My 9 year Stampin' Up! Anniversary

Wow where have the last 9 years gone... Little did I know the journey I was going to take when I first signed up with Stampin' Up! 9 years ago... The time really has flown... and what an amazing journey I have had... best thing as a crafter I ever did!!

And so I have a potted history of Amanda Bates as a crafter and Stampin' Up! demonstrator to share with you... as I have been given the personal challenge of  "blowing my own trumpet" for a change..! which for those of you that know me... know that that is something I REALLY struggle to do!!! So this will be an interesting challenge for me!! And definitely a rambling post of which parts will only mean anything to fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators...!!! So I am probably pretty safe from everyone reading my trumpet parts!!

I joined the Stampin' Up! family 9 years ago for the reasons that most people do - purely for the discount on the great co-ordinating products... for which I had a huge wish list! I had been papercrafting for about 4 years ... but my crafting at the time was at classes run by other people plus special cards for family and friends that I made at home from what I learnt at those classes...

A group of my local friends (aka School Mums #1) met monthly for coffee... and I showed them how to make a project at a couple of our meetings. Then Sarah asked if they could pay me and make a batch of Christmas cards... why yes!! So running monthly classes started very early on in my Stampin' Up! career...

After a few months (and lots of Christmas cards, table treat holders, decorations and gift card holders) I felt able (confident enough!) to offer classes to my crafting friends too... and so I started to run 3 different monthly sessions... and stopped going to other classes. The internet was by then booming in our Stampin' Up! world and tutorials were readily available for me to use with my own little twists! I was REALLY learning lots...

I was lucky... two of my monthly cardmaking sessions changed to fortnightly... and I started to run All Day Saturday classes for scrapbooking, 3D and home decor items too...

Some ladies were ordering, others signed up and started to run their own classes and events. We were in a lovely crafty & social bubble and soon I promoted to Silver 2... I started to blog... and at some point I became able to play around with dies & punches and design my own cards and card folds - mainly care of the Scallop Square die!! And boxes too care of the Grid Paper!!

But sadly my upline had dropped way back at the beginning of my Stampin' Up! journey... and roll on 4 years... I craved the need for being part of a SU! team with training, support from other demos and meet-ups! And my own team had just dropped like flies! And I had a new School Mums #2 class and sales were beginning to rise again... So to cut a long story short... just over 5 years ago in May I resigned... and signed up again 2 hours later as one of Julie's Jems... 2nd best thing as a crafter I did!!! Love being a Jem!!

18 hours later I set my first Jems record as I had my first (totally unexpected) recruit. The next month another previous team member re-signed up, I had soaring sales and Bronze 2 promotion - and oh the nickname of the Scallop Square Queen! Then another re-sign up in Month 3 and Bronze 3 promotion. 3 months after that shiny Silver for me and a full Stampin Start quota of 10 free stamp sets!! And wonderfully my team member re-sign ups each gained 4-5 free stamp sets and promoted too. We were all so fulfilled - amazing what experience can bring to a 2nd time around demo...!! And then I went on to get my "old" title of Silver 2 back within my first 12 months. Happy Dance!

Blogging and tutorial writing became a routine thing! Don't know how (or why!) I started doing daily blog posts as it was never my intention!! But my subscribers started to rise... I got lots of lovely feedback... and I started to monitor my "progress" on the UK Crafty Blogs rankings (a listing of all- crafting-type blogs run by UK residents)

I rose quickly from no. 800ish to Top 100 and I thought I might achieve Top 75. You maybe heard the squeal the day I hit Top 50... the incredulous gasp when I hit Top 25 and now Top 15 for the past 7 months!! WOW! Reaching no. 11 quite a few times in those 7 months much to my amazement!!

Over 550 of you from all around the world visit me daily ... WOW! It doesn't seem like a minute ago since I was proud that I had just 20 blog subscribers...  Now I have over 2000... And thank you to each and every one of you! Especially those of you that comment from time to time... that is always so appreciated and inspires me to continue doing what I do... and how I have got to know some of you more personally...

And of course dreaming up new Card Folds  - or tweaking others - became a big thing!! Along with the nickname of Fancy Fold Queen! Though I do have to laugh as my other nickname is CAS (Clean & Simple) Princess!! I think some people see one part of me - and others see the other... hopefully that just gives some variety!

I love to create and share  - and hopefully inspire a few others along the way! Be it for classes, my blog, team events or Stampin' Up! events or my blog...

I have been a Display Stamper for Stampin' Up! events and even did one presentation at a Regional event (can't remember who was there or what I said though as the word petrified still springs to mind!) And I have created for and run parts of our Jems Quarterly training over the years . As well as always being a very willing Inspiration Station producer - the first being with days of my sign up - think it was nearly 50 Scallop Square die projects!!! Still miss using that die! Hence my Scallop Square Die Queen title at the time!

The last 12 months or so have brought some amazing Stampin' UP! successes - running at Gold level sales level (almost Gold Elite even), being Top Sales quite a lot in the Jems team and Top Recruiter a couple of times... and achieving 50,000 sales in my 5 years as a Jem... and my own lovely team of 9... though that Gold promotion has still so far eluded me! And last SU! year I earnt a free iPad from Stampin' UP! and very almost hit the 100,000 Flex Points level... WOW! I never ever expected all that... Toot toot and rambling over! Or have I missed something!!?

But actually all those great moments and achievements are only part of the story... as friendships are definitely the most amazing part of my 9 years journey... Friends of mine that I have converted to crafters! - which means that we have all stayed in regular touch - and will continue to do so... Other class attendees & my team members that have become great friends. Fellow Jems and many more demos in other UK teams that I have laughed and cried with! And many more around the world through this little ol' blog! So many long standing friendships... I feel so lucky to be someone who has made so many friends and have such a great social life through my crafting world!!! Not sure DH gets it!!

And so onto my tenth year!! Who knows what that will bring... any suggestions from you welcome!! But I will certainly continue to love creating and sharing by running my classes and posting to my blog, being a Craft Therapists team leader and Jems team member with all my lovely demo friends as well as looking forward to enjoying the 10 year Stampin' Up UK anniversary later this year and 30 years of Stampin' Up next year! Going to be a great year for all demonstrators - whatever it brings for me personally....

Fancy having a go and expanding your crafty side? This month is a great one to join in as lots of lovely extras in the Starter Kit... Click here for this month's promotion... and/or here to join my Team straightaway - or here to contact me for more information. I would love to see my biggest team ever in my tenth year as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator!