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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea
Stampin' Up! 3D items
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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea: Posted on Monday, May 07, 2012 4:09 PM
Wow, well it's been another busy week in the O'Shea household this past week or so!
Last Saturday, I attended a Stampin' Up! Regional Training event in Reading. I LOVE going to SU events - it's lovely to meet up with friends that you've made all over the UK and sometimes, it's where I get to meet my recruits for the first time too if they aren't local to me!
There were about thirty girls from the team who went and it's always nice to spend time with them even if it is only brief!
We got to see lots of bits from the new Mini Catalogue and generally had a lovely time! I was asked to a display on the Stampin' Up! Incentive trips. I think many Demonstrators think that this trip isn't achievable to most. However, I think I shared enough to show that even though I don't do Stampin' Up! full time, I still manage to achieve the trip. I even achieved it in my first year as a Demonstrator too which also shows that you don't have to have been doing this long to achieve it either. Hopefully, some that thought it was out of their reach were shown otherwise. It was lovely getting to chat to many of the 125 Demonstrators that were in the room.
At every Stampin' Up! Event, we make swaps. These are many of the same item that we then swap with people that are at the event. It's a great way of getting different ideas and different styles of samples for display books etc. Here is what I did this time:
 I brought some fizzy sherbet lollies from Tescos. I was hoping to get the "normal" lollies but they didn't have any. Lastminute.com me, didn't have any time to go elsewhere so had to buy these bigger ones. Which would have been fine, had they have not been in bags with writing all over them. So it took almost as long to get them out of their original bags and re-pack them! But they definately seemed to go down well and were a hit with everyone. I thought they may have been a bit simple, but everyone loved them!
It is simply a butterfly punch with a rhinestone in the middle stuck to the top of the lolly. A punch using the new Blossoms punch in Regal Rose and Daffodil Delight for the flowers and two leaves handcut and run through the ribbler to give texture and faux veins. I've seen leaves made using a variety of the punches so perhaps look at your oval punches, bird punch, Pennants punch and Build a blossom punch for a variety of different shapes that work well for leaves.
I must apologise to everyone on my mailing list - I had a nightmare last week. I stayed up late on Monday night to make sure that I sent out an email to everyone with the new Summer Mini on. I was all organised, but then it never sent. The long story short, the email got sent three times two days later!!!! Arrrghhh. So my apologies for clogging up your mailbox, I was going to send another email apologising and explaining but thought you may have heard enough from me then!
So, what else has been going on this last week? Well, I also had team training with my Stampin' Stars team two days ago too. I always enjoy these events too as they are far more intimate and it's easier to chat and discuss ideas between all of us. I've received some lovely swaps from everyone over the last two weekends and I'll be sharing some of those with you over the coming days and weeks.
Here's a teaser of something we made at my training on Saturday:
 I have to admit to not being sure about this set when I first saw it in the new Summer Mini Catalogue but it definately grew on me. I love the colours - Wisteria Wonder, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Pool Party - 4 of the new In Colours this year. I can't stop using them, although this years In Colours have just been divulged in the US and I LOVE those too. Completely different to these ones aswell. Anyway, the above card is made using the Mouthwatering Stamp Set together with the Sweet Shoppe papers. There are some new dies called Framelits in the Summer Mini, and whilst you can use them for cutting and layering, this nifty technique recreated a swing card which I thought was really cool.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed your Bank Holiday weekend and the weather hasn't been too harsh for you.
I plan on being back a bit more frequently now that I've got lots of photos of projects that I can share with you at last!
Keep watching and have fun!
