The 2020 Aug/Dec Mini Catalogue is Live with a Brand New Online Store

2020 Aug/Dec Mini Catalogue

The wait is over! The 2020 Aug/Dec Mini Catalogue goes live today! And not only that, but with it, you get a brand new shopping experience in Stampin' Up!'s new Online Store site! We think you're going to love it for these reasons:

* All-new design and shopping experience.  

* More intuitive navigation and product organization logic. 

* New filter and sort options. 

* Improved photography and product display. 

* A much improved, mobile-friendly shopping experience. 

* A simpler and easier checkout process. 

* Inventory Status Report integration (i.e., customers will have a quick, visual indication regarding the inventory levels of any product).

And the good news is that it's already been tried and tested in the UK for several months and they worked all the bugs out for us, so the transition should be fairly smooth.

What you need to know and do:

If you have an account, your password and information will still be good, but if your computer has stored the password for the site for you, your computer won't recognize this as the same site. Therefore, you need to find your password and write it down so that you can use it in the new site and then you can get your computer to save it for you again.

Now, back to our Holiday Mini Catalogue! I know you're going to love the products you find inside the covers of this awesome publication! If you have not yet received your copy from me, just contact me and I'll get one to you right away! And you can enjoy 6 months of shopping to the end of December from this catalogue this year!

You might want to join me for my Catalogue Launch on Saturday Aug. 29 from 1 - 3 pm. It's Free and it's Fun!!

             

CASEing the Catalogue for My Catalogue Launch

I just had my new Annual Catalogue Launch this past Saturday and though it was successful to a point, and certainly enjoyable spending time with my lovely customers, and fun decorating and creating displays, I have to admit that the week before was filled with so much work that I spent many nights up until the wee hours working on the prep for the event. I suppose I could have been better organized, doing more prep ahead of time, but there always seems to be something urgent that needs doing, keeping me from getting ahead of the game.

Anyway, somewhere during the week, a straw broke! I decided, probably not for the first time, and maybe not for the last time, that I needed to be doing more than killing myself  with this overwork, and that I need to work smart, not hard. I also had a rebellious moment against Google and social media and SEO and algorithms and decided that they were going to stop running my life!

Yes, it would be great to have an on-line business, but if I have been posting consistently for 6 years and still haven't seen any substantial fruit, then why am I kidding myself into believing that it could still happen? Heck, I don't even know if anyone really even reads my blogs posts. I rarely get comments unless it's a forced situation like a blog hop or members of my own design team.

So blogging is going to stop running my life. I'm going to run my blog and blog when I want to and if I'm going on vacation, I'm going to really go on vacation and not try to create blog posts to carry through it, even though it exhausts me to the point that I spend vacation days recovering! There! Rebellion over! Heck, I'm 67 years old - I need to enjoy life and enjoy stamping again, not have it be a job that I have to do!

All that to say, I may not be as consistent a blogger anymore. When I have something to share with you I will. And maybe, when I enjoy stamping again, it will be more frequently!

I will share the displays I created for my Catalogue Launch last weekend though. I did a lot of Catalogue CASEing, as I always do when I need a lot of samples in a short amount of time and it was fun doing that! Here they are:

Thanks for reading! Happy Stampin'!

A-Corny Thank You for Freshly Made Sketches

Around where I live, you always know when it's fall and Labour Day, because it's time for the IPE - the Interior Provincial Exhibition. It's held in a little town called Armstrong about one and a half hours from where we live and it's been held annually for a long, long time - 116 years to be exact! And what's nice about it is that it still retains the flavour it started out with - a country fair, with lots of animals, crafts, baking and canning, a rodeo and an amusement park! There's so much to look at! I'll show you some photos of our Saturday visit there after we look at the card sample.

I made this one for two reasons, to enter Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #202, and as a Make & Take for my Holiday Catalogue Launch next Saturday! I used some of the Into the Woods Designer Series Paper and a new bundle* featuring the A-Corny Thank You stamp set and the Acorn Builder Punch!  Here's the Challenge sketch:

This is my take on it:

• I played with a palette of Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede and Crumb Cake. I like the warm feel to the card using all the browns, reds and oranges.
• The background was formed by the Hardwood Background Stamp and Soft Suede Ink on Crumb Cake cardstock. I love the rustic feel this stamp gives.
• The small panel is a piece of Into The Woods Designer Series Paper backed with some Pumpkin Pie cardstock! With it's autumn coloured leaves and acorns, it's the perfect backdrop to the acorns I stamped and punched out.
• I stamped the various parts of the acorns with differently designed acorn stamps from A-Corny Thank You stamp set. I then used the Acorn Builder Punch to punch them out. You have to be strategic in which order you punch out the bottoms and the tops because there are separate areas of the punch for each and if you start at the wrong side you will destroy your next acorn with the other area of the punch, if you catch my meaning!

• The sentiment is from a stamp set in the Annual Catalogue called For All Things. I inked up each word in a different colour using Stampin' Right Markers - Real Red and Pumpkin Pie.

Now, here are a few photos from the Armstrong Fair this weekend:

I wanted to be a kid again to be able to go in one of those bubbles on the water! I looked like so much fun!

In the building with all the vendor displays, and yes, we did get sucked into buying something. (See last photo!) It was such a good pitch though!

This was in the Honey Bee display! What a unique idea. These are artifical honeycombs that you can continually tap for honey! Genius!






Look at the size of that sunflower head!

 Here's me with our new purchase: a Smart Living Steam Mop and individual steamer! Such a deal!!

* Bundles will save you 15% over buying each item in the bundle separately.

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Acorny Thank You Photopolymer Stamp Set [139718]	Acorny Thank You Photopolymer Bundle [140841]	Hardwood Wood-Mount Stamp Set [133032]	Hardwood Clear-Mount Stamp Set [133035]	For All Things Wood-Mount Stamp Set [135152]
For All Things Clear-Mount Stamp Set [135155]	Into The Woods Designer Series Paper [139586]	Real Red 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [102482]	Crumb Cake 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [120953]	Pumpkin Pie 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [105117]
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad [126978]	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad [126975]	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad [126949]	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad [126945]
Brights Stampin' Write Markers [131259]	Real Red Stampin' Write Marker [100052]	Acorn Builder Punch [139681]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]
Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	Glue Dots [103683]