Have you heard of swaps?
Stampin' Up! demonstrators just love to swap at events to help inspire each other with alternative ways to use our products! It's a great way to collect samples to show customers too!
Typically, we make multiple handmade cards or a small 3D items like a box or a bag (using Stampin' Up! products available in the current catalogue). The swaps usually follow the same design. We then swap our design with other demonstrators.
At Stampin' Up! events you can choose how many swaps you make - for example, if you make 100, you could go home with 100 swaps made by 100 different demos!! Making about 70 swaps is usually my limit as you definitely don't want to be going home with any swaps left over.
To check out swaps I have made in the past click here.
Michelle Last holds a variety of team events for her group of Stampin' Up! demonstrators called the Pinkies. We have often swapped in large groups at the annual Birmingham event, however, there are a two events per year held in Milton Keynes where we swap in smaller groups of 6. Only having to make 5 swaps means we can spend time creating a more complex design. The swap I've made definitely meets that criteria!
This weekend Michelle Last has run her first virtual craft event called the Pinkies Retreat, this is in place of the Birmingham event which couldn't go ahead due to restrictions in place because of coronavirus and also for the safety of her team.
I chose to join a DSP swap group with 5 others - I have finally been able to see the other 5 today and they are stunning!
At the time of making my swaps we only had a small release of products from the annual catalogue so I chose the Flowers for Every Season DSP. These bright colours are not colours I usually work with - some of you may recall me saying that I have challenged myself to work with colours outside of my comfort zone to help me grow as a papercrafter, so I found these really fun to make!
The accordion fold style card is perfect for demonstrating how lovely our DSP is. Each of my five cards is unique and I've carefully chosen two DSP patterns that compliment each other. To do this I made sure I picked out a colour from the design on the front for the alternative pages.
I first saw this style card on Stampin' Up! demo Jan Brown's blog. You can check out her lovely version here - note that I haven't added as many layers as she has!
In my version I added a belly band to secure the card closed, instead of a ribbon.
I used the Playful Alphabet dies to create the Hey! statement which I've added on top of a label die cut using the Tasteful labels dies.
The ribbon wrapped around the belly band and under the sentiment is from the Flowers for Every Season combo pack. You get 3 rolls of ribbon in this pack!
Inside the card I've added some very simple stamping using the Lovely You stamp set and my 2020 - 2021 In Colour Markers. Markers are great to use to apply ink to your stamps should you not own the ink pads!
Did you notice I selected stamps that read out a message across all of the pages?
It reads: Hey! - Smile - Trust me you're lovely - Cherished friend
Before I did the stamping, I used the coordinating Lovely Labels Pick a Punch to punch out some labels. This punch is fab - there are 6 different style labels you can punch - you can choose whatever length you like, then you have a choice of 3 different widths. On top of that, there are two different end styles you can choose from.
Look out for a similar punch coming out in the forthcoming Mini Catalogue featuring Halloween, Autumn & Christmas products!! It's on my shopping list!
I hope you liked my fun swaps! Keep an eye on my blog for more pictures from the Pinkies Retreat!
#Pinkiesretreat2020
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