Celebrate '08 ~ Stampin' Up! Convention

Summer wouldn't be complete without it...

It would take a major "happening" of some sort to stop me from going...

For it I have travelled to Vegas, Denver, Kansas City, Orlando, and I'd go much further...

Even though it was a month ago I still must blog about it...

Stampin' Up! Convention!!!

Here are the kiddos, all packed into Grandpa Paul's truck for their 4-day getaway to grandma's!

(Thanks so much for taking care of them year after year during convention guys!)

This was me being a bit nutty:

I really wanted to give a gift of some sort to the girls in my own little group who were attending convention. I had 62 people going this year, (more than ever before-- woo-hoo!) so it was tricky to come up with something for that many people. I had thought about beaded lanyards. Since we have to wear nametags, it is fun to dress them up a bit...but they weren't in my budget to buy for 62 people.

So convention started on a Wednesday morning. Early Monday morning, 2 days before, I was awake in bed thinking about this. I suddenly thought, Why don't I make the beaded lanyards!? They can't be that hard! (Mind you I have never really beaded before, nor did I have any idea how to make lanyards.) I lay there thinking about it, and putting one together in my mind. I figured I could do it if I just had the stuff. Well, obviously after that I couldn't sleep...So finally I got up and went to buy beads. It was 3am. Wal-Mart was, of course, the only store open. I bought some beads, wire, a few little tools... (I did get a few weird looks, these things were not exactly 3am emergency-type purchases, ya know?) ...and I came home and made a few experimental lanyards. By the time my family woke up Monday at 8am, I had 5 completed lanyards! (And only 57 to go. But why let that deter me?) We left for convention 48 hours later, and yes...I did have 62 completed beaded lanyards for my convention-attending girls. (I recruited some help from Kaylyn and John--but made most of them myself.) They even were all bagged with a little stamped note from me, see? All that and I managed to do our laundry, pack us and the kids seperately for 4-day trips, and leave our house in a sort of orderly state. I am quite proud of all this, actually.

(Sleep? Who needs sleep when you are a crazy person?)

My way of going about this project is a perfect example of so many of my "qualities"...

....like being a total procrastinator, being a night owl of the worst kind, being one-track-minded once I get an idea, needing no sleep when I am obsessed over a project, and afterward remembering the whole experience in a surreal kind of way because I did it so fast and with no rest. I am so glad I did though, because I love my stampin' girls and wanted to do something nice (and affordable) for them to tell them so. These only cost me a little over $2 apiece in the end. Plus, I have broken out my beading stuff and made a few necklaces and stuff since then, so...hey, I learned new skill too.

DAY 1: Check-in, Awards, Convention kick-off dinner for our group

This is my SAM, Jennelee. She is a lifesaver! She's like my personal assistant over at the Stampin' Up! home office, so whenever I need anything I call or email her and she takes care of it, right away. I only get to see her in person at the big SU events, so I had to get a pic. She is actually leaving SU this month, and I will miss her so much. I am sure my new SAM will be great too but I just LOVE Jennelee. Waaaahhhh!

When I first got to convention and checked in (got my bag full of stamps, the NEW catalog, and other fun stuff) they directed me to the AWARDS booth to pick up my extra stuff I had earned. I met Jennelee over there and she gave me pins and stamp sets to recognize the achievements of this past year. I got the incentive trip to Hawaii, over 20K in sales, and a downline promotions award. She gave me all those, then pulled out a really sweet pink leather bag and said "You're going to Founder's!" which is when my heart dropped to the floor. Everyone around me started screaming and cheering...

Founder's Circle: the top 100-ish demonstrators of the company for

the given year, who get the royal treatment/gifts at convention

and are treated to a sweet spa getaway in the Fall together, and get to be

recognized onstage during the formal awards night and get the

satisfaction of knowing they are the BEST in the whole company!

I made it this year!!! WOOO-HOO!!! I have now been in the Founder's Circle 3 out of my 6 years as a demonstrator, which I think is great. There are 50,000 demonstrators in the USA, so to be in the top 100 is not too shabby, really. It has much to do with how much I sell, how many I recruit, how consistent I am with my business, and also how my downline is doing. I do what I can to help them but I must give a little shout-out to my group of 215 demonstrators..."The Queens of the Stamp Age"...you guys rock!

