My SU! experience - then and now

First, today's card.

We have card class coming up and I have mostly floral cards for the group to make.  So I thought we needed a masculine card and I turned to the old favorite little truck stamp which most of the ladies have in their collection also known as Loads Of Love.  Splitcoaststamper’s color challenge this week is to use Pear Pizzazz, Baja breeze, and Poppy Parade - such happy colors.  I also used the sketch challenge turned up on its end.  In place of the circles which would probably be brads or buttons I embroidered X’s for some extra love on this simple card.

Doing this card using all Stampin Up supplies fit in well with one of my first activities this morning which was looking back two years on my blog.  Now that sounds like something strange to do.  It came from Shimelle’s prompt from the Blogging for Scrapbookers class.  She suggested that we use our blogs if we’ve been doing this a long time to see how things have changed in the last year or two years or whatever.  A blog is a great way to find something by date.

So I went back to April 2009 which was shortly after I started my blog.  It was also shortly after I began my few months as a stamping up demonstrator.  I was pretty passionate about stamping and using Stampin’ up! products.  Now I still loved to use other manufacturers’ paper but I had not ventured out into a lot of different kinds of inks.  I was trying to encourage others to stamp, just starting to participate in challenges, and just beginning to teach some card making classes.

Now two years later I still use a lot of my Stampin Up collection of stamps and the inks and markers.  I use their cards stock almost exclusively now except for a little bit of Papertrey Ink.  I have though expanded the variety of stamps and inks in my collection.  I’m a pretty brand loyal person however I like a lot of variety in my crafts.  I get bored pretty quickly and I find that has increased as I’ve gotten older.  For example when I was younger I loved to crochet and while I tried out a lot of different patterns I had some that I would make over and over again.

Now I find that I want to try more and more new techniques, scrapbooking layouts, scrapbooking subjects.  I love to watch videos on techniques and see what I can learn.  I’m not as adventuresome as some of you but I really like to stretch my style.

While I didn’t really like trying to sell Stampin Up, I am very grateful for my time as a demonstrator.  When I had to meet a quarterly minimum, I gave myself permission to spend a bit more money on my crafts –cutting back in other places to do so.  I realized how important paper crafting was to me.  I had to produce quite a bit of product –cards and pages to show to perspective clients.  So I really increased how much I got done in my crafting space and that has carried over even though I’m not trying to sell anything anymore.

I still teach some classes.  We use a lot of SU materials but of course we use a lot of other products as well.

Whereas I was just getting started entering card challenges, I now enter several challenges a month many of them for scrapbook pages.  I make a lot more one page layouts these days.

I really think that blogging, reading other blogs, watching You tube videos, participating on message boards has helped me grow as a crafter.  I’m very thankful to all the wonderful crafters I connect with online.

Thank you for visiting today!


Ingredients:  Stamps: Loads Of Love
ink and card stock: Baja breeze, pear pizzazz, poppy parade