Avidly Stamping: April 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

My First Workshop

Last week I held my first Stampin' Up! workshop as a demonstrator. I was a bit nervous, but prepared well and kept reminding myself that I was just having friends over to craft, they weren't here to judge me. With the exception of a couple of small mistakes (stamping something in the wrong color, gluing a box together before I stamped it, etc) it went really well! I really love SU! products and have a pretty good knowledge base so I was able to explain what I was doing and a bit about the products as I went along. At the end many of my friends placed orders which was an awesome start to being a demo. Here are the projects I demonstrated during the workshop:

Recipe (All Stampin' Up!):

Stamps: Heard from the Heart
Paper: Rose Red, Whisper White, Regal Rose, Raspberry Tart DSP
Inks: Rose Red
Tools & Accessories: Rich Regals Brads, 1/4" Rose Red Grosgrain Ribbon, Ticket Corner Punch, Five Petal Punch, 1/16" circle punch, Stampin' Dimensionals

For my 3-D project I downloaded a template from the SU Demonstrator Website:

Recipe (All Stampin' Up!):

Stamps: Eastern Blooms, Short & Sweet
Paper: Certainly Celery, Perfect Plum
Inks: Certainly Celery, Perfect Plum
Tools & Accessories: Hemp Twine, Tag Punch, Small Tag Punch, Cropadile (to punch holes for twine)

And my final project for the evening was the workshop's make-and-take:

Recipe (All Stampin' Up!):

Stamps: Cheers to You
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Whisper White, Basic Black
Inks: Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, Garden Green Stampin' Write Marker
Tools & Accessories: Blender Pens

For the make and take I gave each of the attendees a bit of creative license to choose their drink of choice from the Cheers to You set. As you can see my choice was the Strawberry Daquiri, but other choices included a martini, and cadillac margarita. Very cute!

If you weren't able to make it to the workshop I still have a few cards from the make-and-take that are just itching to be put together. All of the pieces are cut and just waiting to be stamped. Give me a call if you want to stop by and put one together to take home.

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

Getting Started

Getting started as a new Stampin' Up! Demonstrator has been a lot of fun. The week after I received my starter kit I was busy preparing for my first workshop and playing with my new toys. In the process I came up with some very cute cards. The cards in this post did not make it to the workshop (those will come in the next post) because many of them were a bit complicated or took too many steps for me to introduce to new stampers. I may, however, use them as ideas for future classes or stamp clubs.