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October 2017

September 2017

World Card Making Day

This year the world celebrates the day on 7 October, but one day wasn’t enough for Stampin' Up!

For ten days (1–10 October), you get 15% off Notecards & Envelopes and select stamp sets. Also, when you buy Fast Fuse Adhesive, you’ll get two refills for FREE! These items will help you celebrate the best hobby of all—cardmaking!

Get 15% off these Note Cards & Envelopes and stamp sets:

ITEM DESCRIPTION COORDINATING DESIGNER SERIES PAPER ON SALE IN OCTOBER TOO!
131527 (Whisper White)/ 144236 (Very Vanilla) Note Cards & Envelopes  
143931 (W)/ 143934 (C) Just Add Text Just Add Color Specialty Designer Series Paper
143669 Daisy Delight Delightful Daisy Designer Series Paper
143660 Birthday Delivery Birthday Memories Designer Series Paper
143650 (W)/ 143655 (C) Merry Mistletoe Be Merry Designer Series Paper
143840 (W)/ 143843 (C) Pieces & Patterns Pick A Pattern Designer Series Paper
143677 Coffee Café Coffee Break Designer Series Paper
143937 (W)/ 143940 (C) Oh So Eclectic Naturally Eclectic Designer Series Paper
143799 (W)/ 143802 (C) Lots Of Love Whole Lot Of Lovely Designer Series Paper
143846 (W)/ 143849 (C) Graceful Garden Petal Garden Designer Series Paper
143726 Colorful Seasons Color Theory Designer Series Paper
143925 (W)/143928 (C) Wood Words Wood Textures Designer Series Paper
144807 Brightly Lit Christmas Christmas Around The World Designer Series Paper

 

Plus, buy Fast Fuse Adhesive (item 129026) and get TWO Fast Fuse Adhesive Refills for FREE!

WCMD STAMPS 1

WCMD STAMPS 2

WCMD FAST FUSE


Free Bling!

Announcement-megaphone-1140x641

ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Feeling a bit sad because I have the flu and had to postpone tonight's Stamp Club. I was really looking forward to sharing some Christmas projects with the ladies tonight . . . .
AND I'm now less than $500 away from Advancing in my Stampin' Up! title from Gold to Gold Elite, so I was really kind of hoping that my Stamp Club orders would help me to reach that goal by the end of this week! Advancing in title will give me another much needed 5,000 points towards the Alaskan Cruise Incentive Trip. With Stamp Club postponed . . . it's really taking that points tally down to the wire.
So, I don't want to wait!! Can you please help me?

If you have been thinking of putting in a Stampin' Up! product order, can you put it through tonight, or can I help you put it through tomorrow?
If you order online at www.kathrynruddick.stampinup.net  
 please use the Hostess Code YZJ3GE9E so you can receive an extra freebie from me, and as an added bonus, every single person who orders $50 of product (that's the usual Stamp Club monthly commitment) will receive a bonus bottle of Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds Glitter (worth $8.75), and every person placing an $100 product order will also receive a lovely sparkly Wink of Stella Glitter Pen (valued at $11.50).
I'll be here on my laptop waiting to hear from you if you need help with your order - just don't ring me because I don't have any voice!

Dazzling Diamonds   Wink of Stella pen

 


Sewing, mending, costume making?

Today I am appealing to all of my friends and family, who like me, grew up in a family where you learned to sew a button back on, you learned to stitch a fallen hem back into place, you mended the holes worn in the knees of jeans. You stitched teddy's ear or arm back on and you stitched the lace back on dolly's dress when the manufacturer's glue gave way.

Sewing Box 2

If you had that kind of mother/grandmother/favourite aunty influence in your life, then like me, somewhere in your house - likely the laundry cupboard, or maybe in the bottom of the linen cupboard where the sewing machine is stored, you also have a mending box, whether its a traditional old style sewing box filled with tangled embroidery threads and buttons that came off long forgotten shirts or dresses, scraps of bric a brac and old quilt fabrics, pins, a needle threader, maybe even a thimble . . . 

Or you might have one of those streamlined, every coloured cotton under the sun cheap plastic mending kits that you can get in the supermarket - usually in the same aisle as the washing powders and the ironing aid (the what?? yes, I know!!).

Mending Kit

Pretty funky!

Maybe like me, you are the blending of a couple of household's and you have one of each style!

And like me, I bet you absolutely hate those cheap nasty plastic scissors with the round blunt end that come in the supermarket kit and don't cut anything, and also like me, I bet you are constantly frustrated when you go to your "good" sewing box, to get out your "good" scissors, because you need something fine and sharp . . . 

and THEY'RE NOT THERE!!!!

Because somebody borrowed them and nobody knows who, and somebody forgot to put them back and nobody can find them! Aaaaagggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I know that you know what I'm talking about! And if you do find them, they're either in little Johnny's crayon box all gunked up with some gluey stuff that's going to take a whole bottle of Eucalyptus oil to remove, OR, they are on the potting shelf near the shed and have been used to open several bags of potting mix because they're nice and sharp, right? Not anymore!

