Making adjustments

Hi everyone,
Since last Wednesday when I went live on Facebook for the first time I've been quiet as I needed some time to consider this new way of living as I am absolutely sure you will have too.

Being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator is really important to me.  I absolutely love to share and teach and as a very sociable person running classes in person has been such a wonderful part of my life for the last 9 years.  I often pause before I say 'customer' or 'friend' when describing someone in my circle as I consider everyone who shares my passion for being crafty is a friend even if I only see you once a month in a class!

So, while things are ... shall we say 'different', I have had to think about how to proceed.  The business model of direct sales is great but might not be appropriate for everyone while we all adjust. For example, the way I operate as a Demonstrator I don't earn an income as I've always run it as my hobby fund; after overheads of venue hire and materials the fee I charge for classes mean I break even.  The commission I earn on sales is re-invested in new products to keep my classes fresh.  My income is from my two part time jobs: Wednesday to Friday as an admin support for the county council and my wedding Ceremony Officer role.  I am fortunate enough to be able to continue my admin role from home with technology however I have stepped down from my wedding role as I practice social distancing, this has been heartbreaking as I love that job so much.

My husband is self-employed as a handyman working locally with private customers in their own homes and so his work has stopped entirely.  With this situation we need to carefully consider all our financial outgoings - we're not on the breadline and this post it aimed entirely at explaining my decisions regarding what I'm going to do as a Demonstrator, please - no sympathy at all, we have been living a frugal life for a few years and we are well adjusted to budgeting carefully.

So, here is my plan:  I am motivated to keep being creative, after all I have more time to be creative in lots of ways.  I am absolutely going to continue being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator even if I have to go back to the beginning and start again at some point.  I really want to do more online live sessions and I am aware that not all my creative friends have Facebook accounts.  I don't want to go down the YouTube route because I don't get excited about creating videos and having the editing etc to master.  I will endeavour to find a way to share live, uncut, unedited demonstrations here - so watch this space and stick with me (I have an idea).


For the short term I am not planning on ordering additional products for myself as I already have a craft room full of fabulous stuff.  You can however, still place orders and receive Stampin' Up! products direct to your door if you want to.  It's easy to place orders direct using my online shop, just click the link at the top of this page.  You can also earn FREE products with Sale-a-Bration until the end of March and more items are being added tomorrow (24th March).

While I've been contemplating things over the last few days I have considered putting together packs or kits to run online classes but this causes me a couple of issues; firstly we are not permitted to stamp images on behalf of customers, secondly I would need to post these packs and as part of social distancing I am not going to the post office (I am aware that I could print off postage labels and put small packages in the post box but this could become problematic if we go into lockdown). And thirdly I don't want to use up all the cardstock I have available and be left with none to use for demonstrating live.  The struggle is real folks! My top tip is that I would urge you all to consider our fantastic all inclusive kits if you want to get creative and do some stamping.  These kits are a brilliant way of having everything in one package and will give you some really brilliant crafty opportunities.  There are kits in each of our catalogues and we currently have THREE catalogues live:

Our fabulous Beginner Brochure

The January - June Mini 

And, of course, the main Annual Catalogue

So, this has been one of the longest blogs I've written in a very long time and if you've got to this point, thank you for sticking with me.  I do need to say a massive thank you to all my regular customers (aka friends!) who gave me encouragement and feedback last week.

Finally, I am going to turn my Facebook page over to being a totally fun, creative and sharing space where I would encourage you to share your makes no matter what they are.  If you have baked a cake, knitted a jumper, painted a picture or grown tomatoes from seed for the first time then please share your pics and a bit of info about what you have made.  My Facebook page will not be a place to talk about the virus at all, it will be an escape place, just for us.  These are strange and different times and one thing we do need to be creative with is our time.  Now, let's stay safe, be well and create stuff!!

Much love to everyone, one day we'll all be back on the beach having fun!!

Issy x