Home Sweet Home

Leaving convention is always bittersweet.  I'm always anxious to get home and get into my craft room, but convention is always filled with so much inspiration and fun that it's hard to leave. This year's theme, Be The Difference, was echoed throughout the two plus days of convention.  Stampin' UP! exemplifies the true meaning of sharing and caring.  In listening to employees of this awesome company, it wasn't hard to figure out that each one felt very blessed to be part of Stampin' UP!  

There were close to 6,000 demonstrators that made their way to Salt Lake City to help celebrate Stampin' UP!'s 25th year anniversary.  Lots of smiling and laughter filled the Salt Lake City Convention Center.  

Have you ever gone to a convention?  I can remember going to conventions when I was working full time.  You paid a pretty hefty fee to attend, and rarely came away with more then some paperwork and a cheap pen.  I'm here to tell you, that extra luggage is required when you attend a Stampin' UP! Convention!!!!!  Here's a peek at what I brought home!

 This years convention bag was a beautiful white and silver patterned back pack.  Plenty big enough to carry around each days give-aways.

What doesn't show in the photographs that I'm sharing is the Make & Takes.  There just wasn't time to complete them all.  That is first on my list!  I don't even know how many there are, maybe 5 or 6.  But they'll all be made with the stamp sets they gave us so they made it clear that we can Take & Make, instead of Make & Take.  Cute!

The first 3 stamp sets we were given was Gorgeous Grunge, Hello Lovely and Tag It!  Tag It is this years Ronald McDonald House Charities set.  Stampin' UP! donates time and money to support this charity and to date has contributed over $1,000,000!  Another example of Be The Difference!

One of the most exciting parts of convention is the PRIZE PATROL.  We were each given a wrist band in one of the many Stampin' UP! colors.  Mine was Tempting Turquoise.  When my color popped up on the screen I was elated to receive the new Gift Bow Bigz L Die!  Sweet!  It's on page 37 of the new Holiday Mini Catalog.  I'm going to have fun with that!

Of course, we didn't just receive gifts when the Prize Patrol drew our color.  There were 4 occasions where everyone, yes EVERYONE received a treat.  The first was the Oh, Goodie Stamp Set (pg. 32 of the Holiday catalog) plus the Real Red Goodie Gear Simply Created Kit (wow, that's a mouthful)

The next was rubber and wood from the new Undefined product line.  What is this you ask?  Well, I'll show you more in a minute.

The third was the Tags 4 You stamp set (pg. 37).

The last set we got was Yippee-Skippee!  That's in the main catalog, page 37 if you're curious.

By the end of convention Shelli announced that there had been 24 Prize Patrols.  Wow, that's way beyond what has ever been done before.  Of course this is our 25th year, so she told us that there would be one more Prize Patrol for everyone left who had not received a prize!  There were 25 demonstrators left, and those 25 demonstrators received, get this, every single stamp included in the new Holiday Mini Catalog.    I counted 158 stamps in that catalog.  Can you even imagine winning all those!!!!!  I'm not sure if I would have screamed or fainted!!!!

You can also see a Paper Pumpkin box in the above picture.  Yes, we even got a free Paper Pumpkin to share with someone!

You guessed it, what you see above is my pile of swap cards.  They were very impressive this year, I was very happy with what I brought home.  I'm anxious to share them with all my customers.

OK, so here's a little bit about our new Undefined product line! Which is available today!  You can read more about it on my website but the quick and easy explanation is Stampin' UP! has come up with a kit to use to design and create our own stamps.

There was a booth set up where we could play and make our own stamp.  I failed to do this because I just couldn't come up with a design on the spot.  I'd like to make a personalized stamp that I can use on the back of my cards.  I need to get that kit ordered so I can start playing.

Below are a couple examples of what can be done.

 What fun it would be to have a stamp made of a child or grand child's first attempt at printing his/her name!   So many ideas!  This could be a whole new creative outlet for many of us.  

There are many pictures to share, and I'll be doing it over the next few days.  But until then . . . 

Thanks for stopping by! 

You can check out the new Undefined product line HERE