Last chance to buy - retiring lists are here!

Here they are - the lists you've been waiting for... the retiring stamps and accessories. Don't be glum if your favourite set is on its way out, there's still time to get your hands on one. And you have a whole month to stock up on retiring cardstock, ribbon and accessories. Well, I say a whole month - be warned that all items on the retiring list are only available while stocks last, so get your orders in early please! Some items are discounted so act fast!

Click the links to see the lists... and don't forget to check before ordering as items are being marked as sold out all the time!

Retiring stamps

Retiring accessories

The lists are looooong, because of the Colour Refresh. Also bear in mind that the stamps list looks extra long as some are listed three times, due to the different languages are available. Best thing to do is sit down with a cup  of tea and your catalogue, ticking off the items which are going to see if there's anything you "need".

Hearts and flowers birthday card

The stress of life continues as our little cat, Cobweb, has been suffering from seizures this weekend, which is really horrible to witness. Fortunately she doesn’t seem to know about them and is otherwise fine. Tests by the vet reveal no liver or kidney problems so all we can do now is observe and wait. She’s been clear for 24 hours now, which is the longest since Saturday, so fingers crossed.

I am struggling to find things to show you right now as my most recent projects have been sent out to people and the images lost in the Mac Crash of last week. Every time I switch on the computer I find something that needs recreating, or finding, or lost forever. Apparently we can try to have info retrieved from the fried hard drive but it will cost £360 and there’s no guarantee, so I’m going to see if we can manage without.

So, in the absence of projects made by me, I’m very cheekily going to show you some of my birthday cards, starting with this one, by my friend and downline, Alison, as I know she won’t mind.

Alison is noted for her tardiness in sending cards – I’ve received Christmas cards at 6pm on Christmas Day itself, and this beautiful card (along with a VERY nice present) was left on my doorstep at 10pm on my birthday.  It uses many products that I don’t have, and I don’t have time to root through the catalogues to find you a recipe, sorry about that. I don't even know the name of that DSP, how shocking is that? I love how she's used the small butterfly punch on top of a tiny piece of Stitched Satin Ribbon. And the Honeycomb Embossing Folder on vellum is lovely, as its split the paper - a spritz of something shiny has made it curl up nicely, too.  Anyone care to fill in the gaps?

Better go - not only do I have to go to work, but I've been sitting here so long that a spider has tried to make a web from me. True. 

Artistic Etchings with creped filter paper technique

Happy bank holiday everyone - I'm writing this on Sunday in glorious sunshine so let's pretend that this weather continues until Monday, shall we?

I love getting together with my team and last weekend was my quarterly team meeting. It was fantastic to have so many people there, which is largely thanks to a big influx of new demonstrators during Sale-a-Bration.

We always have a mixture of business talk, demonstrations, chatting, Make & Take and, of course, cake. I only charge a nominal fee for these events and guests get to come along free if they want to find out more about signing up, so why not come along to my next one in September?

If you can’t wait that long, bear in mind that it’s always a good time to join Stampin’ Up!® but some times are even better than others. Right now is one of those times as, if you join up to and including 30^th May (yes, that’s 30^th NOT 31^st), you get an extra £25 in your Starter Kit!

In real terms, this means you pay £99 and can CHOOSE £155 of products from either of the two current catalogues.

Please drop me a line if you’d like to find out more.

Meanwhile, here’s the Make & Take we made at our meeting. The one on the left is the card we made, while the one on the right is the “stepped-up” version I showed.

Between us, my downline Alison and I demonstrated techniques using Creped Filter Paper. Alison made a flower and coloured it with reinkers. I showed this technique which is really simple:

1. Stamp on a piece of Whisper White or Very Vanilla cardstock in a relatively pale colour. I used Summer Starfruit.
2. Cover the whole image with Stampin’ Up!’s Anywhere Glue Stick. It’s important that you use glue stick rather than wet glue, to prevent the ink from running.
3. Cut a piece of Creped Filter paper slightly larger than your white cardstock and screw it up in a tight ball.
4. Open it out and spread it over the white cardstock. You want to get it as flat as you can but you will still have wrinkles from where you screwed it up. Trim around the edges, or fold them around and glue on the back.
5. Stamp a co-ordinating image on top. Done! 

On the first card (left), I kept things pretty simple, adding a few embellishments such as a cardstock flag, piece of Crochet Trim, a button and a bit of bling. This would be perfect for a Make & Take at a party as it’s quick and economical.

The card on the right is good to show to people at a party as it steps things up slightly, with an embossed background using the Hexagon Folder (who doesn’t love that folder?). I’ve also used the Artisan Embellishment Kit instead of the button and added an exciting new product; Washi Tape. Now that I’m getting more confident, I really love that stuff!

Finally, I tried something new – splattering the background with some reinker mixed with rubbing alcohol. It didn’t go quite to plan and, as longtime customer Angela T pointed out, “it looks like you’ve spilled something on it”. Point taken.

Stamps: Artistic Etchings

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Summer Starfruit, Whisper White

Ink: Summer Starfruit, Soft Suede

Accessories: Naturals Buttons, Crochet Trim, Basic Rhinestones, Artisan Embellishment Kit, Epic Day Washi Tape, reinker (I used Early Espresso as it was the nearest one I had)

Caturday kitten... as promised

I'm back, with Caturday, as promised. Had a productive morning; picked up my new satchel, handmade in Derby to my specifications (More Mustard and Elegant Eggplant, more or less) and ordered a bed in the hope of putting an end to back pain misery.

