You can see that I haven’t been active here for a while – for so many reasons. But I’m definitely still a demonstrator and still holding classes, selling products and sharing creativity as much as I can.
And I’m working on an updated blog/website that I hope will be coming soon.

In the meantime you can keep up with all that’s new by heading over to Facebook and liking my page:
www.facebook.com/thestampers mess

Happy crafting and creating!

Genna

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Many apologies for being so quiet for so long. One of the great things about Stampin’ Up! is that it’s flexible and can fit in with your life and change as you need it to. I just never expected other things in my life to take over as they have done this year.

The past few months have been the most intensely stressful sustained period I’ve yet to experience. When I first went quiet it was because we were completely renovating our house and putting it on the market at a time dictated to us by an inflexible bank, as well as having to be very hands-on with the process of building of our new house through an independent builder. Let’s just say that neither went to plan and the anxiety, exhaustion and stress have not been conducive to creativity.

I’ve had a lot of questions about what’s been going on so here’s the story. It’s long and complicated so bear with me. Or skip to the end.

January 2017

The problems started when our windows, which were ordered in January and due in April didn’t arrive. The first delivery was in June but was just the frames with the fixed windows and some of the screens. From that point on though we were stuck because the brickwork was done around the windows we had and we just had to wait for the rest, which we were always told were ‘just about to arrive’. We’ve ended up getting the rest of the windows but VERY slowly and with a lot of stress and sleepless nights.

The last windows were delivered last month but…they’re sliding windows with enough space between the panes to fit a paint stirrer. For double-glazed thermally broken windows, the great big gap allowing air flow and rattling is a bit of a surprise. We’ve begged, pleaded, threatened and gotten legal advice to start that process and at one point (11 months from ordering) the supplier told us our best option was to take them out and get someone else to make them. In addition we’re still missing screens, have windows that don’t fully function, have one that’s actually a door shrunk to look like a window (but not open like one), have loose glass, missing pieces, damage, etc. We have no idea when this part of the nightmare will end.

February 2017

When the windows were late we contacted our bank to ask for an extension to the bridging part of our loan. It was denied. We appealed. It was denied again. We were asking a bank we’d been customers of for 16 years to give us six weeks longer to repay the part of the loan secured by our current home. They refused because our house wasn’t on the market and we were asking more than a month from the deadline. We were asking so far ahead so that we could delay putting our house on the market. Once we’d done that it would be too late. They absolutely refused to budge even though not having our house finished would mean we wouldn’t even have fully drawn on the loan they wanted us to reduce. And it would mean selling our current house without a new one to go to but likely only for a few weeks over Christmas when there will be little chance of finding anything to rent.

So we had no choice but to put our current house on the market. To do that we needed to renovate and we had to do that ourselves. We spent weeks of 18 hour days painting, packing, shifting and moving things to storage. Everything in our house had to be physically relocated at least three or four times. In addition to the craziness of the lying and manipulative window supplier, we had carpet people confirm a booking one day and get us to move all the furniture (some of it outside) and rip out carpets only to not turn up as scheduled the next and end up shortening the window between new carpets and real estate photos from 4 days to just under 1-1/2. I had another tradie get angry and try to intimidate me into continuing with his services when I asked him to leave my house for behaving extremely unpleasantly. Others have aggressively pounded on our door on a Saturday morning – because we were unhappy with their work and cancelled anything further!

But it did pay off and we sold the house at a great price in just 6 days – one open home, two private viewings, two offers. We managed a long settlement but that is up next week and we will be moving – but we don’t know where to.

PLEASE NOTE – This means no more events
will be held at Kirra Close!

Once the house was sold the focus was back on trying to have the new house ready before we found ourselves homeless. We’re building with an independent builder who is fantastic but it means we’re doing a lot more of the practical stuff ourselves – researching and meeting with suppliers while he does the actual building. EVERYTHING about it became urgent and everything had to be dropped whenever the next thing was needed to try and make sure that absolutely nothing resulted in further delays. That didn’t happen.

July 2017

As I write to you now we are just days away from moving out of our home of 16 years and the new house is unlikely to be ready for us to move into. Until last Friday there was still a remote chance – as long as the dodgy windows passed the occupancy inspection. But when the kitchen – ordered in July – didn’t arrive as promised our hopes were dashed – and we don’t know where that leaves us.  Our cabinet maker – who did a great job on our current kitchen 14 year ago – completely out of the blue has been aggressive, insulting and regularly leaving me in tears. He’s become fixated that he won’t get paid even though we’re ahead on progress payments and have never had a late or unpaid invoice AND have tens of thousands worth of more cabinetry we’ve commissioned him to build. He’s refused to deliver our kitchen and demanded full payment for everything now. This is a violation of his own contract terms and a total shock because he’s done the bathrooms and the laundry and it went smoothly. He has since been nothing but rude and arrogant and we are just hoping he delivers the main kitchen this week.

