Hello stampers and happy Wednesday to you. Hello Ladybug was the star of my video on Tuesday for Stories and Stamps. Unfortunately the finished card was not really featured very well. I had zoomed in to show the stamping of the ladybug and then forgot to zoom out. If you watched the video then you will be happy to see these photos of the finished card. These ladybugs are so much fun to make!! Let’s take a look at my card.
Hello Ladybug Card
I used Garden Green for the base of this card with some tone on tone stamping for the background. My first stamping with this bundle was super busy so I decided not to use it for my card.
It is fun to make different ladybugs by switching up the wings. You could also go totally rogue and choose non-traditional colours for some whimsical ladybugs. If you do, be sure to share the photos with me!
Inside the Hello Ladybug Card
You have to take the party inside! That’s right; don’t forget to finish off the inside of the card to really make it special. I used the other ladybug stamp for the inside. It doesn’t have a punch but it is a beautiful stamp!
Did you notice that the ladybug in the top left of the card has a red body? I should have shown a black ladybug with black and white wings too. Making this card brought a smile to my face. It’s a good day indeed!
Thanks!
Thanks for joining me today. I hope you have a super day and happy stamping. Message me if I can help you with anything!!
Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. I am getting back into the swing of regularly blogging and it feels good. The other thing I am trying to be consistent in is customer engagement. Pre-COVID and pre-world traveling I hosted five different stamp clubs. With my lifestyle change that is no longer going to work but I would like to something similar on a grander scale. Would you like to hear more about it? I am going to call it my Long Distance Club.
Long Distance Club and How it Works
The long distance club is designed to give me consistent sales and to give you consistent teaching and exclusive content. It’s a win-win situation. There will be an exclusive private Facebook group for long distance club members. There will be a monthly Zoom meeting with the chance to connect. In the Facebook group there will also be a monthly card class. Each club member will get happy mail from me each month and to distribute the free host products there will be a quarterly Bingo game. Does that sound like fun? All you have to do is either place a monthly $40 order or a quarterly $120 order.
Ideally I would like to start this club in July, so let me know if you want to be a part of this new venture! I forgot to tell you that your membership in the Long Distance club with also give you free membership in my Prime Time group as well as a free pdf tutorial from the International Create With Us tutorial bundle team.
Stamping Retreats
One thing that I love to organize is intimate stamping retreats. As a member of the Long Distance Club you will get first dibs at these retreats. Before registration opens to the public, you will get a chance to register first. Depending on where everyone is from that will help me decide on a retreat location. Here is a photo from our last team retreat. This is the vibe that I am going for in our retreats: peace, tranquility and community.
Regular retreats are also a part of the wonderful perks of being on my Beyond Pampered Team as a demonstrator. If you want to join my team you can do so by clicking on this link. The starter kit is always a great deal!!
Ending With A Card
I should end this blog post with a card don’t you think? Here is the card that I made for my Cheer Corner this morning. It uses the stamp set Brewed For You and is a great masculine card. This card was NOT my original idea, I cased it from Kylie Page who was in turn inspired by Mikaela Titheridge. I love how we all help each other out in the crafting world! Here is the link to Kylie’s blog so you can check both of those cards out too.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for joining me today, I appreciate you being here. If you want to show me a little more love, please leave a comment. I hope you have a super day!
Hello stampers and happy Saturday to you. Today I am sharing a sneak peek video from the Holiday Catalog. A video is the best way to show off the new products, especially the beautiful patterned paper. It is my birthday weekend so all the kids have come home to celebrate with me. That means this will be the shortest blog post ever!!
Sneak Peek Holiday Catalog Video
Please Remember
Please do remember that the products in this video are not available until July 1. If you want instant gratification then you can put these items in your starter kit. There is no tax on the starter kit and you can choose $165 worth of products for only $135. It’s always a good deal! You also get 20% off any future orders. There are more details but it really is risk free and you have nothing to lose. Message me if you have any questions. Here is a helpful link.
