Hello Stampers ~

We are having a great time in Salt Lake City!  Today opening session began at 5 pm … a bit different from years past.  I’m sure we will be in for many surprises this week, considering it is their 25th Anniversary.

We begin with a greeting on the convention center doors upon arrival …

Oh my … look at the lines (and this is the back half).  There are approximately 5800 demonstrators in attendance!  This is one of the largest group at Salt Lake if I recall correctly.  We did a “scavenger hunt” … convention related and had a blast – I will post that another time.

Opening session is always kicked off with the Convention theme song “Be the Difference” and this year we had one of the singers from the “VOICE” performing.  It was pretty cool to watch … even pyro-technics this year!

This year marks our 10th year as a sponsor to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.  Through the sales of exclusively designed stamp sets, we have donated over 1 Million dollars (Making a Difference).  Many demonstrators have donated their time and efforts to their local houses.  Shelli (co-founder and CEO) announced that we are now going “international” and our efforts will help children and their families at the Ronald McDonald Houses all over the world.

One of the “fun” things Stampin’ Up! does at Convention is “Prize Patrol”.  We are all given wrist bands and after each demonstration (tonight’s was done by Pam Morgan) the bring out the prize patrol by calling off a color of the wrist bands.  Tonight one of our group members won a prize package: Cindy Schneider!  Congratulations!!     They will be doing this throughout the next few days so I hope my other Star’s are as lucky as Cindy!

ANNOUNCEMENT: For those of you who have been sitting on the fence deciding when you were going to sign up for Paper Pumpkin … time to jump off and release your inner creative goddess!  If you sign up before August 31st … you will receive two months for ONLY $10! (before ship/tax).  If you’re not sure how this works, contact me and I will help.  If you’re ready, just click on the link on my side bar – Paper Pumpkin!

And … to close the session, Shelli and her team sent us off with a brand new stamp set from the new Holiday Catalog!!  Wooo Hooo … I love this set, it’s so cute and it captures 4 seasons!  Watch for cards on upcoming blog posts with this set.

I hope you enjoyed sitting in on opening session with me… there will be so much more.  Can’t wait to create a slideshow of all the fun things we did and share it with you.

Have an awesome day!