As the post title would suggest, today is my thirty-something^th birthday (actually it’s ticked over to midnight since starting to write, so technically it isn’t anymore…) and after a lovely day having lunch and pottering at a garden centre with my handsome man this afternoon and hanging out with my girls this evening, this post is going up much later than I had planned, but I’m here now and have things to share!

Before I launch into the details of the delightful early birthday surprise that some of my stampin’ team members sprung on me exactly a week ago, I thought I’d expand on the second half of the post title…

As you are most likely aware, Sale-a-bration is coming to a close after two “enchanting” months and come March 31st it will be all over red rover for another year.  If you have yet to capitalise on the freebies available with this promotion, or you have capitalised and you rather feel like doing so again, then I have a great opportunity for you!

Here’s how it will go down…*

• 10 people each place a $100 order (before shipping)
• Everybody chooses a free Sale-a-bration item
• Drawn randomly, everybody shares in the hostess benefits amounts to spend as they choose on exclusive hostess stamp sets or catalogue merchandise as follows:

• One amount of $30
• Three amounts of $20
• Four amounts of $15
• One amount of $10
• One additional Sale-a-bration reward

In addition to the bonuses listed above, the person whose order total is the highest will also have the opportunity to purchase any catalogue item at half price**

DON’T FORGET: WITH THE NEW HOSTESS PLAN, THE HOSTESS DOLLARS ARE ABLE TO BE SPENT ON ANY COMBINATION OF EXCLUSIVE HOSTESS SETS AND CATALOGUE MERCHANDISE THAT YOU LIKE, SO ANY OF THE AMOUNTS LISTED ABOVE COULD GO TOWARDS GETTING YOUR HANDS ON ONE OF THE STUNNING HOSTESS-ONLY STAMP SETS AVAILABLE!

Contact me asap to reserve a spot in the last gasp virtual workshop!!

* hostess amounts may change according to the number of people and order totals submitted
** cannot form part of the initial $100 order

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Righto, the next fun order of business is to allow you a peek into what it’s like to have a crew of beautiful hearted stampin’ team members descend on your house of a Thursday evening to throw you a surprise birthday stampin’ session.

We had actually pre-planned a casual gathering to take our Autumn-Winter Mini catalogue pre-order purchases (hello demonstrator perk!) for a test run, so I knew that there would be eight of us at my place that night.  What I didn’t know was that they had been covertly messaging each other for almost a month with plans for a surprise birthday bash, and my suggestion of a play over at my house was all the encouragement needed to swing their delightful plans into action!

Cut to 7.30pm last Thursday night (after I had sufficiently shifted around every item of furniture in my teeny lounge room to make way for two trestle tables) when I heard a car door out the front.  After a little while without a knock at the door, I headed out to my porch to see if anybody needed help up my front steps with their stampin’ supplies.  The sight that greeted me still makes me giggle when I think of it now – picture six grown ladies, all carrying a varied array of stamping equipment, bags and plates of food all crouched in your front garden in an attempt to escape the glare of the motion-sensor security light that popped on as they all converged on my front door.  The sight of me up on the porch galvanized them into action, with Lou springing up to hold up the above birthday banner, SJ with her camera around her neck trying in vain to catch the frivolity on film and Michelle still crouched in the garden doing her best to hide in my hedge.  Bloody hilarious I tell you!

We all proceeded inside where I was informed that I need do nothing – everything was planned, from refreshments to make and takes and the most glorious array of gifts and cards.  Stunned is an understatement.  My face hurt from smiling and I’m pretty sure I spent much of the evening squirming and flapping with joy

Alrighty, enough talking, who wants to see some pictures…?!

Here is the party hat I was presented with at the start of the evening, and there is photographic evidence of it perched jauntily on my head, but it’s out of focus and blurry, quite likely due to the aforementioned squirming and flapping…

There are loads more to see – just hover over the thumbnails for a description and click on the thumbnails for the big picture:

Am I not the luckiest stamper in the world?  Such a fun night surrounded by some of the loveliest gals you could hope to meet, and all because one day six years or so ago, I thought to myself “That Stampin’ Up! thing looks like fun…”

So there I will leave you as it is now way past my bedtime and the birthday festivities continue tomorrow today, with a shopping trip into the city with my lovely mum.

Although I will say that if you like the idea of making new and gorgeous friends with a similar penchant for all things paper and ink, I would encourage you to consider the demonstrator opportunity, particularly since the Sale-a-bration promotion means the starter kit is discounted by $40 and you get an extra stamp set thrown in too!  But you’ll have to be quick, because the offer ends on March 31…

Feel free to contact me with any questions about the opportunity or have a browse of the Join My Team section of my blog

There’s still an hour or so left of Chewsday – at least there are over here in the West, so amazing as it might be, I’m on time with my post this week!

This week my challenge was to make something more impressive and amazing than the paper flower that my handsome man left on our coffee table for me this morning, wrapped around a note he wrote to wish me a happy birthday.

It’s a challenge I am never going to meet and once you see it for yourself, I’m sure you will agree, so let’s go with Tim’s Perfect Paper Posy as the Challenge Chewsday entry for this week.

Check it out…

It accompanied the early hours Facebook message that he left me:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL! I tried not to use your good cardstock this year!