Natalie x |
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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea: Posted on Monday, March 05, 2012 5:39 PM
Yoooo hoooo! Just swinging past again to give you another update on life in the O'Shea household! Last weekend, I was joined by some other Stampin' Up! Demonstrators whilst we spent three days at the Make It Show at Farnborough in Hampshire. This is a show that I have done for the last three years and each year it just keeps getting better and better! This year, I couldn't have done it without the help of the other ladies on the stand, who did a fabulous job at organising our Make and Take packs, putting together easy bundles, providing inspirational samples and that is before we even started the show! Julie, Fiona, Nic, Pip, Diane, Bev, Nicky, Maggie, Teresa and Cary, I couldn't have done it without you all! Thank you soooo much! Our stand was just knock out, even if I say so myself. I had this vision of glass cabinets showing off product like in a shop and lo and behold, Fiona came up trumps with her and her sisters cabinets. Some hard work in negotiating their arrival, but definately worth the effort. That then leads me onto our displays. I have to thank Cary who spent hours not only prepping all the class kits for me, but also organised by display board too. Look at all of those lovely flowers. How pretty. You'd be forgiven for thinking that she used the Bigz Die Fun Flowers to make the display, but no....Cary wasn't happy with the size of the flowers on the die and so chose to make the display using the Build a Blossom punch. Yep, every single one of those petals has been punched out individually. I think she is mad but I definately think it was worthwhile - it looks gorgeous! Thank you Cary. So, the show was our most successful to date and if you came to any of the classes or came and did our Make and Take - then thank you very much :) I hope that you enjoyed yourself. And if you're wondering what happened to Sale-a-Bration, you still have until the end of March to either place your order for £45 or more and claim your free Sale-a-Bration stamp set or papers, or if you become a Demonstrator, then you can add a stamp set from the current catalogue of ANY price to your Starter Kit too (yes, even the £45 ones) - what a bargain!! It's a great time to buy and a great time to become a Demonstrator too, so what are you waiting for? Back again soon (ish!), Natalie x |
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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea: Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:59 PM
Ho Ho Ho everyone! I am sure that all of you are having just as busy a time as I am these last few weeks. I truly wanted to share lots of Christmas inspiration with you all, but unfortunately, with a full time job and being a mother and a wife, that is keeping me very busy at the moment. Not to mention getting ready for Christmas too in the mix! I am still settling into my new job and even though I have been there seven weeks already (!), I am still coming home mentally drained after each day as I plough through the work that needs doing and sorting out. It is a very different job to being at the school and one I'm still getting my head round, although normally by about three months, I've normally worked it out and settled into a new job, so five weeks to go yet! I finished work yesterday though for Christmas and I had every intention of starting to get myself into the festive spirit. I LOVE Christmas but I'm normally running around too much to actually take it in and enjoy it, so that was my decision this year. Yes, I've got lots to do and lots I could be getting ahead with, but I know the kids are growing up so quickly that Christmas is going to lose it's touch soon and I'm not sure how many more I can string out with the boys pretending they are still youngsters. We used to go to Tulleys Farm where they put on a great Christmas experience, but again, this year, they aren't really interested in seeing Santa :( However, I bullied them and told them we were going to do some Christmassy things. So, today, what's more Christmassier than going to Sainsburys LOL!! Now, there was method in my madness. Tomorrow we are baking! Now those of you who know me well, know that I don't really do baking. However, the three of us (dad's still at work!) are going to be making Chocolate Orange Brownies, Vanilla Cupcakes and Ginger Biscuits with icing on tomorrow and so today, we had to shop for all the ingredients. It would have been far cheaper to actually buy pre-made ones given that we've had to buy everything from butter, to sugar and from flour to decorations, but I hope that all will go well. Tonight, I did something else to get me in the mood. I've never seen the film It's A Wonderful Life and everyone seems to be going on about it at the moment, so I watched it with my hubby when he got home from work whilst drinking a mug (!) of mulled wine.  I did enjoy it, but it wasn't what I was expecting. Lots of people class it as a Christmas movie and one of the best films of all time, so I was expecting great things and very Christmassy things, so was a little disappointed with the lack of jingle bells and Santa Claus, I guess, however, still a lovely experience and nice thing to do, so very appreciated. So, tomorrow it's baking, I think Saturday we may go to the cinema (can't remember when we last did that together - the boys have started going on their own now - too cool to be seen with their parents now!). Arthur Christmas seems to be the recommended Christmas movie so we may do that. For Christmas Day, we were going over to my Mums, but hubby really wants it here this year and Mum thinks it's a great idea to bring everything over here, so now we are here for Christmas. I'm not sure if I'm loving that idea or not. I'll tell you after that day depending on whether I'm worn out or not LOL! Right, I'm not sure if I will be back before Christmas or not, so I'm going to share this little Santa box that I have made after seeing a few on the internet. The very useful Petal Cone Die and lots of punches to make this delightful fellow. Here are a couple of pictures to show you the before and after. Right, enough gassing for tonight. I'm sorry for not being around for as much as I would like but I'd love to thank all my lovely customers for supporting me this last year by keeping buying their Stampin' UP! goodies from me and my lovely downline, who continue to share what they love too. Thanks everyone and Merry Christmas!! Natalie x |
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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea: Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2011 6:10 PM
