Downline Meeting

Last night was our "Stampin With Niki Downline Meeting." I love having these meetings because I get to spend an evening with some of my favorite people. These girls are really awesome! And a few of them drive from far to come, which I am extremely appreciative about. And some of them I don't get to see that often, so it is a special time for me.

When I have them with me I like to bombard them with info. Lets plan some events (what can we do together and apart??)!! Let's welcome new members! Let's congratulate sales and celebrate promotions! And of course, let's make stuff!! I love to spoil them so I give out lots of goodies and we have fun. Well, I do. I hope they do too. If you want to join our team (our family) let me know. I would love to chat with you: niki176@aol.com.

This meeting we also did a card swap. Let me tell you!! These girls have Skillz. Seriously. Stampin Skillz! I was a bit embarrassed to show them my card because they seriously stepped it up. Tons of layers, sponging, glitter, you name it. Our card contest/swap came down to a tie and we had to do a re vote. It was that grueling!! Tough stuff. In the end this top card was our winner. It's wonderful creator was our newest team member, Charlette Fite.

This card was beautiful! The colors were bold and everyone loved that pop of red through the window. Your talented, Charlette! Very talented!!!

How stunning is this one, huh? Yeah, that's a lot of work she did for us. This one was created by Alyssa Pytlik. Can you see why this vote was so hard? Just wait and I will show you the others too. But this card, I love. Love the folding, and she sponged everything, and the ribbon;) Thank you for the ribbon Alyssa. (Alyssa loves ribbon, but has a really hard time parting with it. I can totally relate. I have the same withdraws when it comes to buttons. I just can't part this them, so I collect them. Weird, I know. But you are not alone, Alyssa.) So we appreciate the ribbon;) Baby steps. Baby steps.

Well, thank you to my wonderful team! You guys are awesome!! Thank you for being so awesome. Hope to see you guys again soon. Now go, and spread the love of stamping;)

Couple of My Favorites

Today I wanted to share with you a couple of my favorites from camp. This first one was created and Demo'ed by my cousin Lorraine. It was a hit. Everyone loved it. I even heard ladies saying it would work great as place seating cards at Thanksgiving Dinner. I think that's a great idea. Card or Place setting, its beautiful.

It's an easel card so it stands up great on it's own. When demo'ed it also shows some great techniques with inked Embossing Folders.

And look at this one. This one was easy for me to fall in love with. It uses my favorite DSP, stamp set and has sparkle for days!!! Seriously. The pictures cant do this one justice. This was a Kim Molesworth creation. She created and Demo'ed it. This one again highlighted some great tools, including: the versa mark, heat and stick, heat gun and dazzling diamonds.

Can you see this outcome? Really beautiful and the customers loved it.

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Hooked on Something New....

You know, I will dabble in just about anything crafty: Paper Crafts, Sewing, Home Decor, and now Jewelry (thanks to my friend Nicole!) She has always said that her first love is jewelry and she is really good at it. So I convinced her to do a little jewelry class to teach us all (or a little bit) of what she can do. The class was lots of fun! I can't wait for the next one!

She started easy with us, but she also showed us some other amazing things we can work up to also. Cool, huh? I love how she added in a little SU! Notice the cards stock and DSP? Nice.

These ones were a little surprise. Nicole made these ones just for me. What a sweetie!! She is always doing stuff like that. Thanks for the class Nicole! It was really fun.

Some of My Favorites

So, I told you yesterday that I had snapped a few up close pictures of a few of my favorites from the camp displays and I wanted to share them with you. There were more but the pictures didn't come out great. So here is just a few:
Do you remember these little houses we used to sell, I think from last years Holiday mini? Well, this is one of them decorated with some of our new supplies. How awesome does the Mica Flakes look on the roof!?!
This is so cool. It wasn't a display, it was a birthday present one guest bought from Lorraine to give to her mom (another guest) when she arrived at camp. The "Mom" who's birthday it was, was her first time at camp so this was perfect. A cute little Thirty-One tote, to hold her cards, and her own stampin kit (snips, snail and bone folder.) And how cute is that tag?? It reads, " Happy Birthday Mom."

How pretty is this? This is Jen and her beautiful headband. I am totally going to case this for me and my girls. It was so pretty. And that's not all. Check this picture out....

