It still feels very far from Autumn over here in the West (although I was delighted to see mention of some upcoming rain in this week’s weather forecast..) but at least it’s Autumn/Winter as far as all things stampin’ are concerned!

The Autumn/Winter mini has arrived, bringing with it all manner of delights, including new stamp sets, Designer Series Papers, Punches, Embellishments and all new Big Shot accessories, PLUS two new and delightful hostess sets.

There really is something for everyone!

Click on the catalogue image below to browse the online version, or complete –>this form<– to have one sent to you in the old-fashioned way…

The most fun and exciting time of the stampin’ year is here, but before I get to that, I must just let you know that the final tally for my retired stamps Queensland floods appeal was $518.  I still have a couple of payments to come and stamp sets to send, but once all of that is sorted, I will be able to send that money off to the Queensland Premier’s Flood Appeal, so THANK YOU everyone who bought some of my retired stamps!

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Today marks the start of Sale-a-bration, without doubt the best and most lucrative time of the stampin’ year for everyone!

Whether you’re a customer, a workshop hostess or are considering the option of becoming a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator yourself, the pickings are rich…

Get FREE stamp sets by doing any (or all!) of the following:

Spend
You’ll receive a free Sale-A-Bration stamp set when you spend $100 on Stampin’ Up! merchandise (net sales before shipping and handling). There’s no limit-for every $100 you spend, you can select another FREE Sale-A-Bration reward!

Host
You’ll receive a free Sale-A-Bration stamp set when you host a workshop of at least $600 (net sales before shipping and handling)-this is in addition to all of the regular hostess benefits!

Join
During Sale-A-Bration, anyone who joins as a demonstrator can choose any stamp set – a value of up to $79.95-from the current Idea Book and Catalogue!

This once a year promotion runs from now until the end of March and I’m so excited to share it with you!

At this stage I have very limited February workshop dates available and fairly limited March ones too, so to secure a date to get stampin’ and Sale-a-Brating with your friends, contact me today!

For more information on the demonstrator opportunity, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or click –>HERE<– for further reading

With Christmas over for another year (and I hope yours was as wonderful as ours!!) Stampin’ Up! is looking ahead to Valentine’s Day with a great promotion involving FREE Heart Treat Cups!

From now until 24 January, when you purchase either the Sweetheart stamp set (your choice of wood or clear mount) or the Full Heart Punch, you will score a FREE pack of Heart Treat Cups valued at $6.50!

For even more fun, purchase the stamp set AND the punch, and you’ll get a FREE pack of Treat Cups for each!

The Heart Treat Cups are an adorable  addition to any card, or as the central feature of any project, the bonus being that you can put all manner of cute things inside!

Try small lollies, buttons, punched shapes, glitter – the possibilities are endless, although I’m a fan of the lollies option myself, as would all the “sweets” in my life be should they be on the receiving end of these little lovelies!

To order some treats for YOUR sweets, send me an email today!

I‘m not sure about you, but over my way the weather is not nearly approximating a Summer’s day today (not that I’m complaining!), but despite that, the Summer Mini from Stampin’ Up! is alive and kicking and packed with some delightful products perfect for your Summer stampin’!

Personally I’m super excited that the delightful Aviary set made the cut and I’ve already inked it up several times for some oh-so-cute projects (coming soon – stay tuned!).

I also love the idea of the Itty Bitty Bits stamp set with a matching three-punch set AND co-ordinating clear buttons, plus there are some gorgeous vintage bits in amongst the cuteness too!

To check all these out, plus MUCH more, simply click on the image below to view the online catalogue, or to save a copy to your hard drive for ongoing perusal and inspiration, click –>HERE<–

And in case a brand new mini catalogue isn’t enough to get you all hot under the collar, Stampin’ Up! has announced an amazing December promotion too!

Just in time for your Christmas stampin’ shopping, December Frenzy sees a huge list of products being discounted – some by up to 50%!

Included are the Circle Scissors Plus – now just $32.97 (were $54.95), Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware – now just $28.98 (was $57.95) plus an assortment of gorgeous stamp sets – one going for a tiny $7.98!!

Here’s the complete list for you to check twice and for a downloadable flyer including images of all the discounted products, click –>HERE<–

To take advantage of these amazing prices, simply send me an email and I can arrange to have your order delivered to your door!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a Christmas project that I’m absolutely delighted with – one that’s been on my Christmas to-do list for a goodly number of years and I’m SO excited to have finally brought it to life!

See you then!

With December 25 approaching at a rate of knots, it’s a great time to start thinking about some Christmas crafting, and the current special from Stampin’ Up! makes it an even better time!

From now until November 30, you can score yourself some FREE, exclusive and not-available-in-the-catalogue rolls of ribbon in one of two ways (or both!)

The first way is to purchase one of the Christmas Gift-Giving Bundles below…

For each bundle you purchase, a roll of ribbon is yours for the choosing!

The second way you can score yourself your choice of these gorgeous ribbons is to host a workshop of $550 or more during the promotion period.

If you’re wondering about the Christmas Cocoa Specialty DSP listed in the second bundle and are not sure where to find it, to be honest with you, neither was I!

It’s also not currently available for purchase from the catalogue and is available only as part of this promotion…

The “specialty” part of the paper is that the two designs at the top are flocked.  Those two are single-sided designs and the rest are double sided.

Contact me today to place your bundle order, or make a booking for a workshop from the small scattering of dates I have available between now and November 30!

Following on from my previous post about Frames with a Flourish, another of the stamps sets that I will find it very hard to see the back of will be Nursery Necessities.

It is such a perfect set for all things baby, with its variety of sweet images.

