Final Convention Day...

Well, tomorrow will be the last day of convention. It's been a wonderful experience and I can't wait to share everything I've learned and seen.  I hope you felt you have sort of been here too.  See all these girls "bright-eyed and busy-tailed" at 7:30 am with music blasting "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". We must all be nuts...but in a good way.

So look what I won at the morning session...it's a stamp set and new punch from the Holiday Mini Catalog coming out next month. Wahoo! We'll all have fun with this one. There were several demonstrations using both.

After the morning session and lunch, spent more time in the display areas taking more photos. Should have quite a slide show for you to see. Here's what the dining area looked like during lunch. They had six chocolate fountains with fresh fruit, macaroons, lady fingers for desert. Yummmmm!

Here's a display of chocolates you wouldn't believe if you saw it in person. Took a closer shot so you could identify some of the SU! products.

Who thinks of these things? Yes, Jan it's all paper and ribbon and pearls. Unbelieveable.

After lunch was the Make n Take class I helped with. It was fun and met some nice people from all over this country. That was 2 hours then off to my last class.

The "Evening to Remember" dinner and swap started at six so I was hustling to make it on time. Great food, beautiful facility inside the Temple square. Got 50 more incredible cards for you and took a quick shot of the Temple on my way out. Can you see the wedding couple on the other side of the pond? There was two wedding going on simultaneously.

Here's a shot of the girls from Massachusetts at the Evening to Remember. I met them the first day on the bus to the plant. They were a real hoot!  Do you see the little frogs sitting in front of us? That was one of the MNT's for the evening. Too funny!

So that's my convention experience. If you've followed along, hope you enjoyed the ride.Come to Play Day on Saturday, August 7th at 2 p.m. There will be tons of things for you to see. Let's get our finger inky !

CU

B

Day Three...Oh My!

Opening Session, Main Stage

Just returned to the hotel. It's 9 pm here (11 pm at home) and I'm hysterically exhausted. I left this room at 7:30 this morning! Most of the day was spent in classes. The opening session on the main stage this morning was Broadway show orchestrated...amazing! Then a quick lunch and off to the WOW swap I had signed up for. Wait til you see these cards. There are so many talented ladies out there all over this country. Can't wait to share with all of you. After the swap I ran to a great class (learned so much!) and after two hours went to the last class of the day. Slipped out a little early to get to the "demo boards" to take photos of so many outstanding ideas.

This is one of the aisle with the demo boards. There are three isle all together. Can you stand it? However, I did find one of my cards on one of the boards. Knocked me out! I want to just show you a couple of things to tease you a little.

Made from paper! Can't imagine the hours in that. I tried to take lots of shots of Christmas stuff, baby stuff (for Jan), the new material that's coming out in the next mini catalog (for Karin who loves to quilt), lots of home decor things. There just so much to see here.

This sunflower made entirely out of dsp was about 15" square. It was beautiful. Again, how much time did that take to make?

Someone took this shot for me at a staging area. "Share what you love" is the convention theme this year. Ok, that's it for today. Got another full day tomorrow with the "Evening to Remember" tomorrow night. I'm going to go look through the 150 swaps I got today because I'm sure sleep isn't coming soon.

CU tomorrow

B

Day Two at Convention

Oh my goodness...wish you all had been with me today. Here's the schedule:
8 a.m. Memento Mall - VIP Entrance - Lots of great SU! shopping
9 a.m. Convention Bag Pick Up - Lots of new stamps!!!
10:30 Make & Take Training Class - Four new stamp sets!!! Six MNT projects made (I'll share with all)
12:30 Quick bite of lunch
1:15 Class at convention site
3:00 Plant Tour - Would I ever like to work at this site!
4:30 Dinner with newly met friends from Massachusetts
6:30 Flower Power 80's Party @ convention center

It's now 9 pm and I'm really tired but so excited about everything I've done, seen and learned today. Here's some photos I took with you in mind.

This is the line which stretched out of sight to get into the Memento Mall. But,....

Because I had this cute little flower on my name tag, I could get in one hour ahead of all these people through....

The VIP Entrance!

Shopping is fast and furious. There are limits on most everything until the last day. There are a couple of things I hope to go back and get. Here's what checkout looked like:

I hope Joe isn't reading my blog. I did stay within my budget though lol!

This is the 2010 convention bag filled with free stamps and stuff. Cool, huh?

These are all my free stamps so far. Wouldn't you like to be here next year? I promise to share...

This is a sample of card swapping. It's a lot of fun.

Plant tour entrance to Stampin' Up! plant. It was beautiful, much bigger than I imagined and I'd love to work there. This is a great company (because it's run by a woman?) I'm just sayin'....

Last shot for today. I hope to get out and get some shots of Salt Lake City for you. Especially the Temple Square as they call it here. I have loads of shots of projects and techniques I will share with you at Play Day. I'll be so excited, you'll probably have to peel me off the ceiling. But it's all fun.

Until tomorrow...

B

Salt Lake City!

What a great travel day. Each flight and connecting flight was on time and smooth riding. From Atlanta to here is a 4-hour ride....Oh my goodness, I had a hard time sitting still that long.

When I got to the gate in Atlanta, I found nine demonstrators waiting for the flight. How did I know they were demonstrators?  Well....they were madly snipping and snailing away on their swap cards.  They were from everywhere - Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Macon, Greenville, Asheville. We had a great time just talking.

Here are a couple of shots from my hotel room window. The mountains here are topped with snow even though it was 92 degrees here today. The second shot shows how close the convention center is to the Hilton. I need to be there at 8 am in the morning....yipee!

I met a couple of girls waiting for the hotel shuttle and we decided to go to dinner. We were all starving because it was 7 pm for us. It ended up being eight of us and we had a great time. The girl in the center here has a dual demonstratorship in the US and France. She was so interesting. The girl on the left is from Kansas City and we're meeting in the morning, and the girl on the right is from Greenville and this is her first convention. Great meal, great company.

So tomorrow, I need to be at the Memento Mall and hour before it opens. They are letting the group who is helping with the Make n Takes shop an hour early. Oh boy! Then a training session from 10:30 to 12:30, lunch and two classes in the afternoon. Tomorrow night is the Eighties Flower Power event. I'll have lots more pictures for you then.

CU

B

Come With Me To Convention!

I'll be blogging daily about my convention experience. Thought it would be fun for my stampers to attend and experience some of what I'll see and learn. I've smoked up my studio trying to get all my swap cards made.

Here's the beginning of one of the cards. See how messy it gets trying to make 200 cards at once? I sure wouldn't want you to see my studio right now. I'll need to do some serious housework before our next Play Day.

This swap had a little fancy fold, embossing on one layer, popped up hand-cut message, a little Blushing Bride ribbon and can you see the little bling rhinestone at the top of the cage. Everything on this card is from the new catalog.

Here's the second card...all six layers of it. It was more time consuming because I used craft ink and white embossing powder. Craft ink takes FOREVER to dry. But, I think it turned out pretty and I hope it stands up to the national competition.

So I'm all packed. Left plenty of room to bring back loads of stuff for you to see. I'll have a slide show and all 200 samples at the next Play Day to share. As you can see, Zoe is not too happy when the suitcases come out. She has been on my heels all day.

So until tomorrow night when I'll be writing to you from Salt Lake City....

CU

B