Friday 30 May 2014

Time to say Goodbye!

The Retirement Lists are here and as promised they are updated on my Facebook page and the links to them are below

FOR RETIRING STAMPS PLEASE CLICK HERE

FOR RETIRING ACCESSORIES PLEASE CLICK HERE

Please note the Stamp set list also contains French and German sets so please make sure you select the English alternative. It is probably best you go through the list with the catalogue in your hand!

The accessories list is in page number order.

I cannot stress enough how quickly items go out of stock. The easiest way to get your hands on them is to place an online order at my STORE however I will be likely to be placing an order over the weekend that you can add to and collect for free if you are local.

Happy Shopping and any questions just ask!
Julie
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Thursday 29 May 2014

Flowering Flourishes for an Engagement

Hello there! It's all go here in the Stampin Up world and I am so excited for our Retirement List and Demonstrator pre-order that start tomorrow! Be sure to check my blog or Facebook page for all the details. It's always a busy time of the year as we look forward to new goodies and say goodbye to old favourites. 

Today I am sharing a make which used 2 stamp sets that I think (and hope) will be staying with us, Flowering Flourishes and One in a Million. I was asked to make an engagement card and to be honest  I am a little lacking in engagement sentiments so I thought that this one from One in a Million fit the bill. I cut out a large heart using the framelits and magnetic platform and then I stamped the Very Vanilla piece with Flowering Flourishes in Crumb Cake.
Two little love birds were added to the bottom of the card and of course some of my trusty Seam Binding ribbon in Soft Sky. I just love it!
 Happy to say the lady who ordered the cards from me loved this one and donated a nice amount to my son's Kenya Appeal. 
Right thats all from me today as I get busy with sorting things for the next couple of days including a Social Stamping afternoon with my team members this weekend.
Julie
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Wednesday 28 May 2014

Joining Stampin Up!

Hello there and welcome to my blog today. Recently I was asked by someone what it was that I loved about Stampin Up! Yes I love the products, I love the fact that I can earn an income and work around my family, I love that I have been on 5 holidays with Stampin Up but I would say the greatest joy is the friendships that Stampin Up has brought into my life. I have never had such a large and lovely set of friends that spread worldwide. Recently we had a UK training event in Telford and I was very honoured to be asked to do a 30 minute presentation based on Creating Party Success. I have done a fair few parties in my time as a demonstrator and been lucky to have some wonderful hostesses who keep re-booking them with me, or encourage their friends to host one for me, and I love doing them!
Here I am at the event on stage (I think I look like a chubby Sue Perkins on the photo above) presenting on how I run my parties. I also had to do a mini demonstration of how I run a party and had to go into character. Those who know me, know that there is always a little humour involved and this presentation was no exception. Thank you to everyone who has left me a message, text or email saying how much you enjoyed it. Your comments are truly appreciated and I loved sharing what works for me with you. I was also extremely honoured that the projects I shared were made into training packs for the whole of the days make and takes. This means that almost 400 demonstrators got to make my projects. This was the first time this had been done at a UK event and I was really really honoured!
 I was a very proud Stampin Up Mum that day and was joined by 23 of our wonderful team members from all over the country. It was particularly fab to meet Dawn, Maria and Bev whom I have never met before and share the day with them. We have such a lovely team, here are some of them below who had to stand up for promoting this year - very proud!
 We also managed to get a team photo too at the end of the event. Just love the girls on here, look at our happy faces!!! Stampin Up has brought so much joy into all our lives and we love a good get together.
 After the event some of the girls had to travel home but a group of 9 of us were staying and went for a gorgeous meal at a nearby venue, organised by Kylie and Sally-Jo. It was the perfect evening, lovely food and great company, full of laughs and good times.
If you would like to join our gang then we have a special offer starting TODAY for 4 weeks only. 

Join up for £50 only OR join up for the usual £99. Never before have we had 2 offers at the same time

JOIN for £50 - do you already have a lot of Stampin Up products? Then this is the deal for you. Choose £55 worth of products and get a business pack free too.

JOIN for £99 - choose £130 worth of goodies and get the business pack free too!

I would LOVE to have you experience everything myself and my team do and I am excited for this promotion. I will be making team welcome packs up for new team members and would love to have a chat with you!

More details to follow as I get them but please email me in the meantime!

Julie
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Tuesday 27 May 2014

Stampin' Up! Incentive Trip - the last part!

