There's lots going on in the world of Stampin' Up! so this is a round-up of all today sees the launch of the new January-April 2026 mini catalogue - full of gorgeous new products:

Just click on the image above or in the sidebar on the right to browse the catalogue online, or contact me on 07773 421446 if you would like a paper copy posted out to you and you don't already have a demonstrator; paper copies have been sent to my regular customers. If you are as excited as me and just can't wait, here's the link to my online store - everything is available to purchase from today!

There are new Online exclusives available in the online store today too! The following images show just some of the items available:

Click here to download the full list or here to see them in the online store.

This month also sees a Bonus Days promotion:

When you shop between 6 January and 2 February and spend £45, you will earn a £4.50 coupon to spend in February!

We also have a new Product of The Month for January:

The Fabulous Sayings stamp set can be yours for just £5 with a purchase of £70 or more.

Finally, three new kits are being introduced this month, the first of which, Butterfly Garden, has been added to the online store today:

The remaining two kits, Adopt A Pet and Lots to Love, are delayed and will be added to the online store when available.

A reminder that the Virtual Card Retreat will take place between 22-24 January:

You can purchase your kit and register here.

Thanks so much for popping by - it's always nice to share good news! Back soon with a creative post that uses some exciting new product! Until then, happy shopping!

Do you love to scrapbook? Are you committed to memory keeping or would like to start? If you answered yes to either of these questions, this event is for you! This is a brand-new event that’s unlike anything Stampin' Up! has ever done before! During this three-day, virtual event, you’ll create 12 scrapbook spreads using the Month by Month Album Retreat 2025 kit, craft with customers and Stampin' Up! demonstrators who love scrapbooking, learn new techniques, and connect on a personal level with fellow crafters and Stampin’ Up! staff. We’ll even have some fun giveaways!

Details for the event are as follows:

You can participate in some or all of the event live, or alternatively watch or re-watch the sessions at your leisure - the recordings will be available immediately as each session ends.

Here's a close up of the first two pairs of layouts so that you can see them in more detail:

You don't have to register the event; you will need to purchase the kit in advance and once you've ordered your kit, you will be sent a link to join the virtual event Facebook group. Take a look at everything that the kit contains:

The kit contains exclusive stamp sets and everything is prepared and neatly packaged by month so that you can easily grab the layout you're ready to work on.

The Virtual Retreat Scrapbooking Kit is now available to order - it costs £233 and you can get yours by clicking this link to it in my online store. What's more, Stampin' Up! are also running a competition over on Instagram to win a kit so that you can participate in this event for FREE - find full details and make your entry here. 

Hope to see you there!

It's Thursday and time for a new challenge over at TicTacToe! It's the turn of Team X to host this week and I am our featured designer this week. This is the fun board that we are playing along with: 

I went across the middle row with house-snow-tree and created a trio of festive notecards for you today - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's cards:

I made a set of notelets similar to these in a case as one of the projects at my Creative Escapes Craft Retreat back in October, and I still had some papers left so I thought I would make a few more. I used a combination of Trimming The Town designer paper, white cardstock, Stitched Shapes Dies and Home Together Dies to create my cards, each one with a snowy tree background, a white snowscape piece and trees and houses in various combinations diecut from the paper to create my little scenes, with each one finished with a sentiment cut from the paper too. Here's each of the cards individually:

A red and green chalet style house:

And lastly a palatial home on a landscape card, complete with porch entrance:

This last card shows lots of detail and layering - check it out:

I just love these cards - and not a stamp in sight! No supplies link today, as these items are no longer available, but I still wanted to share as I had paper to use up and for those of you in a similar position, I hope they give you some creative inspiration! I'm also linking up with the current challenge #GDP271 over at Global Design Project, where their theme is Winter/Holiday.

A tictactoe board offers so many creative possibilities - how does this week's board inspire you? Why not have a go? We would love to see you in the gallery and who knows - you might be selected for Designer's Choice and be eligible to be a guest designer on a future challenge. 

