Swaps and swapping

A big part of any Stampin' Up! event is 'swapping'. This is an exchange of cards (or card fronts, or other small 3D items) with other demonstrators at the event. We make as many as we want to of a design and swap them to receive the same number back. It's a great way to meet new people and share ideas and it's lots of fun!

I decided to create 100 swaps, and I wanted to add a little memento from Yorkshire - of course it had to be a teabag! So I made 100 mini envelopes to hold the teabags and a business card.

I packed all the bits ready to assemble once I got here to America and spent yesterday afternoon gluing the bellybands and adding the leaves.

It's highly unusual for me to have finished something a week in advance, I'm usually Mrs Last Minute!

I have used the Garden Impressions 6" by 6" paper stack, which was the perfect size to make the envelopes with the Envelope Punchboard and really bright and colourful. I used the stamp set Love What You Do for the sentiment and flower decoration, and die cut these with the Stitched Shapes framelits. Lastly, I used the Leaf Punch to add some foliage.

I'm looking forward to seeing the swaps I get back in exchange - of course I will share photos here next week!

Kylie x

Monthly Card Class - May

Here are the cards we made in May's monthly card class...

I didn't have a particular theme for this month's class, but as usual I wanted to showcase different stamps, accessories and techniques.

This card features the pretty Birthday Basic papers, and the Cupcake Builder Punch and Create a Cupcake stamp set. This stamp set is retiring at the end of June!

The crumb cake card is based on a design I found by a German demonstrator on her on her blog Stampin Club.  It uses one of the Gorgeous Grunge stamps to create a spritzed effect background, then we used washi tape and itty bitty  punched flowers to decorate. The sentiment is from Label Love.

A very simple but effective card and a favourite among the ladies at the class! The bow is made using the envelope punch board. There's loads of YouTube videos and tutorials out there for different ways to make bows if you want to google it, but I used this easy to follow tutorial for my bow.

Our fourth card was another simple but effective card using only 2 colours - Island Indigo and Soft Sky. The stamp is Flowering Flourishes - one of my favourites!

I host these regular classes on the second Thursday of every month at my house and they are becoming more and more popular. I have ladies who come every month and hate to miss one, and also I have new faces come along. Everyone is welcome and it's a really relaxed, friendly evening! See my classes and events page for details of upcoming classes.

Spring swaps

Ooops - it's been a while since my last post. Christmas and other things have got in the way of my aim to blog more regularly! However, I'm determined to kickstart my new crafting year with lots of interesting projects and exciting new Stampin' Up! products!

Today was our team's Quarterly Training Day in Pudsey, and as always there was plenty of crafting and inspiration, a raffle, great food and fab company! And as usual we all made swaps and spent the first few minutes exchanging projects with one another. I got some really lovely cards and gifts in exchange for mine, which were...

... treat boxes made using the envelope punchboard, and decorated with Sale-a-Bration products (more about that in a minute!).

I followed a video tutorial  by an American demonstrator Jen Arkfeld to learn how to make the boxes. Click here for the video. One you know the measurements they are very straightforward to make and I managed to cut, score, punch and assemble 20 of these in less than an hour.

To decorate I added some of the Sweet Sorbet Designer Series Paper - one of the free products you can choose with every £45 spend during Sale-a-Bration. The banner stamps and matching punch are also free items and I used these to make a colourful topper for the box.

So Sale-a-Bration - this is Stampin' Up!'s biggest annual promotion and it begins on Tuesday 1st February, lasting right up to 31st March. Between these dates there are brilliant incentives for customers, party hosts and their guests, and new demonstrators who sign up during the promotion. I'll add all the details to my blog on Tuesday!

Please come back here at 10am tomorrow to begin a Sale-a-Bration Blog Hop and you'll see a whole range of gorgeous creations from members of our team using the new freebie items!

Goodnight
Kylie x