Archive for the ‘Announcement’ Category:
Hostess Special Starting Now!!!
Aloha, all! Starting TODAY, Stampin' Up! is offering an extra $25 in Hostess Benefits for every qualifying workshop of $350 or more! The only orders that do not qualify are online orders. This offer expires August 31st. So book your workshop with me NOW! to take advantage of this great incentive. Bring your friends together for a shopping tour through Stampin' Up!'s great current catalogs and get more FREE PRODUCTS for yourself!
Click on the picture to get a copy of the Stampin' Up! Announcement! Call me to book a workshop!!!
Subscribe to the comments for this postA Few Stamp Sets Left out of the Catalog
Aloha, all!
A big thanks to Fellow Demonstrator extraordinaire, Patty Bennett, who pointed out the existence of a sheet showing some stamp sets that are still available to order, but just didn't make it into the catalog. Boy, it's a big catalog this year and I can't imagine how they had enough room for all that they did anyway. Remember that 99.9% of the stamp sets are shown in FULL SIZE in the Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog. No wonder it's so big!
I'll post a link to this page over on the right so you'll always have it available to you. Of course, if you get a copy of the catalog from me, there will be a copy of this page inserted in it! Nice sets, especially for those of you who celebrate or make cards for friends who celebrate Kwanzaa or are involved in Jewish celebrations. Lovely Menorah in the Shalom Sayings set! I really was missing Taking Care of Business – I hadn't ordered it but now I can! Finishing off this lovely page is a lovely set of 5 stamps in the set, For the Bride. There is going to be a bride in our family early next year, so I may have a use for this set myself!
For now, you can click here to get a copy of the flyer!
It’s a Brand New Stampin’ Up! Year!!
Aloha, all!
Things are happenin' in the Stampin' Up! world today! We've got brand new catalogs, a new starter kit, new videos, new — oh, just too much to mention!
Up and down the right and left side of this post you'll see links to
- The new 2010-2011 Idea Book and Catalog
- The new Definitely Decorative Catalog
- And the new REDUCED PRICE! Starter Kit with lots of new colors and reconfigured to take the best advantage of Stampin' Up!'s current product line.
A special that's being offered right now is a series of Color Renovation kits. Except for the Watercolor Wonder Crayons and Stampin' Pastels, all the Color Renovation Kits are available for purchase today. These kits are especially designed for those of us who have a full collection of Stampin' Up! colors in papers, inks and markers, and just want to order the new stuff! Click on the picture over to the right under "Specials" so see the full Color Renovation Color Kits Flyer.
You can pick up your copy of just about everything at my New Catalog Open House on Saturday, July 17th. Or, if you'd like me to mail you a catalog just let me know and I can send one out to you right away! There is a small charge for mailing catalogs – but it's definitely worth it!
So now I'm off to place my own very first order from the new Idea Book and Catalog AND from the new Definitely Decorative Catalog.
Thinking of You…
Aloha, all!
Finally – here I am back in my Craft Room and feeling as if I have a little bit of time to really play. I've decided that today the lunch dishes can wait until I've made a card or two.
Thanks to all of you who have sent good wishes, thoughts and prayers our way as my husband has been dealing with his illness. Thankfully, he came through his very extensive surgery well, and is now at home recuperating. I hope you never have the experience of having to be away from home to be with a loved one who is in the hospital as long as I had. Instead of going home each night for a month to rest and recuperate among familiar surroundings to be able to face the next day, I had to go to a hotel room. I realized then how much value there is in one of Stampin' Up!'s programs, which is to support Ronald McDonald houses around the country. So many parents have to travel away from home to be with their children in such a situation. I wish there was something like that for us dealing with an adult.
Meanwhile, I really was "Thinking of You…." I really like sharing what I do with you, and it would have helped if I could have been able to do something creative and then spend some time in the late evening sharing it. Even now, though we've been back home for almost week, it's been a very tiring one as I try to get all the household chores done myself. Yup, those lunch dishes are still there. But today I really got into my craft room and set some crafting goals for myself. Over the next few days, I'll share some of what I've done and really make an effort to get back into my groove.
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As always, I look to my SUDSOL online demonstrator group for some inspiration. Yesterday, I had a challenge to make a card with 8 separate steps. It involved the number of colors of card stock and ink that we had to use, the number of layers to be included, the number of stamp sets to be used and the number of embellishments to finish it all off.
And this is a sneak peek of sorts, too! One of the three colors I used is Stampin' Up!'s newest yellow in the core collection – Daffodil Delight. Such a pretty yellow for summer! and the coordinating Daffodil Delight Ribbon is one of thirteen new 1/8" Taffeta Ribbons. What a nice size for an accent. Finally, I textured the Daffodil Delight layer using Stampin' Up!'s newest Sizzix Textured Impression Embossing Folder, Vintage Wallpaper.
