A big hello to all the wonderful people we met and chatted with at the Paperific Expo last weekend. Our team had a great time sharing and crafting with you, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

If you are a new visitor, welcome! Come and make yourself at home. You are welcome to subscribe to my email newsletter (the signup box is in the right sidebar of my blog home page). You will often find me procrastinating over on my Stamping with Simone Facebook page, so come and check out the scenery there too. 😉
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But back to Paperific. We ran a series of classes during the show which were a big hit with our visitors. Every single class was booked out!

In the morning we ran a shaker frame class, which I will be repeating up here for my local friends on September 27th (TBC – will depend on backorder situation). This one is close handy for those of you in or around the Ballarat, Daylesford, Bendigo and Goldfields regions.

And here’s the project I came up with for the afternoon, which also booked out early so we managed to squeeze an extra class in to our daily program.

It’s a fancy fold card in Night of Navy and gold – now that’s a striking colour combination!

And when you open it up…

It uses the Floral Frames Collection dies to create the fancy fold, and is decorated with some lovely new products: Embellished Ornaments stamp set and coordinating Delicate Ornament Thinlits dies.

You can buy the stamp set and Framelit dies separately from 1st of September, but if you buy them at the same time you’ll save 15%!  Gotta love those bundles.

The shape of this card was inspired by one of Debbie Mageed’s, but we are using the reverse side and instead of hand-cutting the side shapes we use the half-cut technique and some carefully positioned cutting pads with the Big Shot.

We gave class attendees a 4-page tutorial so they can make the project again when they get home. I’ll be running this class again in Creswick (near Ballarat/Daylesford) on Thursday Sept 17 and we’ll also be making it at stamp club.

Craft@Home Club members: You will be getting the full tutorial and card for FREE as one of the items in your September Inspiration Pack. Australian residents: You can receive tutorials and cards like this in the mail each and every month. Request info by email about the Craft@Home Club.

Some of the other demonstrators in our team will be running this class in other parts of Melbourne and throughout Victoria. So if you are looking to attend a class, let me know and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with someone close to you.

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2015 Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalogue

The catalogue is now LIVE! Click here to read all about it. If you are in Australia and are in need of a consultant, then email me a catalogue request and I’ll happily pop one in the mail for you.

Happy stamping,

One of the lovely new two-step stamp sets in the 2015-2016 catalogue is Stampin’ Up!’s Wild About Flowers.

The stems are on separate stamps from the flowers, so you can mix and match for all kinds of colourful and different looks. Quite clever really.

There are also some lovely sentiments for special occasions, making this set an asset to any rubber stamp collection.

You can choose to stamp the stems and flowers heads in contrasting colours (see above) or in the same colour as in the samples below (Crushed Curry ink on Crushed Curry cardstock) and the bottom card (black).

I really love the font in this set. It suits it perfectly and is something a little different.

Wild About Flowers comes as a photopolymer set only, so it’s easy to position the flowers perfectly in line with the stems – every time. .

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UPCOMING EVENT: Just a quick reminder if you are making plans for the last weekend of August, Paperific is back at the Melbourne Showgrounds for the big 15th birthday celebrations. I’ll be there on the Stampin’ Up! stand on Friday and Sunday so make sure you come and say hello. The show team will be offering classes and make & takes throughout the weekend, and there will be a distinctly festive theme!

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~~New Weekly Deals out on Wednesday. Click HERE to view the current weekly deals.~~

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Happy stamping,

As promised, I’m back to share some of the swaps displayed during the Stampin’ Up! Hawaii Incentive Trip (aka ‘Grand Vacation).

I don’t know who made all these projects because they were attached to the boards, but I’m sure you’ll agree they all look amazing.

The Share Affair was a really fun morning and it was nice to talk about ink, stamps and paper again after a week of swimming, shopping and relaxing. Not only was it a great opportunity to mingle and check out everyone’s swaps, but we were also treated to fabulous ‘wow’ demonstrations by some incredibly talented artists.

Sara Douglass and Pam Morgan from Stampin’ Up! showed us some nifty ‘out of the box’ ways to use the Hamburger die and the Gift Box punch board. See what I did there? Ok sorry, that was not very punny. 

We watched great demonstrations by generous ladies who gave up some of their free time to teach us new things. Big thanks to Candy Michael, Mindy Gray, Judy Prahl, Georgia Giguere, Eldonna Epp, Marelle Taylor, Janice Urke, and Michelle Zindorf.

I’ve always admired Michelle Zindorf’s work so it was a real buzz to watch her live in action (below). I mean…. Wow! Is there anything Michelle Zindorf can’t do with a brayer and sponge?

Ok well that’s all for me for this trip (finally!). I will try not to leave it so long after next year’s Mediterranean Cruise Incentive Trip. lol.

Happy stamping,