My Why ....

As a new demonstrator to Stampin' Up! I signed up for an extra training course to help ensure my new endeavor gets off to a bang up start - one of the challenges was to create and share your 'my why stampin up story' and to create a 'my why poster' for our own inspiration to keep us motivated in our task! I chose to use the My Digital Studio to capture mine!

It was lots of fun to create and I am looking forward to the next several months worth of challenges to stretch me and my passion for stampin to new levels!

My Open House - a 'business warming' party!

WOW ... I had an awesome busy weekend so my apologizes for not posting on the blog this weekend.

I had my first open house 'business warming party' and my thanks to everyone who was able to come out to support me I had an awesome time and hope everyone else did as well!

We made two cards this is the first one featuring the Because I Care hostess stamp and showcasing the corner punch and ornament punch and colour spritzer tool - which rocks for making a 'antiqued' looking paper depending on the colour choices!

Our second card features the Elements of Style stamp set and showcased the ease of the Big Shot and the Daisies 2 bigz die as well as the ticket corner punch.

I wasn't sure how I was going to fit everyone into my little living dining room while still creating an 'inviting space' but I hope I pulled it off!

Even carved out a little niche for a card and project display for people to peruse to get inspiration on how Stampin' Up! products can be used to create wonderful unique cards!

And well not social gathering will be complete without some yummy food for sharing over great conversation and card making .... thanks again to family and friends for making my open house a success ;-)

Black Magic ... under my spell

This technique is totally cool ... called Black Magic with a twist and is a combination of using white ink on a dark background and than colouring with Stampin Up Water colour pencils and a white gel pen for that extra magic pop factor!

The first card features the Watercolour Trio stamp set in the 2010 Summer mini catalog, the Top Note Bigz die and the scallop trim punch ... awesome combination inspired by Liz Goldhawk my up line mentor!

This section card is from the new catalog called Just Believe and is a cute little set!

Back with more Bloomin Beautiful

Unfortunately the Bloomin' Beautiful is a retired set ... but I just love it ... there is a current set in the new catalog called Happiness Shared that is very similar just has not made it into my stampin' closet yet.

This particular set is great for 'layering' to give the flower pop factor ... I think this one might be another card to make it into the Run for the Cure fund-raising collection!

In the Jungle ... the Mighty Jungle

Using the My Digital Studio for scrapbooking our recent trip to African Lion Safari was AMAZING fun ... just when I thought I could not love this product anymore watching how easy it was to organize my photos and make them pop off the page was just phenomenal! Having over 250 photos to 'choose from' felt overwhelming to start ... however after pruning the poor shots to trim down the quantity a bit combined with the ability to easily resize digital photos allowed for the 96, in my opinion, gorgeous memorable shots of the day to be captured in the 23 page scrapbook layout.