Just in time for holiday gift giving season, this book is flippin’ amazing in person! Created with the Christmas Lane Simply Scrappin’ Kit featured in Stampin’ Up!’s  Holiday Mini catalog, it features the elegant Cherry Cobbler quilted ribbon and sparkly Rhinestone touches.

It’s enough to make you go "WOW!" Purchase this kit and you’ll complete the 20-page 6×6 book  which includes a Cherry Trim album all ready to fill with your favorite photos.

There’s even a cute-as-a-button embellishment for the cover!

This is a beautiful and special holiday gift that will surely make someone cry! If you can’t just pick one person for this touching present, just purchase a second book kit at a special discounted price! Or, if you’d rather have the instructions only and use materials you have on hand, you can do that, too! The 11-page step-by-step instructions with photographs makes it a breeze to create this easy project in 2 to 2 1/2 hours start to finish. Add your photos, wrap it up and watch the water works on Christmas Day!

Don’t tell me you can resist this fantastic gift? You know you want it!

For more info and pricing options, click here:

Christmas Lane Brag Book Purchase Options

Instructions Only $19.95 Album Kit with Instructions $44.95 2 Book Kit with Instructions $79.95

And, guess what I had for breakfast? Yes…a grilled cheese! LOL! Better yet, how about this pose?:

This is the attitude I got when I asked: "What’s for dinner, honey?"

I guess I’m pushing it?

Seriously, though, there are some benefits to being married to a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. She can whip out a chef’s hat in a matter of minutes with the help of google! LOL!

Have a safe and Happy Halloween! Bon Appetit!

….I cannot believe Stampin’ Up! is giving away the Big Shot! This is unprecedented! Just when I think they can’t shock me anymore (trust me after 13 years as a demo, it’s getting harder and harder)! Yes, you are reading correctly..Stampin’ Up! is giving out a FREE Big Shot to every single person who signs up to be a demonstrator this month. Get out the smellin’ salts…I think I’m gonna faint! Check this out:

This is my favorite scrappin’ and stampin’ tool and I’d love to give you one! Let’s go out for lunch or coffee and talk about how you can be and get a Stampin’ Up! Big Shot!

Thought I’d put one more plug in for my upcoming Jingle Mingle stamp camp next Saturday. Aren’t all these planned projects fab?

Here’s the class details:

Get a jump start your holiday season and mood with make & takes, games, nibbles, displays, fun festivities and friends!

It’s the debut of the awesome products from the fantastic Holiday Mini catalog and you won’t want to miss it!

• Create 5 projects that you can use for the upcoming Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.(See close up photos below) 
• Discover different ways to use mica flakes in your paper crafting and scrapbooking projects
• Delight in the ease of creating shaker accents with our Shaker Frames and take home some extras! 
• Marvel at the new products at the "Try It" station like the new Simply Scored, the Big Shot Letter Press plates and much more!
• Be inspired by all the holiday project displays and decorations!
• Check out upcoming class projects and sign up for bonus offerings for registering early.
• Play The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Scavenger Hunt, Ho Ho Ho Bingo and Rockin’ the Stocking games for prizes!
• And walk away with some door prizes and the new mica flakes and shaker frames included in the price of admission.

I can’t wait for you to jingle, mingle and stamp until you cramp! Sign up today!

Our Price:

$25 includes food, product, fun, games and prizes
Register at

http://2011jinglemingle.eventbrite.com 

Last chance to register is TODAY! But, always call just in case. We may have an extra packet just for you!

Five camp projects include: 

• Blessings Mix box creatively using a new envelope die, including recipe card and ingredients to make a small sampling of the mix. Makes a great gift! 
• Stocking Shaped card with our new stocking die (thanks to my friend Lisa for this fab project!)
  
• Pines & Poinsettia Shaker card using our new Mica Flakes
• Sparkly fun 3×3 note cards or tags using the new Stocking punch and silver glitter paper 
• And a Jolly Holiday Mini Photo book decked out by our festive Mica Flakes. 

Don’t forget, a generous jar of Mica Flakes and extra shaker card supplies are included in the class!

With Fall just around the corner, I’m holding on to Summer with all my might! It just seems like we just started Summer and now all the kids are back in school. Isn’t it crazy how quickly time just zooms by!?

I created this layout for my July Crop N’ Cards class and wanted to share it with you before the stamp set I used retires at the end of this month. This page and the coordinating card shown below used the unique combination of the cupcake punch and Pennant punch and stamp set combined with the retiring Sunny Fun. Whenever I do an ice cream page, I always seem to gravitate to these colors as it reminds me of Neopolitan ice cream, You too? Here I used Rose Red, So Saffron and Early Expresso classic ink and card stock. I watercolored the ice cream images with the stamp pad and Watercolor brush.

