Convention 2010 Blog Scavenger Hunt - WIN PRIZES!!

My adventure in Salt Lake City is finally over. I don’t say finally in a bad way, it just feels like I was gone from home for a month instead of a week  I had an incredible trip. I met so many people and saw hundreds, possibly thousands of new ideas and projects from demonstrators from across the continent. I leave the 2010 Stampin’ Up! Convention excited, rejuvenated, and full of ideas that I’m thrilled to share with all of you!!

So, I promised some goodies, didn’t I? Well, I’m living up to that promise but all good things come to those who work for it!! Are you ready for a blog scavenger hunt? If you’ve been a loyal blog reader while I’ve been away on my trip, this should be a piece of cake! If not, you may have to make some guesses because I’ve done a sneaky thing…I’ve blocked off some of the information on my blog!! If you’re a Feedburner subscriber, you should have all of my blog posts in your email. If you’re not a subscriber, you may want to go to the right sidebar on my blog and sign up. It’s free and easy! You’ll get notified by email every time I post a new message on my blog. You’ll never miss a special blog scavenger hunt question again!

Here’s how it’s going to work. Answer ALL of the questions in the scavenger hunt. If you don’t know the answer, guess! What’s the worst thing that can happen? There are bonus activities, too! You can get extra credit points by participating in the challenges and activities. Entries need to be in my email box by Saturday, July 31 at Noon. The person with the most points will win this fun Stampin’ Up! gift PLUS $25 in merchandise from the 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog that launches on September 1!! How fun is that? In the event of a tie, a winner will be selected using a random number generator. Demonstrators outside of the Korner Krazy Stamper group are not eligible to enter. I encourage all customers to play along!! I will also draw a second place winner from all entries for a special “consolation prize”!!

Are you ready to scavenge my blog? On your mark…Get set…GO!!!  Convention 2010 Blog Scavenger Hunt

Prize Pack – SU! expandable trash basket, SU! Ruler, SU! Key Chain, Level One Hostess Set from the Summer Mini, $25 Merchandise Certificate for the Holiday Mini

This is a picture of...

my hotel from the front of the convention center.  It was an absolutely wonderful location.  It's a little old but you can't beat the walk on a 100 degree day!  You know the only problem with this photo?  I took it right about the time my flight should have been taking off from Salt Lake City.  Thanks to weather in Birmingham, AL, (huh?) the plane that was supposed to leave Salt Lake City at 6:50pm was running late and wouldn't get me to Denver before my connecting flight left.  Southwest gave me the option of flying out at 3:45, leaving convention over 2 hours early or rebook for tomorrow.  So guess where I am?  You guessed it!  I'm in Salt Lake City until tomorrow morning.  Oh well. I got to spend another evening with Linda and some new and old stampin' friends alike.  I'll be honest, girls, I'm ready to lay my head on my own pillow, curl up in my own bed, hug my children and pet my dogs.  This has been an incredible experience.  I'm so glad I've been able to experience so many new and wonderful things.  I'm done now :-)

My plan for tonight's post was going to be details on how to play along with Kelli's convention experience blog scavenger hunt.  But, since I had no airplane ride to write it, I can't post it!  That will be tomorrow's post instead.  I'll bring out all of my wonderful goodies and post info on how my downline and my customers can win some cute prizes!!

Off to bed. I'll be dreaming of stamping IN MY OWN STAMP ROOM :-)

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!!

Share What You Love

...is the theme of this year's convention.  It's been all about sharing, caring, learning and having a wonderful time swith friends new and old.  Today was the first day of classes and the general convention session.  Linda and I got the nose shot to commemorate the start of a grand day! The day was packed full of learning so it's not been a heavy picture day.  I did get to go back to Momento Mall and grab some goodies for my customers, my downline, and some special treats for some special people!

Just announced today by Shelli, an amazing Hostess Special for the month of August.  When you host a $350 workshop, anytime between July 27 and August 31, you will receive an additional $25 in FREE hostess credit!  That means you'll get a MINIMUM of $65 in FREE hostess merchandise, a Level 1 or Level 2 Hostess Set of your choice, and all of the fun that comes with spending an evening with your friends and family.  I booked two workshops this afternoon while I was here at Convention.  August is going to be a busy month!!

Sadly, it's going to be a really short post tonight.  I'm beat.  I'm off to bed very early tonight.  I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow that again starts before the crack of dawn. (Have I mentioned I'm really not a morning person?)  I won't head to bed without leaving you a little inspiration.  Check out these cupcakes made entirely out of paper!  How stinking cute are they?  I can't wait to get home so I can grab my punches, my paper and my glitter and start creating some of the yummy things I've seen.

I'm having breakfast with the Recruit Crew first thing tomorrow morning.  I need to be bright eyed for that adventure!  So, until tomorrow night...Happy Stamping!!

