Stampin' Up Demonstrator Michelle Last

More from convention in Frankfurt

 

This is the gift I gave my downline that attended convention.  I tried to put together some items that they might find useful such as hand cream, lip balm, some mints, a little bit of green and blacks chocolate as well as a post it note pad and also a notepad for taking notes during the classes.

These are all the winners of the incentive trip to Monaco in 2010, 15 of us all in total from the UK, Germany and France.

The beautiful bangle that Amanda Fowler made for the 3D swap

This beautiful box and heart made using Stampin Up supplies and my all time favourite the choc chip striped ribbon

Isn't this the most gorgeous bag, the very talented Jane Egan-Cresswell who so happens to be in my downline makes these bags, they are reversable and are just as gorgeous on the inside.

Check out her blog to see them in other colours and to order one....

These are my Stampin Up goodies including my swap bag, my label that Jane made for all the Pink ladies, the items from our make and take session and a wonderful colour resource we had the opportunity to stamp in the ink colours and also with the pens and cardstock.

Here are some of the beautiful card swaps I received.  They have been so helpful at my workshops as I have so many different styles of card samples to show my customers

And finally my certificates and awards

Thanks for looking x
 

 
 

 
 
  
 

Stampin Up Convention and loads more......

Are you sitting comfortably as this could take some time.......

I had the MOST amazing weekend at the Stampin Up convention in Frankfurt, Germany.  I met some truly wonderful people and received some awards too which was the icing on the cake.  All I can say to other demo's or potential demo's out there is how ever you have to do it - MAKE SURE YOU GO ALONG TO NEXT YEARS CONVENTION which is to be held in LONDON.  Beg, steal or borrow (or even save) as myself and everyone else I have spoken to have come home buzzing, completely inspired and with a bag full of beautiful card swaps and free stamps as well as all the gorgeous items given to us by Stampin Up.  I have lots of photo's and loads of journalling so brace yourselves.

I was blessed that 5 of my lovely downline also came along with me but I had only previously met Carole so it was a complete treat to spend some time with all of you and get to know you much much better.  I wish all of my downline could have come and I will be begging all of them to come along next year and don't fret I will be sending an email to my downline ladies who couldn;t make it, with a breakdown of all the info and make and take instruction as well as a few of the beautiful card swaps I received.  If you want to be part of my team you have the next 24 hours to get the starter kit at a discount of 10% (£125 instead of £139) so call me today 01296 715787.

I am a prolific journaller, so feel free to skip this bit.......

I met Peg in my downline for the first time in the departure lounge at Birmingham airport on Thursday am.  We chatted the whole flight and it was the best flight I have taken in a long time as time flew by so quickly - quite literally!! Whilst waiting at the train station in Frankfurt Sarah called me to say she was waiting for the train too and was standing about 50 yards away from us.  She was a great navigator to the hotel and before long we were all unpacked and I got to meet Jane my roomie for the weekend.  She is another of my downline I hadn't met before and we hit it off right away.  She has a wicked sense of humour and loved to wind the other girls up about promotion gifts I had given or rather had not given her but I got my own back on her - all I will say is peanuts but I can't reveal all otherwise you will think I am a real meanie!!  Jane also had some other SU friends that joined us over the weekend and it was a real pleasure to spend some time with Debbi, Helen and Shirley.  What great girls and I really hope to see more of you all again really soon.

Jane and I foolishly slept a little later on Friday morning which didn't have anything to do with us talking till 2am.  What we didn't realise was that we were missing out on all the Stampin Up excitement where ladies were signing in and receiving their convention bags, swapping cards and also stamping a great little resource to show all the ink colours and card.  This can be found in the demo website under  My Business Resources/Printing place called Colour Chart.  We managed to get caught up and get some lovely swaps before the first session started with a talk from Shelli as well as other members of the Stampin Up team.  Shelli is such a warm and genuine person and we all envied the beautiful relationship she has with her husband Sterling.  Charlotte did some demos and showed us some great ideas and which are shown in the photos below.  Dave who is the Vice President of the International side talked us through the figures and the growth we have achieved in Europe which is nothing short or remarkable.  We then have some workshop wows from Monica, Jenni & Emilie who are all top demo in their respective countries and I will definitely be sharing these techniques in my up and coming workshops so thank you ladies.

Amanda Fowler then did a workshop for us on stage showing us all the things to remember whilst holding our own workshops.  This was one of the most useful sessions at the event and I think everyone learnt something but generally we all learnt lots of things - well done Amanda you were amazing.  We then had some time to relax and prepare for the awards dinner on Friday evening.  Jane and I popped out for a little retail therapy.  I was flagging at this point and needed sugar.  We cut it fine to get ready for the event and thankfully no one was filming Jane, Sarah and I trying to get me into my dress.  We did try to pin my dress so that I wasn't showing any underwear but by the end of the night I was far too relaxed and glad it was over to care - I am sure there is a photo or two out there of me looking very relaxed so I will apologise now :-). 

