Grandma's Rocking Chair - July 21, 2013 Why a Demonstrator

Grandma's Rocking chair Question for Today: Why did you want to be a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator?

This week at the Stampin' Up! convention this was one of the questions you heard a lot, along with where are you from.  I think other Demonstrators want to figure out why others become demonstrators. It is also one of the questions I ask and I find that the answers vary a great deal.  When someone is interested in becoming a Demonstrator under me  it is a question I usually ask and one they usually ask me. So I thought today I would share why I became a Demonstrator and now why I continue to be a demonstrator.

Once upon a time, a long time ago I used to do crafting. I loved to try many different crafts.  I was a craft a year person.  One year everyone got handmade afghans, one year cross stitch, one year ceramic, etc.  You all know what I mean.  I loved doing something new and different.  Then along came Kayla and a lot of my crafting was geared to baby and then to small girls, When Meigan came along it was hard to craft major projects, so I was a girls Scout leader with Kayla and then with Meigan and I got my hit of crafting that way.

Well about 10 years ago my neighbor Dee invited me to a Stampin' Up! party and I fell in love with stamping.  I was not a scrapbooker though I was in the middle of making my mother a huge and I mean huge Scrapbook for her 75th Birthday (100 pages) so stamping also helped there.  Well I went to one party and ordered a bunch of things (took me days to find out how to open my stamp pads) once I started I couldn't stop.  There were so many things I could do with paper, ink and stamps that I was back on creating and crafting something different not every year but every month.  Stampin' Up had a special going on, join and you would get a free family of ink pads so I joined not just because of the ink pads but also I heard that demos got 20% off there orders.  I love saving money and I knew I was going to be spending money on this craft so why not get a discount.  I was working full time at a good job so I was not expecting to make money or even do a business.  I held one or two workshops a year and I always bought my minimums.  I loved getting to see the new catalog and products before anyone else and getting to be in the know.

Then I realized something I loved to teach Stamping.  I mean I loved it.  I liked the social interaction of all my friends learning something new.  I liked finding new things that they could do.  At first my cards were crud and awkward, I look back at them and think boy that wasn't very good.  But I sent the cards and had the classes and I learned along with the folks I was teaching.  I was having a great time.  I went to Stampin' Up! conventions and learned about the business side but thought I am just a hobby Demo, don't really want to make money, don't really need to make money, I just love what I do. It was a stress reliever from work and from the stresses of two pre-teen and teen girls. Then Last year I retired from my Government job and what happened I had a lot of time to do my crafts.  Thought about it a lot and decided to ramp up my business.  So I started slowly by adding a few classes a month.  Then I started my blogging, facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and my Social media presence took off.

So what am I doing now and why.  I am still a Demo and may always be a demo, but I am moving away from being a hobby demo to being what we call a business Demo.  After Convention and finding out that the Grand Vacation that we can earn this year is to Hawaii, I think I really want to step it up and try to make that vacation.  Don and I wanted to go for our 25th Anniversary this year but just can't afford it, so I think why not earn it.  So I will be trying a few new things this year and offering a few incentives to my customers and kicking it up a notch.

So the reason I am a Demo has changed over the years (9) that I have been a demo from just wanting the 20% discount, to teaching, to earning an incentive.

So if you are thinking that you don't want to be a business Demo but just want to save that money, it is OK to get that demo kit and pay $99 for $125 worth of merchandise and then keep buying at the 20% off.  Or if you want to try and earn that paid vacation to Hawaii that is OK also.  Or if you just want to share something you love you can do that to.  I think there are as many reasons people join Stampin' Up! as there are Demonstrators. If you want to know more I would be happy to talk to you about it. or visit Join the fun page here on the blog, or click here to find out about all the things that you can about being a demo.

If you have a stamping or paper craft question please leave a comment or e-mail me at nuhddad @ gmail.com (remove the spaces around the @).

Don't forget the Mystery Hostess for this month.

Just use the Hostess Code 9ZAJAA7X and you will be entered into the drawing.

Mystery Host code  9ZAJAA7X is good till July 31 and the winner will be announce August 1. The winner will choose Stampin'Up! products of their choice. To be entered in the drawing you need to enter the code.  The big question where do you enter the code when you are on the page of your shopping bag on the left bottom side you will see at the bottom where it say "Special Offer" the box that say "Do you have a hostess code"  Look like this
Do you have a hostess code? Enter it here and click Apply:

 that is where you will enter  9ZAJAA7X in that box let me know if you have any question and good luck to everyone that will participate. 

Happy stamping

Mary