Enjoy your day; I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

It's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! I'm back following a break last week as I was running my first virtual Creative Escapes Weekend Craft Retreat. More news on that later this week; today it's the turn of the amazing Ann to host this week and she has a seasonal colour challenge for you to work with:

These colours are just perfect for autumn; as I've been driving through the countryside on the school run this week, I have marvelled at just how wonderful the trees are looking with their blends of colour, so armed with my ink pads, some sponge daubers and the current Fusion sketch, I grabbed my 'Life is Beautiful' stamp set and set about recreating the look. This is what I came up with:

Super simple, with a couple of punched banners and stapled ribbon decoration, but oh so pretty with those variegated autumn leaves.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day; I will be busy finishing up some bits and pieces before going in to hospital tomorrow for surgery on my shoulder. This will be my fourth visit in 14 months and I'm hoping this will be the last! I will still be sharing here though and will be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (£16.00)	BANNERS PICK A PUNCH (£21.00)	2020–2022 IN COLOR 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£10.75)	CINNAMON CIDER A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	CINNAMON CIDER 2020–2022 IN COLOR RIBBON (£5.50)
CINNAMON CIDER CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CAJUN CRAZE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CRUSHED CURRY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	MOSSY MEADOW CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	RECTANGLE STITCHED DIES (£33.00)
CRUSHED CURRY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	MOSSY MEADOW A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)

As promised I have another quick make to share with the lovely team over at TGIF Challenges as they are featuring the Best Dressed Suite this week:

This time a fun gift bag using the papers from the Best Dressed suite along with some Purple Posy cardstock and a fun keyring made from shrinky plastic - take a look:

The sweet little bag was easy to create using the All Dressed Up Dies - just diecut everything and put together. I used some scraps of gold foil for the button and buckle clasps - I just love that added detail! - and added a tag stamped and punched with the new Label Me Fancy Punch and just tucked it into the pocket. My little bag houses this cute keyring that I also stamped using the 'Dressed To Impress' stamp set then coloured with Blends and punched out using the other new label punch, the Label Me Lovely punch, before putting into the oven to shrink and adding to my keychain with a co-ordinating ribbon - here's a closeup of my keyring:

In hindsight I should have taken a 'before' they went into the oven photo too so you can see how much smaller they are - I will try and remember to take one next time! I love that sentiment - I thought it would be perfect for a little keyring embellishment. It has become customary for the ladies attending my Creative Escapes Weekend Craft Retreats to receive a keychain like this at the end of the weekend - the regular attendees have quite the collection now! Here's a photo of all of them jumbled before packing:

 - to be updated -

And one last one of both the bag and keychain together:

So what do you think - have you ever used shrink plastic in any of your projects? Better still, would you like to receive a keyring just like this one, or to be more precise the one that I will be designing for my next residential weekend craft retreat? If you need something to look forward to (and right now, I'm thinking we could all do with a little of that!) my October retreat, to be held 3-4th October 2020, is now open for booking and I'd love you to join me! You can see full details on my website here or just get in touch with any questions.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Back tomorrow with another project for our new challenge over at As You See It; Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Best Dressed 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 Cm) Designer Series Paper (£10.75)	Dressed To Impress Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) (£17.00)	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock (£7.75)	Blackberry Bliss Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	All Dressed Up Dies (£33.00)	Purple Posy A4 Cardstock (£8.25)
Gorgeous Grape 1/4" (6.4 Mm) Mini Striped Ribbon (£7.50)

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the lovely Laurie to host this week and she has a fun theme challenge for you to work with:

I have a fancy card to share with you today that is perfect to give someone special for the festive season - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

A Card In A Box - Is it a gift? Is it a card? I guess it's a little of both! When closed it looks like a gift box, but undo the ribbon and the top and bottom of the box separate to reveal an accordion-style expanding card:

I made a holly-themed 'card in a box' project at my October Creative Escapes Craft Retreat using the Christmas Gleaming Stamp Set and made a few other versions to show the attendees how they could use the same concept using other papers and stamp sets - this is one of them. They are quite straightforward to make and rather addictive; I've had lots of photos from my retreat weekend attendees after the event showing me more examples of ones they've created too, so it must be catching! One of my top tips when making this type of card is to use temporary adhesive or a couple of glue dots to hold the last panel in place so that you can remove it to write your message to the recipient before gluing it in place; this is much easier than trying to write it when it's already in the box.

Let It Snow - I used the 'Let It Snow' papers for the accordion-fold of my card and the letters that spell out 'snow', which I diecut using the Hand-Lettered Prose dies and I used the adorable Let It Snow Embellishment Kit to dress up the snowman on the front of my box - how cute are those little felt accessories?!