Now, for one of the BEST parts of convention...my friend/awesome downline Ashley made the Founder's Circle too!!!!!! This is the first time one of the girls in my own group have made it, and I COULD NOT BE MORE PROUD of her! She is sweet, and funny, generous, insanely creative, fun, and crazy-good at being a SU demonstrator. She is kind of new, so we immediately knew she would be in the Founder's Circle as a Rising Star. (Demos who did really good their first full year. They award the top 15 and they are part of the Founder's Circle.) The question was...what would her ranking be? #1?...#15?, or anywhere in between. We would not find out 'til Awards night. Congrats Ashley!!! I love you girl! And I am sooo stoked about going on the trip with you...20 days!!

This was taken the night of day 1. (check-in day) Every year at convention I have done a little convention kick-off dinner for my group. It is great to get to know everyone else there, swap with each other first, and gear up for the first "official" day of convention the next morning. We met at Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square, and we were quite a group to handle this time, 60 women talking and laughing and trading hand-made cards with each other. And we did get around to eating eventually. They put up with us well though. We got yummy food, I got to greet everyone, and I gave them the lanyards I made. I told them where to find our group each day. (It is not easy to find your friends among 6,000 crazy stamping-ladies at the Salt Palace.) In the pic above are Lindsey, Shari, Sherri, Deborah, and Laurie.

Day 2: General session, prizes, classes, Awards Night

Here are some of my girls at a general session. This is Jill, Mandy, and Janice. They are 3 of my bestest friends EVER and I love them so MUCH!!! I cannot, cannot believe I would probably not even know these women if it were not for SU. I can't imagine my life without these friendships! I am so glad we can all work together and we all love it!

For general session, all 6,000 people sit in one big room for the presentations from the home office folks. They all do an amazing job, especially Shelli Gardner, the co-founder and CEO of SU. She is one of my idols for real. She has such a great spirit about her, and is just GOOD and SMART. She has an amazing way of listening and communicating. She makes people feel valued & inspired. I could just squeeze her every time I see her. I love that woman!

One of the cool things about convention: Millions and billions of beautiful projects lining the walls, just waiting for us to photograph and copy. A real lifesaver for the demos like me--the creating part is fun...but I would rather copy someone else's brilliant idea.

This year happens to be the 20th anniversary of Stampin' Up! so we were celebrating that the whole time! Many of the prizes, pins, banners, etc had the "celebrate 20 years" logo on them, including the dessert! Almost too pretty to eat. But they were made of chocolate, so we did.

Now here is a woman I WOULD know and love, were it for SU or not. My aunt Melanie. But Stampin' Up! has brought us even closer. She actually was the one who introduced me to the SU products long ago, then later after I became a demo I recruited her. She is one of the fabulously amazing demonstrators in my group, and this year she received her milestone award ($1000 cash) for reaching 100K in career sales. Way to go, MelMel! Have fun spending your $$!

THIS is SO AWESOME!!!

These are all of the girls in my group who earned the free trip to Hawaii!
Deborah, Mindy, Ashley, Janice, Sherri, Candice, Melanie and me! ALOOOOHA! We are going to be partying it up on the big island for 6 days in the Spring! Thank you SU!!!

Stampin' Up! offers a free trip each year, and any demonstrator can earn it. You just have to meet the requirements. I have earned 6 of them in 6 years, (and I hope I will never stop because they are SOOO fabulous) and along the way I have had a few others from my group start to earn it too. There were 4 of us (plus our guests of course) in Bermuda this past year. But this year there were 8, yes EIGHT demos from my own little group who earned this trip. They officially awarded the trip at convention, hence the cool pic of us above. They have all worked so hard and I am sooo proud of them! So there will be 16 of us at the all-inclusive Waikoloa Village resort in March.

Yay, I can't wait!

Here I am, after being called up onstage to receive my Founder's Circle award. I was 9th place in the category for having a lot of my 1st level recruits get promoted to high promotions this year. Basically my group is doing great, and I get rewarded for it. I try to do what I can to help them, but they do the work so I must say again, you guys are fabulous and thanks for helping me earn this award! I will be thinking of all of you while I have lunch with Shelli and during my hot stones massage/pedicure, etc!

Along with the $ award, spa trip, and recognition on stage at convention, I was given an official "little blue box" from Tiffany's.

It is a heavy sterling silver pendant engraved with "Tiffany NY" etc. I probably would not pick this...it is like, too classy for me or something. But I LOVE it because of what it stands for. I wear it and carry my pink leather bag with much love.