What I like about this layout is that there is plenty of space for photos — 4 large areas and two small — to capture all your favorite Summer memories.  There are many image alternatives you could use for this layout to make it look totally different if you used different stamps and colors–especially with the Sunny Fun stamp set. The adorable kids in water could easily be used for a pool layout. Why not try the delightful color combination of Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point and Certainly Celery? How adorable would that page be? Or, Get a little beachy by using the flip flops image and In Colors Pool Party, Calypso Coral and Peach Parfait. Now that would be unexpected! Ahh so many ideas, so little time!

Sunny Fun Stamp Set

123040 $19.95 Wood   or 123042 $14.95 Clear

Combine this with these punches to create wonderful Summer Memories!

Cupcake Punch 121807 Price: $16.95

Petite Pennants Builder Punch 122361 Price: $16.95

If you like the layout and card combination ideas I share here, please keep coming back. I will soon be offering a wonderful subscription service with hundreds of layout and card ideas along with a unique way to teach my Card-Vertibles Design Theory that will change your whole view on scrapbooking! Stay tuned!

STAMP-A-STACK FOR BACKPACKS FUNDRAISER CARDS

The fundraiser benefited Kids Charity Tampa Bay and we were able to raise $400 to purchase 80 backpacks so underprivileged and orphaned children could attend school with proper school supplies! Attendees made 4 each of the above five cards for $30 and $25 per person was donated to the cause. It was a fun afternoon!

Click on SUMMER MINI CATALOG to get one last look before these products are no longer available. Remember, you do not have to be at a home party to order. You can order from me anytime by going to http://www.amanda.stampinup.net or call or e-mail me and I’m happy to help!

Sometimes, you’ve gotta just cut corners somewhere! And that is exactly what I did for the make & takes for my Big Top Catalog Kick Off! With all the decorative creations, games and set ups to get class and club sign ups, I didn’t have time to get creative with some original art. So I copy, copy, copied! If you’ve ever wondered what CASE’d means–it stands for Copy And Steal Everything! And that’s exactly what I did here.

That’s the awesome thing about being a demo I think. We have the luxury of having 22,000 "assistant artists" who will design for us when we need it!

This project idea came from my friend Amy Celona. I just changed the colors to use the new In Colors. Thanks Amy!

Copied this adorable project from Becky Roberts. What a fabulous idea to just stick 3×3 post it notes in the Butterfly die to create shaped post its! Brilliant! Here I used some velum for the top layer. At the event, we used Beau Chateau Designer Series paper.

This little beauty came from Dawn Olchefske! It’s a stunner and used our new Wisteria Wonder in color, embossing folders and Flirtatious Designer Series paper! Remember, our Designer Paper Buy 3 Get 1 Free special ends Aug. 31! Stock up and SAVE!!!

This idea is a repeat of a project I learned on my FREE Alaska cruise in May. It is so easy! Doctoring it up with the Big Top Suite products made it a perfect project for the Kick Off!

So see, I don’t always come up with this stuff by myself! Why should I when I have so many wonderful people to copy from. It’s what makes my job so easy. What’s holding you back from being a demonstrator?

I’d love to have you join my great team of demonstrators so you can have fun doing what you love, too! Just give me a buzz or leave me a comment here!

Until next time, happy stampin’!

In order for our guests to earn door prize tickets, we had a blast coming up with unique circus/carnival-style Stampin’ Up! games that used products in a unique way! And I do not think we disappointed! Ha ha ha! First we had the Silly Willy Sponge Toss:

This one is any easy one to re-create for bored kids on a rainy day! Just cut one of our Stampin’ Up! Sponges in quarters, decorate three different  sized cups with different sized openings and associate points with them. Here’ I just used our small retired star punch and some of our new 2011-2013 In Color Designer Series pattern paper pack as wraps to provide fun colors to our cups.

Since I located the game on to TV trays next to my blinds, I had everyone stand even with the sliding door blinds opening to toss the sponges. They got two tries! Here, one of my wonderful assistants and customer Retha, gives it the ol’ college try.

Hey doesn’t this look fun? Let me tell you, "Wacky Woman Roller Wheel Bowling" isn’t as easy as it looks. We first tried it using the standard size wheel and that was way TOO HARD! When we switched it to the Jumbo Wheel size it was at least a little easier to get it to stay on the "lane" (Ha–just a couple leftover laminate flooring boards stuck together). Nor was it too easy to knock over the reinker bottles. They’re a lot studier that you’d think! After two tries, no one received more than 6 door prize tickets.

