First Workshop and Projects

I had my first workshop this past Sunday. I could not have been happier with the way it turned out. My sister hosted this for me at her place since my apartment is just too small. There were 5 people who were there for the make and take and 1 showed up after to look at the supplies. I had all of my supplies from the starter kit since no one had ever heard or used Stampin' Up! The girls made a birthday card and gift box. We used a bunch of different techniques to show how to use my supplies. From this demonstration, I had 4 of the 6 ladies order. My total order was about $1,000!!! My mom loves Sizzix and ordered most of the die cuts that are exclusively ours because you can't order them anywhere else. My sister is a first time crafter, so she placed a big order to get most of the tools. With this big of an order, we got a ton of things free for hosting. She's being nice enough to let me build my supplies with these benefits. The best thing is that we ordered the Sizzix machine for free!! This was very successful and I'm looking forward to my next one next Friday while I'm in Pittsburgh. I also got 2 ladies who would love to host a workshop. I'm not doing too bad for my first month as a demonstrator!!

Here are the two projects we made with the list of the supplies. If you are interested in learning how we made the card and box, leave me a comment. Remember, you can always shop online 24/7 for the stuff that you need from me!




Supplies to make this card:

• Stamps: Bitty Birthday, Always in Bloom Wheel Stamp
• Ink: Classic Basic Black, Classic Real Red
• Cardstock: Real Red, Whisper White, Only Orange
• Tools: Stampin' Around Handle, Blender Pens, Stampin' Pastels, Snail Adhesive

This is to be the front of the box.

This is a picture of the other four sides of the box.

Supplies used to make this box:

• Stamps: Bitty Birthday (balloon), Fun and Fast Notes, Teeny Tiny Wishes (happy birthday)
• Ink: Versamark Pad, Classic Basic Black, Classic Brillant Blue
• Cardstock: Whisper White, Brillant Blue, Only Orange
• Tools: Sticky Strip, Blender Pens

Need Ideas with Those Stamps?

Hello everyone. I wanted to provide everyone with this site called Splitcoast Stampers. It's a site with lots of cards made from Stampin' Up! supplies! The best thing is you can search for the stamp set that you want to make a card to see all of the samples made with those stamps. From the home page, click on gallery at the top right corner. Then click on the Stampin' Up! Galleries link under the Splitcoast Gallery title. Scroll down and select the box of the alphabet set you are looking for. Find the set and start admiring! I have spent WAY too much time on this site. There are lots of great ideas. I am CASEing a card from this site for my workshop this Sunday. I am so glad someone introduced me to this site. I hope it helps you as well. I would recommend bookmarking the gallery because it will be a place to check out daily! Happy crafting!

Check out SPLITCOAST STAMPERS

Great Business Ideas!

I have been looking at all the ways to promote my business since I'm a newbie. Stampin' Up! offers a great site where all demonstrators can go to discuss all our questions and concerns. Someone left some great ideas on how to boost your search engine rating. The author is a Late Night Stamper. She suggested entering as many contests as you can on others blogs. That way if you win, your name and artwork will be posted for their followers to see. She also provided a great link to enter contests to get published on different sites and magazines. I am definitely going to start participating in these contests since I have the time to craft. I wanted to provide this information for anyone who loves to craft and would like to see their work be acknowledged!

Links

My sister is the best and was able to show me how to make my links open to a new window automatically. Now when you click on my links you will be taken to that page in a new window. Then you can check back to my blog for the other supplies you like. Here's my site link so you can see my newest learned ability!! I'm so happy I know how to do this now. That will make linking to my page to buy supplies so much easier.
Thank you Cori!

San Diego Scrapbook EXPO

Hello everyone. I received my email for the yearly scrapbook EXPO in San Diego this morning. I am very excited! I attended the floor area 2 years ago and spent WAY too much money for some great things. I wasn't able to attend last year, so I'm definitely looking forward to going this year. Especially now that I'm a demonstrator. I want to check out the supplies, but I really want to go for the ideas. Now that I'm buying Stampin' Up! supplies, I want to use my products to make things that I see that day.

I am looking into one of the crop nights too. They are featuring a theme to the Friday and Saturday night crops. Saturday is a Luau that I think would be sooo much fun with a group of friends. I'm hoping my girlfriends want to get together to scrap that night.

I am also thinking of entering the contest they are doing. They are calling for any and all types of creative projects using scrapbook supplies. The top 3 winners will receive a nice prize. I'm just not sure what I would do to enter. I've seen some cute paper craft projects that I would like to enter. I'm going to be thinking about this and see what I can come up with. I will definitely post anything that I make if I decided to participate. It all depends on what I come up with and if I have enough time.

