Circle of Spring Thank You Card and My Stampin' Up! Journey

Don't miss out on my Monthly Special! Details are below.

Warning! This post is a little long. Sorry, couldn't suppress my excitement.

Hello there! I was very productive last week. I had no cakes on the schedule so I was able to spend a lot of time in the craft room instead of the kitchen. I spent some time organizing my time and set aside a day just for designing projects for March classes. It was so fun! And guess what? I have ALL my projects for this month done and ready to go! I even spent a day video taping some tutorials for the blog, and if I can figure out how to get them edited, I will be posting the first one this Thursday. :o) So excited! Want a sneak peak of the projects I videotaped?

I'm also excited that I have my first 2 Stampin' Up! team members. These two ladies decided that Sale-a-Bration was a good time to sign up as a demonstrator. The starter kit is already a great deal--$125 in product for $99, but during Sale-A-Bration you get an additional $30 worth of product. That's $155 for just $99! Oh, and did I mention that shipping is free and you get to choose whatever product you'd like? Yep. Like I said, it's an awesome deal.

So why would someone sign up as a demonstrator, besides the awesome deal? There are lots of reasons. The two most common are to get a discount on products and to earn some extra income. The nice thing about being an independent demonstrator is that you set your own hours and decide what you want to do with it. I've actually been a demonstrator twice and both times I started for different reasons.

I first heard of SU when we were stationed in Japan and I decided to sign up simply so I could get supplies to fuel my crafting/scrapbooking habit. We didn't have a local craft store on our base to run to when we needed adhesive or paper, and supplies from the Japanese stores were quite limited and VERY expensive. I have to say that it was a lot easier to get my business going there because I already knew a lot of crafty friends and they were happy to buy from me.

Then we moved back stateside, and my business slowed down a LOT! We lived with my in-laws for 9 months and I really didn't have access to my craft stuff and didn't know anybody, so I went inactive and eventually no longer a demonstrator. That simply meant I hadn't placed enough orders in that time period to remain active and I could no longer get a discount on products, which was fine since I wasn't able to do much crafting at the time anyway. Fast forward a couple of years and we were settled in our new home and my oldest daughter was planning to get married. I decided it was time to sign back up as a demonstrator because I knew I was going to need a lot of paper products for the wedding and knew just where to get it--from myself! By then, I'd made some friends and decided to try offering some classes in my home and see where it went.

It's been a couple of years since I signed up and I'm quite happy with my little business. I LOVE teaching classes and sharing the projects that we make with others. With all the other things on my plate, I don't have a lot of time to invest in it, but I thoroughly enjoy the time that I do. I am looking forward to teaching and helping my new recruits and spending some fun time crafting and sharing ideas with each other. So, what about you? Even if you never plan on holding a class or workshop, the starter kit is an AMAZING deal.

OK, so now on to the cute card. This is one of the cards I designed for this month's Stamp-A-Stack. 

I've been using stamp sets from the Occasions catalog so much I thought some of my other ones might be getting jealous. :o) This is the pretty Circle Of Spring set and I used the coordinating Wonderful Wreath die to cut out just the middle part so the yellow would show through. Because the die is a Framelit set, it is really only meant to cut through 1 sheet of cardstock at a time, but I needed to cut through 2 layers. I didn't want to try and line up the die to cut the Wisteria Wonder layer to match, so I just used my paper trimmer to cut a rectangle out of the middle of it, wider than the opening. The flowers were simple to color in with inks and the Aqua Painter. And, while you can't see it in the photo very well, I added a little shimmer to the bow with the Wink of Stella pen. Love that thing!!

I'm off to try and finish editing one of the videos so I can get it posted on Thursday. Don't forget to check out the new monthly special below and the links to the products used in this card.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

Monthly Special

Woohoo! We're on to the third month of the Monthly Special, which is my way of saying "Thank you" for ordering through me. I am adding a little extra goody to the Thank You Gift Pack I send out to my customers who placed an order that month. I already send out a Thank You card and little hand-made goodie of some sort, along with divvying up the hostess credit to those who use my monthly hostess code, but this will be an additional item from our catalog and it will change each month. For the month of March 2016, anyone who places an order of $65 or more will receive a package of Bow Paper Clips Embellishments.

IMPORTANT: If you select NO CONTACT when you place your order, I cannot, by law, send anything to you, so if you'd like your free gift, please make sure that is deselected. I only use the contact information to send out your free goodies. 

Please do NOT add this item to your order, unless you want a duplicate, as this will be sent directly from me, not the company. This is not a competition, there is no single winner, everyone who qualifies gets the free gift. I will send it to you along with your Thank You Gift Pack at the end of the month.