And like me, you go back and use the cheap nasty plastic scissors in the plastic mending kit, and you hack your way through the ribbon or the thread or the lace fraying the edges and sigh and say, "One day I will get a new pair of nice scissors for my sewing box . . . "

Today I am here to save you!!

It's time! And it's so easy - you don't even have to get in the car and drive to the shop!

You know that I am a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, and that Stampin' Up! sells a vast array of rubber stamping, cardmaking and scrapbooking supplies? Well, guess what? We also sell a super nice, very fine, very sharp pair of scissors!

Paper Snips

If you live in Australia and order these online from me, Australia Post will deliver them to your preferred address. They have thin, precision-ground stainless steel tips,  2-1/2" (6.4 cm) blades and include a safety cover for the blades.

Now you know you definitely want a pair for your sewing box, and if you are still helping younger ones with school projects, cutting and pasting pictures out of magazines to illustrate their projects, fussy cutting flowers, butterflies, motorbikes to adorn their school book covers, then you know you definitely need a second pair so you have one for threads, ribbon and lace, and one for paper!

And while we are talking about sticking pictures on projects, tell me about the state of the gluepots in your house?

I am traditionally a hoarder of glue. Especially white PVA liquid and woodworking glue. Every brand under the sun, every different size and shape bottle, cos you never know when you're going to need it . . . and all of them, clagged up at the top or congealed or separated. I did a clean up of our laundry cupboard not so long ago.  Maybe I kept one or two (Ssshhhhh!!) but I threw out a stack! They were useless!

Is it time you did a throw out? You know you are never going to get around to hacking those bottle in half with a knife and scooping out the glue to use up that way, don't you?

Stampin' Up! has a fantastic white liquid glue, in a bottle with a super fine tip so you can just get a tiny amount - and that's all you need. It's great for paper, felt, craftwood, buttons, feathers, card, egg carton dinosaurs, sequins . . . while you are ordering your one or two pairs of Stampin' Up! Papersnips, why not get a nice fresh easy to use liquid glue too?

Tombow Liquid Glue

Why am I appealing to my non-stamping, non-cardmaking friends and family today?

Well, my lovely stamping customers have been amazingly supportive, and over the years they have bought a lot of supplies from me, and still do so with my monthly classes, stamp club and other events. This month (September) is the last month of the Stampin' Up! year, and over the past 11 and a half months I have been working to try to achieve the Stampin' Up! Annual Incentive Trip. It's not a competition you can win, it's a point system much like Fly Buys, where each sales dollar of products ordered from me over the year, accrue to earn me points towards the trip.

There are two weeks left to earn points and I am so, so close. But I need to give a bit of a push, so I am reaching out to the sewing box owners and the mums and grandmum's who help with kids homework projects and the dad's that fix things with wood and leather, and makers of dance costumes and Book Week costumes . . . . I have brilliant scissors and glue that will be perfect for all of you and you can order online without even needing to leave the house!

I just need another $1,300.00 in product sales and I can say to Tony that I am taking him on the trip of a lifetime - an Alaskan Cruise courtesy of Stampin' Up! If 20 or 30 of my friends and family order a pair of scissors (or two) and a bottle of glue, that's going to make your sewing box happy, and it's going to really help me reach my goal by the 30th of September.

You can click on any of the images to order them online.

Thanks for reading my little story today!

 

Product List


10 for 250 VIP Group update!

Late in August I started the most amazing offer I have ever come up with, full of free and extra goodies for you lovely stampers and to help me get enough sales before the end of the Stampin' Up! year (30th of September - yep, this month!) to earn the 2018 Stampin' Up! Incentive Trip - an Alaskan Cruise for Tony and I.

To make this unique and first time ever offer work, (and guarantee me a place on that cruiseship) I need 10 amazing people to become 10 for 250 VIP's. I had 4 people sign up in August, now I  need just 6 more. Just 6 people.

Three (3) people will get a half price item (any item from the current Stampin' Up! catalogues), seven (7) people will each receive $45 in free product and one person will receive a $250 Stampin' Up! shopping spree.

Click on the picture below to get all the details, and email me today to say you want to be in it!

 

10-for-250

Note: If we don't get 10 people in total, every participant will still receive at the very least, $25 extra product.


Watercolor Christmas Project Kit

When I first glimpsed this kit in the Holiday Catalogue, I kind of thought, "Cute, but ho hum . . . "

Holiday17_p32a

THEN . . . I saw one of my lovely team members creating cards from the kit while she was on our casual kiosk at Chirnside Park Shopping Centre, and I changed my tune! These cards are so bright, cheery AND EASY TO MAKE!

The kit contains all the pieces you need to create 20 cards, 5 each of 4 designs. And did you notice the gold foil envelope inserts? Oh MY!! they are the shiniest gold paper inserts you ever saw!

