Convention Part 1 - Highlights

Last weekend was Stampin' Up!s 2013 European Convention, this year held in Manchester, and attended by nearly 800 demonstrators. You might be wondering what this convention lark is all about!

Well, all demonstrators across Europe are invited to attend this annual event to celebrate their accomplishments, learn new ideas and innovative crafting techniques, see and try new products and share projects and inspiration with each other.  It's a craft-packed few days with lots of prizes and freebies, a real party atmosphere and a great chance to hang out with demonstrator friends (of which I am very lucky to have many!).

As usual I have come back all motivated and buzzing with ideas and inspiration, and I even have some goals for next year!

I'd like to share some of what I saw and learnt at this year's convention, but for today here are some pictures and highlights of the 2 days!

Julie made everyone in her team a personalised bag tag with sparkly initial keyring!

This year's convention bags were rucksacks with lots of useful pockets and came filled with three stamp sets, make and take kits and a pen! 

Me and my upline Alex ready for the opening session!

Me and Fiona enjoying a cupcake in the Recognition Booth - our little treat for both having achieved something this year - me for promoting to Bronze 3 and Fiona for achieving her Stampin' Start award!

Getting caught up in the atmosphere at the beginning of day 2.

The display boards were fantastic. And I spotted some of my projects on this one!

We all got dressed up for the awards night and had fun at the after-party!

I'm already looking forward to next year's convention which will be in Brussels!

Kylie x

Christmas Card Stamp-a-Stack

Wow- I can't believe it's been so long since my last post! I've been super busy, with classes and Christmas projects, as well as preparing for and attending my second Stampin' Up! Convention which was this weekend just gone.  More on that later this week (there's so much to share!!).

But this evening I'm going to show you the projects we made at my recent Christmas Stamp-a-Stack Card Class.  Everyone made 10 cards, 2 each of 5 designs which all used different products and techniques.

The JOY card used the Big Shot and the Typeset alphabet dies to cut out the letters from Season of Style DSP.

We embossed the snowflakes using the Northern Flurries embossing folder and the Big Shot. White ink was sponged onto the snowflakes and the edges of the card and it was then spritzed with a little early espresso ink mixed with alcohol inside the Stampin Spritzer.

Another snowflake card! This one was stamped with the Festive Flurries stamp set! And the gorgeous sentiment is part of the Christmas Messages stamp set.

Something a bit different - a Christmas card in In-Colours. I did a similar card in my September class with butterflies.  The Christmas tree punch is part of a set of three called Merry Minis.

This last card allowed the ladies to enjoy a bit of therapeutic colouring-in.  We used the Color Me Christmas stamp set and got creative adding colour with the aqua painters and marker pens.

This was the first time I had tried a stamp-a-stack style class and I think it worked really well, so look out for more in the new year!

Kylie x

Monthly card class - October

Tonight was my monthly card class, and this time I did a mixture of Christmas and non-Christmas projects!

The first card uses the Starburst/Sunburst technique - a great way of using up scraps of patterned papers. These papers are the Season of Style Designer Series from the Autumn/Winter catalogue.

The second card features the 'For the Birds' stamp set.  The ladies had free choice of all the stamps in the set, but they all chose the Christmas bird!

These were stamped with black stazon ink (a permanent ink) onto watercolour card, and then coloured using the aqua pens and ink.

The next card really got us into the festive spirit!! This uses the Festive Flurries stamp set which I have fallen in love with and can't stop using! We heat embossed some of the snowflakes with silver embossing powder to make them shine, and the rhinestones in the centres add a bit more sparkle!

Lastly we made a love bird card and I let the ladies choose their sentiment.  I thought this would be great for an Anniversary, Engagement, Wedding or just for someone you love!

The birds are punched out from the Natural Composition Speciality papers.

This month's cake was Delia's spiced apple muffin cake with pecan streusal topping, warm from the oven and made with apples from the tree in my garden!

Kylie x

A card for Ollie

Here's a recent card I made for my nephew's birthday. I really love the papers which are from the Birthday Basics designer series pack. I know these are going to get used a lot, especially for kids birthdays!!

Ollie's name was stamped with the Noteable Alphabet stamps and the 3 was cut using the Typeset Number dies on my Big Shot.

I added a little scrap of paper inside the card.