Awards night is fun because we get all dressed up and have quite a fun time. They do all the awards plus have entertainment. This year it was Tonic Sol-fa. They are a wacky, talented acapella group and were quite entertaining!
(Oh and Ashley was #10 Rising Star! Her husband even got to come and see her get her award.)


Convention is always the best when John can come with me. And lucky me, he actually enjoys coming along too. I love hanging with the girls all day but the best is going 'home' at night with John. Plus it saves me a lot of time re-telling everything that happened to him after. This year was swell because we stayed in a bed & breakfast called the Armstrong Mansion. So we lived in the lap of luxury and had the MOST amazing bed

(a king-size Intelli-Gel...oh, baby!)

for all 4 days/3 nights. And it was cheaper than the Crystal Inn, where we were originally booked. Buy one night, get one free! SWEEEET!

More Stampin' family! My mom was my first recruit and has been to every single convention with me too. SU is totally a family thing for us. We all love it! Here we are, all beautiful on Awards night. My sister, mom, and me!

DAY 3: General session, Make and Takes, Classes, my group Shoebox swap
A shot of the main stage, where we went for all of the general sessions. They do such an amazing job with sound, production, set and all of the presentations. Behind all the people is the theme.. "Celebrate" '08

Just me and a few of my closest friends.

Stampin' Up! gives away all sorts of prizes during general sessions. Some to everyone, some by assigned colors, and so on. All of us got free new stuff out of the new catalog. Jill is showing off her "goods"!

Another convention highlight, make and takes! After all, what would a stampin' gathering be without making some hand-stamped projects? Those are my good friends Lynda and Steph.

Mom & Tia, makin' and takin'.

More stamping fun! Amber, Danielle, Melanie.

Goofing off a little during class: Melanie, Stacie, Deanne, Jamie and Nicole

Stampin' Up! even feeds us a pretty decent boxed lunch each day...yummy! This is Mindy, Becky, Mandy, Kelly, Dawna, Marlys, Jerilyn, Becky and Jan at lunch. Some of the Cache Valley girls.

Two of my BFF's Sasha & Kasia...all studious & ready to learn more at another class!

No gathering of 6,000 women would be complete without some babies in tow, and quite a few buns in the oven. Just look at these 2 giant bellies. This is Mindy and Jody, and their unborn sons. Both baby boys should be making their arrivals really soon....actually I was specifically ordered not to post this on my blog but how could I resist!? I bet neither of them is even reading. They are probably off in labor or something...The rest of us can enjoy the goofy pic.

And please let it be known...if I take a picture, I will probably put it on my blog. {smile}

This was our "2nd Annual Queens of the Stamp Age Royal Stamp-a-thon"...wow what a mouthful! Basically all 60 of my girls each created a fabulous card and cut out the papers for each other to make the one they created. Then each person set up a station with their sample card and all the stuff to make it, then we all moved around making each others' cards all night! It was so FUN!!

John, my #1 assistant--looking happy to do it too! Thanks honey!

stamping, stamping, Laurie, Megan, Kasia...

Along with the "shoebox swap" we also had displays, games, extra "wow" projects, dinner and dessert! I used my expert planning/coordinating skills to put it together but most of the actual work was done by my helpers, and they did so great!

More stamping!!! Becky, Melissa, Sherri, Kristi...

This night was all I hoped it would be (except for the a/c not working well in the room we were in...can we say sweaty stampers!!?) and I will be doing this every year at convention. It's a tradition now! Half the fun is being together as a group. Thanks, everyone for coming, and THANKS to those of you who helped. You know who you are.

Here are JUST A FEW of our beautiful creations from that night.

DAY 4: a few more classes, a closing general session where we all laugh, cry, say goodbye 'til next year...and the day I forgot my camera. Seriously.

So...I could have gone on but I have said much. I came home all ready for a new year and more in love with this business than ever. I am truly lucky to be able to be paid to do this. And to all my "Queens"- I {heart} you!

**If you read this far, you deserve a prize or something for real! Hey why not! Leave me a comment (if you don't have a blogger account, just comment as 'anonymous' and sign your name) Then in a week or two I will send a fab surprise to some random winners. Of course I will post the winners here too. Thanks for listening to me ramble. My first blog candy, yay! **

I guess that is my "Convention 2008" synopsis.

Celebrate, we did!

The End.