If you live in San Diego, leave me a comment if you are attending what day. Also, let me know if you would like to crop Saturday night with me!

Clicking on My Links

I wanted to explain something that I'm going to be doing from now on with my posts. When I make a project and write what Stampin' Up! supplies I used, I'm going to link the product to my site so you can buy it. The problem is that when you click on the link, it takes you away from my blog. Most of the time there will be more than one product you want to buy. Unless you write down the names of the supplies, you won't be able to get back to my blog to see what they are. There are 2 things that I suggest to solve this problem. I have Windows so I'm not sure how Mac would solve this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated to help Mac users out there.

If you decide to click on the link and leave my blog, you can open up a different page and reenter my blog address then find the post so you have a list of the products to buy.

I suggest doing this instead. Right click on the link and select open in a new window option. That way you won't have to research for the post on my blog you want supplies from. At this time, I cannot figure out how to get the link to do this automatically, but I am working on figuring it out. I will try to make a video explaining how to do these two steps sometime this weekend for those visual learners out there. If you are still having problems, I will try to help as much as I can.

Here's a link to my site so give my suggestions a try. Let me know how it goes.

New Baby Card

Well it's been a LONG week with very little crafting. I did get a chance to make a card for my sister-in-law who just delivered their son on Monday! We cannot wait for our sons to grow up together so close in age.

Being a new demonstrator, I didn't get any patterned cardstock or accessories in my kit. I am waiting for my first workshop to order some of these supplies.

So, this card uses only the blue cardstock and the happy new baby stamp from Stampin' Up. The stamp is apart of the Fun and Fast Notes set. I stamped it with the classic black ink pad then used the Stampin' Pastels and Blender Pens to customize the stroller. Click on the links to purchase any of these items from my site.

This was a very simple card to make once I found the matching cardstock. This would be a great one to make multiples for future use. It can easily be changed for a girl too, substitute pink cardstock for the blue. I will definitely reuse this card style when I need to make up a quick card.

Let me know if you have any questions about this card or supplies from my site.

Facebook Page

A real quick post. I am working on creating a facebook fan page for my business. I became a fan of another demonstrator's page and it seems to be a great way to promote your work and business. This is something new to me so it's taking me some time to finish. You can still click on the link to the right to become a fan. Hopefully I will have some content to my page by the end of the day. But with a newborn, who knows!

First Meeting

I went to my first meeting on Wednesday night. It was with fellow demonstrators so it was great meeting these ladies. I was about 10 minutes late. This was my first time really going out since having my baby in December and I didn't time it right. Plus there was some traffic. When I got there the ladies were working on their projects. It cost $5 to make 5 projects. We made a box, 2 cards and 2 pages for a calendar. It was a lot of fun because this was my first time really using some of the products. It was nice talking to the ladies since I'm a new demonstrator too. They gave me some great ideas to help build my business. I left looking forward to the next one and wanting to get a group together to craft. I kept thinking that's exactly what I want my business to be like, having a group who gets together at least once a month to make projects. I just need to start finding people who are interested in paying to craft. I'm hoping after my first workshop I'll have a few who are interested.

Here are the projects we made

During the crop we also exchanged the cards we made. I was very impressed with all of the cards everyone made. I was definitely motivated after being at the meeting to craft. Here are these wonderful cards.

Our next meeting is March 9th. Unfortunately I won't be able to go because we are flying to Pittsburgh for a few weeks. I'm hoping I can still make the projects they make for this meeting. Each time we are going to make 2 pages for the calendar so I don't want to not have March and April pages. Hopefully the host will keep the supplies for me for the meeting in April.

Let me know if you want to know how each of the projects were made. I can give you a list of supplies needed and you can buy from my site. I can also host a workshop to teach you how to make any of these projects. Contact me if you are interested in making these projects.

My First Card!!

After receiving my starter kit on Friday, I was very excited to start crafting. Unfortunately after organizing everything Friday, I didn't have time the rest of the weekend. Saturday I watched the starter DVD, but didn't craft because I was busy with my family. Since Sunday was the Super Bowl, I didn't do anything that day either. I was just itching to use my new supplies. I finally got a chance to make my first card today. I am going to a demonstrator meeting on Wednesday where I'm participating in a card swap. I needed to make 7 cards so I can swap with the others. This will begin to grow my examples of what you can do with Stampin' Up! supplies. I am really looking forward to this meeting to meet fellow demonstrators and get some great ideas. I will upload pictures of the cards I receive after Wednesday.

Here is the card that I made for the swap.

