Caturday: Cross-eyed kitty

This cute little cross-eyed kitty is from the latest litter of kittens to arrive Woodland Nook. I don’t know its name I’m afraid – there have been so many lately that I’ve lost track!

All you cat lovers out there can support this fabulous cat shelter this Christmas by purchasing a Woodland Nook 2015 calendar. They’re £8 each, plus £1.50 postage to the UK. Please contact the shelter direct if you require international shipping. More details, plus Paypal order form, can be found here!

Also I can bring calendars to my Craft & Chill weekend next Saturday, if you shout up before tomorrow. Thanks so much!

'Throw everything at it' Welcome card

I fancied a break from Christmas cards and the perfect opportunity arose when I welcomed two new members to my team. Both ladies are very excited to be joining Stampin’ Up!® and why wouldn’t they be? It’s a fabulous opportunity to get a discount on all your crafting supplies, build a business at your own pace if you wish, enjoy sneak peeks and free products… and become a member of a friendly team. Want more info on joining? Just drop me a line... and don’t delay because the 25% discount on the kit ends on Tuesday! 

I threw everything at these cards because I was having fun. They were originally supposed to be a simple CASE of this card which I found on Pinterest (of course) but I got carried away!

Not sure if you can see from the close-up below but I have coloured the pearls with my Daffodil Delight Blendabilities. This gives  them a lovely gold colour, to echo the gold of the glimmer paper. 

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Join Stampin' Up! for a bargain price... with cashback too!

Stop press! Starting today, for one week only, there’s a very special sign-up deal!

Join Stampin’ Up!® between today and 2nd December, and you’ll earn 5% cashback on all commissionable orders you place in December! And that’s not all: you’ll also get 25% discount on your Starter Kit, making it an even bigger bargain than ever! 

You have until 10pm on 2nd December to sign up online… but don’t leave it that long, just click the button above and you can be choosing your kit in seconds! 

With Sale-a-Bration and another new catalogue on the horizon, there’s never been a better time to sign up, as you’ll be able to pre-order from the Spring/Summer catalogue, earn SAB freebies as you do so (a demonstrator perk!) and be extremely well placed to get your business up and running in the New Year. You will even have until the end of March to meet your first sales target! 

Want more info? Drop me a line and we can chat over email, or email me your phone number and I’ll give you a call. I have a smallish team of around 25 demonstrators, which means we are big enough to enjoy group meetings and events, while remaining small enough not to overwhelm you. 

Hope to hear from you soon! 

Supersized Santa punch art

This is a fun project, which I created for my club members as a little thank you this month. Each one contained a Viscount biscuit, precariously stuck down with Glue Dots as I have mislaid my Sticky Strip!

I CASEd the idea from a project by Brenda Quintana, whose Santas were smaller than mine. But those who know me will probably know that I struggle with fiddly little craft projects – they make me very irritable! So I super-sized the Santa with some different punches. You can see which ones I used from the info sheet below.  Santa’s rosy cheeks are created with a pencil rubber used as a stamp, then I finished it all off with some Chalk marker details and a tiny bit of glitter. 

PS: If you prefer to make delicate little Santas like Brenda and don’t know what a Peppermint Pattie looks like… here in the UK, Elizabeth Shaw after-dinner mints seem to be around the same size. 

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Caturday: Kitty STILL needs a home

Poor Kitty still needs a home, after nearly a year of waiting. Kitty was a Woodland Nook cat back in 2009, when she was adopted by a lovely couple, who adored her. Sadly, they have both now died and Kitty was returned to Woodland Nook last Christmas.

Unfortunately, the stress of being in the shelter means she isn't the most approachable of cats; I'm sure she would calm down in a less busy environment. All she really wants is to live in a quiet home, with no other cats, just as she did until Christmas 2013.

Could you give Kitty a happier Christmas in 2014?

Festival of Trees tag card

Oops, how did it get to be Friday? I’ll tell you how… it’s been a bit of a crazy week. The biggest thing to happen has been our office move at work. If you’re in Derby you’ll have probably read about it at some point. We’ve not moved far but it does mean a different route into work, an earlier start to allow time to find a parking space (and *gasp* PAY for it), plus disruption when you get there, as we try to get used to a new way of working, overcome a few technical teething problems and get to grips with a clever but therefore more complex new phone system. But our new “hot-desking” culture means that next week I am going to try working from home for part of the week, so fingers crossed our wi-fi is up to the task!

Back home we’ve been trying to get our boiler fixed so that we can have central heating when we want it. Thank goodness we have the woodburner to take the chill off the house, even when the radiators won’t work. By chance, I found a really great plumber who has given us heat, but he still needs to come back to find out why the pump now won’t switch off! This wouldn’t be a major issue if the boiler wasn’t in the back of a cupboard, the contents of which are currently strewn across the kitchen table waiting to be put away when the issues are resolved. 

Meanwhile, most of us at home and a good chunk of us at work are dealing with a particularly nasty cold which, as you know, makes everything seem worse! 

But enough of my woes, here’s a fun card that you can easily make if you have the Tree Punch; you don’t even need the co-ordinating stamp set, as you can switch the greeting. But I will warn you – I was talking to my demo friend Ann the other day and she says several of her customers bought the stamp set, intending to cut out the tree themselves… then returned to her quite quickly to order the punch, too! So, as Stampin’ Up!® so often knows best, buy the stamps and punch as a bundle for best value and ease of use. 

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Festival of Trees Make & Take

This was Friday night’s Make & Take – clean and simple, as required for both a Make & Take and for your Christmas cards, particularly if you’re making a lot of them! The punch makes this really quick and easy to make... just remember to keep your dirty stamps away from the precious Whisper White ink pad!

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