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Fabulous New Stampin’ Up! Products – and the Stamping 411 Challenge!

Aloha, all!

I love these times during the year when I get my first shipment of brand new Stampin’ Up! products!  Now that it’s December and we’re less than a month away from TWO great new mini catalogs, we demonstrators get to pre-order some of the products so that we can be ready to show them off and answer any of your questions when it’s time for you to start placing your orders.

So here I am the day after I get my first pre-order for the  2010 Occasions Mini Catalog and the annual Sale-A-Bration brochure, and I have a great challenge from Stamping 411 to help me show them off!

This Christmas Card features the brand new Scallop Trim Corner Punch (from the Occasions Mini Catalog) and the brand new Scallop Trim Border Punch from the Sale-A-Bration brochure.  Yes, you can get a punch FREE during the 2010 Sale-A-Bration!  (And there’s more to this punch than meets the eye.  Later this week I’ll tell you more about Stampin’ Up!’s newest punch style!  For a few days, though I’m just going to share some of what I’m doing with the new products!)

I’m still learning how to use the new punches correctly, but I’m getting there!  I’m sure that by the end of the month – when customers can start ordering these – I’ll be in a great position to share tips and tricks for making perfect punches!

Oh, and there’s another beautiful new product on this card–the luscious 5/8" Satin Ribbon - in this card, I’ve used the Old Olive ribbon to accent the paper from the Christmas Cocoa Designer Series Paper set. 

And that brings me to a reminder:  the Holiday Mini Catalog products – including the Christmas Cocoa papers, the Petals-A-Plenty Textured Impressions Folder, and the Patterned Pines Hostess Set – are still available.  There are so many wonderful Christmas products for making those perfect cards and gifts!  You’ll want to make sure that you don’t miss out on this catalog, as many of its products won’t be available once the catalog expires on January 4th!  You can order online any time of the day or night, any day or night of the year! 

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Stampin’ Up! Regional Training in my own Home!

Aloha, all!

What fun six of us had today, enjoying almost all the benefits of attending a Stampin’ Up! Regional Training event, but without having to travel outside of East Hawaii!  This fall, Stampin’ Up! made a video recording of its Cincinnati Regional training seminar and made it, along with the Make and Take packet used by demonstrators attending the training, available to Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators,.

Of course, this training is not limited to demonstrators, and we had three of my friends who are my Stampin’ Up! customers and two other demonstrators besides myself.  One is my downline and another is a fellow demonstrator, but not involved in my up or downline.  Oops!  I managed to be the picture taker, so my photo is not here. 

And what fun we had with those Make and Takes.  I had no idea how my customers would react to those or to the video of the training seminar.  But everyone loved everything!  And we’re even going to have to get together again next Friday to finish up the make and takes.  And, of course, chat and have lunch, and chat some more!  (Maybe I’ll get my photo taken next week).

Here is a copy of one of the cards in the Make and Take packet.  It’s the only one I managed to finish because I was running around trying to make sure everyone was having a good time (and they were!)

If you’re in East Hawaii next Friday (December 11th) by all means call and let me invite you to join us!  I only really worked on one of my Make and Takes, so there’s plenty to go around for an extra person or two.

Oh, and we had company off and on throughout the morning.  I had to move one of my bowls off the table to make room for the crafting.  Our cat, Cholla, never misses an opportunity to try out something "new"!

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Stampin’ Up! Dormant Sets to Retire

Aloha, all!

One of the tabs on the top of this website is "Dormant Stamps."  I published this list with pictures of the stamp sets last summer.  Now almost all of these sets are going to be retiring effective January 5, 2010.  So–if you’ve been thinking about ordering one of these sets, now is the time!  The only stamp set in this list that WON’T retire is the one called Easter Beauty.  It’s a lovely set for this coming Easter Season.  Easter is not too early next year (April 4th), so I think I’ll continue to focus on Christmas then Valentine’s Day before I get into that.  Maybe I’ll order that set later! 

There are some wheels on this list, but I haven’t yet heard if they are going to retire also.  I’ll update this post with information one way or the other when I hear from Stampin’ Up!

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A Great Use for Punches!

Aloha, all!

This week I’m playing with all my wonderful Stampin’ Up! punches, trying to figure out how to make the most of them while I’m making Holiday Cards.  Back in October I made a video about how to use Stampin’ Up!’s punches as stencils to make lovely cards.  But durned if I didn’t neglect to post the card here for you to see! 

For this card, I used the Jumbo Snowflake Punch and Whisper White Craft Ink to stencil the design on the card.  I finished up with some dots of White Gel Pen, an embossed greeting from Four the Holidays Stamp Set from the 2009 Holiday Mini Catalog, and a piece of Whisper White Organza to wrap everything up nicely!

Here’s another card that I made using the same stenciling technique.  But I also punched a Snowflake from Real Red Card Stock.  The greeting comes from the Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set, and the paper is from the Designer Series Paper set Christmas Cocoa Specialty, also from the Holiday Mini Catalog.

To help you make your own Handmade Christmas Cards, I’ve made a video tutorial about this technique!   I hope you enjoy it.

Even though I’m just now posting these on my blog, those of you on my mailing list were treated to these samples – and more! – a lot earlier in the season.  It’s not too late to sign up for my newsletter, with my detailed instructions for making these and lots of other Holiday Cards!  Add your name to my mailing list now and I’ll get last week’s newsletter – with some other fun uses for punches – out to you right away!

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