Here is a project from the depths of my picture archive that is almost a year old now, but has not yet seen the light of day here…

Just over a year ago we had some lovely neighbours move in across the street, and shortly after they arrived, so did their first baby – a gorgeous little man named Jacob.

I got him a set of cute little singlets and packaged them up in a little box to match the pictures on the front

Here’s the matching card…

This next gift is another long-ago project and also one that has never been blogged, but even worse, has never been given!

I made it for a girl that I worked with for a little while several years ago who had a baby boy – gosh, it would be well over a year ago now…  I don’t see her often and after I made it, time just slipped by until it got kind of pointless, especially as the gift was socks and feet tend to, well, grow.

Anyway, here it is along with its matching card (cased from one by the lovely Sarah Jane Kalé)…

The little box slides open to reveal the sock bounty within…

…and fits three pairs in total…

Can you see what I mean about the delight of Nursery Necessities..?

Here are some more cards using this gorgeous and to-be-missed set…

If you read my earlier post, then you will likely have a slight case of déjà vu, being that some of the cards in the round up above also contain Frames with a Flourish, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to show you them again

Wouldn’t you agree that there is indeed a vast array of possibilities with this delightful Nursery Necessities set?!

If having a versatile, gender-variable and let’s be honest, flippin’ cute baby stamp set is something you think would be a useful thing for your stampin’ collection, then you really can’t go past Nursery Necessities.

But if you don’t act by tomorrow, it will go past you, as it won’t be making a showing in the soon to be released 2010-11 Idea Book & Catalogue, so be sure to contact me if you want to nab yourself a set while you still can!

*retiring products in red*

“Baby Jacob Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Paper: Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, Going Grey, Whisper White, Vellum cardstock, Patterns Pack II hostess DSP
Ink: Baja Breeze, Going Grey
Accessories: Word Window Punch, 1/2″ Circle Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Baja Breeze Striped Ribbon, Baja Breeze 1″ Double Stitched Grosgrain, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Socks in a Box Gift Set”
Stamps: Nursery Necessities, Polka Dot background
Paper: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Versamark
Accessories: Wide Oval Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Brocade Blue 5/8″ grosgrain, Clear Buttons, White Embossing Powder

I‘m finding it hard to believe that we are a mere day away from the end of August, and I feel as though I haven’t done some of the retiring items justice.

There are some stamp sets that I have loved a lot and will really miss so I thought I would take a minute to show you some projects that I have made with some particular faves…

I loved Frames with a Flourish from the start and have pulled it out on many an occasion when I have needed a frame of some description in whatever project I was stamping at the time.

This one is a little box made with two Scallop Envelope die cut-outs and an extra strip of cardstock to form the base.  I have been demonstrating this at most of my workshops this past month, with a little set of four cards to go inside using the Frames plus Pocket Silhouettes as well.

This is a card that I made absolute ages ago after I had an idea to use the dotted swirly frame in the set as a background.  I made the card, was satisfied that I had got the idea out of my brain and onto paper and never did anything else with it, hence the delay in putting it up here

The smudgy effect of the stamping was achieved by first stamping onto Kraft (soon to be Crumb Cake) cardstock in Chocolate Chip ink, then running over the top of the image with an Aquapainter to soften the lines a bit.

Here are some previously blogged cards (and a couple of books!) that I have made using Frames with a Flourish too.

Click on the thumbnails to see them in full size and in their original posts…

So there was a little trip down Frames with a Flourish lane.  If you love this set as much as I do, I encourage you to get in touch with me before the end of tomorrow and I’d be happy to place an order for it, plus any other retiring products that you find yourself in need of

*Retiring products in red*

“Scallop Envelope Box”
Stamps: Frames with a Flourish, Pocket Silhouettes, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Paper: Kraft, Naturals Ivory
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Scallop Envelope Die, Word Window Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, Kraft Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

“Thank you card”
Stamps: Frames with a Flourish, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Baja Breeze, Naturals Ivory, Chocolate Chip, Kraft
Ink: Chocolate Chip, White craft ink
Accessories: Pretties Kit, Very Vanilla 5/8″ grosgrain, Aquapainter, Stampin’ Sponge

The last chance list is in its final days, but just to keep things interesting (and to keep some additional dollars in your pocket) Stampin’ Up! has announced some amazing additional discounts to some list items, which you can see in the following table…

As always, it’s strictly on a while stocks last basis, so if you want to take advantage of these deals, I suggest you contact me to do so as soon as you can!

*CO=Carryover Flyer
*AW=Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue

Many items on the main last chance list have already sold out, and others are on their way out as we speak, so check –>HERE<– to see if there’s anything you need while it’s still available!

I have SO very much to share here, starting with this – the last chance list for the current (but not for much longer) Idea Book & Catalogue.

There are a whopping eight pages worth of retiring stamps, punches and accessories, some of which are being re-configured for release in a new design (punches being a good example of this) but most of which will disappear, never to be seen again.

So it really is your last chance to get a good many things that may still be lingering on your wishlist, and the best part is that some of these products have been discounted by a massive 50%!

It’s important to remember that products on this list are available only while stocks last, so to ensure that you don’t miss out on your favourites, it’s a good idea to act quickly!

Click on the image above to download your copy of the list, then head –>HERE<– for the online version of the Idea Book & Catalogue so you can see the products in living colour.   The list is arranged in page order, making it easy for you to go through and see what will not be making it into the new catalogue due out in a few short weeks.

Then email me with your must haves so I can place your order pronto – remember, once they’re gone, they’re gone!

Following on from the overwhelmingly popular Deals of the Week last month (you guys sure do like a deal..!), this month, there’s another great offer from Stampin’ Up!

*From 2010 Autumn-Winter Mini Catalogue
**Retiring stamp sets!

What a fabulous opportunity to grab some gorgeous sets at gorgeous prices!

Contact me to get yours today!