Seaside Wishes - Stampin' Up! Swaps, Lincoln 2024

Hello, I was so excited when I heard that our fabulous Demonstrator Development Manager (DDM), Helen Slimm announced that there would a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator event in Lincoln!

It has been ages since we had an event in the UK.  These events are always great fun - a mix of mingling, crafting and business presentations.

A very big part of these events is swapping!  I happened to have a bundle on my desk called Seaside Wishes and I knew straight away that the sentiment - 'you absolutely made my day' would be perfect for my swaps!

Swaps can be a card front, a full card or even a 3d item - some even contain little treats.

As I had not had chance to use this lovely bundle before I decided to have a little play and see what happened.

My first prototype shown on the left, was ok - it had an ink blended background but I felt it was missing something.

My final design on the right was tweaked a little - using the embossing folder on the background made a big difference.

Colours I used

Balmy Blue, Crumb Cake, Granny Apple Green (card), Lemon Lolly and Misty Moonlight. 

The Background

I used thick Basic White card and embossed it with the Seaside Wishes Hybrid Embossing Folder.

I then used a small blending brush with Balmy Blue ink to add colour to the Sand Dollars.

Using Crumb Cake Ink, I stamped the little dotty image using it to fill in some gaps.

I then had the daft idea of scuffing the edges - boy what a mess scuffing 20 card fronts makes.  I do like scuffed edges though, do you?

The Stamping & Die Cutting

I stamped the large and small starfish with Lemon Lolly ink and used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

I die cut both sizes of the Sand Dollars from white card and lots of 'leaves' from Granny Apple Green card.

The sentiment was stamped with Misty Moonlight onto scraps of white card and fussy cut out (what was I thinking)!!

Here you can see my box full of all the pieces waiting to be assembled.

Assembly

The 'leaves' and the Sand Dollars where adhered to the front of the card using Tombow.  I then added the Star Fish with dimensionals.  For the sentiment I used Tombow for the centre and added a dimensional on each end so that everything was balanced.

My swaps were card fronts - mainly because I could not decide which colour base looked best!  (if you swapped with me, you can decide for yourself).  A white Card base or Balmy Blue?

I love white space on my projects - do you?

Name Badge

One of the other things we needed for the event was a name bade.  I decided to make a smaller version of my swap and mounted it on Balmy Blue.

For some reason, it may have been the fact that I only finished my swaps and badge the night before the event I managed to stamp the Star Fish in Daffodil Delight instead of Lemon Lolly!

I was delighted that one of my team members was able to secure a place too.  This was the first event Lynn had been to.  I had volunteered to register attendees on arrival so although Lynn didn't do any swaps herself she was able to do some of my swaps for me whilst I was busy.  Everyone was so generous with their swaps - some did one for everyone who attended!

Of course the Craftyducky came too!  Looking at the photo above, we somehow managed to coordinate our outfits too - completely unplanned!

Our lovely DDM sadly broke her wrist but she still managed to pull off a super event. 

We also created four crafty projects, each one designed by a fellow demonstrator.

Lynn is camera shy but, here she is with two of the projects we made!

Thank so much to everyone who swapped with me - so many great ideas.  The only question is, when is the next in person event!

Happy crafting,

Susan xx

Thank you so much for looking at my Blog today, if you don't have a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and you live in the UK, I would love to be yours!  

If you need to order any supplies, simply use my “shop with me” button or click on the catalogue links on the right. Alternatively, contact me and I would be happy to place an order for you.

Orders placed either in my online store or directly with for me £25+ (excluding P & P) will receive a handmade card and a gift as a thank you from me.

Would you like to save on postage costs for your SU orders?

Keep an eye on my Craftyducky facebook page - I usually post when I am about to place an order.  if you are local to me and can collect you can piggyback my orders to save on postage for just £1 per order (any size of order welcome).

If you would like a copy of the Annual Catalogue let me know and I will pop one in the post for you if you are unable to collect. If you prefer, you can view an online version by clicking the links to the left of this post.