It doesn't feel much like Christmas

Today has not gone as planned, I think my house needs a revolving door and a secretary to take calls & prioritise them. I have spent the whole day on a mission to make swaps for Sundays training event in Peterborough. I eventually got into my Craft room just after 9pm tonight.
I had in my mind the set I wanted to use, the swap theme is Christmas so I knew I wanted to utilise a non-Christmassy set, so I just had to decide on a colour scheme.

Colour Coach  © Stampin' Up

I reached for my colour coach, this is such a handy tool to help you with colour selection, I love so saffron so chose this combination of 

So Saffron 108611

Rose Red 108613

Wild Wasabi 111850

Confetti White 106557

The non-Christmassy stamp set that I chose was 

Itty Bitty Bits Wood 117056 ~ Clear 120060

This is a set of 9 small stamps that are really versatile, the set also has 3 companion punches to match the shapes, so I thought that it would make the cards quicker to prepare. 

The design was already in my head so i just had to prepare all of the components, what a task that ended up being. I made 32 cards to swap each card had 15 small round heart baubles which were embossed with Silver embossing powder + a silver heart bauble on the top of the tree. So I needed 480 heart baubles & 32 star baubles. Nearly three hours later with the distraction of Facebook and phone calls, I had my 512 baubles embossed, cut & ready to assemble.

I managed to finish my swaps just before 2am, I knew I couldn't leave them until Saturday as I was working all day & I had a Spanish student arriving in the evening, so boy am I going to be tired tomorrow.

The Greeting is from the Contempo Christmas stamp set also stamped in Rose Red.

The next training event in Peterborough is on 21st October, I hope to be more organised. If you fancy finding out more about Stampin' Up & would like to attend the event please let me know.

June Stamper's 10 meeting

June is the first month for my new stamper's 10 group, a couple of new ladies have joined but most of my Ladies this is their 3rd or 4th group. When people join my groups part of my offering to them for their commitment is to provide them free of charge with all of the current catalogues. I know like me they read them from cover to cover many times over, some even tag their pages, and have systems of hi-lighting for the products they already own and wish list items to avoid duplication.

One of the questions I always get asked is where do you find your inspiration, well basically anywhere. even paint colour cards. I thought for the first meeting I would case a couple of the cards from the current Idea book & catalogue and see if they could spot them.

The inspiration for the Cased cards is on page 61 of the current Ideas book & catalogue.

Cardstock

Certainly celery

So Saffron

Pool Party 

Confetti White

Inks

Certainly celery

Basic Black

Rose Red

Stampin' Write Pens ~ Certainly Celery, Rose Red

Embellishments

Victoria Crochet Trim

Pear Pizzazz Seam Binding

Linen Thread

Bitty Buttons

Stamps

Just Believe

Tools

Beautiful Wings Embosslit die

Square Lattice  Embossing folder

Perfect Polka Dots embossing 

Sizzix Big Shot

Cutter Kit

They did notice when flicking through the catalogue to place their orders.