It's been a while

Hello all, I hadn't quite realised how long it had been since I posted last so apologies for this, but I am back as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and getting the chance to play with my crafting goodies again. So a really quick catch up, I've been back at work after having Pickle for over a year now and we're back in a good family routine. Monkey loves his little brother and it's lovely to hear them laughing and playing together. With both of us at work we're trying to make the most of family time at the weekends as well as trying to squeeze in a little bit of time for our hobbies. I'm not 100% impressed with the fact that Craig has a sign on the door of our shared hobby room that says 'To the Trains' but at least we're able to spend time together while still doing our individual hobbies. Although I may have to make my own sign soon!

As my order from the holiday catalogue has arrived I am starting to think about Christmas, I know it's only September but we crafters like to think ahead! The first set I started to play with is the new Merry Patterns set, this is a gorgeous two step set that creates some lovely patterned images. While playing with the candles in this set (aren't the candle flames so cute!) I may have fallen a little bit in love with one of the current in colors Fresh Fig. Surprisingly I think it works quite well as a Christmas colour when combined with greens and golds. 

Originally the card had the candles above the wording and then white space underneath, it looked good but it was missing something. I didn't think that pearls or gems would quite do it and there wasn't enough space to stamp the reindeer in the set but then I remembered the foil snowflakes I had ordered on a whim. I cut one of the gold ones down to fill the space and it just finishes the card off perfectly!

So how do you get your hands on the Merry Patterns stamp set? If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you will have seen my post yesterday about a wonderful offer that Stampin' Up! currently have running. It's called the Merry Patterns host promotion and is running from now until the end of October. This stamp set is only available during this promotion and you cannot purchase it. In order to get your hands on it you either need to host a qualifying party (£250 or more) or by placing an order for £250 or more. You get all of the usual hostess perks but the bonus is you get this fantastic set for free. As you can see from today's card I have been having fun with it already.