I was so thrilled to be awarded for my efforts over the last year and I got the opportunity to grace the stage three times, firstly for sales over £10K, secondly for being in the Top 25 demo's in the UK, I was ranked 6th which I am so chuffed with, in fact I haven't stopped smiling about the weekend and my pinny is weighed down with badges now!  And finally the last trip on stage was with my fellow demo's that also earned the incentive trip to Monaco.  There are going to be 15 of us lucky demo's from UK, France and Germany and they are all such a lovely bunch and I am so looking forward to spending sometime with the all next June - I really cannot wait and double bonus, we get to meet Shelli again.

The top 3 demo's from each country all won cash prizes for all their hard work and it was so well deserved so well done Monica, Julie and Amanda.  I must also congratulate Jenny Moors for selling over £25K worth of product in one year alone!!  In my opinion the best prize of the night went to Jacqueline Siedel who won the 'Heart of Stampin Up' award which is award by fellow demonstrators to someone who shows extraordinary kindness, dedication, generosity, or a willingness to serve others.  The winner from Germany received a gold heart necklace embellished with a diamond, she was absolutely thrilled and emotional and she is coming to Monaco with us so I will look forward to getting to know her some more.

Sunday morning started with make and takes and it was so nice to be crafting although I stole a little of the time to take my swaps to anyone who I hadn't had a chance to meet and if they had run out of swaps I was offering 'gives' as I really didn't want to take them home again on the flight.  It was a great opportunity to meet demo's from Germany and France who were all so friendly and spoke perfect English (thank goodness).  It was my absolute pleasure to meet Andrea  from Germany as we have spoken via email whilst checking out each others blogs.  She is such a sweet and warm lady and I left Frankfurt with so many new friends.

We had a leisurely lunch with a little bit of drama thrown in from the poor Carole who is an absolute star as she is allergic to nuts and wasn't aware that the muffin had nuts in the centre.  Chris to the rescue and Carole with a glass full of ice and all was well.

Finally the afternoon session started and Shelli and Pam delighted us with some of the projects they made, what really talented ladies there both are.  The GORGEOUS Paula took to the stage and gave a heart warming speech to remind us why we create beautiful cards and to remember the gift of giving,  Unfortunately Peg and I missed the last hour as we had to sneak out for our flight but the girls kept us informed about the location of the next convention by text and I think I forgot to mention that the Incentive trip for 2011 is in Prague.  So you have loads of time to strive for the incentive trip, I know I will be doing everything I can to get there and also hope to have some of my ladies from my team to come along too.

I want to say a BIG thank you to Chris, Eileen, Paula, Charlotte, Mirko, Silvana as well as all the contingent from the US for making the weekend so amazing.  I truly didn't want it to end and wouldn't hesitate in recommending it to anyone for future years.

Now for the photo's

Me and my downline (The Pink Ladies) from left to right - Rose, Sarah, Me, Jane, Carole and Peg

Me with Shelli (the co-founder of Stampin' Up)

Me and Chris and Me and Eileen

     Gosh I look tired!

The promotional Stampin Up products available to purchase from the demo website shortly -

  

 
 

Debbi, Me and Jane

Shirley and Rose

Rose and Carole

Peg and Helen (the birthday girl)

Helen and Sarah

Thanks for a great few days ladies x

And finally as if the last few days have been wonderful enough a friend emailed me this morning to tell me my craft space is featured on the blog called Crafty Storage, thanks for letting me know Nicole x

 
 
 
   

Gift Giving Guide and off to convention.....

Hi ladies,

There is a great offer from Stampin Up, if you purchase £45 worth of any items from the Gift Giving Guide below you get a free tag punch free of charge, which would be perfect for Christmas.  You can choose the large or small tag punch and if you purchase £90 worth of items from the guide you could have both!  The offer runs from 1 November - 29 December 09.  Please contact me if you would like to place an order.  Follow this link to the SU website for more information.

I am flying of to Frankfurt tomorrow for the annual Stampin Up convention.  My posh frock it packed for the awards dinner and all the little gift packages for the members of my team attending are in my suitcase too.  I will post photo's on my return but I don;t want to spoil the surprise.

I have been so busy making 180 swaps and hope that I have done enough, can;t wait to meet all the other demo's there from UK, France and Germany and also meet Shelli the co-founder and CEO.

