NEW CATALOGUE & EARN FREE PRODUCTS

I'm so excited to finally share this with you! The new Occasions catalogue is here!!!

CLICK HERE to download and view online.

You can also download a copy of the pdf here.

There are a variety of AMAZING NEW birthday, valentines, wedding, spring, mother's day and father's day products - something for everyone and every occasion! 

Take a look at this video to see whats inside:

PLUS starting today until March 31 for every $60 you spend on product from the Occasions and Annual Catalogue you can pick a free product from the Sale-A-Bration Catalogue!!!

You can download/view details about both the new catalogue and promotion online or visit me on 

January 28th from 1-3pm and pick up a copy of both, see some of the products in person and play with a few as you do a FREE make and take! 

I will be placing an order on January 29th - you are welcome to place an order before than via email or online or place in person on January 28th. Use the Host Code - 333GHKNR to be entered to win the January Prize Giveaway. More details about our monthly price giveaway and host code later this month!

Please feel free to email if you have any questions - amy.grendel@gmail.com.

LOOKING BACK...LOOKING AHEAD

Happy New Year! WELCOME 2017!!

I’ve never been good with making and keeping resolutions but I do love looking back over the year and deciding what I liked and want to keep doing and what are some things I want to change or improve.

I appreciate the #mybestnine2016 trend on Instagram…. I love to look back through my photos and be reminded of all that 2016 included – the good, the hard, the lessons learnt!

Some things that worked well for me in 2016 were:

-       Taking the time to read – even though I’ve only read 20 books this year – when I did find a great book to read I actually enjoyed my time with it more then watching something on TV. I also enjoyed audible books this year - thanks to the library app Hoopla and Overdrive. I have listened to several books while driving, cleaning and crafting.

-       Focusing more on taking a few good photos and editing right away – this is something I just started this month but I will keep doing it!

o    I take all my photos with my iPhone and I found that when I took them off at the end of the month, I had so many photos I didn’t know where to start (printing/editing/scrapbooking)

o   So with doing Hello December I’ve started going through my photos at the end of each day, editing them (using the PicTapGo app) and then delete the ones I don’t’ want to keep. Very freeing!

-       Starting my own business with Stampin’ Up! and getting back to my love of crafting – This was probably my best decision of the year. With our job/life situation changing, it was a great time to take my focus off of me and put it onto something creative that would allow me to use my gifting’s and share my love of crafting with others.

-       Spending more time with family – this could still improve, but with hosting classes at my parent’s house we got to spend a lot more time with them and I have also enjoyed my Face Time chats with my nephew. I was thrilled to host Thanksgiving this year and would like to host more family events at our house.

-       Sharing the meal responsibilities – ok this was such an issue for me. I do like to cook and I love to bake – but when I want to, not every.single.night! So I finally broke down and asked Fred to help out and share the cooking and I’ve loved it! I’ve noticed a huge difference even while on our holidays that I haven’t minded cooking J

-       Focusing on the present – the verse that kept coming to mind, near the end of the year, was Matthew 6:34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” It helped with my anxiety to not worry about what was to come, but to be present in the here and now.

Some things that didn’t work for me:

(this list is longer but I don’t want to spill all of the beans on here…)

-       Not drinking enough water – need to do better with this!

-       Staying up late/not getting enough sleep – since on holidays I’ve been making a point of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier…hopefully this is something I can do once we get home.

-       Over planning my weeks to the point where my schedule stresses me out. I need to find a good balance for my jobs/life right now that help me to do well and take care of me and my loved ones.

-       Wasting time on my phone/computer/internet – enough said!

-       Not going to prayer first, but instead worrying and trying to fix things on my own

….Ok I could go on but I want this to be somewhat of a positive post ;)

     So some things I am looking forward to trying out in the new year include:

-       • Creating a balance between my two jobs (I love them both!)

-       • Be more intentional with my creative time

-       • Send more cards in the mail = Happy Mail!