I also used the simply scored tool to create an embossed zig-zag effect.

 Kylie x

Monthly Card Class - September

I'm sorry this is a little late, but I wanted to share the photos from last month's card class!  I had four lovely ladies join me for crafting, tea and cake and these are the cards we made...

One of the favourites of the night was this card which featured the Kind and Cosy stamp set. I showed the ladies how they could use marker pens to colour their stamps to get multi-coloured designs.

The second card - a clean and simple design I CASed (Copy And Share!) from pinterest. The scored lines not only help with placing the circles in a straight line but add an extra something to the design!

The third card we made showcases two techniques even I hadn't tried before - the baby-wipe technique, and another technique called 'rock n roll'! If you search for videos on YouTube you'll get a better explanation on how to do these than I can give you!  The stamp set is an exclusive hostess set called Morning Meadow.

The final card was another clean and simple one, this time featuring Summer Silhouettes and some paper-piercing!

We used the essentials paper piercing pack to create the scallop design at the bottom of the card. Simple but effective.

Here is an action shot of the crafting in progress!

My home baking went down well too. This month I did a raspberry bakewell cake - a new favourite!

My next class is this Thursday 10th October where we'll be doing a mix of Christmas and non-Christmas cards. I have space for one more if you want to come along - please contact me in advance!

Kylie x

Stampin' Up! Creative Tour Leeds

A couple of months ago I was really flattered to be asked to join Stampin' Up!s design team for their Creative Tour events in September.  They phoned and asked me if I would create a small display using some products from the new Autumn/Winter catalogue - which they would send to me.

I waited eagerly for my parcel to arrive, looking forward to seeing what I had been given to work with!

When the items arrived I was surprised to find it was a Thanksgiving stamp set (Harvest of Thanks) and some lovely autumnal designer papers (Sweater Weather), I had imagined it would be something christmassy, but I set to work thinking of lots of things I could make for my display.

I fell in love with the papers straight away, and knew I wanted to use these to create a whole bunch of flowers with the pansy punch.

The stamps were a bit more of a challenge - I've never made anything with a Thanksgiving theme before! I started off small - making three note cards.

Then the ideas started to flow and I had fun designing cards and 3D projects that used coordinating products and different textures.

Some ideas and techniques I tried for the first time here. The paper feathers I had seen on pinterest and were really easy to make. I also heat embossed over the woodgrain embossed card in gold embossing powder which really highlights the raised pattern.

The vintage-style turkey looks great in full colour! I coloured the stamp using markers.

I decided to do a seed packet gift set using the Harvest of Blessings stamp.  I replaced the wording on the stamp with 'SEEDS' using the simple type alphabet stamps. I made a matching label stick too.  The packet for the seeds was based on a template I found online.  There are actually real sweetcorn seeds inside!

My last project was a little favour box/bag. I used the apothecary accents framelits to cut two of the larger shapes and scored and glued together. I made a window using the circle punch so you could see the contents (some chocolate raisins!)

And this is me with my display at the Leeds event! I think it surprised a lot of my Stampin' Up! friends who came to the event to see my name on there - because I'd had to keep it a secret! I got lots of lovely comments and Paula and Kelly from the Stampin' Up! UK office thanked me with a gift of a stamp and simply created kit. My display, along with the other displays, travelled with Stampin' Up! on their tour of six locations - hopefully inspiring demonstrators across the country.

Hope you are a bit inspired yourself, it's great to challenge yourself sometimes and do something a little bit out of your comfort zone.

Kylie x

Special Age Cards 30, 40 and 80

Hi again.  I have had loads of special birthday cards to make over the last few weeks - some were for my my friends and family and some were 'commissions' from work colleagues!

Here are a few of the ones I have made. I had fun making the rosettes which feature on most of them - these are really simple to make using the score board.

The 30th Birthday card uses some recently retired papers as well as silver glimmer paper.  The sentiment is Perfectly Penned and I heat embossed this with black embossing powder to get a raised finish.

The 40th card followed the same style but this time I used the Quatrefancy papers in the new catalogue.  the colours are so bright and cheerful!

The 80th birthday cards were for a work colleague to give to his dad - he wanted one for him and one for his son.  I used up some more retired papers for these, including Mocha Morning, and the stamps are Memorable Moments - which I embossed on black card with white embossing powder to get a chalkboard effect!