A special thanks to fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Amy Celona, who help me out by getting the list of retiring products posted over to the right. Nothing in this card is going to retire except for the Not Quite Navy brads – part of the Earth Elements collection of brads. This set of brands is still available, but there are other items that are selling out already even though June is just half over!
One thing you may have noticed in the list of retiring accessories is an asterisk in the column "Being Reconfigured." What this means is that some or all of what's being retired is still going to be around. For example, those Earth Elements Brads are going to be "reconfigured." Some of the colors of brads will still be around, just in different groupings. And the brad groupings going forward will be in sets of 6, not just 4. If a color is a retiring color, the brad will definitely be retiring. If you have any other questions about any of these lists, please be sure to let me know!
More creativity tomorrow!
Scrapping a Get Well Message
Aloha, all!
Last week I posted a scrap page featuring our lovely black cat, Cholla. I had it lying out on a table, and our house sitter noticed it and asked why I hadn't done something about our dog, Hoku. With all that's going on in our lives right now, creating a scrap page featuring the dog just wasn't anywhere on my priority list.
First, a brief aside about what's going on (and why I have a house sitter). My husband, Harry, has become very ill, and is a hospital on the island of O'ahu. We don't live on O'ahu, and that's made life somewhat difficult. Right now I'm back on our island – the Big Island of Hawaii – and crafting just wasn't in the picture when I returned home a few days ago. I had to get some business taken care of and pack for both me and my husband for a prolonged stay away from home.
As I spent some time talking with Harry on the phone the first few days I was back, it became apparent that he really missed his daily walks in his garden. And he'd asked me to pet the dog and scritch the cat for him a couple of times. I first thought that I'd go around the yard and take some pictures so he could see what was growing at the moment and maybe take some pictures of the pets. Pictures. Aha! Pictures go in a scrapbook, don't they?! And so I decided that I'd make him a scrapbook to have with him while he's awaiting surgery, which may not happen until next week.
This has given me the opportunity to use my craft room which I so thoroughly cleaned out last week (no, I didn't know I'd be gone for so long!) AND to focus on scrapbooking during National Scrapbooking month. The scrapbook was of the quick 6 x 6 kind, but I had fun as I did each 2-page spread thinking about the techniques I was using, and how I could share them with you. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be doing just that – sharing my scrapbook pages with you, of course with my thoughts about quick and easy techniques. The bottom line in all of this is that you should approach a scrapbooking project with the idea of having fun doing it. I've seen too many people struggle and freeze up when faced with a pile of photographs and a room full of paper and embellishments. That's OK if you're entering a contest. But, if you're like me and most scrapbookers, you just want to have a memory book that's fun to look at as time goes on. It's just not scary!
OK – so here's the first page to show off (though not the first page in the book). Of course, Harry misses his pets, and I did, indeed, have to make a page featuring Hoku the Dog, to go along with Cholla's page. The stamp set that I used for this page is D Is For Dog. Did you think I had C Is For Cat and not the dog's stamp set, too? Not hardly if I wanted to keep peace among the pets. Here's another copy of Cholla's page so you can see how these two pages go well together as a 2-page spread.
I had already made Cholla's page with the Melon Mambo, and somehow the pink wasn't going to work for Hoku the Dog. He's just not a pink person. But, even with the Soft Suede (an In Color that's going to be continuing as a standard color in the next Stampin' Up! Catalog!), I could tie the two pages together with lots of different techniques.
- I scored the card stock in the same pattern to texturize it.
- I stamped and cut out the bones from the D is for Dog set to match the fish from the C is for Cat set.
- I used Crushed Curry (sniff, going away) as the photo mats
- I used a square rhinestone brad for the dog's collar to go with the round one I used for the cat's
- I used 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon on both pages.
The pictures are not the same size and the colors are not the same. But the two pages work just fine together!
I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post while I'm away from home. But the photos are all ready to show off. I just need to find some time for myself to write them up!
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and I hope to be back in my craft room before long.
A Workshop for Wendy
Aloha, all!
I originally posted these projects as part of a blog tour. What fun that was! The tour group was made up of demonstrators who belong to the group, SUDSOL, which is for Stampin' Up! Demonstrators exclusively. Great group! And I provide a free 3-month membership to the group for anyone who joins my Stampin' Up! team. For more information, just e-mail me.
Now for my creative projects for the day. My first workshop using the Stampin' Up! 2010 Summer Mini Catalog was with my new friend, Wendy, and lots of her friends. After much discussion about how the workshop would be organized, we decided on three Make and Takes, with some of the luscious new Designer Series Paper set, Island Oasis, the Stamp Set, Tropical Party, and (of course) the Sizzix Big Shot.