Have you had a chance to process 2016 and think ahead to what you want for 2017? I find there are a lot of articles out at this time of year that help me process and review so I thought I would share a few of those…

• Ali Edwards One Little Word

• Becky Higgin’s (Project Life) Memory-keeping resolutions 

• Simple Scrapper – How I Plan to Scrapbook 2017

• 3 ways to make the most of the new year

• 31 questions to ask prayerfully 

• Spiritual Growth: A Fresh Start with God

•Five Ways to Read More & Nurture a Love of Books 

Ok if you made it this far you deserve a metal – its been a bit of a long post but I hope you have a wonderful happy new year and I look forward to creating and sharing with you…starting with my 

Occasions & Sale-A-Bration Launch Party – January 28 1-3pm and January 27-29 (online). You won’t want to miss out on picking up the new catalogues, seeing the new class examples and playing with new products. I hope to see you there!

I will be back on January 4^th with more details about the new catalogue and how you can earn FREE product!!!

SaveSave

Let the Holidays Begin!

HOLIDAY BREAK

I love this time of year! Though it might be busy and I tend to plan on doing WAY too much throughout the month - I love it all -- the holiday music, the snowy weather, the get togethers with family and friends and all of the special homemade goodies, ornaments, gift wrapping and presents!

PLUS this year my husband and I will be taking an extra long holiday as we are planning on going away to a sunny destination! I can't wait to hit the road and go from white to green! 

So this will be my last post for the year - but I will be back in the new year with some exciting news...

SALE-A-BRATION & OCCASIONS

Starting January 4th I will be posting some exciting details about a 

new Occasions catalogue that runs January 4- May 31AND 

an amazing SALE-A-BRATION catalogue with some great deals from January 4- March 31. 

so stay tuned....

SAVE-THE-DATE

I will be having a launch party January 27-29 - both online and in Kingston - it will be a great chance to see the new catalogue, play with the new products, see samples from upcoming classes and more!

You won't want to miss this... so save the date!

THANK YOU

And lastly I want to say a BIG thank you to all of my friends, family and customers for an amazing 2016. Its hard to imagine that I started my business with Stampin' Up! only in September. 

But it has been an amazing four months and I couldn't do it without YOU! 

So thank you all so much and I look forward to Creating and Sharing with all of you in the new year!

May you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Blessings ~ Amy

Creating for the holidays

Candy Cane Lane Designer Series Paper

I LOVE the Christmas paper - Candy Cane Lane by Stampin' Up! I may have purchased 3 or more packages of it! But I made a lot of fun projects out of...so I thought I would share with you a few of these...

Christmas WreathDoesn't this look amazing! It was so simple. I purchased a foam wreath from Michaels and a box of straight pins and used 7 sheets of the Candy Cane Lane paper. I also used my paper trimmer and bone folder and some red twine. I added a cute Christmas ball/bell for the middle (also from Michaels). So to put this together - I cute the strips of paper 0.5" x 12 - all 7 sheets of paper. And then I took each strip and held it in the middle and curled each end in using the bone folder. This took about 30 mins to do it all. Then using the straight pins I just started to attaching them (pins in the center of the strip) and just alternated the paper patterns. Oh and I also added the twine at the start before I added the paper. Plus the bonus is you only have to put papers on the front of the wreath - so leave the back empty - it sits flat against the door this way (and uses less paper). I will certainly be doing this again for other holidays...and maybe using different shapes of foam too! Christmas CardsI decided to do a variety of cards this year - all have been mailed so hopefully my friends and family have received them by now! I love getting Christmas cards (or any card) in the mail so I try to make a big pile of cards to send out mid month. With these two cards, I cut out the gingerbread houses from one of the papers. I used gold sequins (left over from my November Paper Pumpkin) and the stamps from Stitched With Cheer. Ink colours are Crumb Cake and Real Red. I also added some Wink of Stella (clear) on the front of the houses and some white glitter (from craft store) to the middle house using the Liquid glue. Super simple cards - but I love the look of them! Oh and its hard to tell in the picture but the card with three houses I also used gold thread behind the middle house and some stampin' dimensionals. And then with this card (my favourite!) I got the idea on Pinterest (best place - just plug in the name of the paper or stamp set and you will get so many ideas!). I again used the Candy Cane Lane paper and cut out the shapes - used real red, crumb cake and whisper white cardstock. I also used the red/white twine and used the "Wishing You a Sweet Season) stamp from Candy Cane Christmas stamp set. I used VersaMark ink and white embossing powder. Again a very simple card and easy to recreate over and over again. Christmas Candy CrackersI wanted to give candy's to a few friends - but package them up in some sort of creative way... and I came up with these Christmas Crackers through a video on youtube. They are really easy - you need the envelope punch board and score board - some paper and ribbon. I just used simple gift wrap ribbon that matched my paper. In this size (paper was 4.5" x 6.5") I was able to fit two of the Lindor chocolate balls. I also used the Candy Cane Christmas stamp set for the sentiment on top with real red ink. Would love to see your projects you created this Christmas - post your photos on FB and possible get a special gift from me!

