Good morning peeps, what a busy week we’re having! Just got back from OnStage 2016 (part one!!) and then the Retiring List arrived, and then my video launched, it’s really all go! However, I promised on Sunday to share more of what I got up to at OnStage, so… I had 15 of my team with me, and they made crowns & a banner for us! Trust me, everyone knew the Royal Stampers were in the house!

There is always a fun atmosphere at these events, it really is like a huge family reunion where everyone actually wants to meet everyone again!! So lots of hugging, photo opportunities with all my pals from around the UK.

Louise Sims, Queen Pip and Mikaela Titheridge from the Stampin’ Creative Blog Hop team

CentreStage is the Friday evening event for Silver Elites & above to have some quality time with other leaders, corporate staff and get some pampering because of what we’ve achieved.

The lovely Liz Shannon, Amanda Fowler, Rhoda MacPherson , Kerry Timms (and a smiling Zoe Tant and Mikaela again in the background)

This is my third such evening, and it was as brilliant as ever. Just look how they decorate the tables for our dinner – so beautiful!

I would love to share this experience with my team leaders, and I know that in years to come I will, because they are all doing amazingly well! This year one of my fellow Silver Elites spoke with a few members of my team on how she achieved the title, so I wanted to say thank you – so of course I made her a crafty gift! This was for Julie Wade, and it uses the Botanical Framelits which I love. To give you an idea of the scale the square in the centre is just 8 cm x 8 cm, so I layered it up onto larger pieces of matching card stock. I’m delighted to say she loved it, which I’m really pleased about!

You can see from this angle the clear embossed image behind the flowers… but I got my camera settings wrong, so it’s slightly warm above and cold below! It’s actually Smoky Slate, Island Indigo with Very Vanilla and a Pool Party flower.

It’s also great to meet up with teams from across the UK. Here is the whole Stampin’ Stars Silver Elites (who could attend) with our fab team leader Natalie O’Shea – this is the team I’m in (as opposed to my own team!) Eimear’s little one was an honorary member, as was Crafty Hallett who snuck in there on the end with Kim 🙂 Natalie does some amazing things, one of which was to give all her Silver Elites a personally named Star in the Intergalactic Database – how cool is that?!?!

It was also a huge honour to be asked to present at OnStage by Stampin’ Up! in my first ever product / design presentation. This scared the life out of me, I know, I know you all are thinking “WHAT?!?!” but I’ve never really put my designs out on display for all my peers to see and comment on in such a massive way before & so, of course, I was nervous that they wouldn’t like what I’d done. Thankfully, I’ve received a lot of compliments – which does my confidence no end of good!

I found out in January that I needed to leave early, but the great team at Stampin’ Up! said no problem, you can go on first – yikes – no pressure there then. I didn’t “open” the show, but I was the first demonstrator presenter in the morning, live at Telford in front of 380+ demos and corporate staff. The new product I was given to play with, I’ll just say it now – is amazing, but really stretched my comfort zone because it was all me – bright & bold and flowery, plus no one to CASE, no other demos had done anything with it before, so all I had was a few photos of what will be in the catalogue and the products. Well, after I got started, I got on a right roll and ended up making over 20 project items!!! I LOVE these products, and I know you will too, but you’re going to have to wait to buy until June! Thankfully the lovely Charlotte from the Stampin’ Up! European Head Office team said my projects were “wicked”, so I knew I was on the right track!

I’m not giving lots away, because these will be featuring heavily in my June blog postings and classes etc and you can’t buy it yet, so I don’t want to annoy you lots – but I thought I’d show you a couple I really loved making and that went down really well at OnStage. The little box has the new foiled Designer Series Paper on full show and as you can see it’s bold! With a hint of a new metallic – yep – Copper is coming to town!

This next one is so bright and spring inspired, I can’t help showing you it now as the daffodils are blooming! As you can see there is Daffodil Delight and Cucumber Crush in full colour, plus a new stamp set and a bit of Embossing Folder work going on! In the main, the colours in this Product Suite called Affectionately Yours (isn’t that sweet) are the current ones except for one – can you spot it? A touch of Flirty Flamingo – which is gorgeous and was also my Prize Patrol badge colour – yes we get prizes at OnStage just for attending!!! I can’t leave you without this brilliant photo of me and Crafty Owl (Joanne James) – we do have a giggle! I can’t remember now what it was about – but that just sums up my OnStage experience – fun & laughter with friends and my teamies!

So, now I’m back down to earth with a bump as we have to brace ourselves for what is leaving us, all I can say is don’t be too sad because the new stuff is even better, but there will be somethings I’m really sad to see go – like the Cups & Kettle framelits that were on my video yesterday. So if there is something YOU would really like to get before it’s gone – I would recommend you buy it NOW online, with postage £4.95 no matter what you order – but put in my Monthly Giveaway code and you’ll get a packet of Rhinestones as a thank you (worth £4.50 – so you really are getting your postage back in kind).

The code is: XKECDGV9

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing all about OnStage 2016 (part one – the next one is in November – if you want to join us then click on Buy the Starter Kit and get £130 worth of products for just £99, and you can attend too!). If you’d just like to shop – then click & go to My Shop to see what’s left from the Retirement List!

I’ll be back on Sunday with more information and inspiration. Until then, happy stamping, hugs, Pip x