Wildflower Meadow

Today's card designed by Becky Roberts is a beauty using the new set called Wildflower Meadow (Item 129168). It is a background stamp which means that when you stamp your card it covers the whole back of the card. Then I used the new embossing folder called Wildflower Embossing Folder ( Item 129376) and embossed it through my Big Shot. Can you see the raised portion of the card? How clever is that? Stampin Up keeps coming up with new things all the time. We made this card in my workshop the other day and the girls just loved the effect. Looks like a new favourite for everybody.

Kind and Cozy Stamp Set from Stampin Up

Today's card shows the new stamp set from Stampin Up called Kind and Cozy. Notice the gingham image in the background, the wonderful image stamped in the circle and the heart stamped and popped out with a dimensional. These are some of the images included in the new stamp set. Also in this product suite is this new Designer Series Paper called Gingham Garden. Don't those colours make you happy? They sure make my day brighter especially now that it is SPRING. The new catalogue that features these two items comes out on Friday. Can't wait! Why not sign up for my Open House Workshop on June 17th to get your free copy? Can't come to the workshop but would like to know about getting a copy? Just contact me.

Swap Card

While preparing for my trip to Fiji Stampin Up invited us to participate in a Swap on the last day we were there. Each of us made 25 cards and handed them in on the first day we were on our trip. Then they were packaged into groups of 25 and handed back to us on Saturday morning. We were all busy taking photo's of each others cards and getting some new ideas. The card pictured above was my swap card. I used several different colours of card-stock and a lot of the Stampin Up framelit die-cuts.  There are lots of layers on this card but I think it was worth the effort.

Gail's Card

Happy Victoria Day! I hope wherever you are you are enjoying the warmth and sunshine that we are experiencing today. Today I am featuring a card made by my new friend Gail whom I met in Fiji. She is a true artist and this was her swap card. The card is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside and she has even stamped the envelope (pictured in the background). The stamp sets used in today's card are:

Blooming with Kindness
Fabulous Florets
En Français

I think the beautiful silver glimmer paper in the background makes the card, don't you?

Brides and Babies

So the new Stamp Set for The Best of 25 Years for May is the Brides and Babies Stamp Set! It has some images from the past and one brand new image titled Happy Anniversary. This stamp set is available in Clear Mount and retails for $17.95. I am planning to have a Wedding Card Class in the Studio this summer as I have had several requests for this type of card. I will certainly be using the Have and Hold image on one of the cards. Here is an example of what this image looks like on a card. I found this card on Pinterest and don't know who the original designer is. Wouldn't this make a beautiful card for a someone's special day?

A Family Wedding

So we arrived home from the Incentive Trip Stampin Up awarded us to preparing for our sons wedding at the end of the week. As most of you know we have a catering business and our son asked us to cater his wedding as well as be invited guests. That was a challenge. We have a very capable crew and so once the preparation was done we left things in good hands and had a lovely time at our son's wedding. Please find below a few candid shots of the wedding!

 Although it was cool and over cast for part of the day the sun did eventually come out and warm things up a bit. Spring pictures are the best as everything is so lush and green.

A Candid shot with Scott.

The Buffet table just before the food went into the bowls. What a wonderful day!

Fiji

We made it! After a 30 hour Journey we landed in the Nadi airport and began our wonderful week in Fiji courtesy of Stampin Up. As most of you know I earned the Incentive Trip last year and we were finally on our way! Stampin Up treated us royally for the entire week with a lovely breakfast every morning and games and prizes throughout the day and also a Pool Patrol Prize each day for those who chose to lounge around the pool.

Ed and I went on an excursion to the local market and also the Sleeping Giant Gardens that Raymond Burr started when he lived in Fiji. It was an amazing Garden! He loved orchids and the Garden has 200 species of orchids, we also climbed up the mountain and looked at all the lush vegetatation.

One of the highlights of this trip was being able to help out with a service project at a local hospital. Over 200 volunteers from our group volunteered at the hospital for a morning and the results were amazing. We painted, cleaned, gardened, cut grass, picked garbage ( that was our job) and the results were incredible after only 4 hours. We were all given t-shirts so we were easily identifiable:)

Here you see Ed and his team mate packing up garbage from around the hospital and there was lots of it.

On Friday evening Stampin Up hosted a dinner for all the Demonstrators and guests who earned the trip and we sat oceanside in a formal setting while local talent performed for us and we had a fabulous dinner.

We met a local Fijian who took us on his tribal island and toured us around this small island by foot. He climbed the coconut tree and our small group of six all got a coconut and drank the juice from it. After that we all planted a coconut tree in honour of our visit. Several trees were destroyed on the island after a recent cyclone so the replanted trees were planted in his grove to repopulate the island.

 What a fantastic experience! We sure would not have done this trip on our own so thank you Stampin Up for giving us this wonderful opportunity.