I adore the Stampin' Up! Project Life card collections - the colours and themes are so lovely - it's that same feeling like when you walk into a stationery store and you want to breathe in the smell and touch all those beautiful rainbows of pens and papers - there's nothing like that slightly musty "tons of paper and dusty old shelves" smell, and the excitement of seeing all those colours!

You know what I mean don't you? LOL

My trouble is, I am not a BIG scrapbooker. Not that I don't want to, I've got tons of photos to scrapbook! It's just that I love cardmaking SO much, that I never prioritise my time to do the memory keeping!

However, that doesn't mean that I haven't collected squillions of the Project Life By Stampin' Up! (PLxSU!) kits! You know, those ones I am saving for that rainy day when I get around to printing all the photos and deciding to pop them in pockets in an album!

Anyway, recently I decided that I better do something about that and I pulled out a stack of tiny 2" x 2" PLxSU cards from the Hello December 2016 Project Life Accessory Pack and made them into cards! 

Yes!!! I know!! Unbelievable right??

I teamed the cards with the Stitched with Cheer stamp set from the same Holiday Catalogue, and used our Notecards & Envelopes to quickly whip up about 15 cards in just a couple of hours! (I made a hash of one, so it's not in the photo - just in case you think I can't count).

I love how quick and easy these were, and a wonderful way to show off the gorgeous theme in the Project Life cards and the stamp set!

If you have never sampled Stampin' Up! Project Life cards, the Hello December 2016 Collection is a great way to give it a try - much smaller set of cards, beautiful accessories - document your December, or do what I did and whip up some Christmas cards!

Buy it online by clicking here or on the photo above.

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We are still relaying stories of our wonderful weekend stamping retreat at the end of September. It was such a wonderful get away for 25 of our fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators, to get to know each other, to be inspired by each other to get a stack of cardmaking and scrapbooking done! Can't wait for the next one now, it was just SO good!

One of the things we organised - thanks to my lovely fellow demonstrator Michelle Corbett, bringing along a shoebox full of cut and stamped bits that were leftover from unfinished projects, was a THREE PIECE CHALLENGE

We spread all the pieces over a table and each participant came along and selected just THREE pieces, and the objective was sometime over the weekend they had to make a finished project incorporating the three pieces. We got them to take a photo of the three pieces first, then when they had finished, they lined their finished project up alongside all the others on the table.

The variety was amazing! There were gift bags, straight cards, fancy fold cards, gift boxes! Such talent!

Here's mine!

I loved the colours in the retired Designer Series Paper tag and could definitely see them teaming with the butterflies. After thinking about it for a while, I felt it deserved a fancy fold card, so I settled on a Centre-Step-Card.

And the fantastic thing about being on a weekend stamping retreat is that you are with 25 other ladies who all brought along CAR LOADS of stamps - some of which you may not own! Like this one!

I borrowed Paisleys & Posies from Michelle to complete my card. Paisleys & Posies is an 18 piece photopolymer stamp set which is in the current Stampin' Up! Holiday catalogue, complete with matching Paisley Framelits, Pretty Paisley Embossing Folder and gorgeous Petals & Paisley Specialty Designer Series Paper.

You can view the whole product suite byclicking here or on the photo above.

This was a really great challenge, everyone enjoyed it and we were all "wow-ed" by each others creations.

We will be running two retreats next year - one for our stamping clients and another one for our team members. Be sure to ask us how you can attend.

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Welcome to our International Project Highlights using current Stampin' Up!® Products. We have created this gallery of projects to inspire you!

We would love it if you could visit every one of our blogs and see a close up of our projects. You can see the gallery below and this will be on every blog that you click on so you will never be lost.

At my team night last week, I asked the girls if they wanted to work on Christmas, Halloween or One Sheet Wonder projects. There were a couple of votes for Halloween - and I think that's because Halloween just isn't big in Australia, so if we are going to have half a catalogue full of Halloween images, then we need all the inspiration we can get in order to use those stamps!

My lovely team member Michele brought along her Cookie Cutter Halloween stamp set, then Jenny, Alisha, Heidi, Michelle, Michele and I decided to use the mummy stamp to make some get well cards after seeing one that was pinned on Pinterest by Peggy Melott. 

I love how these came up, and as Michelle stamped a few extra mummies for me, I decided to come up with another one.

I used the papers from the "A Little Foxy" Designer Series Paper stack, teaming it with Calypso Coral and Pool Party card stock. The greeting stamp is from Thoughts and Prayers stamp set.

Isn't that cute?

Thanks for visiting our blogs today, there are so many amazing ideas and inspiration you don't want to miss. We know that you will love our gallery of projects made by Stampin' Up!® demonstrators from around the world!

Stampin' Up! Merry Mice Gift Bag of Cards

During the recent school holidays I hosted a class of 10 and 12 year olds who made a cute gift bag with three matching cards inside.

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the cute Designer Series Paper Bag-in-a-box gift bags that my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator in the UK, Caroline Hallet created a great video for.  I have made heaps of them now with all different themes and styles.

For the class, I decided to use up some of last year's Designer Series Paper Christmas patterns - because I hadn't met any of the girls before, and wasn't sure how they would go, and since I had a fair bit of this paper, I could cut extras. I love the size of these bags, because you get 3 bags per 12 x 12" sheet of paper.

We stamped the images just in Black Stazon Ink and added labels in Cherry Cobbler.