December Paper Pumpkin 2016

Can you believe its almost time to say goodbye to 2016! And Stampin' Up! provided the perfect kit to help document your 2016 memories in the December Paper Pumpkin Kit, Another Great Year. 

This kit makes memory keeping easy and completely customizable. 

Included in the kit: patterned papers, window sheets, stickers, and washi tape to embellish your book. And, for the first time ever—they've included a rotary stamp and Basic Black Stampin’ Write® Marker to help you jot down and journal every moment! 

They also provide an easy to follow guide.

And check out the easy to follow video - putting the kit together! 

They also are posting on their blog ideas for how to use the kit in a few different ways. 

Be sure to check that out tomorrow by clicking here.

PUTTING THE KIT TOGETHER

I'm not sure what I will be doing with my kit yet - but I'm looking forward to crafting over the holidays with it. I already use Project Life for my scrapbooking throughout the year - but I like the idea of either using it for a vacation trip we took in 2016 or maybe to tell the story of our new kitten...who seems to be getting bigger and bigger each day - Tibbie is now 9 months old....so we will see - but I will be sure to let you know. I would love to know what you do with yours - post a picture of your final project on FB and you might receive a fun gift from me :) 

PLUS Stampin' Up! will be announcing something special with this kit - 

so stayed tuned for tomorrows email if you subscribe to Paper Pumpkin!

Looking for the perfect last-minute gift?

Check out our prepaid subscriptions. Give the gift of creativity for 1, 3, 6, or 12 months. Simply click here to purchase and they email you a printable gift card and a subscription code. Merry Christmas!

Time for some catching up!

Ok its been awhile since I have posted and I have to apologize. First I bit off more than I should have for the month of November - starting up your own business takes a lot of work and I wanted to offer a lot of classes and do a lot of things. And I was doing ok until I had some health issues pop up and completely throw me off. Thankfully I was able to push through and completed all of my classes and only had to cancel one Open Studio evening.

AND I am VERY HAPPY to say that I'm now been given a clean bill of health and starting to gain back my energy! Praise God! I'm beyond thankful for everyone who was praying for me, for the support in sweet text msg's and emails and even some amazing home cooked meals!

So enough about me - on to something fun. I wanted to share with you what I did with the November Paper Pumpkin kit.

So if you haven't heard of Stampin' Up's Paper Pumpkin before - its an amazing kit that comes directly to your door each month. The kit includes all the supplies needed to make some amazing projects like cards, home decor, gift packaging and more. Plus every month, Stampin' Up provides a video that demonstrates how to assemble each kit.

So you can create the project as intended or if you're feeling the urge to get a little creative you can come up with your own designs. And thats what I did with this months kit.

So here is what the intended project:

The November box was a special holiday box - thats why its blue. So cute. And like I mentioned the box comes with the stamps, inks, adhesives - everything you need - to create 8 of these cards. 