Get you’re wondering: "What the heck is this?"

Ha! The sign below says it all! (This is how all three different games were displayed. We put rice in a glass, stuck a skewer between the holes in the medallion circles cut from our new Pennant die and then stuck the skewer in a straw and displayed it with the adjacent pinwheel straw. Very effective and appropriate for our event theme!

Here you can see my crazy friend Aamy giving this kooky game a try. The object of the game was to try to pop the balloon (had door  prize ticket(s) inside) with a dropped  pencil. No one was able to do it by my husband and I. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time! Aamy thought she might get a little extra "help" if she were more "enhanced" on top and received a quickie balloon "boob job"! It didin’t help but we sure did laugh!

Everyone got a little more serious when it came to the Catalog Scavenger hunt. I also hope this game made their wish list grow a little longer! We’ll see! (insert evil laugh here..bwaa haa haaa!) From left to right: Diane May, Marsha Craig, Lynne Donahue, Pricilla Snyder and Aamy Harrison-with her back to us.

The fun factor was cranked up to full blast when it came to creating the make & takes. Diane May and Lynne Donahue are shown here getting ready to complete the cute mini album/coupon book!

Doesn’t Jeanneth look like she’s studying for a test? That Scavenger Hunt wasn’t that hard!

Karen Cormier got in the stampin’ zone and didn’t come up for air for an hour!

Karina wasted no time putting in her first new catalog order! Thanks Karina!

Now that’s a smile for a toothpaste commercial! Marsha had a great time and was a wonderful sport gimping around with her bum knee!

Doesn’t Susana’s cute smile give whole new meaning to the word "crafty"? She looks like she’s up to something! She’s just tyring out the new embossing folders on the Big Shot but I swear we could put a bubble above her head that would  have her saying, "Let’s see what "else" we can do with the new Pennant die!" You go girl!

Well, I’m running out of time so I’ll save the Big Top Kick Off Make & Take samples for the next post!

As always, thanks for checking in!

…and wisdom is what has been needed for my new blog site launch that hasn’t had lift off! They say that all good things come to those who wait and this is what has been sustaining me these past couple months. All I can say is that I am slowly getting there and patience is a virtue! How’s that for cramming a bunch of quotes into one paragraph! HA!

In the meantime, I’ve decided I can’t sit around and wait to share things. There’s so much creativity coming from my Stamp Pad Studio it would be ridculous not to show you! So, my first order of business is to share some fun things from my Big Top Catalog Kick Off!

Here’s my wonderful husband, supporter and Big Top ticket taker, Patrick. You know he wants to help me earn that big Stampin’ Up! trip to Fiji, right? To set the "Big Top" mood, this was the scene when you walked in my front door. I like to think that not many customers can resist his "baby blues". Am I lucky or what?

Next in the line of view after entering my house was the station to sign up for upcoming classes, clubs and programs.

This cute purse design was my make & take at my Tampa Stamp Vamps team meeting and one of my downline, Christy McCullough had a fantastic idea for using them. She suggested putting workshop invitations and various goodies as a gift for workshop bookings! I used this fab idea at my kick off! Anyone out there want one of these? Call me for a workshop date and I’ll fill one with goodies for you, too! And I’ll teach you and your friends how to make one at the workshop. Deal?

Or, you can also sign up for my Paper Pandemonium Class!

PAPER PANDEMONIUM STAMP CAMP

Tues., Aug. 30

10 am – 12:30 pm OR 6:30 to 9 pm

Create these adorable projects with a designer series paper pack of your choice and get a coordinating pack of buttons, too! For $30, you’ll learn how to make:

The above cute purse that folds flat!

A stinkin’ cute Travel Tissue Holder

A Fun Hard-Back Mini Notebook with coordinating pen

A Great Gum Holder pack

And, if you register by Tues., Aug. 23, you’ll also make 8 fun Button Buddies 3×3 notecards FREE!! Only 2 more days to register! Go to http://2011paperpandemonium.eventbrite.com to register!

And, don’t forget the Buy 3, Get 1 FREE Designer Series paper pack offer ends at the end of this month!

 Aren’t these cute?