We are now looking at taking up a very generous housesitting offer when we leave our current house next week, with the hope that our actual builder (who has been totally brilliant throughout all this) can get the house into a state where we can move in soon, although there will still be lots to finish over the coming months. We know it will be a wonderful house, and we will make it a fantastic home, but right now we are facing a long period of uncertainty, disappointment and possible legal battles. Things may resolve rapidly, they may not. We shall see.

Through all this I have been able to keep both my monthly stamp club and my twice-monthly Create & Chat classes going and posting sporadically on Facebook but that’s all I’ve managed. Once all the house stuff is resolved I plan to hit the ground running and be back with even more events than ever!

In the meantime I will be quiet for a little while longer. I have no events at all planned for December while I don’t have a venue so I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If all goes well I will be back in January with the unveiling of my new classroom and the launch of the Occasions Catalogue and Sale-a-bration 2018.

NEW STAMPERS’ MESS VENUE SOON
Cranbourne North

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We’re coming to the end of our week of deals
– and that means another 24-hour-only sale!

The most popular of today’s specials is bound to be the Magnetic Platform – if you’ve got a Big Shot you absolutely HAVE to have one of these. Its magnetic surface holds dies in place so you can stamp first, cut second and get the perfect placement.

Magnetic Platform
Usually $70.00
Today only $45.50

Or you can let me know what you want and I’ll order it for you. I can send it directly to you or add it to one of my orders for collection from Narre Warren.

GET IN QUICK TO SAVE ON POSTAGE
AND BE INCLUDED IN MY ORDER AT 6PM!

Check out the updated lists below
(Now edited to include all discounted prices and to remove any items that have already sold out)

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Bookings closing tomorrow!

In this class you’ll get to use my co-ordinating stamp set, inks and adhesive to make up the three trees in the amazing Forever Evergreen Trees kit! 

This kit makes three trees in two sizes—

one 13″ (33 cm) tall,
two 11″ (27.9 cm) tall

—each individually trimmed with handmade ornaments.

Everyone is surprised just how big they are in real life!

The cost of the kit includes all these pieces:

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IT’S THIS WEEK!

Each of the three projects features a fancy fold and a diamond shaped design.

If you want to come along please make sure you click the button above and follow the prompts to book your place.If you don’t have a digital way to pay the fee send me an email and I’ll give you the cash payment password so you can still pay on the day.*ALL CLASS ATTENDEES CAN GET A $10 DISCOUNT ON THE FEE BY PLACING AN ORDER OF $100 OR MORE ON THE DAY.

And the gingerbread man paper clip bookmark even hides a ‘secret’ inside panel!

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Do you have a wishlist of stamping goodies from the current Stampin’ Up! catalogues?

Is there anything you’d be devastated to miss out on?

Both the Annual Catalogue and the Occasions catalogue are finishing on 31st May and everything that is NOT going to be in the new Annual Catalogue is now only available while stocks last! Even better, they’re currently at up to 50% off!

ENDS 31st MAY

ENDS 31st MAY

You can download a pdf of the full alphabetical list of retiring items by clicking the image below

Please note that this list is being updated regularly
so keep checking back to see what’s out of stock.

Or you can take the easy route and view everything – including images – in my online shop
by clicking on the image below:

 This one will be kept up to date so if you don’t see it there
it’s probably already too late!

If there’s anything you want to order
you’ll need to get in quick.

You can email me at genna@thestampersmess.com

Call me on 03 9705 2553 or 0438 062291

Or simply click on the link below and place an online order:

Cheers

Genna

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Must end Thursday March 31st!

Yes, we’re nearing the end of March already and so it’s time for Sale-a-bration to end. In case you haven’t caught up with what all the fuss is about here’s a look at how you can get free stuff during Sale-a-bration:

You can see all the fun stuff you can choose from here:

Click the image above to view the Sale-a-bration brochure.

Or click the images below to view the second release of freebies you could choose from!

And here’s a reminder of some of the projects I’ve been making, sharing and teaching using the free Sale-a-bration products:

 Botanicals For You

Hello & Perfectly Artistic Papers

Sky Is The Limit

Wildflower Fields Papers

Wildflower Fields Papers

 Honeycomb Happiness

Botanical Garden Designer Vellum Stack

Pedal Pusher

 What I Love

Sky Is The Limit

Botanicals For You

To make sure you don’t miss out on the Sale-a-bration products, place your $90 order today:

And if you want to take advantage of the $295 worth of products for just $169 you can order your Starter Kit here.

It really is a bargain. You get to choose any products you like up to $295, you get a business pack for free, and you don’t pay any shipping fees. All for just $169! There’s no obligation to do anything else. If you never place another order it’s all still yours for the bargain price. But…you also get the opportunity to get your own future orders at at least 20% off, and the opportunity to earn and income with Stampin’ Up! What you do when you become a demonstrator is entirely up to you. Hobby, business or somewhere in between.

