Australia Day Awards

Recently I was lucky enough to accompany one of our Paper Angels, Ursula, to the Logan City Australia Day Awards, where she had been nominated for an award. Just to name a few of the many community contributions Ursula made this year, she organized a highly successful 'Arty Farty Morning Tea Party' to raise money for Cancer Research, worked tirelessly to support the Paper Angels Charity Endeavours and also volunteered her beautiful voice in a Queensland Choir that recently toured Singapore.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that all of this is achieved under challenging circumstances. Ursula's husband Aaron has severe aplastic anaemia. Whilst Ursula did not win her section, it was wonderful to see all the good works that she does recognized formally. As well as receiving her achievement certificate, she was acknowledged on stage and we both thoroughly enjoyed a fabulous evening which included entertainment from Greg Doolan (Wickity Wack) and a sit down meal which was top notch. The entire evening was highly impressive and I am just so grateful that Ursula shared it with me.

I guess what stuck in my mind was that the nominations and awards were being given to real people making real community contributions. They even had a good neighbour award, which was awarded to someone who helped to mediate (I'm assuming successfully!) a conflict between neighbours in the community. So much better than the often ridiculous national awards given to sports and entertainment stars, who lets face it are amply rewarded financially for their work and are hardly in need of an accolade.

Well done Ursula - If I'd been judging you would have won!

Meetings are Back

Last week the Paper Angels enjoyed their first meeting of the year at my place. It had seemed like ages since we had got together since before Christmas, so we really enjoyed catching up and to be honest having a night away from the kids - well, except for me - that is a whole different story - let's just say my children did not stay in bed! We all made 2 BTP projects - little boxes, which were really cute and we are sure our friends, family and customers will love them. We learnt about using our classic inks to emboss on vellum and discussed a few things like our yearly calendar, which we have drafted up. Thank you to Ursula who kindly helped me cut the make & takes for the meeting.

Brisbane Papercrafts Festival

THIS Friday, Saturday and Sunday (5,6,7 February) you will find the Paper Angels at the Brisbane Papercrafts Festival at the RNA Showgrounds. We would love to see you there and invite you to make our FREE make & take - a gorgeous card featuring the new Butterfly Prints Stamp Set from the Summer Mini Catalogue. We also have a $300 basket of Stampin' Up! Goodies to give away for our door prize and entry into that is FREE to people who come to the Papercrafts Festival. We have put lots of effort into our display and look forward also to sharing our SHOW SPECIALS, which are bundles of product designed to work together to complete a project. We look forward to seeing you there.

WIN a Years Supply of Cards

Paper Angels are thrilled to announce we will have a stand at this weekends Brisbane Papercrafts Festival at the RNA Showgrounds, February 5, 6 and 7th. In addition to the FREE make & take, FREE entry into our $300 door prize and inspirational displays; we will also be offering each customer who purchases our special SHOW BUNDLES, an entry into a draw to WIN 40 cards made by Paper Angels Demonstrators. Our show bundle specials are specially selected products designed to complete finished projects and will include a colour instruction sheet.

Thank You for being Angels

Well the children are almost back at school, so I do now have some hope of updating my blogs more regularly now. With the backlog of terrific events and photos I have taken over the Christmas/New Year Holidays, there is no shortage of new content to report!

A couple of weeks ago, 3 of the 'Paper Angels Group of Independent Stampin Up Demonstrators' came over to my place and started working on the kits for the Mater Children's Hospital. We have heaps of Simply Scrappin Kits that we are turning into 6 x 6 album kits for children undergoing long term treatment in hospital. Each child will receive a small 6 x 6 album, 1/2 a Simply Scrappin Kit pre cut into a kit with assembly instructions, a Stampin Up Glue Stick and 1/2 a sheet of Dimensionals.

Kate, Felicity and Ursula (pictured left to right above) worked tirelessly to create our two prototypes for the instruction sheets as well as pre cutting elements for the kits. If you look carefully you will see first 'hand' (there's a pun here!) the dedication of the Paper Angels Girls - Ursula is sporting a HUGE bandage on her thumb, which she almost cut the top off with a kitchen knife - still this did not stop our intrepid Ursula from putting in her usual 110%. How lucky I am to have met such lovely girls through my Stampin' Up! business. Thanks girls for being angels!

Sale-A-Bration

Hello & Happy New Year to you and your family.

I have spent the last couple of days getting my three girls ready for school, my youngest starts this year... so this is the first year ALL of them will be at school at the same time... yah!! So now all the books are covered, phew!, the uniforms are washed & shoes sitting ready. With all the school requirements met I wanted to let you know what promotions Stampin' Up! have planned.... 3 easy ways to earn FREE stamp sets:

Sale-A-Bration is coming 25 January - 31 March!!!

With rewards for customers, hostesses and new recruits, Sale-A-Bration gives everyone a reason to celebrate!

Customers:
Receive a free exclusive Sale-A-Bration stamp set for every $100 purchase (no limit!).

Hostesses: Receive a free exclusive Sale-A-Bration stamp set with a $600 or more workshop, in addition to the regular hostess benefits.

Recruits: Choose any retail stamp set free (a value up to $79.95) from the current catalogue when signing up during the promotion.

The timing of Stampin' Up!s annual special is much better this year as it gives everyone a chance to recover from the holidays!!! I am really excited to be starting 2010 with Sale-A-Bration.

To view our regular Ideas Book & Catalogue & our new Summer Mini visit www.stampinup.com.au & follow the link to view catalogues.

I know that your Demonstrators are looking forward to crafting with you again this year. Give them a call today to book in your Sale-A-Bration workshop so you don't miss out on this great opportunity to earn free stamp sets - & have fun at the same time!

Kind regards

Jen Fraser

Christmas Cracker Competition Winners

It has been an exciting couple of weeks seeing an amazing array of beautiful Christmas Crackers reach my email in box for the Christmas Cracker Competition. The competition was judged by a panel of 5 demonstrators and 3 stampers and believe me when I say it was a tough job! The winner is Chie Fullerton with her beautiful and unique pull apart cracker with a gorgeous Christmas Punch Art Garland in the center - how clever! Well done Chie and you get to choose $100 of product from the NEW Summer Mini Catalogue - please email me with your choices.

Second place is awarded to Keren Ham with her elegant Baja Breeze Cracker embellished with the beautiful 'So Swirly' wheel using white craft ink, heat and stick powder with dazzling diamonds glitter. Congratulations Keren - please email me with your choice of $50 of product from the NEW Summer Mini Catalogue.

Third prize goes to Kylie Matulis for her sweet punch art snowman cracker highlighted with dazzling diamonds! Kylie please email Bec your choice of $25 of product from the NEW Summer Mini Catalogue. The following entries are all highly commended and when you scan through them, you will see why the judging was difficult. Apologies if I have not included your entry and also that I cannot credit each entry. For those of you who play with blogging and photo shop etc, you will know that it takes hours to upload and create this type of entry. I have also learn that for the next competition, I must get you all to put 'Christmas Cracker' in the subject line of your email, so that I can do a quick search - it took huge amounts of time sifting emails to make sure I hadn't missed one. I hope you enjoy looking at all the beautiful work and please watch out for a competition in the NEW YEAR! The only clue I will give, is that it will have something to do with using 'Sale - a - Bration' Sets. So book your workshops early from mid January into February, so that you have your sets ready to use!