Because the class was just for two hours, this is as far as we got, and the girls were instructed they could either colour the images themselves at home, or they could give them as a "Colouring In" gift to a friend.

They liked this idea!

Later on, I came back and coloured mine and sent them photos on their phone.

In keeping with the very simple style of the cards, I limited the colouring to just three colours - Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green and Marina Mist, all applied with Blender Pens.

They really are very sweet, right?

The Merry Mice stamp set is available in Stampin' Up! quality red rubber in the wood mount or clear mount.

You can find it in our online shop buy clicking on the image below.

Don't forget to check out my classes and events for everything that is happening in fourth term, in the lead up to Christmas. The link is at the top of my blog.

See you soon!

Kathryn Ruddick

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When I first saw the Merry Mice stamp set in the 2016 Holiday Catalogue, I was very taken with it, but hesitated to order it because I didn't think I would really use it that much.

BOY!! Was I wrong!

I love this stamp set and have used it heaps!

I was the co-host of a Stampin' Retreat towards the end of September, and one challenge we offered all the guests was to borrow my Merry Mice stamp set and make a card to donate to the Ronald MacDonald House Charities which Stampin' Up! supports. We thought maybe 5 or 6 of the ladies would take part in the challenge. Wrong again! Everyone made a Mice card, and some ladies made more than one! This is one I made and I cased the sample that is actually in the Holiday Catalogue.

I just think those mice at too cute - and I love how the still say "Christmas" even when they are not coloured in all traditional colours.

I then re-created this card, with a stepped up version. I love this one!

See how it is exactly the same layout (page map) of the card, but I have added lots of extra layers?

So firstly I added a layer of Designer Series Paper to the base card, then I have added Basic Grey and Real Red card stock layers behind the image and the greeting. I think this is so cute! I might have to keep this one for myself!

The colouring on this one is done with blender pens, and I have used Real Red, Old Olive and Smoky Slate inks.

The following week I had a School Holiday class where the girls created a gift bag and 3 note cards with Merry Mice. I'll be back soon to show you those!

Buy Merry Mice Stamp Set by clicking on the shopping cart button!

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Christmas in July Event

Just letting you know I have done a big update to my class and event calendar today!

You can see all the details by clicking on the picture below, and scrolling through October, November and December.

Most classes are held in my purpose designed classroom at the rear of my home in Croydon North, and while we can seat up to 12, we usually keep it nice and small 5-6 so it's manageable.  Please RSVP on the website or by sending me a message. Most classes need to be pre-booked so kits can be prepared or ordered.

Hey everybody,

World Card Making Day really snuck up on us this year, particularly being on the same day as the AFL grand final. We are not huge footy fans in our house, but when a team sneaks into the top eight, who hasn't won a Grand Final since 1954, and they get through all the finals, and you live in Melbourne and your husband's step-father is a big Doggie's fan, you've kind of got to get involved!

So World Card Making Day came and went . . . And the Doggies won the Grand Final in a very exciting close game!

However, the awesome surprise promotion that Stampin' Up! put on for World Card Making Day wasn't limited to Saturday, it actually runs for 5 days and so it is still on until 11.59pm tomorrow (Wednesday).

There are only a few items on the sale, but they are ALL awesome! And I just wanted to point a couple of them out and see if I can't entice you!

First is the Designer Tin Of Cards Kit. - watch this Watch Now

This is a brilliant kit, containing all the materials for 16 completed cards - 4 each of 4 designs. I love this kit so much that I am willing to offer a free class voucher (for assembling the kit) to anyone who purchases it while the promotion is still running. We will organise a date and get together to make up the cards in the kit.

The kit is normally $47.00 but during the promotion it is just $35.25 which works out at just over $2.20 per card.

There is also a separate 33 piece photo-polymer stamp set which co-ordinates with the kit. The very versatile stamp set is just $45.00 and would be very useful for a whole heap of other cards, not just for assembling the kit.

Also in the World Card Making Day special is Fast Fuse Tape with a free refill.

If you've been stamping with me lately, you'll have seen that this is now my GO TO adhesive.

Now that I've worked out how to use it, I love it's super sticking power and I think it's fantastic that the refill is 20m instead of just 12m like the original and the Snail and Snail Refill.

The Fast Fuse is normally $13, and the refill is $11. During the special, order a Fast Fuse and get a refill free! How awesome is that??

Actually, I'm so in love with this kit and the Fast Fuse that not only will I offer a free class to anyone ordering the kit, if you order all three items (Designer Tin of Cards, Tin of Cards Stamp Set AND Fast Fuse - with free refill), I will give you free postage AND a Stampin' Up! photopolymer Angel Policy Stamp from the "Better Than Email" Stamp Set to stamp the backs of your cards with. Total cost is $93.25, postage is normally $5.95 and the Angel Policy stamp is worth $2.33.

If you message me (via Facebook - www.facebook.com/katlodesigns ) or send an email to [email protected] that you would like to take up the offer, and can phone me with your credit card details during the day tomorrow, then I will make sure these items are delivered to your door with free postage!

But, I need to hear from you and confirm your credit card details before the sale ends tomorrow - and given that we normally go to bed relatively early, don't ring me after 9pm!

Don't forget - Buy the Kit, get a voucher for a free class where we can all sit and assemble our kits, using my extra supplies.

Buy the Kit, Stamp Set and Fast Fuse with free refill and get free postage and an extra "Copyright" stamp for stamping the backs of your cards.

Email or message me in the next 23 hours!