Holiday17_kits_144649_watercolor_christmas

And there is a co-ordinating stamp set with cute Christmas sentiments, as shown in the pictures above - OR you could use Christmas greetings already in your collection.

I ordered the kit for myself, and shared it at last week's We Create Wednesday class. The pieces included are great, and you don't have to stick with just the designs in the kit, you can come up with your own projects using the pieces.

Watercolor Christmas Stampin' Up (2)

We made 3 of the cards from the kit, and we added extra gold stars using retired star punches, gold foil card and some gold glimmer paper, and on the red card we added the cute mini tinsel trim.

Then . . . we stepped away from the kit designs and cut up one of the cards, to make a matchbook cover instead.

Watercolor Christmas Stampin' Up (1)

The Matchbook Cover holds a sheet of Stampin' Dimensionals, and because this little gift can be used any time of the year, we went away from the Christmas Greeting and stamped "For You" instead. This particular sentiment stamp comes from the Thoughtful Branches stamp set which was an amazingly popular limited edition set we had for a short time last year.

The other thing I did differently is stamp the greetings with Tranquil Tide ink instead of Basic Black which is what the kit suggested. I think the dark green is so much nicer than a black greeting.

Last week I featured lots of the product bundles from the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue and offered a small extra item with every bundle ordered. This week I am looking at all the gorgeous bundles in the Holiday Catalogue and since my sales goal for the 2017 Stampin' Up! year continues until the end of September, I am going to offer some beautiful ribbon to anyone who orders the 3 products below.

See the cute striped ribbon in the photo of the matchbook cover? It's $12.00 for a roll of 9.1 metres. I will send half a roll, (4.5 metres) to anyone who orders the Watercolor Christmas Project Kit, Watercolor Christmas Stamp Set and Tranquil Tide Classic Stampin' Pad during September. 

Product List

Order online by clicking on the thumbnail pictures above, and when I receive confirmation of your order, I will post out your ribbon separately.

Just keep Stamping!!

Kathryn

 

P.S. I have just featured this set in another class - Christmas Extravaganza and will be sharing the projects online. Keep your eye out for them by checking on the event page here.


Cardmaking Ideas for Men #GDP103

GDP103_Theme_For_HimI hear the same thing so often, and I agree! It can be a real struggle to find products and come up with cardmaking ideas for masculine cards. So I love that the Global Design Project team has inspired and motivated us with a masculine themed challenge this week for #GDP103.

 

My latest masculine card idea inadvertently came from my husband a couple of months back, for a card that I could give him. I tucked the idea away secretly in a safe space in my brain and let it perculate for a few weeks, so I could make it into his 2017 birthday card.

So where did the idea come from?

Apron Template

A couple of months ago, Tony did a weekend leathermaking course and he came home with a borrowed template to make a leatherworkers apron. I helped him make his own template - funny how I had all the right tools in the stamping room, along with a steady enough hand to cut all the curves freehand with a craft knife . . . 

He was so rapt with the finished template, it got me thinking, this year I could get away with making him an "Apron" birthday card. And so, I did!

Leather Apron Card (1)

I used a full A4 sheet of our Soft Suede Card Stock, cutting 2 each of 1cm wide strips from the long side of the A4 card for the straps before scoring the remaining card in half for the apron.

I used one of our Oval Framelits to draw a pencil line for the curves at the top of the apron, and since I was not at home at the time, I cut the curves just with my Paper Snips.

I then sponged the edges of the card, straps and pocket with Soft Suede ink and one of our sponge daubers.

I hand drew the stitching with an Early Espresso Stampin' Write marker and stamped the tools from Guy Greeting Stamp Set on Sahara Sand card with Soft Suede ink and cut them out with the Paper Snips too.

Leather Apron Card (2)

I cut an insert from Whisper White card for the inside and stamped it with the same tools and words from the Guy Greetings Stamp Set.

Leather Apron Card (3)

I softened the straps by running them over my bone folder (like you do when you are curling ribbon) to break all the fibres in the paper, then scrunched each one up tightly and smoothed it out again. This helped to ease the card into an envelope without having to actually bend the straps, or leave obvious crease marks in them.

Leather Apron Card (4)

I told Tony he was getting the best birthday card ever, and by his reaction, I think it must have come pretty close!

I'm so glad that the timing of his birthday / Father's Day worked in so well with this week's Global Design Project #GDP103 Theme - All About HIM. I wouldn't have wanted to post the photos of his card BEFORE I gave it to him LOL!

His birthday is extending out for another week anyway as one of his gifts was a Paddock to Plate Long lunch which we are going to enjoy this coming weekend. Let's hope the weather has warmed up a little by then! In the meantime it's perfect stamping weather, so I'm going to keep stamping! So many stamps! So little time!

If you'd like to come and stamp with me, I am planning a stamp afternoon in my stamping room on Saturday 16th of September - weekend after next. Look out for further details to come out in the next day or two.