Snowman Season - The sentiment on the front and inside my card are from the 'Snowman Season' stamp set. The 'Let It Snow' stamp was perfect for a partial stamp to then finish the sentiment with the diecut letter panels. I also used the snowflakes in the stamp set with some Stampin' Glitter to add some sparkle to each of the Coastal Cabana panels and a snowman on the first panel that I coloured with co-ordinating Stampin' Blends markers:

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

I'm also linking today's project up with the current fancy fold challenge over at Inspire Create.

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day; as it's the first of December we are going to begin decorating the house for Christmas today, much to the children's delight! Especially as we have a couple of extra Christmas trees and some new rainbow baubles too. I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Let It Snow Embellishment Kit (£10.25)	Snowman Season Photopolymer Stamp Set (En) (£17.00)	Snowman Builder Punch (£17.00)	Hand-Lettered Prose Dies (£35.00)	Let It Snow Specialty Designer Series Paper (£13.00)
Stitched Rectangle Dies (£33.00)	Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad (£5.50)	Dazzling Diamonds Stampin' Glitter (£5.50)	Coastal Cabana A4 Cardstock (£8.25)
Real Red A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Shaded Spruce A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Real Red 3/8" (1 Cm) Cotton Ribbon (£6.50)

It's school summer vacation here so my crafting time has been limited as I spend time with the James Juniors and I haven't managed to get into my craft room all week, despite receiving my Autumn-Winter preorder. This first glimpse of the new Autumn-Winter catalogue from Stampin' Up! (a demonstrator perk!) has me starting to think about the projects for my forthcoming luxury weekend craft retreat in October - it's never too early to start creating for Christmas!

I have lots of lovely ladies enrolled to attend and have just the last couple of spots remaining, so thought I would do a quick reminder in case any of you would like to join us for a weekend of crafting bliss:

If getting away from everyone and everything and having some ME time appeals, then a luxury weekend of crafting and a Creative Escape with The Crafty Owl sounds just the thing for you.

Where is the retreat held?

The venue for the Craft Retreat is the award-winning Highgate House Hotel, conveniently located just off junction 1 of the A14 in Northamptonshire.

Set in beautiful grounds it is the perfect destination for a getaway; gorgeous surroundings, good food and your own stylish bedroom for the night.

Its central location in Creaton, Northamptonshire can be easily accessed via the M1 (junction 16/19) and the M6 – making it a perfect destination break for you and your friends from afar.

What is included?

The Creative Escape package includes an overnight stay and all food for the weekend, lunches, snacks, evening meal and breakfast together with unlimited tea and coffee. You have 2 full days of crafting with your own table for the whole weekend – no need to tidy away! Bliss!A goody bag of Stampin’ Up! crafting supplies is also part of the package and will be more than £100 in value. The supplies will enable you to complete the projects for the classes run throughout the weekend and you'll have lots left over to take home too!

The Classes

The classes offered during the weekend are optional. The weekend is yours, so you can choose to keep with class pace or do your own thing. There is no requirement to complete everything, you can do exactly what you want – chat, craft, chill … the choice is yours. Choose to craft at every possible moment, or take a break for a walk or a drink in the lounge – it’s all up to you.

How do I book?

Sounds like your kind of fun? Email to joanne@thecraftyowl.co.uk and I will contact you to confirm your place and payment details. Your hotel room will need to be paid for to the hotel in full at the time of booking and this will secure your retreat place. The remaining balance will be paid to me directly thereafter. Rates for the weekend are as follows: Single occupancy (single room) is £330 per person or double occupancy (twin room) is £310 per person. Full terms and conditions are available on the Creative Escape Crafting Retreats page on my website.

The October Creative Escape will have a distinctly Christmas theme so why not come along and give yourself a head start on your creative makes for the festive season? 

If you have any further questions or queries, please do get in touch - I would love you to join me!

I'll be back tomorrow with my next creative project fr this week's challenge over at The Paper Players; until then, happy stampin'!

