Team Swaps

When Stampin’ Up! releases a new annual or seasonal catalog, our group of local Stampin’ Up! demonstrators has a swap. It’s fun – and it gives us more samples to show off to friends and family!

This time, we showcased the Occasions Catalog and the Sale-a-bration products. Instead of mailing all the cards to one person and having her divide them up and send them out, we opted to mail them individually to the others in the swap. I’ve done that with other groups, and it’s a lot of fun – because you don’t get a bunch of cards all at once. It’s more exciting to get one card every couple of days, I think.

Because we’re all busy with families, community activities, and our businesses and other jobs, we didn’t have a strict deadline. We suggested the “end of January/beginning of February” so no one would feel pressured and we’d still have at least 4-6 weeks to show off Sale-a-bration products.

The cards so far have been amazing – and I know the others will be just as lovely. I can’t wait to show you all of them! Here are the first four.

This is Jennie’s card.

The “Lift Me Up” bundle from the Occasions catalog has definitely been a favorite! I love the colors in this card, and Jennie’s clever use of leftovers from a Paper Pumpkin kit.

Chris and Carol both used Beautiful You, also from the Occasions Catalog. But they achieved totally different looks. This is Chris’s card – all the way from Japan.

I love, love, LOVE the Urban Underground Specialty Designer Series Paper, and I especially appreciate how Chris used it for a more feminine card. So sweet! And by not coloring the image, she achieved a very dramatic, elegant feel.

Here’s Carol’s.

Look how she used the masking technique to combine Beautiful You and Mediterranean Moments. And the little touches of color in the greenery, blue sky, and the street light are enough to add interest, but not so much that they take away from the pop of bright color in the lady with the umbrella. The Brick Wall Textured Impressions Embossing Folder is perfect for the background layer. (Mediterranean Moments is a lovely set from the Occasions catalog that was inspired by one of our Million Dollar Sales Achievers, Susan Nygaard.) All the samples using Lift Me Up and Beautiful You in all the different Facebook groups, blogs, and on Pinterest have me crossing my fingers that they will stick around after May.

And here’s Liz’s card.

I love Liz’s elegant style. She used two Sale-a-bration sets – Avant Garden and Delicate Details. Both of these sets were on my “wish list.” I ordered them – and then was stumped. Liz has really sparked my creativity with this one. I love her use of Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant. And the stamped Delicate Details border adds so much to the layout – as do the little rhinestones in the flower centers. Liz also used the border and the flower on the envelope, and it really made it stand out. It’s so much prettier than just a plain white envelope. Stampin’ Up! Co-Founder Shelli Gardner always says, “No naked envelopes!” It does make a difference.

So those are the first four cards. There were nine of us, so I’ll have four more to show you soon. If I can find it (and remember what I made), I’ll show you mine as well. My original plan was to use Beautiful You or Lift Me Up, but knowing how popular they were, I opted to use something out of my comfort zone. I think it was Cool Treats, but I could be wrong. I’ll look around.

In the meantime – have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy!