What I've been up to

Hello and good morning!

This past weekend I attended the Stampin' Up event called On Stage.  It's a regional gathering of Stampin'Up demonstrators where they give us inspiration and business tips.  Plus we can network with all the other Stampin' Up demonstrators - we all work together for a common goal:  to be creative, share what we love and make a difference!

 In this meeting, Stampin'Up all revealed to us the Occassions mini - catalog which will go live from January 4th until May 31st.  This is also known as their Spring Catalog.  And they also revealed the Sale-A-Bration catalog!  Sale-a-Bration is where for every $50, you get to select an item from the Sale-A-Bration catalog for free!  As my husband always like to say, if it's free it's for me!  We did several Make & Takes that highlighted these products and also how the Occassions catalog coordinates with the Sale-A-Bration Catalog.  Very cool.

In the next few days, I will be showing some sneak peeks of the cards that we made.  As demonstrators, we can preorder from the Occassions catalog starting December 1st.  Because I attended On Stage, Stampin has given us the opportunity to order even earlier, on selected product.  So that's what I was doing tonight.  Deciding on what I was going to order;  planning my classes for the next several months.

Unfortunately, before I left to go to On Stage, I found out that the mother on one of our church members had passed away.  When I got back on Sunday, my beautician called and had to reschedule my hair cut appointment because her father just passed away.  So I needed two sympathy cards quickly.    So here is the card I made - I made two of them and sent them off this afternoon:

This is what I put on the inside;  just a sentiment - very simple.

I got this idea from Nancy L, who is a demonstrator in the Abington area and a founding member of the Stray Ducklings.   This was her swap a couple of months ago.  I thought it was stunning and it's very easy to make.  Here is the recipe:

Stamp Set:  Rose Wonder, Corner Garden (retired), Papillon Potpourri

Ink:  Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake, Smokey Slate, Versa Mark

Paper:  Very Vanilla - 5-1/2 x 8-1/2, scored at 4-1/4; 5-1/4 x 4
             Smokey Slate - 4-1/8 x 5-3/8; scrap for butterfly

Other Stuff:  White embossing powder, embossing buddy, rhinestones, stampin' sponges

Easy enough;  ink up the Corner Garden stamp with versa mark and stamp on the smaller Very vanilla piece (after you rub it with the embossing buddy of course).  Pour on the white embossing powder and heat set it.  With sponges, put color on lightly over the embossed flowers and edge of card using crumb cake, sahara sand and smokey slate - do this very lightly!  I goofed up the first couple of times because I was too heavy handed with the sponging and putting ink on them - you can always add more ink, but you sure can't take it away.  I then stamped the sentiment on outside and inside with Smokey Slate.  Stamped the butterfly on a scrape of Smokey slate, using Smokey Slate ink - I punched it out with the Bitty Butterfly punch - attached with a glue dot and then adhered three rhinestones to the body.  Elegant and simple.

Hope you enjoyed today's card - more to come in the next few days!

Sheryl