Sweet sweet paper

Another day down in fabulous Salt Lake City.  I can hardly believe I've been here nearly a week!  Time has flown by so quickly.  I just finished packing my bags...and gosh am I glad I brought an empty suitcase because it is officially FULL!!  Tomorrow morning I'll be checking out of my hotel, spending my last day at my very first Stampin' Up! Convention and heading home to see my kids...who I miss dearly!!  This has truly been a wonderful experience, one I will not soon forget.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!  I'm sure it will be more wonderful, amazing things!

Today was packed full of learning. (Read - not a heavy picture day for the events but I've got other good stuff to share!)  My day started out with breakfast for the Recruit Crew.  Supervisors and Senior Supervisors were invited to join a program focused on helping us grow and build our businesses.  Because we met certain milestones (growing our teams), we were invited to have breakfast with the SU! corporate team.  Shelli was there as were Dale Fillmore, Jill Kocherhans, Mark Jessen, Carrie Cudney and a host of other members of the SU! team.  It was nice to hear the experiences of other demonstrators with the Recruit Crew and share successes and learnings.  I finally met another demonstrator from the Chicago area during breakfast! I was kind of starting to think we were the only ones here!

The morning general session was really very cool.  Brent Steele, the Creative Services "guy", came out strumming a banjo, ready to show us some amazing projects.  He focused on Halloween projects from the new Holiday Mini Catalog.  Seriously, people, this is some cool stuff!!  There are amazing products launching on September 1.  I'm generally not a big Halloween decorator but these projects really made me start to rethink my "only decorate for Christmas" philosophy!  Brent made a cool skeleton garland and some super cute luminaries.  There were pumpkins and trees and favors, oh my!

Pam Morgan shared some really great workshop projects with us next.  I can't wait to be able to implement some of these great projects in some upcoming workshops (remember the extra $25 you get in August?)  I really love the Christmas gift tags she showed as a fabulous workshop make-n-take.  Again, more items from the upcoming Holiday Mini catalog were showcased and wouldn't you know...I fell in love with ALL OF THEM!  I'm pretty sure you're all going to love this mini.  It's one of the best yet, full of brillian new designs and tons of new product!  Demonstrators, you can preorder all of these awesome new products on August 1.  Everybody else, you've got to wait until September 1...sorry!

After lunch, we learned lots of great tricks and tips for using some of our wonderful colors and products.  One of my favorite presentations was by Kristin Kortonick, a demonstrator from New Jersey.  She had some awesome projects made exclusively from the new starter kit.  Stampin' Up! has really done a great job bundling up some great products to give a new stamper or aspiring demonstrator a wonderful array of supplies to make lots and lots of beautiful cards. Simple and elegant was the name of the game. Anybody could make these cards and I think that's what appealed to me so much.  I really wish I was in my stamp room right now because I'd be whipping up these exact samples right now!!

So, who is that playing kissy face on the sample board?  It's none other than our very own Linda and husband David on their 10 year anniversary!  During all of SU!'s events, they put up wonderful inspiration boards featuring displays of cards, scrapbook pages, and all sorts of 3-D items.  People from all around the country send in samples and SU! takes the best of the lot and puts them up for everyone to see.  And as you can see, my very favorite upline is featured on the sample board :)

One of the awesome displays at this year's convention is the Color Confections product showcase.  This amazing display is full of yummy, tempting treats...all made from paper!!  These cupcakes are my favorite, I think.  Seriously, how cool is this?  I can absolutely envision turning thse beautiful and elegant pearl adorned cupcakes into fun bold and bright party favors.  The very first photo in this post is a set of candies made from cute little boxes, ribbons, and our Simply Adorned charms.  These are also on my list of things to make as soon as I get home.  It's really too bad I'll have house chores and things to take care of.  My to do  list from convention is getting pretty long!  All of the creative inspiration that's been overflowing my brain this week will keep me busy for months!!  It's a good thing I took lots of pictures so I can remember some of this inspiration!

Tomorrow is another early morning.  We have really grown fond of our seating arrangements for General Session. If we're not there waiting when the doors open, we may actually have to sit somewhere else!  So, it's a muffin, yogurt and coffee to go.  I am really excited to find out what the last day of convention will bring for us.  I hope it's filled with wonderful surprises...and free stamps :-)

Nightie night all!  Happy Stamping!!