So, after not much sleep, Zoe and I woke up and sauntered downstairs in our own time to have breakfast. Memento Mall is where you can go and buy lots of Stampin' Up! branded merchandise and it opened at 8am with registration. Being the time of year that it was, meant that Disneyland Paris was fully decked out in Christmas decorations which really made the whole experience even more special.  I have to admit to being awful with crowds and queueing and Zoe is no better either, so we thought we'd let everyone do it all before us and arrived at Convention at about 9.20am. When we registered, we were each given a catalogue in a Binder together with this really useful bag. The doors to the Main Hall opened and we were greeted by the main stage. The whole theme for Convention was Grow and everything was all about planting seeds and growing your business and all the displays were very Garden themed. Here are some of the Stampin' Up! displays that were dotted around the hall. Stampin' Up! definately know how to go with a theme! "Swapping" is an integral part of any Stampin' Up! event and Convention is no exception. A few weeks before Convention, I fell in love with something that Canadian Andrea Walford had produced for her Facebook page. Here are my swaps based on her design and tweaked only very slightly. I did some in all five of the new In Colours, but this example is using Wisteria Wonder. Good old Crum Cake for the base and then some of the In Colour Designer Series Paper from the Paper Stacks together with the "can be used on everything to make it a bit vintagey" First Edition Speciality paper (which is a complete bargain with 24 sheets in a pack) and then my all time favourite Beautiful Wings Embosslit to make the butterflies. Team it with the new "going to be one of my favourite products from the new catalogue" Scallop Square Sizzix die, a large oval punch, a Decorative Label punch and a greeting from the Hostess Set Tagtastic and you are done!  So, the day was spent with some great presentations and classes, a few prize patrols, some teasers to where the next Incentive Trip may be to and a whole heap of catching up with friends. We finished at around 4pm and then went for a chill out for a few hours. Zoe and I spent the time having a good look at the stamp sets that we had received at Registration, the swaps we had received and a nice relaxing time getting ready for the evening. Staying in the hotel New York, there are lots of references to New York City (strangely!!) and so a photo had to be taken of this particular sign! Here I am in all my finery on our way into the Gala Dinner. It was lovely having members of the Stampin' Stars team with us. Some of them even brought their other halves with them! Here are Cate, Katie, Niki and Julie together with Katie and Julie's partners. Here are some of us on stage with our glad rags on! Nicki, Niki, Julie, Kim, Justine, Katie, Me and Cate The best thing about Convention was seeing some of the members of the team walk the stage (and for most it was their first year). Both Gill M and Steph M were on the board for promotions within their teams even though they couldn't be there. Cate, Kim and Victoria walked across the stage for promotions within their teams too. But my proudest moment was having three of the girls in the Top 25 Demonstrators in the country!! This is no mean feat and I am so happy that Kim Fee came in at number 19, Cate Terry was 16th and Victoria was 9th!! What a fabulous night for them all. Victoria got to walk the stage too for achieving the Incentive Trip to Vienna next year. Something that she set as a goal to achieve at last years convention. I was again very lucky myself this year and walked the stage several times for my recruiting, sales and promotions. I was also so so pleased to have retained my 5th place in the country. That's three years in a row that I've been 5th and I was so chuffed. There are a few girls in the UK now, who aren't very far behind me so I wasn't sure whether I had done enough or not to achieve that. Without trying to sound too much like an Oscar speech, there is absolutely no way that I could achieve what I do with Stampin' Up! without my loyal customers and my fabulous Stampin' Stars Team. I am very lucky - thank you. Right, I think that is plenty for today. Back again soon with more details... Have a great weekend, Natalie x |
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Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Natalie O'Shea: Posted on Monday, November 28, 2011 8:43 PM
Wow, wow, wow! That's about all I can say about last weekend - it was truly fabulous and I really enjoyed myself. I am hoping that life is going to be a little quieter from now on although I'm not sure who I am trying to kid what with Christmas on it's way and all that! However, I will start this post with a picture of a card that I made for my youngest for his birthday on 14th November. I saw this card whilst blog hopping and seeing that he is such an Angry Birds fan, I thought this was a great idea for him: It's a bit of a rubbish picture but considering this photo was taken at about 11pm, it's not too bad and you get the idea. I got this design from #1 US Demonstrator Tami White. Fab isn't it? It was a complete hit with him and his friends, so that is what counts really! So, onto last weekend. I have to say that this year's Convention was the best ever. It was a really slick operation and they really listened to what people wanted and gave it to us. There were 13 from the Stampin' Stars Team that ventured over to Disneyland Paris and I made them all one of these to help them "survive" Convention. The quote reads "All our dreams come true if we have the courage to pursue them" and is by Walt Disney - very apt for an inspirational convention from the man himself I thought! Inside were supplies that would keep them going in every eventuality during Convention. Some tissues, some chocolate, a lip balm, a notebook and pencil and some mini Party rings. Move the notebook out of the way and you reveal some chewing gum, a nail file, some Paracetemol (yep, that was a task to buy 13 packets of paracetemol!) and a little bag with a charm in too. Here's a bad close up of the charm bead in it's bag. When Stampin' Stars team members get a certain level of promotion, they receive from me either a Pandora style bracelet or key chain. Each promotion and recruit they get,they receive another charm and so on. So, I thought it would be lovely for them to add to their collection with a Mickey Mouse charm :).  When we register at convention, it's all about the Convention Bag that we get - I'll show you pictures of that later. But you can imagine with nearly 400 of the same bag in the building, you need a little something to distinguish yours from everyone else's. I made simple initial tags for everyone in Stampin' Up!'s Lucky Limeade Designer Series Paper, a chipboard letter that I'd coloured with black marker pen and covered the whole lot in Stampin' Up!'s Crystal Effects to seal and protect the tag. An easy punch through the corner with my Cropodile and a bit of Basic Black Satin Ribbon and they were done. I'm sure that Stampin' Up! chose the colours black and green just for me so that our team colours (and my blog) all co-ordinated!! That's my first intro to the Stampin' Up! Convention weekend and I'll be back again shortly (I promise!) with more news. Natalie x |
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