Yippee, today was my launch party day and we had a packed hall with lots of ooing and arhhing going on! As part of my countdown to a new catalogue I always like to hold a launch party where people can get their hands on the catalogue, sit around with friends and like minded people and try out some of the new stuff.

We had it all today, make and takes for everyone and a Try Me table where people could try the new Blendabilities and the Envelope Punch Board for those who hadn’t seen it before. I also felt that people needed a little kit to get them through their new catalogue experience, because it can be overwhelming at times with so many fun things to see and the decisions to make about what to buy now or what can wait for a week!

So this is what I gave them along with their catalogue (of course!), apologies for the dodgy photo – but I was packing late at night!

• A Make & Take to give you hands on temptation!
• A tissue, to wipe the drool off your chin when you see the amazing new stamps and products.
• A plaster, in case you get a paper cut when flicking frantically through the pages desperate to see all the new goodies!
• A rubber band, to stretch your imagination and help you see what you can create with all the lovely new things.
• A bookmark with the new In Colours to mark your place
• Post it tabs, to help you highlight your favourite things!
• A pen, to help you fill in your huge wish list before you forget.
• Chocolate, because all crafters need sustenance, especially when staying up late to drool over your new catalogue!

I like to spoil my customers at my launch parties, so we had cake (of course) and a sale of retired products where they could earn spend in the NEW catalogue by buying products that retired this time last year. All in all a very good afternoon and I hope they all enjoyed it – it does take a lot of effort to prepare for one of these events, but it’s worth every minute when you see the buzz around the new products and the imagination it stirs – I certainly have a lot of new ideas and techniques I want to bring into classes over the coming months purely through seeing some of the fabulous new ideas in this years catalogue. Here’s the full image of the card we made today, it’s really simple but you can snazz it up with Rhinestones or some ribbon if you wanted to. It uses the Postage Stamp Punch, the 1″ Square Punch plus the new Itty Bitty Punches, the new Moonlight DSP paper stack and the Something to Say new Stampset.

Tomorrow is the last countdown day and then we’ll be there – live and raring to go! I will be putting up the catalogue for you to view online and you will of course be able to see everything live in my online Shop – it will be down overnight though, so don’t be too eager! If you’d like to get your hands on your own real catalogue then please fill out my Contact form on my About Me page and I’ll be in touch for your address etc.

So see you tomorrow – I’m off for a rest tonight & then onwards tomorrow to sort out next weeks class! Happy stamping, thanks to everyone who came today, Pip x