Feel free to get in touch if you’d like any more information.

Cheers

Genna

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In The Meadow to the rescue.

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Remember you have until the end of March to earn yourself a free Sale-a-bration product for every $90 you spend on any Stampin’ Up! goodies you like.

And from today you have three new choices when it comes to the freebies:

Pedal Pusher
(141312 Photopolymer)
Free with a $90 purchase

Metallics Glitter Tape
(141020)
Free with a $90 purchase

Party Pants
(141324 Wood, 141327 Clear Mount)
Free with a $90 purchase

I don’t have any of these new goodies…yet. So I can’t show you any of my creations. But you can see them in action in these updated pages for the Sale-a-bration brochure:

Click here to see these images as a printable pdf

And here’s a reminder of how Sale-A-Bration works:

Back soon with some more creations to share with you.

Cheers

Genna

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…before these products fly away!

It’s still Sale-a-bration – that doesn’t end until 31st March.

You can still get a FREE product from the Sale-a-bration brochure for every $90 you spend.

But this year we’re changing things up a bit…

The last three pages of the brochure show three products that won’t be on offer to claim as your freebies after today! 

And here they are:

Sky Is The Limit
(141282 Wood, 141349 Clear Mount)
Free with a $90 purchase

Perfectly Artistic 12″ x 12″ DSP
(141021)
Free with a $90 purchase

Hello
(141240 Wood, 141243 Clear Mount)
Free with a $90 purchase

And here are a couple of cards I’ve made using these products:

This one uses both the papers – which I’ve sponged to add more variety of colour – and the Hello stamp set.

And this one is a variation on the Valentine’s cards I posted yesterday. I used the same layout but all of a sudden it’s a Congratulations card instead!

So while it’s sad to say goodbye to these products, the good news is that I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you about the THREE brand new products you’ll be able to earn for free instead!

Cheers

Genna

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Don’t miss out on another class or event!

Here are my calendars for the rest of the year! Click on the images below and print out your own copy of my schedule month by month. With handy icons to highlight different types of classes, gatherings and other events you’ll always know what’s coming up.

Please note that these are updated versions from those previously distributed – it’s a busy time of year and required some juggling!

 NOVEMBER

Click on the image to view the printable pdf.

  DECEMBER

Click on the image to view the printable pdf.

Cheers

Genna

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 TURN YOUR OLD STAMPIN’ UP! PRODUCTS INTO EXCITING NEW ONES!

2pm—4pm

Saturday 7th November

RAFT Anglican Church
131 Taylors Lane
ROWVILLE

(Easy access from the 
Monash and Eastlink)

Gold coin entry for buyers 
or $5 admin fee for sellers

I’m very excited to be organising this event coming up next week. It’s really soon because we wanted to get it done before Christmas and venues at weekends are getting hard to come by!

Bring your friends, share this news around!

Please feel free to ask me any questions

about being a seller or a buyer at the event.

BUYERS—

• Pick up bargains and sought after second hand stamps, dies, punches, tools, retired papers, kits and more! 
• See your options from multiple sellers all in one place.
• Browse to find the best price.
• Inspect before you buy – know the quality of what you’re purchasing.
• Stampin’ Up! is a realiable brand so pre-loved doesn’t mean poor quality.
• No postage fees.
• No wait times and no lost parcels!

SELLERS—

• Consign your no longer wanted old Stampin’ Up! products to us and get a voucher for brand new Stampin’ Up! product for every dollar your items sell for. 
• New for old! Dollar for dollar!
• You decide on the price and you don’t even have to be there—if you’re not going to browse or buy just deliver your pre-labelled products to one of our drop off points in advance!
• All unsold products can be collected by the sellers for up to 30 days after the event.

Check out more details here.

Talk to me today:

Cal me on 9705 2553  or  0438 062 291

Or register your interest at the Event Page on Facebook:

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It’s been one of my dreams to see the Northern Lights some day so when there was a spectacular Aurora Borealis visible here in Victoria recently and I didn’t see it I was gutted.

But it did remind me that I’d been wanting to try out the Northern Lights technique for a looooong time. So why not now?

This technique is all done with sponging. I used a combination of Sponge Daubers and Stampin’ Sponges for my tools. I masked off the bottom portion with a torn piece of scrap paper and just played around until I got a look I liked – I did go through quite a few sheets of cardstock though! The colours I used for the sky were Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, Blackberry Bliss and Black.

Once I was happy I sponged some Garden Green ink for the ground and stamped the silhouette trees over the top. I used a combination of Sheltering Tree and the ever reliable Lovely As A Tree.

Finally I added the greetings and the stars. The latter were dotted around using the tip of the White Gel Pen and really made a huge difference to the look of the sky.