We were feeling very sad on the last day as we prepared to say goodbye to our lovely new friends but we also knew we were closer to seeing our wonderful boys at home again so we had mixed emotions. We had a lovely last breakfast with the Klass and the Stewart family and here are all their lovely girls. They are honestly the sweetest, caring and polite little girls I have met - a credit to their lovely parents. There were lots of goodbye hugs and yes, a few tears too - even from Mr K!
We packed up our carry on bags and said goodbye to our cabin and headed to our assigned check out space to wait for our departure time. They let everyone off the ship a little at a time so you have to choose a slot a couple of days before. We had a late flight at teatime so we weren't in any rush!
We ended up bumping into Sarah, Tim and the girls on 2 more occasions and they were on our transfer bus to the airport too so it was nice to see them again but it also meant more tears as we had to say our goodbyes again. Who knows when we will meet again, but I am just SO grateful that through Stampin Up I got to find an AMAZING friend who I feel like I have known for an eternity. Here's hoping for more global incentive trips so we can meet again in the future!
When we got to the airport we had a long time to wait so we went for a lovely meal to a restaurant called Chilli's with Natalie and her husband Damon. I had this huge burger with gorgeous sweet potato fries (above) and Robin had a club sandwich. No wonder I put half a stone on in 10 days!
I hope you have enjoyed these posts, I have had so many comments from people so I am guessing you have. I want to say that we had the most AMAZING time on the cruise and thank YOU for supporting me in my business. My team, my hostesses, my customers, my supporters - you are the reason I do this job! I say job but it doesn't feel like a job most of the time. I am truly blessed to do something I LOVE for a living and I thank you for sharing this journey with me!

Monday 26 May 2014

Stampin Up Incentive Trip - Penultimate Day!

Hi there! It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK and the sun is actually shining a little bit today! Today I am updating the penultimate day of our lovely trip. This was the Saturday and by this point we were looking forward to getting home to our boys, whom we missed like crazy, but also quite sad to be leaving the friends we had made. 

In the morning we went Ice Skating. Well I say we, Mr K just watched and took a few photos and I helped Beth with her 3 girls. I don't often skate but I am not too bad and manage to stay upright and get a good speed up. I spent a lot of the time holding onto one of the girls or sometimes 2!
 I spent a lot of time with Bella, holding her up or pulling her along as she held onto my jumper. Isn't she just the cutest?
 Had an amazing time with these lovely people during the week as well as the awesome Klass family who joined us on the ice later. 2 more girls to skate with!1
 Mr K and I then went to catch a little bit of sun on one of the top decks but I am not one for sitting still for a great length of time so we then went to watch another diving show, this time it was a Madagascar character show which was brilliant.
After a lovely lunch with the Stewart family we had to go pack our suitcases and get sorted out as we had to be at the Blue Planet show for 4.45pm and then straight onto dinner. The show was amazing and the next 3 photos are by the lovely Steffi Nitzpon from Germany who kindly shared her photos.
My favourite part was when this tree came forward and the branches and roots were made up by the performers. It looks quite obvious on this photo but on stage with the lighting and angles, you couldn't tell as much until they moved.

After the show we went for a lovely meal to the 150 Central Park restaurant with demonstrators from the UK and it was nice to catch up as we hadn't seen as much of them as usual with the trip and boat being so big this time. The gift for this evening came a lot earlier than usual as we had to have our cases packed and ready so I think the took this into account when leaving our goodies. 
 Tonight we got this gorgeous bag which is from a company called Sage and Harper. I think they had them adapted for us as it has one of our Naturals buttons on the front and a piece of the red rubber on the strap which says Stampin Up! I love it but I haven't dared use it yet. It usually takes me about a year to stop stroking it and actually use it!
Here is a photo of all the loot we got on the trip. Most of it is in the big brown bag in the middle.
A sad sight on the last night on the ship. We had to leave our cases outside our room by 11pm the night before!
Hope you enjoyed this instalment and I will be back tomorrow to share the last day with you.
Julie
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Sunday 25 May 2014

Bridesmaid Scrapbooking

Hello there! I am VERY late posting on here today because I was looking after my niece and nephew last night and I am shattered. I have had to have a nap as I was up very early for a Sunday morning! I'm not used to it anymore! They were very good though to be fair and it was nice to look after a baby for one night only!

Yesterday I ran my scrapbook club alongside my Technique Club and the theme this month was the Watercolour Wonder suite. When I was deciding what photos to use I thought I would use some of me when I was little as my Mum recently gave me lots of old photos. Whilst flicking through them I found some snaps of when I was a bridesmaid for my Aunty Marlene and my dress was peach, or Crisp Cantaloupe in Stampin UP colours, so my decision was made for me. I created a floral framed border using the Petite Petal stamp set and Calypso Coral and Crisp Cantaloupe and then added a square of the DSP.
The photos are from 1980 and already had the rounded corners which was nice. I think these may be snaps someone took as the photographer posed us for photos. I am the taller of the dark haired bridesmaids.
The photographer and his tripod were actually in the photo on the right so I covered him up with some roses from the Stippled Blossoms stamps. We did have a laugh at class yesterday at the expense of Julia who tried endlessly to stamp those small flowers with the Stamp a ma Jig! We got her sorted in the end though!
I love the Feels Good stamp set, it has some lovely phrases and a nice font.
I think my page needs something else on the bottom left but I decided to leave it and come back to it at a later date when I have decided. You can always add extras to it but you cannot remove them once you have stuck them down!
Right I think another nap is in order as I am going out dancing tonight and I am not sure if I will stay awake let alone be able to dance!
Julie
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