Stampin' Up! Vienna Incentive Trip Day 3

Good afternoon all, you will be pleased to know that I survived my first day in my new job! A bit of a culture shock getting up at 6.45am but I think I am going to enjoy it.

Right onto Vienna day 3, today we had the day to ourselves as it was the gala dinner in the evening. Nat and I had a bit of a lay in then had a wander around the city centre, I found a beautiful handbag but the £3000 price tag was just out of reach!

Natalie and 12 others were doing the city tour on Segways this afternoon so we split up and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with the lovely Victoria. We just had a look in the shops and took in the sites. The architecture was out of this world. 

This was my favorite building, the Zanoni & Zanoni ice cream shop!

 I had vanilla, strawberry & chocolate, it was delicious!

 Victoria had a cherry brandy sundae, she did zig zag a bit when trying to walk after!

We then spotted this famous brown van and Victoria thought she would see if there was an order for her in the back, nothing for her today :(  (FYI all Stampin' Up! orders are delivered by UPS)

We then decided it was time to plod back to the hotel, I was convinced that I knew the way and convinced Vic to believe me, an hour later and 3km away from the hotel we admitted defeat and got a taxi......oops! Then look what we spotted............

the group on the segways! They looked as though they were having a blast! 


We then popped to the hospitality room for a cool drink and a few sweeties. This is the view from the window:

Then it was off to make myself beautiful for the Gala dinner, which as you can imagine took some time.


We got ready  and had to be in reception for 6.30, we were then informed that we would be arriving by carriage.

Can you see their little red hats? This is so they don't burn their ears, how cute is that! 

• •  After about 15 minutes we arrived at the beautiful  Kunsthistorisches Museum

It was such a beautiful building and we were greeted by a trio of musicians. After various photo opportunities the master of ceremony called us to dinner. 

The dining room was out of this world, high ceilings and beautifully laid tables (I forgot to take a picture!) Just when we thought it couldn't get any better our entertainment arrived. 

We were privileged to have a private audience with the Viennese boys choir. I have attached a video I took but am not sure if it will do the experience any justice.

It was the highlight of my trip and a real once in a lifetime experience. The sound was so pure made even more special by the acoustics of the building.

 After dinner we then had a private tour of the museum and then back to the hotel. You probably thought that we all sat in silence taking in our evening.....well you would be wrong, in all our finery we all legged it to the bar on the corner to watch the end of the England v Sweden game! 

I think I have gone on for long enough today, I will be back soon with day 4! I'm off for a lay down, this going out to work thing is quite tiring! 

Thanks for reading xxx

Stampin' Up! Vienna Incentive Trip Day 2

 After a little bit of a restless night I woke and headed down to breakfast, which as you can imagine was yum yum pigs bum! We then met everyone in the lobby for our group activity which was going to Schönbrunn palace, it was a little bit out of the city but not too far, you can read all about it here if you would like to. This is the view as you walk in:

stunning isn't it, here are the horse and carradges. The whole of vienna is so clean and tidy they even have little bags under the horses bums to catch the plop! Genius invention.

We then had a tour around the palace, it was beautiful, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures :( 


After the palace tour we had a little stroll in the glorious sunshine and were taken to this room:

where we discoverd we would be apple strudle making, complete with apron and hat!

 I think it suits me........lol

The strudle master then showed us how to do it and we were off! You had to roll the dough out then pop it on your knuckles and spin it around like a pizza base. I must confess that I messed mine up and had to start again :( here is the finished article though:

and here is Natalies, more like a wrap than a strudle but it came out okay in the end.

After strudle making we went for a walk around the gardens, aren't they stunning! It was a real scorching day too. After the gardens we went and collected our strudels.

I'm not sure what happened but it looked okay when I left it LOL!

After out wonderful trip we went and relaxed in the hospitality room. This room was like a sweet factory! 

They had brought over lots of different American sweets we were allowed to fill our boxes everyday and snack on as many as we wanted, so I stayed there till it was time to fly home! Not really, although it was tempting.

In the evening a few of us went out to an Austrian restaurant, where we had a lovely time.

Then it was a short stroll back to the hotel for a cold drink and ice cream on the hotel terrace.


