Day 3 of Convention Highlights

My agenda for our final day at Convention:

• I am Earning an Incentive Trip Class with Karen Hauley - I was so inspired by what Jill Hilliard, Meg Holland & Cynthia Millan shared during this class.  Maybe I can earn this trip afterall...
• I am Doing Business "My Way" Class with Bonnie Thurber - Ronda Wade and Tami White had some fabulous business tips to share during this class.  I can't wait to apply them to my business when I get back from vacation!
• Make-n-Takes using Affection Collection - we made a cute little pouch with a fabric flower and a cool card that I will be showing at my upcoming parties!  Book a party in August, if you want to make this card!

• Lunch - Choco tacos!!
• Closing General Session - For the first time ever, the beginning of this session was streamed live when Shelli announced that our Incentive trip you can earn this year (July 2012 - June 2013) will be a Western Carribean cruise with ALL the world-wide demonstrators who earn this trip!  Setting sail May of 2014...  Shelli and Stampin' Up! totally surprised us with not one, but TWO FREE stamp sets at our closing session!  How awesome is that?!  I can't wait to use the Ronald McDonald sets at my workshops to help such a great cause.  Did you know that Stampin' Up! donates $3 for each stamp set sold??
• Dinner - My mom, sister and I headed over to Red Rock to meet my husband and kids for dinner.  Just a FYI, don't try to head there early if you have a party of 5 or more... they won't seat you until EVERYONE arrives...  Not that I'm bitter.  ;) 

All I can say, is that this was a memorable Convention.  Just like always...  I hope you can join me next year!  Head to my website starting tomorrow to sign up with the Howl-o-ween Printer Tray bonus!
Tammi

Day 2 of Convention Highlights

My Agenda for the day:

• General Session - I think one of my favorite memories is of Shannon West coming out on stage dressed as a very glittery witch!  Too cool!  She demonstrated some amazing Halloween and fall projects.  One of her projects was a fabulous Howl-o-ween Printer's Tray and we were told that new recruits will receive this kit for FREE when they sign up August 1st - 30th!  WOW!!

          Bonnie Thurber, who we found out wants to marry Santa, came out after Shannon and showed some great Christmas samples!

• I am Open for Business Class with Carrie Cudney - Start looking in some of your favorite magazines for the new Stampin' Up! ads.  They are beautiful and fun!  I get most of my magazines on my Nook, but I'll have to buy a paper copy so I can tear the ads out and frame them.  I'm serious!  They are really that cool!  Let me know when you see one.  If you haven't liked my facebook page, please do!!  It's such a simple way to find out what I have going on with Stampin' Up!  I also learned that I really need to start making videos to post.  Stay tuned!
• Lunch
• Make-n-Takes using You're Amazing - I only finished my card, but it was my favorite project that we made during the whole Convention.  I have to mass-produce this card, so I can actually give it to someone.  ;)  I LOVE this stamp set!  I will post a picture of my finished scrapbook page when I get back from Disneyland!

All my scrapbook page supplies...

What my scrapbook page should look like, minus the photo.  :)

• I am Having Fun Class with Shannon West - If you want a good laugh, check out The Lion by Greer Childers on YouTube.  Too funny!  Shannon discussed using the 5 senses to bring out the most fun in your classes and parties.  I am going to try this at my next Bunco... Stampin' Up! Style event coming up in Boise on August 21st.  Check out my Facebook Page for details.
• General Session - It's always fun to see Shelli stamping on stage.  She showed us an incredible journal that she had made that is right on trend with what I'm seeing in craft magazines and online everywhere!  She used so many of our stampin' tools and accessories that I can't wait to work on my journal!
• Dinner - we were meeting some of our Stampin' Addicts friends for dinner, so we walked over to Tucano's to have all-you-can-eat on-a-stick.  Okay... maybe it wasn't all on a stick, but the Minnesota part of me thought it was.  Make sure you have an appetite when you go there.  Yum!!  The grilled pineapple is the best!  Glad we walked there and back, so I didn't feel so guilty.