She has a Simply Adorned Necklace to match. In the charm she had her two little girls' initials and a matching butterfly pin as well. So darn pretty!!

This is a Jen creation too. How cRaZy talented is she? It's unreal. I love these Halloween candy toppers. Some are monsters and other Halloweeen characters and the others are Wizard of Oz. Pretty fun, huh?

Does anyone recognize this? Did anyone receive this? Good for you if you did. This was last month's Recruit Promo. For every Demo and new recruit that signed up got a bundle of supplies for making this beautiful Holiday Keepsake. This one belonged to Bev and she put it together so beautifully.

Okay, that's it. Thanks for stopping by today!

Stamp Camp!!

So this weekend was a fun one. Saturday was Stamp Camp and it was a huge success! Both sessions sold out completely. That is over 100 ladies, yikes! Here is a shot of the morning session just getting started. The afternoon session was just as hoppin'.

The displays were awesome. I didn't get as much time as I wanted to browse all the fabulous tables but I did get a few shots. This table belonged to Karen's wonderful creations.

I think this one had a combo of Angie and Kim's great projects. Aren't those card trees cool?

Esh, bury. Sorry about that. I think its time for a new camera. But I loved this table. It was a combo of a few different demos, all with a Halloween theme.

This was a Christmas table and I believe most of these projects belonged to Bev. Very cute stuff!

And another combo table. This is were the majority of my goodies were hanging out.

And of course, the best part. That big giant SU check!! Everyone was eyeing that, of course. The lucky winner of the grand prize went to one of Bev's customers. Her name was drawn out of the raffle tickets immediately after camp. I am sure she was thrilled!

So that is just a start. Stay tuned because I snapped a few close up shots of some really amazing projects I want to show you tomorrow!

Here they are!

Here they are!! Was this your guess. Key fobs. Now, when I originally posted these on my blog a few weeks back I received a few comments and emails on whether I sell them or not. I am not ignoring you, I promise. I am in the process of working on an Esty site. I just hope I can figure it out. So lets just say coming soon........

I made a few of these in a variety of different patterns. I hope the ladies that received them yesterday were please with them. Now did you leave me a comment yesterday? I hope so. I will be giving one away completely FREE. I just hope that my comment section was working yesterday for you. It can be temperamental at times.

Here is a shot of the little tags I made for the front of the boxes. The "made just for you" stamp comes from my favorite set, Creatively Yours. That set is a must for anyone that crafts. Whether you are a baker, a sewer, a scrapbooker, jewelery maker or anything else crafty, you NEED this set. NEED IT!! ;)

Thanks for stopping by today. I will be back tomorrow with pictures from camp. I cant wait to show you!!

Today is Stamp Camp!!

Whoo Hoo!! My favorite event (semi-annual) of the year is today. This one is gonna be a great one! We are completely sold out and in record time too. I am so excited for a big day of stampin'. One really fun part of camp each year is the raffles. Each registrant will leave with a fabulous raffle prize made by one of the demonstrators. We identify each prize with raffle identifiers in a specific color. Each lady receives an identifier at the door and when that color name is called they will receive their gift. These are my identifiers for this year's camp.

My color is tempting turquoise, as you can see. I made some ruffled flowers out of our two sizes of scallop circles and our beautiful DSP. They are attached to a clothes-pins so the ladies can clip them to their clothes to have them ready to receive my gift for them.

Here is a close up shot of the detail. I added in a bit of Quilling to the flower. That is a technique I learned from our past issue of Stampin Success Magazine. Stampin Success is the magazine YOU will receive when you sign up to join my team. wink, wink!

Stay tuned, and I will show you what prize these identifiers go with tomorrow. If you are a frequent follower then you probably already know. Do you? Do you know what it is? Leave me a comment and let me know. There may be a little prize in it for someone.................

Let the Memories Begin......

Wow, I feel like its has been forever since I showed and MDS page, but these pictures were calling to me. This is only a start. I took so many pictures that I will have to make multiple pages to highlight this trip. I am sure anyone that goes to Disneyland can relate. So here is 2-page layout # 1.

The cool part is I found this FREE Walt Disney Front that works perfect with the page. There are a lot of great fonts out there. Just Google, "FREE Disney fronts" and one will come up. In fact I found really great fronts that were movie specific as well, such as, Tangled font, Alice in Wonderland font, and Tron. Pretty cool, huh?