So here's Max and isn't he a cutie? He's a feisty little kitten who isn't afraid to stand up to big bullies like Solo. Max came to the shelter with his mum. Maddie, and they are still there, so if you're interested, just give me a shout!

Online shopping update

Unfortunately, online shopping has been suspended while a few teething troubles are ironed out. I'll keep you posted on that one.

And I'll update with a kitten picture later, when daughter gets up. Letting her have a lie-in as, even though she's on study leave for her GCSEs, she has been in to school every day this week for revision sessions.

Back in a bit!

Criss-cross box template and online shopping

 

I’m here, honest, just finding everything that involves computers very difficult. Just had to reinstall my watermark programme, find my watermark etc… all takes time. In fact, there's a rogue watermark lurking on these pictures which I will have to deal with another time. 

I do have VERY exciting news to share, although I am a couple of days behind other demonstrators. But the great news is that now you can shop with me any time of day or night! No need to worry if I’m at work, in the bath, in bed, or on holiday (I wish!), just visit my online store and click away.

Now I haven’t had chance to test this properly yet, so I would be very interested to hear how it goes. But all you have to do to visit my all-new professional SU website and store, is click the “Shop Now” button on the left. Or here, that should work, too!

Apparently I can set up workshops so you can order as part of a workshop, but I haven’t looked into that yet, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, if you want to place and order, just go for it!

This month’s Virtual Hostess Club order is here and most orders are on their way or have been collected. Here’s a pic of this month’s gift – a little box of orange jelly beans.

I decided to force myself out of my comfort zone and use this season’s hot colour; Calypso Coral. I admit this is not one of my favourites, but it’s cropping up everywhere – and, of course, it’s one of the In Colors which is being saved from extinction and returning as a core colour with the new catalogue in July.

It’s also one of the colours of the Washi Tape you get with the This and That journal, so this was my first foray into using this fab little product. I simply stamped my words, laid a strip of tape underneath – which was easy because I could line it up nicely and reposition if necessary – and then die-cut the shape.

Recognise the flower? Thought not. It’s from a new set which is coming your way in June. I coloured them with a Calypso Coral marker (and blender pen), cut them out (yes, all 10 of them!) and toped them with an extra large rhinestone.

The box. Ah, I knew you’d be asking about that. I have adapted it from one designed by Nichole Heady so that I could make it from A4.

I began by cutting my A4 down to 8” x 11½” and then scored as shown in the image. I stamped just the triangles, using Whisper White on Midnight Muse. I think it goes rather well with Calypso Coral and can feel a U-turn coming on…

Stamps: Best of Flowers, Just Believe

Cardstock: Midnight Muse, Whisper White

Paper: Tea Party

Ink: Midnight Muse

Accessories: Apothecary Accents dies, Calypso Coral marker, Blender pen, Epic Day Washi Tape, Large Rhinestones, Medium Cello Bags

Experiencing technical difficulties

Let's start today with a sad story. If you can't be bothered with my whining, skip to the important bit at the end. Otherwise, please indulge me for a few minutes.

Last night, my iMac died. :( I knew it was old and needed upgrading and it was on my "to do" list but you know how it is, I just hadn't got round to it. I even had my external hard drive on my desk ready to back up, but was busy deleting unused files in the name of streamlining. I've learned the hard way. I've had the Mac mended... BUT the hard drive is dead as a dodo and, due to my lax backing up, I have lost everything from the past 12 months.

On the up side:

• Photos ... not so bad, as the children won't let us take photos of them any more anyway, so we probably haven't lost too many of importance. Although all my albums seem to have disappeared and they are in random order.
• Calendar ... happily, I uploaded everybody's birthday to Birthdayalarm.com only a few weeks ago, so that's ok
• Emails ... I'll get over it I suppose. I was due for a clearout.
• Music... I don't download much music so most of that is there.
• Stampin' Up!® business resources... thankfully, I have been uploading lots of these to my new team forum. 
• Stampin' Up!® contacts... again, thankfully I use MailChimp for my newsletters so my mailing lists should be intact.
• The computer is now upgraded as far as its advancing years will allow. So my son is happy about that. 
• It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. 

On the down side:

• Email preferences ... still wading through these as it's definitely not one of my strengths. Struggling, if I'm honest.
• Calendar... all my plans and dates to remember have gone.
• Email contacts ... still not sure about these. I'm so used to typing the first two letters of somebody's name and having it appear automatically.
• The big one: my accounts. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Really wanted to put my tax return in early this year and now I have to start from scratch. I cannot begin to tell you how gutted I am about this. 
• It's soooooo time-consuming. 

The important bit:

Please be patient while I try to sort out this mess. I may well have lost your email address so please drop me a line to say hello. However, don't expect a reply in a hurry as I've not managed to configure that particular email account yet. 

Also, if you have emailed me in the last few days and are awaiting a reply, please send your message again. 

I have lost my calendar, so if you have a party booked, PLEASE let me know the date and time, just in case I don't have it written down on my paper calendar.

That's all I can think of right now. I have learned my lesson and will be backing up at least daily from now on. The new operating system will make it so much easier. 

And if you know anybody local who can work magic on Apple Macs, please let me know. Although the prognosis was dire, I live in hope.