After dinner, we headed back to the Convention Center to take the rest of our Inspiration Board pics while it wasn't so crowded.  Then we headed back to our hotel room to enjoy a nice glass of wine and look at all of our cool swaps!

Final Convention day is next!
Tammi

More Family Fun at Disneyland

I love this place!  To me, it really is the 'Happiest Place on Earth.'  Here are a couple fun pictures of our family and just the kids.

I wish everyone a very happy week!

Tammi

Fun Times in Disneyland!

We are having a fabulous time in Disneyland!  I wanted to show you the little gift I made my kids, and my daughter's boyfriend, just for our trip. 

The red are for the girls and the yellow are for the boys.  I added some candies & gum to the little pails.  I added some ponytail holders to Kylie's, too.  :) 

I made a cute little Mickey Mouse cover using our 1" and 1 3/8" circle punches, some black brads from our Neutral collection and some tape I had.  These are those little $1 notebooks from Target and I thought they would be perfect to carry around to get autographs and/or write down memories.

Hope your summer is as eventful and fun as ours has been!
Tammi

Day 1 of Convention Highlights

Our agenda for the day:

• General Session - Our theme this year was 'I am..." and we were asked to finish the phrase.  I, of course, wrote, "I am chatty!"  :)  The highlight of the morning was my favorite motivational speaker we have had at any Convention, Jason Dorsey!  Check him out on Facebook.  He was funny and really knew what he was talking about when it came to Gen Y and Baby Boomers.  I really want to buy his book now!  I also got a bit of swapping in!  Check out my swap bag my sweet friend, Ralynn got me!

My swaps fit perfectly!!

• I am Savvy Class with Donna Griffith.  Great demonstrations by Dawn Griffith (So many different ways to use our ribbon!  Loved her suggestion to pull the stitching on our Stitched Grosgrain to gather the ribbon.), Laura Milligan (Loved her apron made with our fabric!) and Meg Wheeler (I never realized we could do so many things with our new Noel kit coming up in our Holiday mini.)
• Lunch - Time to take more pictures of the Inspiration boards
• Make-n-takes using Daydream Medallions and Affection Collection - Okay... I had a bit of an issue with these projects.  I got a little stressed out because I don't like to take the time to line up my stamps and use the Stamp-a-ma-jig.  This led to me just trying to stamp them straight and... well... it didn't quite look the same as the sample.  ;)  I was also getting ink all over my hands from cleaning the stamps with baby wipes... HUGE selling pitch for our Stampin' Scrub!!  They are soooo much better and cleaner than baby wipes!  Anyway, here are the rest of the projects, which I do like.  I can't wait to try this set with the coordinating framelits!

Hmmm... guess I should have used the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

3 x 3 Cards made with Daydream Medallions and Affection Collection Stamp Sets

Cute paper bow!

• I am Reaching Out Class with Emily Montoya - More great ideas on reaching more customers, hostesses and recruits.  I guess I'm not really following the "short blog posts" suggestion... 
• General Session - Lots of My Digital Studio ideas and information!!  The newest version, MDS2 will be available August 1st!  So many new functions, that you will just have to check it out!  Click on the link at the right to head to the My Digital Studio website!
• Dinner - Fabulous dinner and wine at Cafe Molise
• Awards Night - It is so motivating to see how hard these top demonstrators have worked to win these awards!  Congratulations to all of them!

That's it for now!  I'll try to keep Day 2 a little shorter... ;)  Told you, "I am chatty!"
Tammi

Highlights from our Pre-Convention Day

I wanted to post about all the class, general sessions and make-n-takes we did each day, so I'll be posting those next.  First, I want to share about all of the excitement when I arrived at Convention last Wednesday!  After a yummy lunch at MacCool's in Layton, which is one of my favorite places to eat, I headed to downtowm Salt Lake City with my mom and sister.  

It was a little too early to check into our hotel, so we just headed straight to the Convention Center to get our cute bag full of goodies.  It's so fun to see what it looks like each year!  We didn't want to swap until Thursday, so we just checked out Memento Mall and all the amazing sample boards.  There were some really cool demonstrations going on by the Memento Mall, so we got some great ideas and were able to see the new paper cutter.  I can't wait until it is available!