Now the cards were smaller than I normally send for Christmas cards so I knew I wanted to try something different with supplies I had on hand. So I decided to create this:

I used the Dapper Denim cardstock (5.5x4.25) as the base, with a Dapper Denim envelope paper (5.25x4) along with a (5x3.75) piece of vellum that I used the snowflake stamp (included in kit) on in each of the corners. I then took the main part of the card and assembled as directed except first I used the Sponge Brayer tool (pictured above) to colour the background pieces in the dapper denim. 

I love the look of this so much! I used some stampin' deminsionals on the white cardstock to raise that area. I'm very happy with how this turned out. I really enjoyed using the brayer tool - very easy - if you are interested in seeing  a video with how to use this tool please let me know! 

So if you are a subscriber to Paper Pumpkin - your December kit should be arriving soon! I love how it's a surprise in our mailbox every month! Who doesn't love happy mail!

Interested in trying it out? Or possibly gifting to someone on your Christmas list?

CLICK here to find out more.

A Paper Pumpkin prepaid subscription is the perfect gift for all of your crafty friends! Choose from 1, 3, 6 or 12 months and a fully designed project kit will arrive each month at their door with stamps, ink and paper so they can skip to the fun part of crafting. Purchase a prepaid subscription today!

ONLINE EXTRAVAGANZA SALE - STARTS MONDAY!

On Monday, November 21st the Annual Online Extravaganza sale starts and it runs until November 28th.  There are awesome sales all week PLUS two 24 hours flash sale days (November 21 and November 28).

The sale will offer current products (including offerings from the Holiday catalogue) at up to 40% off the regular price. All products that are while supplies last have been noted in the Online Extravaganza deals list.

To see the full list of products click here.

READY TO ORDER? HERE IS HOW

EMAIL | If you are in the Kingston area you can email me (amy.grendel@gmail.com) your list and I'll add it to my order I'm sending in on November 22nd. Orders need to be sent to me by 12noon on the 22nd  to be included.  I will either need your credit card information or you can pay by e-transfer.  Payment must be received at the time of your order. If you want to take advantage of the 24 hour flash sales - you will need to place your order online or I can help you with that via email just let me know. 

ONLINE STORE | you can place your own order online. Click here to go to my Online Shop (click on the SHOP NOW tab). This order will be sent to you directly so you don't need to worry about when I will be delivering it, etc. Plus if there is something you really want to make sure to receive - this is the best way to guarantee that you get it! Make sure my name is showing in the top right hand corner so I can thank you for your order and don't click the No Contact box or I'll never know who you are and that would be sad. If you have any questions about how to place an order online or if you need help please don't hesitate to email/phone me - I would be happy to help you out. 

HERE ARE SOME SHOPPING TIPS!• Download a copy of the product list and make a wish list (make sure to pay attention to the Nov 21 and 28 Flash sale items - these items on page one and the top of two are only available on those days. • If there is something that really catches your eye, don't delay - items are only available while supplies last! • Let loved ones know of the sale in case they would like to take advantage of sale items to put under the tree with you. You can send me your wish list and their email and I can help you out with that as well! • Make sure to look at the clearance rack as well - you can add those items to your order. Plus if you need something from either the Annual Catalogue or the Holiday Catalogue now is a great time to add on to your order. • Check out the Stitched from the Heart sale - these stamps are currently still on at 25% off 
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT 

There are so many great products on this list - including 40% off the Stitched with Cheer Project Kit. I have done this class twice and will do it two more times before the year is out and everyone has LOVED their cards. I certainly can't wait to put a few of these in the mail for loved ones! To complete the kit you will need the Stitched with Cheer stamp set, inks (black and emerald envy and adhesive. But they are so easy to put together and look amazing! 

I can't wait to start putting together my Hello December album and bonus - the Hello December Card Collection and Accessory Pack are 30% off! If you haven't decided how to document the holiday season - these make it super simple. Plus you can use the extra cards leftover as Christmas tags on gifts and for the front of Christmas cards. 
There are several Paper Pumpkin kits and refills on the list as well. And don't forget to have a look a the embossing folders and die sets!
And once you have your new products don't forget to head on over to Pinterest - type in the name of your stamp set, die set or punch and you will get A LOT of inspiration!