I am sure we will have a great time and I will be back Saturday with lots of photo's to post so I hope to see you then x

Happy Halloween

I adore halloween and even though my children are getting older we still carve pumpkins and welcome trick or treaters.  Here is a little display of all things Halloween.  The pumpkin card in the middle was made by one of my most favourite Stampin Up customers, Tomoe.  When she places an order with me she sends it in the post with a beautifully made card and look what turned up this week, the most beautiful halloween card I have ever seen.

And an order too, what could be better?  Thank you Tomoe x

We also have a very cute pet hamster called Pumpkin and it seemed wrong to leave it out of the photo shoot so here she is with her little pumpkin stalk hat that Amy made, cute eh!?  Our hamster also loves pumkin seeds that have been dried in the oven.

And also finally Amy made this pumkin out of a full un-rolled roll of toilet paper.  She wrapped orange paper round it and tucked it in the tube at the top.  She then rolled some brown felt for a stalk and cut out a leaf pattern and attached a pipe cleaner so that she could fix the shape.  A great idea if you don't have any pumpkins for this evening.

Enjoy your evening and I hope you don't get any tricks.....
 

Some Christmas Cards and Christmas Shopping Notebook

It's not like me to be organised and it's still not like me to be organised as these are the first contributions to Christmas I have made so far this year.  Us card makers are supposed to be organised and happily making Christmas cards in the summer - but not me!!  I will be frantically making my cards after the last posting date, stressed to the eyeballs which is as much part of my Christmas traditions as decorating the tree.  I really love the Notebook in the middle which was made using the new Stampin Up Christmas Jungle Simply Scrappin kit.  I still have loads of supplies left over and so will make some other items using this kit and show you more photo's of the inside once I have lots of items to show you.

The Christmas cards I made were made using the basic black, whisper white, old olive cardstock, old olive patterns paper and vellum.  I really loved the colour scheme and tried to steer away from the traditional red and green combo.  The snowflake stamp is from the Winter Post set which is £23.95
and for me the cherry on the top is the most gorgeous ribbon I have ever seen!  It's the new striped grosgrain ribbon, 1 1/4" wide and £8.95 for 9.1m so less than £1 per metre.  It comes in pumpkin pie  (perfect for Halloween), Chocolate Chip, Basic Black and Old Olive.  I guarantee that you will be the ribbon lots more on my blog and I am sad enough to choose my Christmas wrapping paper to compliment the ribbon :-).

Have a great weekend and thank for stopping by....

Become a new demonstrator and join my team......

Welcome to all my ladies and if you joined my team which free stamp set would you choose?

The starter kit you will be receiving will be sent out this week to you as I am just waiting for the last of the patterned paper so that I can send a sample keyring of all the paper for your reference. 

If you join my team this month you can choose any free stamp set of your choice to the value of £25.  You will also receive a punch template, keyring of all cardstock and a keyring of all the patterned paper and some little thank you's from me.

Would you like to own all the ink pads and the storage caddy for all the inks??  I am looking for 3 more members of my Ink Pad Club.  You will find all the details here and I am looking for three more members of the club which will run for 10 months. If you already have a few of the ink pads I can substitute the ones you already have for other items of your choice.

PS I still have some catalogues at the special offer price of £3.75 inc p&p and you could find a little coupon book inside to make your purchases all the sweeter. 

Email me on michelle@cbdesign.org.uk

  

New Catalogue is on-line and FOCUS ON...... Window Sheets

Well the 1st October has finally arrived and the new catalogue is available to view on-line here  but if you are finding it hard to see the images properly then I still have lots of copies of the catalogues here looking for new homes.  They are £2.50 each + £1.25 postage email me if you would like one michelle@cbdesign.org.uk

I am loving some of the new products in the catalogue and have been playing today with the window sheets.  And here is what I made

I made some little windows in the front of the cards and then used some of the medium window sheets to make a see through window so that you can see an image or sentiment on the inside of the card.  The window sheets are £4.75 for 2 sheets of 12x12 and I just adore them.  Ihave lots more ideas for using them and will post more images once I get a chance to craft again.

Here are some close ups and the supplies used...

Front view (my favourite card of the day :-))

Inside View Supplies used - Barouque Motifs Stamp set £24.95, Frames with a Flourish £32.95 and the flower is from the new Level 2 Hostess set.  Old Olive Ink, Versamark and Gold Embossing Powder £3.25 and Peace Love & Joy is from Occasional Greetings £26.95  The cardstock is Whisper White, Old Olive and Going Gray.

