Catching up & New Stampin Up IDA

Hi Fellow Scrappers! It's been a while since I posted here. Summer activities, back-to-school for the kids, parents visiting, accidents, drought, hot hot heat, etc. has taken me away from crafting and posting for a while. Also, I was particpating in a two-week craft room clean up challenge and needless to say, I'm behind by four weeks!

In any case, the stamp club is officially underway and our first card club class will be this Saturday. There is still time to join the club! Email me at ericaintexas@gmail.com if you are interested. Query "stamp club rules" and you will find my original post about the stamp club and the rules for participating. If you want to see my stampin ladies in action, come by around 10 am and join us!

I'm still open to holding workshops both here at my home or at yours. I have always strived to use 100% SU products and am always amazed at the wonderful new things they come out with every year. The new winter mini catty is out and there's some cute stuff in there- Build-A-Bear stamps and dies, beautiful shimmer paints, Christmas hostess stamps, etc. SU also came out with a new digital scrapbook product that will launch Oct 1st. I'm excited we're going digital! Maybe I'll be a digi-convert.....but what will I do with all my pretty craft stuff???

Now for the wonky bits....

The new SU IDA (agreement between SU and Demo) has now defined some (previously grey) parameters that all demos need to abide by. One huge new rule is: Going forward, we are not allowed to promote, attribute, or otherwise mention the names of the companies of directly competitive products (vinyl lettering, rub-ons, paper, LCS, etc) that we happen to use for a project. For example, I will say I used a white lunchbox tin for my project, but will not elaborate on where I locally bought it. Or, I won't be able to say I used the Spring Collection of XYZ Paper Company for the background paper. Although many demos disagree with the new IDA guidelines and believe that SU is using the new policy to "weed out hobby demos", I feel they are defining that, as Demos we should only promote/use SU products in our projects instead of directing the consumer elsewhere. The only way I can put this objectively is to think of it in terms of my former job. I worked for Pacific Bell (ATT) and our union Code of Conduct stated we would not speak disparagingly against other companies that sold competitive products nor would we promote the other companies. Sure, the consumer has a choice of where they want to shop, but if you use all SU products, you won't have to to worry about them going elsewhere.

With all that said, come check out the new winter mini catty here: Stampin Up Winter Mini Catalog. If you see anything you like, email me or you can shop directly from my website.

Happy Scrappin!
Erica