If I had a dollar for every time I have heard, "Oh, I could never do what you do", in relation to me being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I probably wouldn't have to sell anymore stamps!

So many people say this to me, and yet, what I do is not hard. What I do is fun!

And what I do is flexible - that's the whole idea of a direct sales business, you fit it in around your whole lifestyle - do classes and parties when and if you can, or just buy for yourself and get the discount, or work your butt off and get the incentive trip! You make it whatever works for you and your family.

And just in case you still think you can't do what I do . . . I bet you can!

See what I did there?

Yes, even after 20+ years of stamping, I still managed to drop an open inkpad face down right in the middle of what I had just stamped!

YES! You CAN do what I do! Anyone can! LOL

And just to show you how easy it CAN be to be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and put yourself out there in the community - take what I did a fortnight ago which was just the loveliest experience and so easy!

Check out my display.

Seven Inkpads, three stamp sets, a plastic stand from Officeworks with some catalogues in it, a 6x6 album with stamping techniques in it, a card tree with half a dozen finished cards, a basket of cards for sale, a cute, eye-catching prize, my silk banner on the front of the table and my large free standing banner behind me. 

One small scrapbook trolley with wheels to bring it in, and one very lightweight, compact bag with the standing banner rolled up in it. So easy! Lots of great feedback from expo attendees about how great it looked, lots of fantastic conversations with all sorts of women from my local community.

You CAN do what I do!

If you have been holding off joining Stampin' Up! because you don't think you can do what I do, and you want to learn everything first, be reassured that as a team leader with Stampin' Up! if you join my team, I will help you with whatever I can in any way you need. The Aussie Inkpressionist Stampin' team has fantastic resources for helping you learn all about stamping, all about how to do a market stall or a workshop or class, we have opportunities that you can get on board with other team members to learn how to grow your business, we have team night where we get together and stamp!  

We share our projects, ideas and inspiration on an active Facebook group, and have all sorts of get togethers during the year to help each other make cards and be inspired. We even have a weekend retreat coming up in September!

If you join before the end of March, you can select a massive $295 worth of fabulous Stampin' Up! products in your starter kit for just $169. That's $126 of extras!! Wow!

Got your wishlist written already? Sign up by clicking the button below!

If you would like help with selecting starter kit items I have created three really awesome starter kit product suggestion lists, just for you! Decide if you want Basic Stamping Tools, a Big Shot Kit or a Project Life kit. Enter your email address below to have all three lists emailed to you to browse through!

A Blog Hop with ESAD

I can't believe there is just one week left of Sale-a-bration 2016. The Sale-a-bration gifts this year have been so much fun to create with! Even though it's sad that Sale-a-bration is coming to an end, it is a real pleasure to get out some of my crafty items and do some creating, and it's even more of a pleasure to use my favourite Sale-a-bration gift this year and show you what I have been creating with it.

If you have just started blog surfing here, you may not know that I am participating in a blog hop tonight with ESAD.

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and is a Facebook group just for Australian and New Zealand Independent Stampin' Up! demonstrators.

We love what we do & love to share with our customers, friends and blog visitors. We also share what we love in our ESAD Demonstrator community, through swaps, challenges, sharing knowledge, ideas & friendship and we're always there to help and support each other.

So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand then please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address then I'll contact you with information on how to join our group.

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My most loved Sale-a-bration product has been the WILDFLOWER FIELDS DESIGNER SERIES PAPER.

I can't get enough of this paper, have used it heaps and when we talked about this blog hop, I definitely wanted to pull out the pretty designs, patterns and colours in this paper and play with it some more.

For those who follow my blog or Pinterest boards, you will know that I have been making of lot of cute little bags with matching note cards in them. These were originally inspired by an awesome YouTube video by Caroline Hallet - a talented demonstrator from the UK. I have made stacks of them now on various themes and colour schemes.

Here is what I created for the blog hop.

My sister and I both love teapot and cup stamps and dies and when we saw CUPS 7 KETTLE FRAMELITS DIES in the current Occasions Catalogue, there was no doubt it was going to join my collection. I just love it so much with the Wildflower Fields Designer Series Paper.

The Calypso Coral Tea Pot and Old Olive Cup have been stamped using Thoughts and Prayers stamp set, heat embossed with Whisper White Embossing Powder. I haven't pulled out the Tea Lace Doilies for quite some time so it was lovely to add bits of them as finishing touches too.

Don't you think this would make a really cute gift for someone special?

Well, thanks for visiting me, now I better let you go and see what the rest of the crew have created to celebrate the tail end of Sale-a-bration. Click on her name to go to the next blog - that of lovely Nicole Wilson.

In case you get lost or the next link doesn't work, here are all the participants in the blog hop.