Hello stampers and happy Thursday to you. Today I am sharing my Hope & Prayer Stack and Shuffle cards. Hope & Prayer is a beautiful stamp set and the stack and shuffle technique is perfect for making a stack of simply stunning sympathy cards. I hope you like them as much as I do!! Let’s take a look.
Hope & Prayer
Hope & Prayer is a stamp set with four images and four sayings. It is not only suited for sympathy cards but also for thinking of you and thank you. Use this stamp set to uplift your friends and the people in your life. Take the concept of happy mail one step further and turn it into a ministry of love, support and encouragement.
Here you can see the inside of the cards.
Finishing Touch
The finishing touch to these beautiful Hope & Prayer sympathy cards is definitely the Natural Finish Ribbon and Tailor Made Tags. You can see the lovely detail here below.
Measurements for Stack & Shuffle Technique
Here is a handy graphic for you to use so you can make these Stack and Shuffle cards yourself. Start with a 4″ by 6″ stack of four different patterns.
Video Tutorial
I did a video tutorial on YouTube but the technological gods were not smiling at me that day. The picture quality is a little blurry but at least I talk you through how to do this technique. My viewers said that they still enjoyed the video despite its visual shortcomings.
Shop With Me!
I really do hope that if you are looking for someone to buy your stamping supplies from that you will consider me. With the links below I have tried to make it as easy as possible for you to do just that! If you have any questions please message me and I will do my best to help you out. Have a super day!
Hello stampers. I am sitting at Raleigh-Durham airport waiting to fly home. I thought I would use this time to share some vacation wisdom. As you might know, this trip was planned to replace the Stampin’Up! incentive trip that was supposed to be a Caribbean cruise. Gerard has thus far NOT been able to go on an incentive trip because of COVID. I received a cash gift in lieu of the trip and I planned some stays in gorgeous cabins in the Smoky Mountains and then a few days in a romantic, historic bed and breakfast.
While there were many beautiful moments, there were also times of extreme frustration due to travel dilemmas. What wisdom did we glean from this?
Please note that I started writing this post more than a week ago, but I decided to publish it anyways. I hope you enjoy the travel adventures. I’m sure you will be able to relate to some of our experiences!
The Best Laid Plans…some vacation wisdom!
The best laid plans can indeed go awry. The Bible tells us that too. Another truth is that the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. On his flight out Gerard’s first airplane had a mechanical issue. After waiting for two and half hours on the tarmac, everyone was deplaned and the flight was canceled. Picture long lineups with only two agents working. Long story short, he could not get a flight out and had to get a hotel and fly out the next morning.
In the meantime, I was in Charlotte airport where I needed to book a last minute Airbnb or hotel as I would not be driving three and a half hours to the first cabin only to drive back to the airport the next day. I decided to pick up the rental car that Gerard had arranged. No luck. It was fully paid and in his name and even with him on the phone to the agent, they would not let me pick up the car. I had to rent another car for one day so that I could get around. This whole process took about one and a half hours!
It gets worse!! When Gerard arrives the next day the first place we have to go is to the lost luggage department. You see, NO luggage had arrived. Not his carryon, not his big suitcase. Then we had to pick up his rental car. By the time we got to our cabin it was 7pm. A lot of precious time wasted and the uncertainty of if and when the luggage would arrive.
It was indeed Almost Heaven to soak in a hot tub on the deck of this beautiful cabin that was totally secluded on the side of a densely wooded mountain. You can check it out here.
The next day was Sunday and it was so good to worship with the locals in a little church just down the mountain from us. It was our first time in a Missionary Baptist church. My friend Letha took this picture of it.
Lemons out of Lemonade
When I realized that we would not be able to stay in our gorgeous cabin the first night I messaged my friend Letha who lives in North Carolina. I knew she would be up for an adventure and she was!! She went with her friend Ann and spent the night there so that really helped me out. I no longer felt like the cabin was “wasted”. Letha helped me out by giving lots of great travel suggestions and helpful tips for finding the cabin.
If you want to see another blog post about sunshine and lemons, you can. check out this one here.
