my wonderful customers or one of my Stampin' Stars - couldn't have done any of this without you *gush!*

Here are my wonderful ladies, there were 28 Stampin' Stars that came to Convention!

Day continued with a morning of Make and Takes - again I will share those with you another day, some more business demonstrations, some exciting news that I can't share yet and more free stamps!

It was a great few days and I have many great memories from there - I laughed ALOT and there was huge excitement when they announced that next year's convention is going to be in DISNEYLAND, PARIS!!!!!To say that some of the team were a little excited by this is an understatement!

Would you like to be part of this amazing journey?  Would you like to come to Disneyland next year as a Stampin' Star?  Our group of wonderful ladies is forever growing and we welcome anyone who would like to start their own Stampin' Up! journey, whether as a hobby Demo who buys product for themselves at a discount or those who want a full time career.

I don't believe in hard sell or pressure, so if you would like to know more, then please feel free to either email me at natalie@oshea26.freeserve.co.uk or phone me on 01293 888816.

I look forward to starting your own journey with you - Good Luck and thanks once again everyone!

Natalie x

Bundle Up For Christmas!

Well, it's all busy, busy, busy here as usual!

Can you believe that it's this week that I go to Stampin' Up's annual convention.  Remember that last year, I trekked off to Germany?  Well, this year, it's ultra glamourous - CROYDON!  Well, New Addington to be precise and Addington Palance no less :)

It's two days of workshops, comraderie and really just having some great fun, I will let you know all about it when I come back.

Anyway, Stampin' Up! have launched an offer for November and December - buy a Christmas Bundle and get a roll of ribbon FREE!  Here is more information on the bundles and ribbons:

LOOK, FLOCKED SPECIALITY PAPER ONLY AVAILABLE WITH THE WELCOME CHRISTMAS BUNDLE - YUM, YUM, YUM!

My favourite is the Sleigh Bells Ribbon and I can't wait to get hold of my one of those - you're sure to see some things from me with this ribbon soon - love it!

Anyway, I will be back soon with all the information on Convention AND the Pre-Convention Party that Monica & I are throwing on Thursday night - it's going to be a riot.

Enjoy your weekends too and have a great Fireworks night if you are out and about doing things.

Be safe and have fun!

Natalie x

Stampin' Up! trip to Prague!

Hi all,

I hope you are all well and enjoying this lovely weather (not!).  October is well and truly here.

One of the perks of my new job is that I get the school holidays off, so I am thankfully at home all week.  Lots to do though as Monica & I are throwing a Pre-Convention party next Thursday night and it's all busy busy busy! Lots to prepare for!

As you can see from the letter above, I got my confirmation that last month I received the Stampin' Up! incentive trip to Prague next summer!  I really didn't think a few months back that I would do it but some hard work, some lovely customers and a great downline, all contributed to my achievement - THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU! I couldn't have done it without you :)

So, lots going on at the moment but not much I can show you, but I'll leave you with this card here which is one of the cards that we made at my Stampin' Stars Team Training last weekend.

Dare I say the "C" word?

Yes, the Countdown to Christmas has begun! So what better way to kick off my inspiration piece than with a Christmas card! Not necessarily the "go to" Christmas colour, but I love this card - what says Christmas more than a bit of glitter too?

Here is a quick run-down on what I did to make this card.

Make your base card from Soft Suede Card.

Cut a smaller rectangle of Very Vanilla Card and mount on your base card.

Cut a small rectangle of Very Vanilla card for your centre.

Ink up your Serene Snowflake stamp with Versamark ink and then straight into the Soft Suede inkpad and then stamp your images on your card.

Cover the snowflakes with Heat & Stick powder, heat to melt, cover with Champagne or Gold Glitter and heat once more to set.

Use the Curly Cute stamp set to stamp your greeting in Soft Suede ink on Very Vanilla card , trim, round the corners with a punch and mount onto Soft Suede card. Mount on the centre of your snowflake panel with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Cut a peice of Soft Suede card to mount your snowflake panel on making sure that the border at the bottom is bigger.

Use your Scallop Trim punch to edge the bottom and mount your snowflake panel onto it. Mount onto your base card using Stampin' Dimensionals.

Here is what I used:

106550 £7.50 Very Vanilla Card
119982 £6.25 Soft Suede Card
115438 £17.95 Serene Snowflakes
120510 £12.95 Curly Cute stamps
102283 £5.95 Versamark inkpad
115657 £4.95 Soft Suede inkpad
114286 £14.50 Fine Galaxy Glitter
100625 £3.75 Heat & Stick powder
118402 £14.25 Scallop Trim punch
119871 £6.25 Corner punch

Right, that's it from me for the moment.