BLOG HOP PARTICIPANTS:

1. Emily Campbell

http://tinykiwicards.blogspot.com.au/

2. Rachael Lewsley - Party Pants & Metallics Glitter Tape

http://www.mystampinhaven.com.au/esad-sale-a-bration-2016-last-chance-blog-hop

3. Monique Fielder

http://stamping-with-moni-q.blogspot.com.au/

4. Kathryn Ruddick 

http://www.katlodesigns.com/stamping_with_kathryn_low/2016/03/last-days-to-sale-a-brate.html 

5. Nicole Wilson

http://nicolejuliewilson.blogspot.com/2016/03/2016-sale-bration-last-chance-blog-hop.html

6. Amity Knight

http://stampinamity.com.au/

7. Kelly Kent

http://mypapercraftjourney.com/2016/03/24/goodbye-sale-a-bration-2016-esad-blog-hop/

8. Lou Kitzelman

http://withabowontopbylou.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/2016-sale-bration-last-chance-blog-hop.html

9. Pauline Bennetts

http://paulinebennetts.com/stampede/

10. Narelle Fasulo

http://www.simplystampingwithnarelle.com/

11. Jackie Noble

http://www.creativejax.co.nz/blog/

12. Carly Middleton

https://cardsbycarly.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/2016-sale-a-bration-last-chance-blog-hop

13. Barbara Williams

https://stampingbarb.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/2016-sale-a-brat…-chance-blog-hop/

And now for something a little arty . . . 

Over the weekend I decided to run an (impromptu) "Virtual Party" for my team on our Secret Facebook Group. It was my birthday on Friday and my hubby had to go away for the weekend, so what better thing to do in the evening than spend a couple of hours (okay, okay, about 8 hours) in my stamping room with my team chatting online, and whipping up some creativity!

I posted an inspiration photo and a Crafty Bingo board image on the group and invited them if they didn't have any projects already on the go, to use the suggestions on the Bingo Board and/or the cute image for their inspiration to make something. The image of a very cute cake with bird and bow, came from a Facebook post with no reference or link to who the original cake decorator was.

Now, I do love a cute bird, and I think the colours in this image so match the Stampin' Up! colours and some of our current stamps and Designer Series Paper patterns.

I grabbed out a stack of supplies in these colours and patterns and whilst chatting to my team, asking them "Get to know you" type questions on the group and setting some challenges for them, I started thinking about how I could make an effective card with these products :

As it happens, because I was very much multi-tasking, I decided to pop over to my Pinterest boards and have a look through the projects there. Did you know I even have a Bird Projects board on Pinterest for just such a moment?

I love this cute bird by Martha Lever, so rather than trying to find a Stampin' Up! tool that I could use to cut out a bird, I decided to draw one by hand similar to this one. I love the sketchy black outline and the collage of images in different layers.

I pulled out several stamp sets including "By The Tide" for the seashell text stamp, "Tap Tap Tap" for the typewriter letters, "You are Remarkable" for the branches, "Butterfly Basics" for a bit of fernery. I also used sponge daubers, aqua wash pen, white gel pen, white embossing powder and Black Journalling pen.

I drew the bird onto the Blushing Bride floral print paper from the Subtles Paper Stack, hand cut it, then sponged it with Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo and Cherry Cobbler Inks.

I collage stamped the background images all over the 8" x 6" piece of Soft Sky floral print paper.

I watercoloured the leaves using Old Olive ink and the Aqua-wash pen, and sponged Lost Lagoon, Old Olive and Not Quite Navy over all of the images, leaving some lighter areas.

I stamped and heat embossed with white embossing powder, the sea shell text stamp from "By The Tide" onto the birds body twice. Love that effect!!

Then handwrote with black journalling pen the words around the edge from Victor Hugo :

"Be like the bird,

that pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight,

feels them give way beneath her, and sings . . .

knowing she hath wings."

My last step was to add a tiny touch of white gel pen to some of the leaves and the birds tail to bring back a little more light into the overall image, then looked around my room and by some sort of miracle saw this A4 document frame sitting on a shelf. Perfect!

I am so excited to have a new piece of art for the walls of my room. Funnily enough I have been carrying it from room to room throughout my house since Saturday night, so I can keep pausing and admiring it!

Do you ever do any collage stamping? I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below if you'd like to know more about the techniques used or perhaps attend a class on sponging and collage stamping.

See you soon with Ink on your Fingers (and there's plenty of that with sponging!).

Kathryn

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And just a reminder that the below Weekly Deals end on Tuesday night:

Clothespins [133764] $7.00 $5.25

Decorative Dots Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [133520] $13.00 $9.75

Eclectic Paper-Piercing Pack [133778] $14.00 $10.50

Floral Frames Framelits Die [127012] $45.00 $33.75

Hello Honey Classic Stampin' Pad [133643] $11.50 $8.63