Today I'm sharing a card that I made yesterday for the new challenge over at As you See It using this week's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, that also works for the challenge over at Just Add Ink this week:

Whilst I didn't set out to combine all three of these challenges this week, with the challenge over at As You See It being speed stamping, today's card was definitely no accident - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

It's All In The Preparation - I'll be honest: I rarely make a card in under 10 minutes! For me the fun is in the planning and designing and I often make multiple bits and pieces and 'tinker' with my cards until I'm happy with them. That said, it can be done - the key is in the preparation. Fortunately for me, the AYSI speed stamping challenge requires you to complete a card in under 10 minutes and the clock starts as soon as you put ink to paper; you can decide on your design and gather your supplies in advance. So I grabbed Jen B's FMS sketch (a great go-to design) my co-ordinating shades of purple (Gorgeous Grape and Highland Heather) in cardstock, ink and markers, a Whisper White card base, stamps, dies, Big Shot and got ready to start my timer!

'C' Is For Craft - I decided to base my card around the stamps and dies in the 'Follow your Art' suite. I stamped my ink bottle and clip (and a couple of sentiments to diecut, although I didn't then use these as I stamped directly onto my card base) then ran them through my Big Shot with the purple die cut pieces, making two runs to get the duplicates. I added a quick dash of colour to my stamped diecut pieces, then set about constructing. It was only when I had finished my card that I realised it would be perfect for Just Add Ink this week too; it will a least spare the girls another of my Christmas cards, which I seem to have made for their last few challenges!!

Speedy Indeed - So I did work at fever pace and my desk looked like a bomb had gone off once I'd finished, but I managed to finish my card in 9 minutes and 46 seconds - hurrah! It was helped by the fact that my card base and mat layers were already cut to size - I keep a box of sizes that I use a lot ready prepared so that I can just 'grab and go' - the most time-consuming aspects were poking out the paper clips from the dies without tearing and tying the twine bow. Purple is one of my favourite colours, so this was a fun speed challenge indeed! Lastly, a disclaimer: I decorated a co-ordinating envelope too, but completed this outside of the speed stamping time - I couldn't quite manage this in the time constraints as well!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

I like my finished card so much I think I'm going to create a few more of these and send them to the ladies who are booked to attend my Creative Escapes Craft Retreat in October - this is the perfect time to stay up late and craft together!! I still have a couple of spaces left if you would like to join us for a fun weekend; you can get the full details here.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

It Starts With Art Bundle (£44.00)	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock (£7.75)	Highland Heather A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Highland Heather Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Gorgeous Grape A4 Cardstock (£8.25)
Gorgeous Grape Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Whisper White Solid Baker's Twine (£3.25)

Good morning lovely readers! An apology is in order for the lack of blog posts this week. I have been fairly tired following another successful Creative Escapes Weekend Craft Retreat last weekend and whilst I've spent my days catching up on household chores and preparing for next week's card classes, when it comes to the evenings I've been good for nothing; I've fallen asleep in the chair for three nights in a row way before bedtime, much to the amusement of the James Juniors! So today I thought I would make time to blog early so that you didn't miss out!

I'm sharing a card for a couple of challenges this week: The team over at Global Design Project are all about the candy and the folks at Stamps Ink Paper are asking for cards featuring gingham, plaid or stripes:

Not only does my card feature lots of sweet treats and some fetching candy pink stripes, it's a shaker too - take a look:

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

How Sweet It Is -  If you have a sweet tooth, the 'How Sweet It Is' Suite is for you! Bright and fun, with bold patterns of sweets and traditional sweet jars, it's great for cards and packaging alike. The papers, which feature bold stripes and spots in addition to candy-inspired patterns, really are good enough to eat. I used a pink stripe for the front of my shaker and a sweetie print for the inside at the back of my window, I also used the Jar of Sweets Framelits to cut out one of the sweet jars directly from the designer series paper to decorate the front of my card - I love it when dies and paper co-ordinate like this!

Jar Of Sweets - I used another of the Jar of Sweets Framelits to cut out the aperture for the window of my shaker, stamping the same image onto Whisper White and fussy cutting the jar lid to adhere to the top of my window section. I filled my shaker with a selection of sequins and some diecut sweets in bright, co-ordinating colours; you can see from the extras that I added to the front of my card these dies emboss a pattern onto the diecut sweet shape too which adds an interesting textural detail. There's very little stamping on today's card, save the sentiment and jar lid. A little extra stamping on the inside of my card courtesy of the 'Sweetest Thing' stamp set too:

Sweeter Than Candy - The 'How Suite It Is' Suite also includes some fun treat cups, that are perfect for dressing up to contain some sweet treats for your loved ones. I managed to snag these shots with my phone of some of the decorated sweet cups that filled with a selection of jelly beans and gummy bear for the lucky ladies on my retreat as one of their little gifts - I do love to spoil the whilst they are with me! 