White Water Rafting
We went white water rafting in the morning which was truly breathtaking. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, with mostly level 2 and one level 3 rapids but that did let us enjoy the surroundings more instead of focusing on staying in the raft and out of the rapids! You can check out the website from this great company here.
In the back of Gerard’s mind was still his missing luggage. Would it get delivered to the one rental agency after we arrived at the second one? Would we have to retrace our steps and drive an extra three hours to track it down?
Cabin Number Two
On Tuesday afternoon we made our way to our second cabin which was closer to Asheville where we would go and visit the famous Biltmore Estates.
The drive to our second cabin was beautiful and at the end it was very steep with hairpin turns. I was so excited! This meant that our view was going to be beautiful!! It was!! The only trouble was, I couldn’t find the hot tub. Turns out there wasn’t one. This crazy squirrel was so enamoured with the view, with the cabin and with the wood burning fireplace that I had overlooked this important detail. You can check out the cabin here.
I think that my favourite thing about this cabin was the fact that Gerard taught me to play pool decently here. In the past I was so so bad at this game it was unbelievable. You see, after the first night here, the rain came and fog rolled in and there was no more view!!! We had a lot of fun playing pool and ping pong. Turns out that Gerard is a great ping-pong player . He used to play a lot as a teenager.
A Turn for the Worse
After an unremarkable afternoon in Asheville Gerard could no longer take the stress of the missing suitcases. After many calls to service agents from the airport and airline he was getting mixed messages. In fact, the lost luggage department at the airport only has voicemail. It is impossible to talk to a person and they do not answer their voicemail with either a phone call or an email. We spend four hours driving to Charlotte airport only to find out that there was still NO luggage. I was heartsick. All this hard earned SU money spend on beautiful cabins and we aren’t even in them to enjoy them. So what is the lesson here?
I kept telling myself, focus on the joy, focus on the joy. You are together. In a nice place. With fun games. We made a fire in the hearth, cooked some hot dogs and then played some games. The next day we would be up on time to explore Biltmore Estate!!
Biltmore Estate
Biltmore Estate is a beautiful chateau built by George Washington Vanderbilt in the 1890’s. Not only is there a gorgeous chateau to explore, there are also beautiful, extensive grounds to discover, a rose garden and a winery. Despite the bad weather forecast we had an incredible day.
Grove Park Inn
The guide in the smaller museum in Antler Village recommended a visit to the famous Grove Park Inn. We followed her advice and had some drinks by the fire and enjoyed reading about the history there. If you are ever even a few hours away from here, I would highly recommend a visit at any time of the year. Start with Biltmore and then end here with a nice drink on the patio enjoying the view. Be sure to stroll the hallways and soak up the history!
The Best for Last
Our last stop was the best for the simple reason that we were finally able to totally relax. We now knew that Gerard’s luggage was NOT going to arrive and we were also ensconced in luxury and in the capable hands of our talented innkeeper who spoiled us each morning with phenomenal breakfasts on the verandah. I chose this place because Stampin’Up! had given a generous cash allowance in lieu of the Caribbean cruise that I had earned. It was worth every penny and came close to what we would have experienced on an incentive trip.
If you want to read more about the Elmwood Inn you can do so here.
Back in the Saddle
I realize that I haven’t blogged in almost a month!! That is shocking, but given my hectic schedule, something had to give. It feels good to get back into the swing of things and I hope that you too are getting back into stamping. If you live in Canada and need a catalog, please let me know. You can always shop online with me here and every blog post has links to the products that I used for the post. This one only has links to great vacation spots!! I should be a tour guide instead of a demonstrator. All kidding aside, I love what I do and I hope that you continue to support me with your orders.
Follow me on YouTube
Looking for some fun and easy cards to make? You can find me on my YouTube channel here or check out my latest video below.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for joining me today, I really do appreciate you being here. If you order with me online you will receive at least one free tutorial as a gift. The Demo Design Dream Team has a summer theme to the tutorial this month, here is the sneak peek.