Supplies used to make this card include:

• Stamps: Eastern Blooms, Define Your Life (XOXO)
• Classic Red, Basic black and Pixie pink ink
• Pink, purple and white cardstock
• Snail Adhesive
• Glue dots

This was a pretty easy card to make once I figured out what I wanted it to look like. I did a little searching online to get some ideas with the eastern blooms stamps that I wanted to use. I did it like an assembly line since I was making 8 cards. The longest part was cutting out the flowers to pop up on the flower stems. I loved how this technique turned out on the card though. It adds a neat touch. I am very pleased with my first card. I am definitely looking forward to making more. Stay tuned for my idea for my upcoming workshop Feb. 28.

Contact me if you are interested in learning how I made this card or would like to attend my workshop. The links will take you to my website so you can buy the supplies I used to make this card.

Starter Kit Has Arrived

I never got to post this because I have been working with my kit nonstop this weekend. I received my kit Friday afternoon. I spent most of Friday just going through everything and becoming familiar with the contents. The funniest thing was before I even opened the box. Here's what the box had on it.
And boy was that statement true! There was extreme excitement!
Here are pictures of everything in the kit.
All of the contents inside the box

VersaMark - watermark ink - used to make tone on tone designs

Stampin' Scrub - used to clean stamps
Stampin' Pastels - chalks in all Stampin' Up! family colors
Classic Stampin Pads in red, pink, black, green and blue

Snail Adhesive

Stampin' Around Handle with Stampin' Around Wheel - Always in Bloom
Blender Pens - used to make watercolor effect
Butterfly Decor Elements

Box of 2009-2010 Idea book and catalogs
Stack of stamps - Bitty Birthday

Eastern Blooms

Define Yourself

Teeny Tiny Wishes

Elegant Thank You

Fun and Fast Notes

I didn't take pictures but the kit also included 3 stacks of 8 1/2 by 11 24 sheets of white, bold brights and soft subtle cardstock. It also included a starter DVD and CD that shows our digital scrapbook kit. Promotional catalogs, postcards and some other business catalogs were included. Finally there was a bunch of business forms to make customer orders at workshops.

It definitely has everything to help get started, but I am already planning on ordering some of the other supplies Stampin' Up! has to offer. For example I want the border and corner punches we have to offer. There are so many things I can do with these during my workshops. I am also a HUGE fan of Sizzix. I cannot wait to get some or all of these dies. Another great tool I will be able to feature during my workshops. And then there are the stamps. I have a feeling I will have a ton of these as well! I am going to wait for my first workshop at the end of February before I order anything more though.

I really look forward to using this starter kit to help me with my first workshop at the end of February.

Border and Corner Punch Video

Border and Corner PunchesHere's a great video showing how to use the border and corner punches.  Make sure to subscribe to Stampin' Up! videos on YouTube.  You will find all types of videos using Stampin' Up! products!  But make sure you have some time because you could spend hours watching everything they have.

My First Party

I haven't figured out the details yet but I have my first party planned for Feb. 28 at 2 pm.  My sister is going to be hosting.  I think I am going to be having at least one make and take project.  I want to use my supplies to make something that if the guests place an order they will receive this small gift.  I'm also allowing my guests to bring their current scrapbook/craft project they are working on to use my supplies to test them out.  Most of my guests have never seen or used Stampin' Up! products so I'm hoping this will get them excited and make some orders.  I'm looking for any suggestions for a first timer.  Thanks!

I have another possible party when I go to Pittsburgh in March.  Let me know if there are any suggestions for March crafts as well.

I checked my tracking for my starter kit and it should arrive tomorrow!!  I'm hoping it comes early in the morning so I can begin crafting as soon as possible.  I have been dying to get my supplies.

Cup of Tea Card

As I wait for my starter kit I have been doing lots of searching all over for some great crafting ideas. I have found some great things that I look forward to trying when my supplies finally arrive. I was watching The Martha Stewart Show today and fell in love with this tea cup card. It's such a great idea for anyone who loves drinking tea. It could be altered with hot chocolate too. I thought it would be a great card to teach at a workshop that I could have little packets of tea for the group to include with the card.

Here's a picture of the finished card from the website.

Find the directions here: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/valentines-day-card

I look forward to making this card with my supplies. I got an email today that my kit has been shipped!! Once I get a chance to make the card I will post my picture of it.

New Demonstrator

I am a new demonstrator for Stampin' Up! I am really looking forward to beginning this business. I want to use this post to help promote what I am doing. If you have never seen Stampin Up products, you are in for a treat! If you have then you know what a great company this is to buy paper-crafting supplies. You may use me to buy these great supplies. If you live in San Diego and would be interested in hosting a party you may contact me. Either way, I am here to show what you can do with Stampin' Up! products. I am very excited to be doing something that I absolutely love.

Here is the link to my Stampin' Up website where you can contact me and shop directly for the supplies. I hope you enjoy everything there.
http://brittnysmith.stampinup.net