I covered the cups with designer series paper and stamped a simple label for each of them decorated with a sweet jar cut from the DSP, and tied the tags to the cups with some of the very yummy Coastal Cabana/Granny Apple Green 3/8" reversible ribbon:

So cute and easy to decorate and I know from the feedback that my ladies loved them!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

How Sweet It Is 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Designer Series Paper (£10.25)	Sweetest Thing Photopolymer Bundle (£43.00)	Jar Of Sweets Framelits Dies (£28.00)	How Sweet It Is A4 Cardstock Pack (£8.00)	Rectangle Stitched Framelits Dies (£33.00)
Foam Adhesive Strips (£7.25)	Window Sheets (£4.75)	Sweet Cups (£8.00)	Coastal Cabana/Granny Apple Green 3/8" (1 Cm) Reversible Ribbon (£6.50)	Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)
Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)

As promised in my earlier post today (you can read that here if you missed it), today I'm sharing something a little different that I gave a sneak peek of on my Facebook page the week before last - a 3D project! Today is the perfect day to share it since it coincides with the launch of the Snowflake Showcase product suite yesterday - you can read all about that here.

The weekend before last I held my second residential craft retreat this year. I love these weekends: they are a great opportunity for me to spend quality time with my customers, some of whom I see at my regular classes but for many who follow my blog and shop with me online and for whom this is an opportunity to get away from it all for some quality crafting time amongst friends. I am grateful that they choose to spend a weekend with me crafting and as such in addition to their goody bags, they receive lots of little pillow gifts and table favours throughout their stay as a token of my appreciation. When they leave at the end of the weekend, I like to gift them a key ring that is unique to that retreat as a reminder of the fun time that they've had. It has to showcase some fabulous Stampin' Up! product too, both on the keyring and the packaging so for this one I just had to feature the limited edition, exclusive Snowflake Showcase products that went live on sale yesterday. So first up here is the packaging for my gift:

I dressed up one of the kraft pillow boxes available in the annual catalogue with some silver-trimmed ribbon and added a sentiment banner stamped tone-on-tone with the border stamp and then heat-embossed my sentiment in silver over the top. I then added the fabulous string of snowflakes diecut to the front of the box for a real 'wow'.

It didn't end there; I continued the snowflake theme inside with a keyring, that had a snowflake tree, a teeny-tiny sentiment and one of my craft retreat logos all stamped onto shrink plastic and reduced in size, along with one of the gorgeous snowflake trinkets that are also part of this suite. I made them in two colourways, Pool Party and Balmy Blue:

Here's a picture of them both together - gift and packaging. What do you think - cute enough to hang your keys from? 

I received such lovely comments from the ladies who attended my retreat, who all said they felt truly spoiled all weekend. Here's one of the pictures I shared over on my Facebook page of us at dinner on the Saturday evening, with some of them sharing another of their table gifts:

Christmas crackers, what else?! I will have more projects using the fabulous Snowflake Showcase in the coming weeks so look out for those and meanwhile do get in touch with me directly or via my online store to order yours whilst supplies last.

Equally, if you would like to be similarly spoiled and enjoy a fabulous crafty weekend away from it all, there are still spaces available on my March 2019 retreat which will be held in the West Midlands on 2-3 March - you can read more about it here and I would love it if you could join me! The dates for next October will be released soon and I already have a waiting list for this event, so if you would like to be one of the first to receive the details as they are published then do get in touch with me via joanne@thecraftyowl.co.uk to register your interest as spaces are likely to be snapped up quickly!

Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Snow Is Glistening Photopolymer Stamp Set (£20.00)	Snowflake Trinkets (£7.50)	Snowfall Thinlits Dies (£36.00)	Silver 3/8" Metallic-Edge Ribbon (£6.50)	Kraft Pillow Boxes (£4.75)
Balmy Blue Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Balmy Blue A4 Cardstock (£8.00)	Versamark Pad (£8.25)	Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder (£4.75)	Rhinestone Basic Jewels (£4.75)