For our first project, we made a Favor Bag with the Stampin' Up! Exclusive Sizzix Bigz XL Die, Fancy Favor. Wow has this been popular with my friends here in Hawaii, who love to give parties with lots of, well, fancy favors! You've already seen some of my designs using the stamp set, Tropical Party, and I'm just not even close to getting tired of stamping the coconut cup. Here on the Big Island, this cup is most likely to to have been purchased at one of the local farmers markets and contain coconut "milk." We rarely see the little umbrella at the markets, but it sure is cute anyway.
The accents on the Fancy Favor bag coordinate with my favorite colors in the paper I used for this sample: Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, and Old Olive. This bag does well with or without a handle, but I decided to use some of the Pumpkin Pie 1/2" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, which I tacked down on the sides with a couple of Turquoise Circle Ice Rhinestone Brads. I added a Turquoise Brad from the Bold Brights brad collection. (I'm really hoping that we'll continue to see the Turquoise Brads, even though I fully expect to the set to retire as two of the colors in that set will retire at the end of June. Lots of new products this year for sure!)
The two flowers that accent the upper right corner of the bag front are also stamped with the Tropical Party stamp set. I stamped on Tempting Turquoise card stock with Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink, and on Pumpkin Pie with Pumpkin Pie Classic Ink. I then trimmed close to the stamped image and popped them on with some adhesive. I got the idea for using these flowers from fellow SUDSOL member, Gretchen Barron, who used them in a sample for a recent Stamping 411 challenge.
Project Number Two was a Tea Bag Holder made with (what else?) Tea Party Designer Paper. Fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, Maria Matonti, introduced me to the basic project four or five years ago. I frequently make it as a "get well" card as tea always seems to sound good to me when I'm under the weather.
The stamped saying is what connects this project to the Stampin' Up! 2010 Summer Mini Catalog. I have to confess that I have altered my stamp a bit by removing Eleanor Roosevelt's name from it. It just wasn't going to work with this particular design. But isn't the saying perfect for this kind of project???!!!
Finally, here's what the inside of the project looks like with the two tea bags nestled into their little pockets. Here are complete instructions on making the Tea Bag Holder and the Punch Art Teacup.
The Third and Final Project for the workshop was a greeting card. There I was back at the Stamping 411 blog, looking for this week's challenge project and I stumbled on the layout for this card. Here is another use of the Island Oasis Designer Series Paper – there are actually 4 of the papers represented here! For the greeting, the wonderful old fall-back Stamp Set, Sincere Salutations seemed to be perfect. The measurements for this card aren't really important. What's important is that you scrounge around and find scraps to use to make your own unique card front! Any set of Designer Series Paper – or even combinations of paper sets – works wonderfully.
I hope you enjoyed this brief look at Wendy's Workshop! If you're on Hawaii's Big Island and would be interested in your own workshop, I'd love to talk with you! Just call or e-mail me any time!
Finally Back to Crafting!
Aloha, all!
My Craft Room is finally back in order – and all my paper slots are labeled with the new colors that will be coming out very soon. Retiring stuff is all packed up for my Summer Open House, and there are empty boxes ready for all those retiring stamp sets to be added to the stash.
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And now I can craft! I understood going into my cleaning project that things were out of hand. But I didn't realize how MUCH out of hand until I started coming across all these old copies of the demonstrator magazine, "Stampin' Success." Last evening, I started paging through some of them, and came across an idea for a card in the May 2009 issue that used the stamp set, D is For Dog. Ah ha! I have been wanting to use one of the quotations from the new stamp set, Favorite Thoughts, with the set, C is for Cat. And now I had a wonderfully clean craft room and the time to make it! Do you see all those exclamation points. I know I'm an exclamation point queen, but I really, really do feel elated that this project is done!
Anyway, I woke up this morning and looked at the card and thought, "Hmmm. It's cute, but who do I send it to? What's the occasion?" OK, back to the drawing board (all cleaned off, I might add!). And the 6" x 6" scrap page was created. Cholla (cho-ya) the Cat is, indeed, the Queen of our household, and she is treated thusly.
Both projects use Melon Mambo card stock and ink (this is a color that Stampin' Up! is keeping) and the accent color is Crushed Curry (yes, I had to go dig the card stock and ribbon out of one of the packed boxes, but all is nicely put away again). The little gold fish were stamped onto Crushed Curry with a stamp from C is For Cat, trimmed and then turned over to show just the card stock.