After all the sponging attempts that didn’t make the cut I ended up making two cards. I like the ‘lights’ better on one and the layout better on the other. 

Which one do you like best?

Leave me a comment and let me know!

Do you want to know a secret?

I stamped the greetings in Whisper White ink but didn’t like how pale they seemed on the background, so I held my breath and traced over the stamping with the White Gel Pen.

In future I think I’ll use White Embossing Powder and emboss over the top.

Don’t forget to let me know which version your prefer.

Cheers

Genna

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It’s time for another Blog Hop with some of the very creative ladies on the Art With Heart Stampin’ Up! team – one of the largest teams in Melbourne! But before I share my projects with you I also wanted to highlight the Join Stampin’ Up! Special that’s available until 30th June. 

STARTER KIT
Normally great value at $169 for $235 worth of products
NOW EVEN BETTER
It’s still $169 but now you get $235 of the products of your choice
PLUS CHOOSE 2 STAMP SETS OF ANY VALUE

The Art With Heart team offers support, fun and friendship to anyone who would like to join us – whether you’re interested in being a Hobby Demonstrator or a Business Demonstrator, or anything in between. It’s up to you and we’re here to share your journey in whatever form it takes.

Now on with the hop. Welcome to all those who’ve just come from Kayleen McLean’s blog. With the new catalogue starting this month what better theme than to showcase our favourite BRAND NEW products.

On my first browse through the new catalogue I was delighted to find a whole range of stamps in the ‘watercolour’ style. This is a very forgiving style and it doesn’t matter if your stamp isn’t quite inked correctly or you get a bit wobbly with your stamping – it’s all part of the rough and ready look. My favourite in this range is Watercolour Words because it includes some great feature greetings along with decent sized images:

Watercolour Words (p117)
(138702) Photopolymer stamp set $45.00

My first card is one inspired by receiving my box of new goodies. I’d ordered three of the five colours of Thick Baker’s Twine and when I pulled them all out of the box it struck me how much I liked the colour combination. And it was so quick and easy to put those colours together using this stamp set. For those coming along to my Catalogue Launch this week, this is one of the cards you can choose to make at my Card Buffet!

The next sample is a card we made at Stamp Club this week. I was teaching the Ombre Technique where you create an image using graduations of the same colour. And because this stamp is Photopolymer you can line up all those words without the need for a Stamp-a-ma-jig!

For my final sample I teamed Watercolour Words with another stamp in the range, the Watercolour Wash background stamp:

Watercolour Wash (p129)
(138704) Wood mount stamp $35.00
(139538) Clear mount stamp $26.00

This card was designed for my Create & Chat class yesterday.  It was the first time I used the new THICK Whisper White cardstock. I’m so so happy we now have a crisp white cardstock that’s suitable for stamping and for using as a card base! Having it mostly white really makes the feature greeting pop! You might spot some of our new In Colours there too – Watermelon Wonder, Tip Top Taupe and Mint Macaron.

Before I go, I just wanted to give you a quick glimpse at some other stamps in the ‘watercolour’ style. Starting with a returning favourite from the last catalogue – the stamp that started it all off, and following with some fantastic 2-step stamps that allow you to build the image you want.

Watercolour Thank you (p18)
(15377) Wood Mount stamp $16.00

Watercolour Wings (p75)
(139424) Photopolymer stamp set $45.00

Garden In Bloom (p119)
(139433) Photopolymer stamp set $44.00

Well that’s it from me, now it’s time to head over and see what new products have been keeping Tina Gillespie busy at her crafting desk!

Cheers

Genna

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:

1. Kathryn Ruddick
2. Jenny Van Dijk
3. Kathryn Mangelsdorf
4. Nikki Sadler
5. Ros Davidson
6. Kate Morgan
7. Kayleen McLean
8. Genna Gifford
9. Tina Gillespie
10. Judy May

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I’d been trying to work out what I’d make for my cousin’s recent wedding. I’d had a lot of traditional card ideas going round in my head and was browsing through the catalogue trying to decide what stamp set to choose when I happened to flick to the Project Life page. And I was suddenly reminded that I had both of these:

It was the reverse side of the dress card that had me hooked on the idea of piecing the cards together with washi tape – how could I choose between the two dresses? So this is what the first inside panel looks like: 

And when you open it fully it reveals a secret pocket where we put our contribution to their honeymoon. All of these cards are exactly how the come in the pack. All I did was piece them all together. On the back of the little card tucked in with the money is where I wrote our message.

Even the back of the card has a special feature: 

So here’s what both sides of the completed card look like when they’re all opened out.

Once I’d hit on the idea of using the pre-printed cards as panels joined with washi tape it all came together really easily. And the finished product looks so much more effort than it actually was. I really hope the liked it!

Cheers

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