These were our popcorn boxes made with the Big Top Designer Series paper and Big Shot Fancy Favor Bigz XL die. They made a cute accompaniment to the hot dog bar and cup cakes topped with Big Top toothpick toppers. (Sorry didn’t get a picture! What a boob! )

 And the final display station gave attendees a chance to touch and feel products from the Flirtatious, Well Worn, Beau Chateau and Big Top Product Suites. Most agree that our Designer Papers are much better when you can see them in person and everyone enjoyed seeing these as well as papers from Domestic Goddess (WAY CUTER IN PERSON!!), Letters from Santa, Just Add Cake, Frightful Sight and Berry Blossoms! The highlighted suites were identified by these cute glasses filled with pinwheel topped straws and pennants from our new Big Shot Perfect Pennants die. You’ll get to see more of this die in action at my upcoming Holiday Banner Bonanza Class so stay tuned! (http://2011bannerbonanza.eventbrite.com )

Okay, I guess I’ve shared enough for the day. Come back for my next post when I’ll share our fun games and make & takes. Buffoon Balloon Pinwheel Pop, Silly Willy Sponge Toss and Wacky Woman Roller Wheel Bowling were quite interesting to say the least! It will be obvious when you see the grinning faces that these games and the fun make & takes were a huge hit!

Come back and visit soon!

When I was a little girl, I have fond memories of always loving crafts of all kinds. From coloring books to sketch books and crocheting to macrame, I loved it all! So, naturally when my grandmother gave me my first scrapbook in 9th grade, I started saving things in the scrapbook. Pep rally ribbons, shards of a van side mirror leftover from a brush with an orange tree branch in my first driving lesson, an autographed napkin from a local Elvis impersonator– are all in the book, which is falling apart from melted tape that doesn’t stick anymore!

Little did I know that 30 plus years later, my first experiences with scrapbooking would come around to me starting a program that will teach others how to do it! It has become one of the most rewarding things in my life.

Case in point, is a surprise delivery I received at my house this week.

It was accompanied by a wonderful digital card with photographs of pages from a wedding book I helped a new customer create for her daughter. It  read:

Amanda:

You are the best. I can never thank you enough for all your inspiration and help in getting this scrapbook done. Ashley & John just loved it and have already shown it to many of their close friends. You are an amazing person and I feel lucky to have you in my life. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all your help and support.

Agnes

My friend Agnes came into my life at the begginning of this year as a referral from someone she worked with as a temp for the U.S. Census. To this day, we do not know who it was!  She’d gone to local craft stores, scrapbook stores, crops, etc for over a year., but no one would help teach her how to scrapbook so she could put this wedding book together for her daughter. After that fateful phone call, I invited her over and together we devised a plan to get it done before her daughter’s visit here in late May. So, about once a month for five months, we got together and worked on the album for a few hours and I’d send her off with "homework".  She was able to present the completed album to the married couple just as planned and they just loved it! It was just as wonderful to witness Agnes’ sense of accomplishment!

This is such a wonderful reminder of why I do what I do and just reinforced my determination to show others how scrapbooking can touch the lives of so many people! It is  probably one of the best gifts you could give someone. One that they would cherish forever! Even if you do not scrapbook yourself, everyone these days knows someone who scrapbooks and would love pre-made pages they could easily drop some photos on and call it a day! Every month, for the last four years I have been teaching a format that transitions a card into a beautiful scrapbook page. I call this design approach/theory, Cardvertibles™.

This different way to teach card makers how to scrapbook is my exciting, new adventure!

But, ahhh, how I’m going to do that will remain a mystery–for now! ha ha ha!

So who won the Blog Candy?

Want me to avoid the drum roll?

Just flat out tell you?

Okay—I will but you won’t be happy!

Why not?

Because no one won!

That’s right! No one guessed it!

Most of you got it partially right by guess scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking, scrapbooking newsletter, tutorials, etc. However, what I’m going to do is use two different delivery systems to teach this Cardvertibles™ design theory. But ahhhh…I can’t tell you everything at once now, can I?

Ahh…but don’t fret—I’ll share some more scrapbooking projects with you to keep you inspired until I do tell you. Okay?

Now to tell you about the card and scrapbooking samples. The first ones, posted at the top of this post, uses the retiring stamp set, "On A Pedestal". I have done so much with this set and highly recommend them if it is not part of your collection. It, along with the tropical leaves stamp set "Paradise" (shown here at the bottom), have been go to sets for a lot of occasions since they first became offered in the catalog and I will dearly miss them. If you can see their potential as much as I did, then you may want to give me a call to get your own before they are gone FOREVER….sniff…sniff!

Well, I’m gonna leave you with this now. I promise tomorrow to unveil more about Cardvertibles™. Until tomorrow!!

 PS. Sorry for the delay in posting. Guess I didn’t have my blog post "scheduling" skills down as well as I thought I did. I was surprised that no postings were going through this morning! I had sceduled two of them, too. One for yesterday and one for this morning. Now, we’re really off schedule. Sorry about that! I’m getting there!