No Time To Stamp?

Some changes have taken place that affect both me personally and Flourishes. 

After much heart-wrenching consideration, I have decided that I need to leave Flourishes, and I am no longer in partnership with Jan Marie, Nancy and Sharon D.  These ladies have been so kind and gracious to me in the past, and it is not easy to leave, but it was the only decision that was right for me.  I know they will continue to Flourish and I wish them nothing but the best.

I began my journey with Flourishes when they opened their doors just about a year ago.  I was on their original Design Team, then I served as Design Team Leader and eventually I bought into partnership and we launched the Stamp Simply series of stamps.  Sadly to say, this has all come to an end.

And I know the question you all have is WHY?  Well, very simply because I have been working very, very hard to promote Flourishes – and that translates into hours – a lot of hours – way too many hours – more hours than I could reasonably handle, considering I have a husband, family, home, farm, friends, church and community.  All of these things, which have always been of the utmost importance to me, have fallen by the wayside, taking second place.  And it just reached a saturation point where I had to reconsider my decisions – I had to step back and take a look at what is REALLY important to me in life.  Is it having a stamp line or being in partnership in a business and working myself to a frazzle until the wee hours of each morning?  No, it most certainly is not.  It is taking care of and honoring my family and my God  — and there is no question in my mind that God’s intent for me is that of a homemaker – it is where I am at total peace with life.  And it is what I must return to.  But God is gracious and God is good – and He has always allowed me time for personal pleasure which, to me, is stamping.  So, I’m not going anywhere – I’ll be right here where I’ve always been, playing and talking with you all.

I thank you all for your friendship, your kindness, your understanding and your support.  And I pray that you all can experience the peace that I now feel – and I’d like to leave you with this:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4: 4-7 (NIV)

The Splitcoast Non-Raffle for Midwest Flood Relief is now live and active.  You can click the link above to read all about it.  Bascially a lot of people put together gorgeous offerings which can all be seen in the non-raffle prize gallery.  Donations are being accepted on behalf of the Red Cross, and those donating will be eligible to win any of these prizes.  There are 55 in all.   This was my offering to the cause:

This prize consists of one Stamp Simply set, the first, called Coffee with Friends, by Flourishes, along with a variety of 5 different cards made using Coffee with Friends.  These cards have all been posted here before, so I won’t go into any details.  And Coffee with Friends, much to my dismay, has been sold out for quite some time now, so here’s your chance to win it!!!  I will let you all know when Coffee with Friends is back in stock.

Please check out all of the beautiful creations in the Non-Raffle Prize Gallery, leave some comments for those who took so much of their time to put these packages together, and then go on over to Splitcoast to read all the details and make your donation.

Thanks much for your support of this cause.

My Dare to Get Dirty 08 Challenge will be posted at noonish today (Eastern Time), 7/24.  Hope you can come back to check it out!!!

I also have a live and active Blog Candy post — scroll down two posts to sign up!

CHA is rapidly approaching and I’m so exicted!!!!  I’m going  and I can hardly believe it!!!!  For those who may not know, CHA stands for Craft and Hobby Association and their Summer Convention and Trade Show is being held in Chicago next week, Friday through Sunday, July 18 - 20.  And to answer the question I keep getting — NO, Flourishes does not have a booth there, but maybe one of these days!!!!  Now, wouldn’t that be something!!!  But both Jan Marie and I will be there shopping our hearts out for Flourishes, along with Susan Roberts, one of our fabulous Design Team Members.  Can’t wait to see what we find to fill our shelves with!!! Fun, fun!!!

I do, however, have one little job at CHA that has me SO excited!!!  You all know how I love using my monogram stampers by JustRite — well, I will be one of the demos working at the JustRite booth — how fun is that!!!  And wait until you hear who all the other demos are — I’ll have the schedule at the end of this post.  All I know is that I’m going to have a hard time tearing myself away from their booth!!!!  LOL!!!  Anyway, here’s my project, along with a few extras I made to go along with it.