When we finally got back to the room, Natalie had received another pillow present a FAB oven glove and tea towel made using Stampin' Up! fabric. (Pic pinched from the lovely Jules blog, thanks love, Nurfty Nurf!)

That is the definition of a show tea towel! Then it was off to the land of nod!


I may not be back tomorrow as I am starting a new job, I will be back Friday and tell you all about it. 

Stampin' Up! Vienna Trip Day 1 (Long & photo heavy!)

So sorry that I haven't been around for a while, I have been up to my eyes in it getting up to date with my magazine commissions before jetting off to Vienna with Natalie and the rest of the Stampin' Up! incentive trip achievers. I didn't actually achieve the trip, Natalie did, but as you know apart from looking after her team and training we do most of our events and workshops together so I got to go and share the experience with her! Thanks a million Nat x

I know that everyone who went will be sharing their trip but we all had a different experience so here's mine........

It started on Wednesday 13th June, where Daddy Wonka collected us for the airport at 6.30am, it has been some time since I have seen that early, and I can confirm it did exist. After a smooth trip round the M25 we arrived at Heathrow in good time and were fortunate enough to have access to the BA executive lounge (thank you Natalie's brother!) so we headed straight to it and enjoyed bacon sarnies and pastries, this was the view from the window, it was a great place to check that all wings were attached and wheels intact! 

After a short (2hr 2mins) flight we arrived in beautiful sunshine in Vienna. We were met in the baggage hall by Mr Stampin' Up! (not actually sure who he is and he didn't appear again!) where our luggage was collected and we were taken to our hotel in a big black Mercedes.

We were staying at "The Grand Hotel Wien" this is a pic I have pinched from the hotels web site. It really was as beautiful as it looks!

We checked in and went to our room, I love it when you open a hotel room door and check out what the room looks like. 

This is our room:

this is our sofa and seating area:

the view looking out the window to the left:

the view looking out the window to the middle:

the view looking out the window to the right, as you can see from this pic we were almost over the main entrance of the hotel.

This is the bathroom (I'll spare you looking at the toilet pic): 

We arrived at the hotel at about  2pm and having not eaten since the airport we decided to order some room service, as we were in a 5 star hotel we wanted to order something classy and a little bit posh so we went for this:

Yup chip butties and a diet coke! LOL. After filling our tums we went to find the hospitality room and said a few hellos (I will show you pics of the hospitality room at another day as this is already quite photo heavy!) 

On the fist evening we had the welcome dinner so we went up to the Le Ciel gourmet restaurant for a 7 course feast! 

This is my dessert, I must admit I am a bit of a fussy eater so didn't fully appreciate the meal but by jove! I tucked into this.

After our meal we popped to the bar for a couple then went off to our bed. When we got to the room Natalie had been left a beautiful bronze/gold handbag, (Natalie had already given me the matching travel wallet so no fighting was involved!) Stampin' Up! certainly know how to entertain in style! ( I have pinched the pic from Jo thanks love!)

Whilst we had been gonelso the maid had been in to do the turn down , shutting the curtains, plumping pillows and leaving us a little choccy. 

She also popped a piece of cotton on the floor, which I presume is to stop you having to put your feet on the floor.....as she had gone to the trouble of laying it down I did try to pop my PJ's on whilst trying to stand on it and not touch the carpet, a little tricky but didn't want to be unappreciative! 

Hope you are still awake after all that you will be pleased to know that I have come to the end of day one, and will pop back tomorrow with my day two.

8x8 Jubilee themed layout, Kyle's trip to London!

Pinch punch first day of the month! NO RETURNS! 


Good morning, June already, where oh where has this year gone!


Just a quick one today, when I was making the Jubilee class there is a lady who comes and loves scrapbooking so I thought I would make a sample 8x8 layout to give her some ideas. 

This was taken last October when we took my nephew to London for the day, as you can see he was very excited to see the underground sign. Unfortunately the central line was closed and the tube network was manic so we had to take a black cab instead, I think he enjoyed that just as much.....

Right I am off as I have got a MANIC weekend, full of crafting, parties and cupcakes! I hope that you have a lovely extended weekend and will pop back soon and do a show and tell!