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!

Hi Stampers ~

We’ll we had a couple guesses on the stamp set and color combination for yesterdays card post, and I will let you know the answers when I get home.  Meanwhile … here was our little shopping excursion.  Ok … I’m not going to drag you through the stores, but show you some of the interesting things we found around the new city center.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the security guy at Tiffany’s … he looked like an FBI agent!

This picture is of the long silver thingee’s …. they moved with the wind and were so pretty and graceful looking, quite unique.

The City Center as they call it, was completed last year … we have been walking around scaffolding for the past 5, it was nice to see it completed.

There are four main building all interconnected, and this is typical of the open areas… some of the streams included fish.  It was very pretty and tranquil and nice to see amidst all the concrete.  Oh my gosh, I’m starting to sound like a tour guide.  I believe this is my 5th or 6th trip to Salt Lake City … It is my mission to see something different each time I come (so far so good!).

Here is one hallways … very nice.  I loved the light fixtures and decided it was time for a photo op with the girls!

All three are members of my downline (stampers who have joined Stampin’ Up! onto my teams of “Star’s”.  From left to right is Kathy, Eileen (my sister) and Cindy.  I do believe this is the 3rd convention with me for all three of them.  We have two more in our group – Brenda and Debi but they were on a site seeing tour of the city.

Hope you enjoyed the little trip …. there will be so much more to come.  Tomorrow we get to check in, get our bags and check out some of the stampin’ stations.  Then at 5 -they will kick off convention with opening session and a meet -n- greet party to follow!  Here we go ………………..!