What I’ll actually be doing as the demo for JustRite at CHA is the bridesmaids dress on the right.  Both the dress and tuxedo are favor boxes cut by AccuCut.  How fun and easy they are to put together!!!!  The monogrammed CHERISH is one of the new releases by JustRite — oh, just wait until you see ALL they have coming out to go with the stampers you all already have –  you won’t believe it, you truly won’t!!!!  I used Petite Circle Nestabilities to cut and emboss my monogram tags.  The C-45 makes it so quick to mass produce these tags in the event you may be doing a real wedding or other large project.

This bride has her table settings all set to go with the favor boxes and place cards — aren’t they just the most gorgeous things!!!  The frame for the place card was made by cutting a rectangle of white, then just cutting the center opening with a Long Rectangle Nestability, and adhering the frame onto the black card.  Names can easily be written with the Inkksentials Opaque White Pen.

The groom’s tux is stamped, tone on tone, in black with the Damask background stamp.  His shirt was embossed easily using the Scor-It, black Pearls were added for buttons, and a tiny flower, folded into quarters was attached with a black brad.  The tux, shirt and bowtie were all done on the AccuCut, as was the dress. And, of course, all monogram tags are done with the monogram stamper by JustRite.

The dress and place card were stamped with the flourish stamp in Wedding Essentials, gone over with the Quickie Glue Pen, and covered with Dazzling Diamonds.  The dress has a Black Sheer Ribbon belt.  Such FUN to make these!!!!

This bride is also ready with the cards requesting her bridesmaids to serve and her Save the Date announcements.

What a gorgeous bridesmaid!  She is from Wedding Party, colored in with Copics and adorned with pearly colored Pearls.  Her dress bodice was colored with a black Copic, gone over with the Quickie Glue Pen and Dazzling Diamonds.  The Will You Serve sentiment is from Wedding Essentials.

Again, continuing in the same theme.  The sentiment, Save the Date, the rings and the flourish are all from Wedding Essentials.  A pretty self-explanatory card.  And I’ll tell you, making cards and projects like these — with the flourishes and glitter — are just my all time favorites!!!  They have class, elegance, eye-appeal and, best of all — they hardly take any time at all!!! Now, THAT I like!!!

Now, back to CHA and some important things to know — if you’re going to be there, PLEASE come to see all of us at the JustRite booth and do some fun make-n-takes.  There will be 9 different make-n-takes!!!  JustRite will be located in Booth #3309 and has 32 new products to introduce — can’t wait!!!  Here’s the schedule of fun events planned:

Friday, July 18 — 9 - 11 a.m. — MICHELLE WOODERSON (Mish Mash)

Friday, July 18 — 1 - 3 p.m. — SHARON JOHNSON (notimetostamp) (that’s me!)

Saturday, July 19 — 10 - 12 noon — TAYLOR VAN BRUGGEN (tayloredexpressions)

Saturday, July 19 — 1 - 3 p.m. — JERRI JIMENEZ (Jerri Kay)

Sunday, July 20 — 10 - 12noon — SUSAN ROBERTS (rainy)

Before, after and in between the above, there will be a ton of fun projects being conducted by the JustRite crew!!!   And, to SEE all the projects, read about each designer, and see some of the soon to be released new products, check out the JustRite Blog.

If you’re at CHA, we surely would hope to see you!!!  I’d LOVE to meet each and every one of you!!!

Thanks for stopping in — hope you are having a wonderful weekend — we are having such beautiful weather today!!!  Hope you are, too!!!

We all at Flourishes have so much going on this week, I almost don’t know where to begin.  We will be releasing three new stamp sets on Wednesday, and to usher in the release, how about some  Blog Candy,  YES!!!  (Please note, I’m prepping this post in the middle of the night and some of these links are not yet up — please be patient as we all work to the get these up)

BLOG CANDY  is being offered by Susan Roberts.  Coffee, anyone???   Check it out here.

CHAT AND PLAY with Julie Koerber at Motivate Me Monday – a little chatting, a challenge and a prize — how fun!!!  Check it out here.

GOT COFFEE?  Coffee with Friends, that is!  If you do, you still have until 6:00 p.m ET on Thursday evening (7/10) to enter a card or project using Coffee with Friends into our Coffee Challenge — a random winner will be selected at 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, and there’s a fun prize offered, too.  The challenge and prize can be checked out here.