I have said to him recently that I would like to involve him more in my Stampin’ Up! business and having clapped eyes on this baby this morning, I may well start sending him out to do workshops

Do let me know if you’d be interested in having my handsome man come and show you how to create this delightful 3D rose embellishment.  Although judging by the state of my desk this morning, I can’t guarantee he won’t leave a trail of destruction in his wake.

Wait, that could be my left over trail of destruction, scratch that…

I have had the most wonderful day, with a constant stream of phone calls and messages, lunch with my man and my small girl plus an impromptu shopping spree at the happiest place on earth (Ikea – thanks to vouchers from Nanny & Poppop aka my gorgeous folks) and a lovely catch up and cuppa with my aunty  this evening *waving Aunty Mair*

Not to mention the handmade cards that have been arriving since last week and the shiny new camera lens that was my (much coveted) gift from Tim and the girls.

So it’s a very happy 30-something gal who is headed to bed to sleep the sleep of one who has just spent a chunk of the afternoon assembling Ikea furniture.

If you’re at all inclined, leave a comment to let my handsome fella know what you think of his paper crafting efforts, because you know as well as I do he’ll be popping in here to check

Well school’s back in for term two and I feel as though my feet are touching the ground again for the first time in a long time!

I will need to get my blogging back on track again now as there has been a lot of stampin’ a-happenin’ ’round these parts, but today I had to pop in and show you some little pieces of delight that landed in my mailbox today.

A happy mail-day for me usually involves no mail at all, as that means there are no utility or other such companies requiring the attention of my credit card, but today, not only did I NOT have mail of the window-fronted variety, but two, yes TWO hand stamped cards addressed to me!

This first beautiful creation is from Amanda and Danielle, the two girls who set up the Just Add Ink challenge blog that I am honoured to be on the design team for.

If you have had the chance to visit JAI at all, you would have to agree that the girls do an amazing job of putting together inspiring challenges and fabulous articles.

If you haven’t visited yet, then I highly recommend that you take a moment to pop on over.  The next challenge is due up tomorrow and the variety of DT projects for this one is mind-blowing….

Then there was this…..

My sweet friend and fellow stamper SJ (aka Sarah Jane Kalé) sent me this stunning work of cardmanship (!!) and the beautiful design of the card was overshadowed only slightly by the gorgeous words on the inside.

To think that I only know these wonderful chicks because of my involvement in Stampin’ Up! is one of the main reasons that I love what I do so very much.

Thank you sweet friends for being so thoughtful in thinking of me and making my day

Ok, so we’re still walking in that park, but this time I have company!

Janny is my gorgeous sister-in-law and one of my favourite people in the world.  She’s the sister I never had and I couldn’t have scored a better sister-in-law even if I had gone out and hand-picked Tim’s brother’s wife myself

Janny is the one who introduced me to the wonders of scrapbooking a good many years ago when we thought all that it involved was a triangle and a strip of patterned paper and some photo’s.

And we were mesmerised then!

Janny is also one heck of an amazing stamper and earlier in the year (after no less than three years of nudging and prodding on my behalf) she joined my team of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators.

Of course she is wonderful at it, loves it to bits and wonders why it took her so long.

Janny, sweetie-pie, we all do….!

Here’s an example of the gorgeous stuff she makes – a gift she gave me earlier in the year to thank me for encouraging her to give demonstrating a go…

To the left is a bundle of yummy smelling soap from Lush that I still haven’t had the heart to unwrap, but it sits on my display shelf in my craft room here looking all pretty and still smelling delicious, so I figure it can stay wrapped!

The card features one of Janny’s specialties – exquisite cutting out…

She has the patience and scissor-dexterity of nobody else I know and it amazes me every time I see one of her cards or scrapbooking layouts featuring her awesome cutting.

Janny recently started a blog where she shares her beautiful stamping with the world.  You can visit her —>HERE<— and leave her some comment love

I still have a couple of things to share featuring Spring Mini stuff and I’m going to see if I can get them up here by the end of the day.

I make no promises, but I do have a clean house, no washing and a tidy craft room (thank Nanny!!), so you never know your luck…!

For those following the recent Christmas saga and debate of sorts going on around here, you may have spied a challenge thrown down to my handsome fella Tim by Karen in the comments section yesterday….

If you want to go back to the beginning of the story, start here, then read the four or so posts following that and you will soon be up to speed.

Well I mentioned the idea to Tim yesterday, to which he replied “I can do that”, then proceeded to spend the evening at the computer doing nothing of the sort.

I suspect that it was always part of his plan to go about his little challenge uninterrupted, and as it turns out, he waited until I was in bed, then set about cutting and sticking and punching and assembling and glittering until he came up with the following that was perched atop my craft desk this morning…

Here’s a different angle so you can fully appreciate the 3D-ness of his little tree…

You will notice that he went straight for the Glorious Green, if you don’t mind! There is also the added detail of some cotton wool ‘snow’ and glittery star.

He walked into the room this morning, spied his little tree on the shelf where I was photographing it and announced “it feels so Christmassy in here!”

I feel as if I have been beaten at my own game!  Perhaps I should pay more attention in those karate practise sessions so that we can re-level this little playing field here…