The technique that I picked up from the magazine was to texturize your card stock with some simple, straight-line scoring. The card shows one side of the scored paper and the scrap page shows the other. I think that both look equally good; it's really just a matter of personal preference and the project involved.
The card layout here isn't anything really special. But I encourage you to work with your scoring tool (I used Stampin' Up!'s Fiskars cutter with the scoring blade) to make some designs with whatever card stock you have.
Have fun crafting. I'm going to be doing the same now that I can find everything!
Busy Cleaning Out Robin’s Craft Room!
Aloha. all!
I have been busy, busy, busy! I am so excited that, in just a few weeks, I'll be able to order some 2010-2011 Catalog Preview Products from Stampin' Up! Now, I'm sorry to see so many colors going away, but I am saying goodbye now so that I can make room for all the NEW colors! Of course, when it comes to cleaning and reorganizing, one thing leads to another, and the whole place looks like a tornado hit it! But there is light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm taking a well-deserved break.
No crafting today, though. Just poking around the Internet to get some ideas for when my Craft Room is ready for use again (Thursday is my goal!). In doing the poking around, I found a flyer with pictures of all the products that Stampin' Up! is carrying over from its latest two mini catalogs. These items are available for purchase now, and most will appear in the new Stampin' Up! catalog that is released on July 1st. So I thought I'd share that with you.
Sigh. Now I have to get back to the drudge work!
The Hilo FCE Fair is Saturday!
Aloha, all!
While it may seem that advertising Saturday's Hilo Council FCE (Family and Community Education) Fair may not be related to stamping, it certainly is when I'm involved! Believe it or not, there are several Stampin' Up! demonstrators and customers in this group, and there are many craft items for sale made from Stampin' Up! products. Usually, I make greeting cards, including several Mother's Day cards, because the Fair is always the day before Mother's Day.
This year, however, I branched out from all things Stampin' Up! For one thing, I knew that this winter and spring I was going to be on lots of airline flights and would have lots of time when I had nothing to do, but was away from home. So I focused on creating some crocheted coasters for my contribution to this year's fair. From February to April, whenever I was sitting waiting for something, I had my crochet cotton at the ready! I ended up with over 60 coasters ready for sale at our annual fundraiser.
Today was the day for packing all those coasters up into packages for sale at the Fair. That's where the Stampin' Up! products come in. Believe me, no matter what craft you like to sell, for whatever reason, Stampin' Up! has something to help you make an absolutely spectacular presentation! In the case of these coaster sets, I found Stampin' Up! colors and embellishments to (hopefully!) set these crafts off from the ordinary.
There are quite a few Stampin' Up! products used in making the toppers for the coaster sets. See how many you can spot in this photo:
Here they are:
- The Greenhouse Garden Stamp Set . Love those Hibiscus flowers in that set! I stamped them using the
- Lovely Lilac Classic Stampin' Pad for the petals and the
- Elegant Eggplant Classic Stampin' Pad for the accent colors in this 2-Step Stampin' Set. All this was stamped on some
- Whisper White Card Stock that was die cut with the
- Stampin' Up! Exclusive Top Note Sizzix Die. I layered that on top of some
- Lovely Lilac Card Stock and a few sheets of
- Lavender Lace Card Stock (depending on the color of the coasters).
- I tied everything together with rick-rack from the Orchard Ribbon Originals Set (tied through holes punched with the Crop-a-dile, of course) and added a butterfly accent using the
- Beautiful Wings Embosslits, exclusive from Stampin' Up! Love that little butterfly!
- Oh, and I added some texture to the background card stock using a Sizzix Texturz Plate from the Stampin' Up! Backgrounds I exclusive texture plate set.
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Now everything's ready for the Fair! Here are many of the coaster sets all lined up and ready for purchase! I can't imagine packaging these coasters up any better than I could have using my wonderful Stampin' Up! products!
To purchase one of these elegantly-presented (if I say so myself!) sets, just come to the FCE Craft Fair on Saturday, May 8, 2010, at Aunty Sally's Luau Hale from 8 to noon. Oh, and there are other clubs and items for sale, too. Though I say that reluctantly, we are all great groups of people working to make East Hawaii – and the world – a better place.
Helping Me Pack
Aloha, all!
Just a quick break from packing to head off to Honolulu where my husband's in the hospital waiting for me to return from home. I decided to look for some Stampin' Up! magazines to take with me and Cholla the Cat just had to help.
What's even more interesting than the cat hiding behind the stamp pads and hardware is how empty the stamp pad tower is! I have already packed away all the retiring colors, and have the carryover colors already arranged with their new family groups. By this time next month that tower should be filled up again with all new stuff! I'm hoping more than that that I'm home with my husband to enjoy playing with the new colors.
Back later this week to post some of the scrapbook pages.
