A bit more about Stampin' Up!

Okay, so I mentioned Stampin' Up in my first post, just assuming everyone knew who I was talking about. If you are into stamping, I would venture that you probably do.

But yesterday as I was sitting at my daughters school fund raising bike ride ... for 3 hours ... watching kids go round and round and round .... and round again on their bicycles, I came to realise two things. One, being a parent involves sacrificing a LOT of your time and Two, maybe not everybody knows who Stampin' Up! is.

I was first introduced to this company by my good friend Paula several years ago, a good few years before they had a presence in the UK. Truth be told I was never all that much into rubber stamping. For me rubber stamping automatically meant collage, lots of ink, and very arty or altered type of creations. Don't get me wrong, I worship the ground that Tim Holtz walks on, but when I try to go down that route it just looks like an abominable mess. Paula, with her clean and simple stamping style, completely changed that perception for me and I was introduced to a style of stamping that was more in line with what I do. Good for me, not so good for my husband, who at the time was funding my crafty spending.

At that time Stampin' Up was only available in America, so we merely had to look on from afar. That all changed in 2007 though, and now we can buy their stamps right here in the good old UK! They sell trough a network of demonstrators and you can find all the info right here on their website.

Again ... a lot of talking and not enough pictures.

I can show you this.

During the summer SU ran a competition where you had to create something summery using only their products. I love competitions, so I created this with the few stamps and other SU bits and bobs that I had.

A summery invitation for a garden party.

I didn't have any summery picture stamps, so text stamps it had to be.

I printed the inside details on Safmat - boy I love that stuff - and that was that. My entry done and dusted.