And HUGE NEWS — we’re so PROUD OF JULIE!!!   She entered a contest with Paper Crafts Magazine and out of 774 entries, Julie is one of the top 20 finalists!!!  Way to go, Julie!!!   And I saw a couple other familiar SCS names in the list of finalists as well — WOO HOO!!!  Now beginning at noon today (Monday 7/07) Mountain Time, you can cast your vote.  Check out Paper Crafts Magazine to see all the entries (click on Idol Top 20).  Julie’s is the 2nd card shown, listed under her username of outtoimpress.    You can read about it on Julie’s Blog.

And I don’t have a full project to show you today, so how about some Sneak Peeks of a new set to be releaesd by Flourishes this Wednesday, June 9!!!  Here you go:

Hope you like the peeks of this new Stamp Simply release– I tell you — these images are just so, so gorgeous!!  You can’t HELP but like them — and yes, this is one of two sets drawn by Marcella Hawley this month!!!    Are we lucky, or what!!!

If you’d like to try to find some more Sneak Peeks, check out these Blogs — they just MAY have some shown:  Leslie Miller, Julie Koerber,  Susan Roberts, Nancy Kirk.

And I hope you can check back here tomorrow for:

Another Chat and Play with Faith Hofrichter.

10 Minute Tuesday, right here, as always!!!

 Thanks much for stopping in — hope your week is off to a great start!!!

I was so happy to see that a nice assortment of Nestabilities are finally back in stock and on the shelves at Flourishes!!!  I am seeing a great assortment of ovals, circles, rectangles, hearts, tags and labels!!!!  What fun!!!  And as we all know, these products move very quickly, so if you’re interested — Check out the Nesties here. 

A shipment of Basic Grey 6 x 6 Designer Paper Pads has also arrived.  There are no greater DP’s than these fun little 6 x 6 pads — so easy to store and grab — my favorite size.  Check out the Basic Grey pads here.

As always, we are fully stocked with May Arts Ribbons and the JustRite Monogram Stampers.

We offer free shipping on US orders exceeding $50 and on International orders exceeding $100.   Yes, I know that is a bit of an increase, and it is a change that was not easy to make, though necessary.  Hope you will understand. 

Just wanted to share right away, as I so love these products and, as you know, I couldn’t create without them!!!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!  And remember, our new DT announcement comes on Sunday!!! Can’t wait!!!

This is an exciting time, but yet a sad time — as we usher in a new Design Team at Flourishes that means we must say goodbye to our current Design Team. They have served us well and we wish them all the best success in their future endeavors.  They have become our friends and we will miss them — THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU — each and every one of you for all you have given of your time and talent.  We all appreciate you more than you know!!!

Flourishes New Design Team will be announced on Sunday, June 1 — so please be sure to stop in and welcome them.  We KNOW you will be excited, as are we!!!

Plus we have one more bit of exciting news — as an additional bonus this month, one new stamp set is also being released on June 1 — it’ll be a must-have for spring/summer!!!

Oh, and I almost forgot — does anyone out there like BLOG CANDY — really GREAT Blog Candy?????  All I can say about that right now is — stay tuned –

And the countdown begins —

Just a quick note to remind you all there are continual games going on in the Flourishes Forum at SCS.

We are running a never-ending Featured Stamper Challenge.  Any and all cards made with Flourishes images can be entered here, and double dipping with other challenges is fine — we are ALL for multi-tasking — LOL!!!  We’re on Week #2 right now.  Each weekly winner is featured on the Flourishes Newsletter Blog.  Each weekly winner’s name is thrown in a drawing for a monthly winner, who wins a prize!!!  Our first weekly winner was Lois, a/k/a Clownmom.  You can check out Lois’ article here.

We also have a never-ending Christmas Card Challenge running as well.  There are no winners or prizes for this challenge, but getting a head start on your Christmas cards is gift in itself!!!  Plus, viewing the challenge entries gives you ideas to get you inspired!!!  And again, you MAY enter your Christmas Card Challenge entries into the Featured Stamper Challenge as well!!!

Remember, please use the keyword FLLC for all Flourishes uploads — we all LOVE to be able to easily find them and see what you’ve been up to!!!

And tomorrow is our Stamp Simply Challenge here on my Blog — again, it’s a super easy one that truly ANYONE can play — hope to see you then!!!