I won!!!

A few days ago I answered the door to my postman to discover that he had a box in his hands addressed to me.My postman is lovely and we often have a chat, he always asks after the animals and how my scrapbooking is going, and overall is just a really, really nice man!

I'm not sure if this is a 'postman' thing, but he loves to try to guess what my parcels contain. Often it is medicine for my animals as in the UK it is much cheaper to buy veterinary drugs from reputable internet sites that do not employ the same 'generous' mark ups that vets do! This clearly is not possible in case of emergency or urgency, but for flea and worming treatments and long term medication such as for Toms arthritis, the savings are huge, not pence but many pounds usually. Most offer free P+P too so it can really help to save money. The only words of caution I must add are to ensure that the site is reputable. I also ensure that the drugs are from the UK for quality reasons but I've never had a problem yet nor heard of issues with these sites, many are vets in fact!!

On this occasion, my postman had decided that this particular parcel wasn't medicine for the animals and as I had no idea what it was as I wasn't expecting anything, I too was dumbfounded.

There was nothing else to do but open the mystery parcel and see what it was! As I turned the parcel over to open it, I noticed that the box was labelled 'Stampin Up'. The crafters amonsgt you will immediately recognise this name for 'Stampin Up'are a HUGE and I mean HUGE name in crafting. 'Stampin up' are an American company who have recently extended their empire into Europe. their products aren't available to buy in any shops; instead, they have demonstrators who hold 'Stampin up' parties as way of showcasing and (they hope) selling their products.





This means that accessing 'Stampin up' products can be a bit difficult and so although I have heard a fair bit about the brand (and from vising websites I know how popular these products are in the States), I haven't actually ever seen any of the items nor used them. My limited knowledge extends only slightly to that I have discussed above. The only other thing i know about 'Stampin Up' products is that they are EXPENSIVE.

When I saw 'Stampin Up' printed on the outside of my parcel, my heart skipped a beat. the problem was i hadn't ordered any craft items, certainly not 'Stampin Up' and so i thought that in a cruel coincidence, whatever was in the parcel (probably cat flea treatemnts I had forgotton about) had merely been a suitable size to fit in a random box for posting and it just happened to be a box that some 'Stampin up' items had been in.

Nonetheless, I hopefully opened the parcel and couldn't believe it when the parcel did in fact contain a 'Stampin Up' card kit! accompanying the said kit was a note from Future Publishing congratulating me on being a winner in a giveaway from 'Papercraft Inspirations magazine'!

It was only then that I remembered entering a competition online a couple of weeks before. I had actually entered 2 or 3 from that issue but primarilly had entered as there was a (you've guessed it) 'Stampin Up' competition!!!!!!

The prize is a lovely card kit with some stamps, ink pads, ribbons, little cards and envelopes, some lovely crystal brads, pastels ( think this means chalks!)and even glue dots. There's a little idea booklet too with card making suggestions.



So, I was rather chuffed as you can imagine! It just shows that it is worth entering these competitions as someone has to win. I haven't actually used any of my new goodies as I've been VERY busy with various creations for my beautiful niece on the occasion of her naming ceremony.

Once I've recuperated from this exhausting but immensly worthwhile project, I intend to get back to scrapbooking and have a play with my 'Stampin up' prize.

On the subject of scrapbooking, that should be my next post actually. I have done the grand total of 4 pages thus far! I shall take some photos and post as soon as I can. Bye for now.