As a demonstrator, when you start to grow a small team you can earn the right to give your team a name. I struggled with this a bit and it took me more than a year after I became entitled to choose one to actually give my team a name. I wanted it to be right. It couldn’t be too corny but I wanted it to have a down to earth and welcoming vibe too.

In the end I called my team The Stampers Next Door.

There are several reasons for the name. It fit my selection criteria, and it just so happens that my team does most of their stamping in the house next door to mine – which is owned by my in-laws. It just seemed to fit and I’ve been really happy with it.

So, I thought it would be appropriate to make a few cards in the team’s honour.

This is the first door card I made and it was initially to put in the header for my team newsletter.

This is a close up of some of the door’s key feauters, a ‘stained glass’ window and a ‘build-a-brad’ handle.

These next two doors were made during the creative process for my Christmas in July class this year. I loved them both, but only the first one made it into the class projects.

This last one is my favourite…for now. I have a few ideas for others so look out for more in the future.

I would love my team members to get creative with some door cards too but so far I haven’t been able to convince any of them. So I thought I’d throw the idea out there and if anyone reading this would like to give it a go I would love to see what you come up with. It can be any size, shape and style, it just needs to resemble a door of some sort.

Cheers

Genna

Follow

Share

His awesomeness loves looking at photos of himself, and so do our boys. So it’s no surprise that we’ve been getting photo books printed for years. Some for us, some for family, including those on the other side of the world. We had some 123 Cheese vouchers recently and were trying to decide what albums to make when it hit me that I would like one for myself. This was a big shock to everyone, I can tell you, because unlike the rest of my family I do not get pleasure from looking at endless photos of myself.

No, my idea was to create an album of my Stampin’ Up! creations. I have overflowing sample boxes but some of my favourite cards are ones that I’ve given away and I wanted to have some way to show the photos even if I no longer have the cards. I was absolutely thrilled with the results. The software was easy to use and even let me customise a title page to match my blog:

Then it was just a matter of sorting through all those photos and working out which ones to include:

And I love that one of the pre-loaded backgrounds looks just like all the brown packing paper that accompanies every order from Stampin’ Up!

The book looks so professional, with it’s lovely hard cover and so many lovely glossy pages. It makes my creations look amazing.

I love flicking through my album and have it out at most events so make sure you ask to see it if you don’t spot where it is when you’re over here.

I’m looking forward to making up more in the future.

Cheers

Genna

Follow

Share

I love Stampin’ Up!’s range of colours but I know it’s not always possible for everyone to have them all. And even if you do, that’s only 50 colours to choose from – and everyone can always use more colour in their life!

Did you know there’s a way to get even more colours for your crafting without spending any more money? How? By using a technique called Stamping Off.

Whenever I do a workshop I like to give all the guests at least one little instruction card to take home with them as a reminder of the techniques they’ve learned. This is especially helpful for new stampers but even the experienced ones love the visual record because they can stamp their own samples on the other side.

Here’s an example of my ‘Stamping Off’ instruction card with the sample side stamped:

I love how good the little reindeer from Joyous Celebrations (page 7 of the Holiday Catalogue) looks when he’s been stamped off.

In this sample I simply inked up the reindeer with Bravo Burgundy ink and then kept on stamping without re-inking. Each time I stamped a reindeer friend he was a slightly different colour to the last. I could also have stamped a bit more randomly so that it looked like a group of different coloured reindeers and not a group lined up from light to dark but I didn’t think of that at the time.

I particularly like the look that Stamping Off gives to greetings, so here are a couple of samples:

This one uses the now retired Totally Tools, but the greeting is from Best Dad Ever, which is still available (page 27), and it’s stamped in Garden Green.

And all these stamps come from the sadly retired Grunge Rock. This time I stamped in Soft Suede.

While I love the look of the fading colours, you can also use this technique to just deliberately stamp with a colour a few shades lighter than the ink pad is intended to be. If you have a colour that’s just too intense for your project then stamp it off onto scratch paper once or twice first, then stamp normally. Each time you need to add ink, just stamp it off before stamping on your project and you’ll consistently get the lighter colour.

I’d love for you to give this technique a try and don’t forget to show me the results.

Cheers

Genna

Follow

Share