Okay, busy morning. Gotta run. Thanks for stopping by!

Guest Stamper-Chan

One of my fabulous Stampers is about to have a new baby girl (her second girl!) Now I may be a bit bias, but I think that is AWESOME! I was invited to the baby shower and wanted to attend so badly but I had a workshop already planned for the same day and I had to miss it. So my request to her was, "please send me lots of pictures", because I know her and I knew she would be busy decorating. Man, I was right!! Check out just a few of the pictures she sent me....

Chan loves owls and so the theme of the shower was just that. Girl was busy, huh? Aren't these cute little baby food jar favors? I still have tons of baby food jars from when my little ones used them, I really should do something with them.......Anyhoo, check this out:

Busy, busy, busy. And so worth it. This is awesome and adorable and I am sure she "Wowed" everyone there. Oh, did I mention that she made me a favor gift as well, even though I couldn't make it?? And two of them for my girls? Yeah, this girl is awesome. Love her!

Now hold on to your socks, this is so cool! I believe Chan said her niece made this one.......

That's one serious owl diaper cake, huh? Man, I love that owl punch!

Chan, this was so amazing. Thanks for letting me share this with everyone. I am sorry I missed it in person but thanks for the pictures. I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into this and it turned out great!

Product Review- Easy Canvas Prints

Recently, I was contacted by a company that came across my blog and asked me if I would be willing to do a little product review for them. In exchange they would give me a FREE photo canvas of my choosing. Sounds great to me! The only thing I love more than crafting is my family so if I can get a really cool picture made of my little ones, I am happy to oblige.
The company is called Easy Canvas Prints.com, where you can turn photos, art, or scrapbooking projects into canvas prints. Beautiful canvas prints. Here is the one I made:

Remember, Christmas is just around the corner and family photos always made great gifts. I have already started to receive great email specials through the company as well. When you go to covert your photos to canvas you will see all the great products this company has to offer. And it does help that the site is incredibly user friendly as well.

Can you see the detail on this picture? It came out so cute and arrived pretty quickly as well.

So there you go! My first product review. I hope you give this company a shot. I was happy and will definitely be using them again.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

For Baby

Yes, Chan this is for you! Well, actually for baby. I hope you like it. I will have it with me at camp but I wanted to share it with you today. You may notice yesterday's bunting at the top as well. That's for you too along with this set of onsies. Here is a shot of them a little closer.

All three of these onsies were made with the Flirtatious fabric and our fabulous dies (which cut beautifully through fabric as well.) I used the the Big Shot Adhesive Roll to iron them onto the onsies and then stitched them into place.

This particular onsie was inspired by a set made by my cousin for one of our friend's baby girl, Frankie. It was so adorable on her.

This one was inspired by a little shirt I saw on Pinterest. I thought it was very sweet. The necklace was made with the Shimmer Paint. I just dipped the tip of a pencil eraser onto the paint and dabbed it onto the onsie. The little necklace is made with the tip of a new crayon. The tattered flower is attached to a pin so you can remove it from the onsie whenever you like and add to a diaper bag, headband or whatever you choose.

I really hope you like this. Looking forward to seeing you at camp!

Flirtatious Bunting

I am really into Bunting at the moment. Those fun, festive holidays are just around the corner, and that is the best time to convert your card making skills into home decorating skills.

I love Fall and I will be making festive banners for all the fun Holidays for my mantle this year. This banner however, works for just about anything. A birthday, perhaps? Or maybe welcoming a new baby? I have a friend who is expecting a new baby girl shortly and I made one of these for her as well. This one is hanging in my craft room at the moment. Here is how I made mine:

I started by cutting my pennant shapes. I used the Perfect Pennant Die to cut a card stock template. Then I cut my fabric into strips (3" wide because that was the length I wanted my pennants to be.) I layered all three fabrics together and using my rotary cuter, and my pennant template, I cut back and forth making a stack of pennants.

Then I cut some bias tape to the length I wanted my bunting to be. This is the one I used, its perfect because you can side your pennants right into the fold and its ready to go.

Do that, and pin into place. Alter each of the three patterns. Here is where I enlisted the help of my little hands to work on a little pattern makings. I let them pick the next pattern and hand them over. They love helping!

Then just straight stitch across the length and there you have it.

And here it is again all finished. Pretty, right? I love this fabric!