And it begins...

What a crazy, crazy day it has been!  Today is the official start of Convention 2010 and right now, I'm totally exhausted...but in a GREAT way!!

We started our morning bright and early with a nice hot breakfast at the hotel and a quick jaunt over to the convention center to get in line for Momento Mall!  The official opening of the mall was 9:00am.  I was fortunate to earn an incentive to get in at 8:00am.  But, we got over and in line before 7:00am.  Man or man, was that ever a good idea!  The lines got nuts but it was well worth the wait.  The fun toys and great new product were just incredible.  I was so excited to be able to get in, grab my goodies and get out before anyone in the general admittance was allowed in.  I got LOTS of great goods but I don't want to spoil any surprises so I'll keep a little to myself for a while.  Just know I had a lot of fun shopping!!

One of the awesome benefits we get at convention is a cool, special, only available to convention attendees bag!  This year's bag is a vinyl messenger bag.  It's bright orange and pink.  There are lots of great pockets and crevaces to carry around the essentials.  I'm totally in love with this bag (and NO Mickey, you can't have it!!)  The bag comes packed with materials, pins, pens, and FREE STAMPS!  One of the free stamp sets this year is Just Believe, possibly my favorite new stamp set out of the new catalog.  I can't wait to see what kinds of make-n-takes we'll be doing with this set that I'll be able to bring home and share with you!

Today I swapped, met lots more new stampin friends, and also had an opportunity to visit the Stampin' Up! home office in Riverton, UT.  Tell me with this view out your office window you'd be able to get any work done?  Another simply breathtaking background, I'd say.  The tour was so wonderful.  I'll definitely blog about it in more detail at a later date.  We saw our Demonstrator Support center, the place where the incredible ideas happen, and got a full rundown of the distribution center operations from the Warehouse Operations Manager himself!  It was such an amazing experience to hear all about how it your orders go from my computer, through the pick lines, and off to UPS with incredible ease and precision.  Cool, cool stuff!!  I'm so glad I had the chance to experience it.

Tonight was "Flower Power" a full blown 60's themed party.  That was a real hoot.  Great music. Lots of energy.  I tried my hand/foot at Twister (and failed miserably), danced to amazing classics, and had an all around great time.  When Stampin' Up! throws a party, they really throw a party!  Games, face painting, prizes...Linda won a wonderful stamp set from the upcoming Holiday Mini Catalog!  Nothing for me but I'm sure my time is coming!  Oh, there were also a TON of great samples and incredible projects on display.  I have over 150 photos that I need to weed through before I share them.  I promise I'll post some of those goodies tomorrow!

I'm totally off to bed. Tomorrow is the first day of our general sessions and great classes.  But before I go, I will say that if you're ever in Salt Lake City and have an opportunity to go see the Stampin' Up! campus, do it, but also stop at the Sno Shack.  We got the best snow cones this side of the Mississippi!  Thanks, Susan!!

Until tomorrow, Happy Stamping!

A stampin kind of day

Stampers are crazy.  It's you can totally tell who they are, too!  You walk down the street and you can just telll from the sparkle in their eye and their sheepish grin that they're just like you :)

We met some new friends at breakfast this morning.  The hotel restaruant was just full of people like us. Everyone is so gracious and welcoming, you just sit down and enjoy a meal with new friends.  Our new friend Dottie had on the coolest pair of earings and from one stamper to another...you can tell an awesome project from a mile away.  Dottie's earings totally qualified as "awesome project"!  She made these earrings from chip board.  Aren't they awesome?  I just loved these.  They're so creative and so colorful.  With all of our great colors, I'm thinking I could make myself a pair to match every outfit!

Our afternoon was spent "shoe box swapping".  My shoe box project was a tutorial using the new magnetic sheets, the Top Note die, and an awesome rose made from the Ornament punch.  I think all of my swap mates enjoyed the project so I wanted to share it with all of you too!!  Enjoy the Scribd file below and make the whole project or just practice making the rose!

We had another fun night stamping.  We made some really cool projects.  I'm bringing another fun class home from this event.  Wait til you see it.  I'm not giving anything away about the project details but trust me...you're gonna love it!  Tee hee hee :)

Joyce and Linda (and everybody else we're with) have really made this trip and the stamping we're doing so much fun.  Stamping is always more fun with friends.  We're making so many new friends and learning amazing things.  The best part, though, is that it's only going to get better from here.  Tomorrow is the "official" start of the Stampin' Up! 2010 Convention.  We'll be up at the crack of dawn, eating breakfast early, and heading over to start our incredible adventure!  This is my first trip to convention and I'm SOOOO excited!!!  I can't wait to report again with the official convention excitement!

Enjoy my new tutorial :)

Top Note Rose Note Holder

Us Goop!!