Have fun!

Natalie x

Grab yourself a bargain!

Come to St Francis Church Hall, Horley, Surrey this Saturday between 10am - 2pm to find yourself some new and nearly new Craft Bargains!

There will be lots of tables with fabulous bits at knockout prices - I'll be there too :)

Natalie x

A Simple Card

Time is still running away with me at the moment.

I think most of you know that I left my job running a Solicitors office in February this year to become the new Editor of Cards Magazine and launch Stamping Trends Magazine.  I also think that most of you know that this has all gone up the spout and over the summer, I found myself out of work.  Not really knowing what to do with myself, a friend told me about a job that came up at the local school (so local, I could walk to work!).  Cutting a long story short, on September 1st, I started my new job as a Cover Supervisor at the local Secondary School teaching 11 - 16 year olds.

It wasn't in my plan and it's definately not my vocation, but it gives me the school holidays off which right now in my life is my main concern.  Have you tried to cover 13 weeks of school holidays with only four weeks of annual leave from a job - it's not easy!

So, I'm back to work full time again which has taken a bit of adjusting to after being at home for six months, but no work means no money so that was no longer an option.

It is really hard and has most definately taken some adjustment but six weeks in and I think that I am finally getting there.  There are a real mixture of personalities in the 1300 odd kids that go to the school and there really can be some testing lessons but overall, it's more good than bad, so that can't be too bad and it's half term the week after next so a week off - wooo hooooo!

As you can apreciate though, it's left me with not alot of time left after being a Mum and Wife too, but I'm doing my best. 

Stampin' Up's new catalogue is fabulous and I've been busy putting orders through this month as well as organising Paper Shares, In Colour shares and lots of other bits and bobs.

I'm having one to one phone calls with everyone in my first level downline too and that's two calls a night, every night for nearly 3 weeks which is keeping me on my toes, not to mention our Team Training on Saturday that I am prepping for too!

Nevermind, life's not fun if you're not busy!

It was my aunt's birthday on Sunday and so I whipped up a simple birthday card using some of the new products which you can see above.  The Stamp Sets are Curly Cute for the greeting and Going Green for the main image.  I've also used the lovely new colour known as Cherry Cobbler too which is just the best red in the world - love it, great for Xmas too! Used my Mat Pack to get those brads spaced perfectly too.  The Going Green stamp set is a great set for watercolouring too but I just wanted to keep this simple.

So that is another update from me for the time being and I'll be back soon with more news / cards to share with you.

Have fun!

Natalie x

Zoooommm...

That's the days passing by so quickly again.

Thought I'd better pop on and at least expand on something from the previous post, so I thought I would start with an interesting one - our one day Craft Event a month ago. Here are some pictures:

We had a great day with lots of lovely ladies who enjoyed themselves.  I think we outdid ourselves with a 12 hour Craft Event - Zoe and I were on our knees by the end of it but they are great fun! And we are planning to do one again. 

Make sure you are on my mailing list as I will be sending out information shortly about a December Day, a January Day and an April weekend! Watch this space!

I am patiently waiting for my first order from the new catalogue to turn up so that I can start playing with some goodies, but both you and I will have to wait for that one! I'm crossing my fingers for delivery this Friday and then I will have the weekend to play!

For those of you on my mailing list, you should have received some information about the Paper Shares / In Colour products shares and Stampers Group that will be starting soon.  I have a couple of spaces left on each share, so let me know if you would like to join me for any!

Right, that's it for today - back again soon,

Natalie x

Hello there - long time no see :)

Well, I decided to take September off but you probably realised that now, haven't you?

I'll do a quick bullet point re-cap of what has gone on in September and I'll expand on them over the coming days!

• Stampin' Up!'s Last Chance List came and went and I had my best Stampin' Up! month ever!
• September 1st, I started a new job - Cover Supervisor at the local Secondary School!
• Zoe and I had a great All Day Event September 5th!
• The boys went back to school and Ethan started his new Secondary School (yep, I started there the day before he did!)!
• Football Season started!
• Yesterday, Stampin' Up! launched the new catalogue!
• I earnt the Stampin' Up! incentive trip to Prague next Summer!

Busy, yes definately!  And here is a picture to finish off this post and share one of the surprises in the new catalogue - Clear Mount Stamps.  I will be back soon with lots to update you on the above and more bits happening!

Have fun!

Natalie x