This is the front view of the second card

This is the inside view and the supplies used - Real Red Card, whisper white and going gray cardstock.  versamark, gold embossing powder £3.25 and black embossing powder £3.25, real red ink and real red ribbon.  Window Sheets (medium) and the stamp sets used were Tree trimmings £10.95 and Frames with a Flourish £32.95.  I used a previous hostess set for the sentiment (I couldn't part with that one).

The supplies used here were Olid Olive, real red and whisper white cardstock.  Stamps - Barouque Motifs £24.95, Frames with a flourish £32.95 and the sentiment is from Old Fashioned Christmas £24.95.  The flower and leaf are also from the Level 2 hostess stamp set.  I used gold elastic cord £3.50, versarmark, gold embossing powder and Basic Black Ink.  I love the christmas wishes font!

Hope you like them x

Old Olive and Lovely Lilac what a lovely combination

I needed some cards for some birthdays I have coming up next week and quickly rustled up this cute bunch of cards.  I did my usual 10.5cmx10.5cm square card which is one of my favourites and then had some odd rectangle cards left over which I just made up really simply as I always need a quick thank you card or notelet.  I can then add a sentiment as needed.

I tied the ribbon on the top left card to look like a pressie, i am not sure it worked but I liked the effect anyway.  I used the perfect paisley stamp from Stampin up and embossed it with black embossing powder as per my previous post and managed two get 5 cards out of two paisley stamped backgrounds, pretty good going!

Below is a scrapbook page I made recently.  When I was clearing out my craft room the other weekend (you saw the pictures but let me tell you it doesn't look like that now!) I came across a note that my daughter Amy had written in 2004.  She was 5 1/2 at the time and is now 11 and I just melted when I read it.  I do keep everything (that's the scrapbooker in me) and instead of tucking away in a treasure box somewhere I was determined to put it on a layout.  Anyone who knows me knows that I also love to journal so I put fingers to keyboard and wrote the journalling.  There was so much that I had to create a pocket to fit it in.  I am so pleased to be back scrapbooking again as its been so long since I have had the time and I must do more.

PS I love the way she signed it from Amy Last - so sweet.

 

Don't forget to check out Lousette's blog tonight click here at midnight you could win Stampin Up prizes during the Blog Hope Challenge - good luck x 

Stampin' Up Blog Hop Challenge

It's nearly here - the new catalogue launch from Stampin Up.  From the 1st October you will be able to view the on-line catalogue at the Stampin Up website and it is packed full or gorgous product with some very welcome additions.

Now Stampin Up have invited some inpartial ladies who are already very sucessful bloggers and crafters to receive some of the new products from the catalogue and see what they create.  An old friend Lousette has asked me to let you know about it as it will be a great opportunity for you to see what you can make with some new products and inspire you to do the same.  Lousette's blog is here and go to her blog from 12 o'clock pm and you might also be able to bag yoruself some prizes.

I will definitely be blog hopping, why not join us??

If you would like your own copy of the catalogue then email me and I will post one out to you by first class post.  If you sign up to any of my hostess/marker or ink pad clubs you will receive a copy absolutely free. 

See you at the blog hop x 

New Stampin UP Catalogue anyone?????

Guess what I have here waiitng patiently to go to a good home?  Yes, that's right lots of lovely new 09/10 Stampin Up catlaogues.  They are not officially released until 1st October but I pre-ordered lots and they arrived on Friday.  If you would like one I am selling that at £2.50 + £1.25 postage which means you pay £3.75 instead of the usual cover price of £4.95. 

As a thank you I am also enclosing a little voucher booklet to use on any orders and am happy to send out by first class post as soon as you say the word. 

So email me on michelle@cbdesign.org.uk or call me  on 01296 715787 to reserve your copy.  I can take a card payment securely over the phone or send me your paypal address and I will forward a paypal invoice for £3.75.

You could be one of the firs to get your hands on the new goodies!!

I am also looking for ladies to join my new Ink Pad Club.  If you would like to own all the 50 ink pads and the gorgeous colour caddy to store them in then this would be perfect for you as you can spread the cost and recive all the hostess benefits at the same time.

Here is how

There are two choices

5 ladies for 5 months at £52.49 per month +5% = £55.12 = 10 ink pads a month and on your hostess month you would receive FREE catalogue, £25 worth of goods of your choice from the catalogue and Level 1 Hostess Set AND your own COLOUR CADDY to keep your stamps in.

OR

10 ladies for 10 months at £26.25 per month + 5% = £27.56  = 5 ink pads a month and on your hostess month you would receive FREE catalogue, £25 worth of goods of your choice from the catalogue and Level 1 Hostess Set AND your own COLOUR CADDY to keep your stamps in

Please contact me to register your interest and once I have enough ladies to start I will contact you again and check you still

would like to join in.

I hope to hear from you xx