Day 2 in Salt Lake City was an absolute blast!!  Our morning was full of stamping and creative fun and the afternoon/evening was the greatest reason I joined Stampin' Up! in the first place.  We weren't stamping.  We weren't crafting.  We were sharing...our lives, our friendship and our love of all things friendship!

My roommate and sideline, Joyce, and I were running a few minutes late to breakfast.  Our plan was to meet Linda and our other traveling companions for breakfast at 7:00am.  Linda's response...Us goop!  Thank you, iPhone.  You gave me today's theme :)

We spent the morning stamping with the Late Night Stampers group.  We created 6 incredible projects!  I really loved them all!  This one is my personal favorite!  It's an incredible expandable scrapbook (or really big greeting card) that I can't wait to share in an upcoming class. We made a card folder, a pizza box, a funky tote, an explosion box, and a super cool scalloped circle multi page "thingie".  It was such fun to create with so many new people and see the great ideas that so many people were willing to share.  Being my first experience with the LNS group and their preconvention events, I can definitely say I enjoyed it!

After a very full morning of stamping, we headed for some lunch and relaxation. Toasters has some amazing sandwiches. If you're ever in the SLC area, I highly recommend it!  Sit, talk, laugh and what's next?  Starbucks, of course!  Joyce, Linda and I ventured out into the melting sun to find ourselves some good old caffeine!  A few soft chairs and great company made for a wonderful afternoon.  It was great to catch up with Linda (since she up and left us!) and share stories and ideas about our businesses and creative endeavors.

I love exploring new cities and all of the cool things they have to offer.  Here in SLC, pedestrian safety is very important! The sign next to Linda reads, "Look left and right when crossing.  For added visibility, carry orange flag across with you"  Sure enough, there's a little depot across the street with a matching sign and place to put your orange flag.  These things are everywhere!  I think it's definitely an idea we should take back to Chicago and see if we can get somebody to pay attention.  Of course, where we're from, the gapers delay caused by all the crazy drivers watching a group of krazy stampers cross the street with caution flags would probably cause an accident!!!

Our hotel is right across the street from the convention center.  We saw some banners that have just been hung and took advantage of the photo opportunity.  Share What You Love is the theme of this year's convention and this little heart flower is it's logo.  I really think it embodies the simplicity of the craft we all love to partake in.  I've taken better photos but you know what...I don't care!!  I'm here!!  I'm soaking up everything that my first experience in Salt Lake City has to offer :)

Tomorrow is our only "sleeping in day."  We're not meeting for breakfast until 9:00am.  Crazy, right??  We're going to go do some more stamping around 11:00, grabbing a little lunch snack, then heading off for what I'm sure will be an awesome shoe box swap.  Another little break after that and then we'll be back to stamping more fun and exciting projects.  I can't wait to share my favorites with you again tomorrow.

I'm off to bed now.  My feet and body have had it for one day.  Check back in tomorrow for more "goop" on my SLC adventure!! 

Welcome to Salt Lake City!!

Ok.  This is just beautiful!!  Coming from the midwest, the mountain scene is just incredibly breath taking for me.  If I had the option to stare at this every day, I think I would be the most unproductive girl EVER!!

We arived safe and sound in Salt Lake City.  The flight was nice.  We had a little bit of a lumpy landing but it wasn't so bad.  Our rental car was upgraded from a Taurus to an Explorer.  Nice perk :)  The hotel is nice.  It's quaint, quiet, and very comfortable.  The front door of our hotel is literally right across the street from the front door of the convention center.  Excellent planning...not my planning but still excellent! It was 103 degrees this afternoon.  Holy moly.  I swear I think I might melt if this keeps up but I'm very thankful that I have air conditioning in all of my stamping areas.

Tomorrow starts our first day of pre-convention activities.  We're headed to a big Stamp Camp in the morning.  I'll post pictures of all of our great projects.  I'm hoping to do a little sight seeing in the afternoon or maybe a little R&R.  Who knows? We may just have to see what tomorrow brings!

I don't have a whole lot to report in on today.  It's really been a get here, get settled kind of day.  I really wish you all could have come with me on my trip to the Stampin' Up! 2010 Convention!  Since you can't all be here, I'll bring you along on a virtual journey.  Check here everyday and read all about the fun things I'm doing.  But, be sure to read every day.  Leave a comment and let me know you were here!  When I get home on Sunday, I'll send you on a virtual scavenger hunt about the fun and excitement that was had during this week's Convention. I will be awarding my customers and downline members with special prizes for answering the scavenger hunt questions correctly!  But, the only way you'll be able to win is if you visit my blog daily for special updates that are only available for that day!

Join me on my trip!!  I can't wait to have you along for a wonderful ride that you can only get at Stampin' Up! Once you see all of the incredible fun, you'll surely want to be sure you're here with me live next year!!

I'm off to bed.  It's going to be a big day tomorrow!!  Happy Stamping!!