We headed back to the hotel to check in and get our swaps for our Stampin' Addicts gathering that evening.  It was about 5 blocks from our hotel, so we got a good walk in, too.  I just have to say that the Stampin' Addicts are awesome!  There are so many creative people in that group!  I can't wait to show you all my swaps, but for now... here's just a few.

Some of my swaps I got back.  The Christmas card is by my sister, Stacy McCain.  The two 3 x 3 cards are by my mom, Cris McCarthy.  (She even made cute envelopes using our Simply Scored Tool.)  The trading card is by Lisa Dallas.  (I never would have thought to use the Pleasant Poppies stamp on a small card... so cute!)

Some of my swaps I got back.  My Over-the-Top card, a Christmas Card and One Layer Card by my sister, Stacy McCain and a 3D swap post-it note holder by my mom, Cris McCarthy.

My bag full of Treat Holders!  I can't wait to have these on display!!

A few of us Stampin' Addicts... Paula Wright, me (Tammi Verbarendse), Missi Roeber & Stacy McCain.

After we had our fun swapping, we headed over to Squatters Brew Pub for some much needed refreshments.  ;)

What a fun day and we hadn't even officially started Convention yet!  Check back for Day 1 highlights.

Tammi

My Favorite Things about Convention 2012 Continued

I was afraid my last post would be WAY TOO long, so I thought I would split it up and post the rest of my favorite things about Convention today.

• Make-n-takes!!



I loved the bags our Make-n-Takes came in this year!  I will be posting the finished projects from each set later this week!

• Classes

Carrie Cudney on stage during our I Am Open For Business class during Convention 2012



Some of the fabulous samples from our I Am Savvy class hosted by Donna Griffith during Convention 2012
Dawn Griffith, Laura Milligan and Meg Wheeler demonstrated some great ideas!

• Tons of creative inspiration from the Inspiration Boards to the Main Stage Stamping demos



Ideas using our new You're Amazing stamp set we received



Fun Halloween projects sent in from other demonstrators



Some more great samples... my mom's card is in the top left corner.



Shannon West had some amazing samples.  Here is a beautiful candle created with Stazon!



My favorite out of Shannon West's samples AND you can earn this for FREE by signing up with me as a new Stampin' Up! Demonstrator in August!  Check back for more information about this great special, and some fun bonuses from me!



Everyone loves to see Shelli Gardner stamping on stage!  She made a memorable journal!

• Motivational speaker - Jason Dorsey was the best speaker we have had so far! At least in my opinion...

Jason Dorsey receiving a 1st place ribbon from Rich Jutkins for speaking at our 2012 Convention

• and, who can resist, FREE Stampin' Up! goodies!!!!! Shelli and Stampin' Up! really outdid themselves this year by giving away two free stamp sets during our closing session! Not to mention the Convention set AND the free embellishments we got each day during our Make-n-takes.

Our exclusive Convention 2012 I Am stamp set

As you can see, there are so many fun things that happen at Convention.  I really hope you decide to join me next year when Stampin' Up! celebrates 25 years as an awesome company!

I promise to continue posting more samples and information, but I am also getting ready for a wild and crazy trip to Disneyland and San Diego!  What a fabulous summer!!
Tammi

I Am Excited To Share All My Stampin' Up! Convention 2012 Goodies!

Wow!  What a fabulous Convention we had!  I wanted to share all my items that I received or bought during Convention and list my favorite things about Convention, so... Here we go!

• The excuse to be creative the month before Convention starts to work on card swaps! 
• Spending fun girl time with my mom, Cris McCarthy and sister, Stacy McCain.

• Meeting up with my Stampin' Up! friends.

• The excitement of picking up my Convention bag and finding all the goodies and stamp sets inside!  I love finding my pin for the year!  I was in love with the Convention book & pen, too!

• Memento Mall!!

Come back tomorrow to see my finished list of Favorite Things about Convention 2012!
Tammi

Convention 2012 Highlights Video

If you've ever wondered what a Stampin' Up! Convention is like, check out this video!

Have a great day! 
Tammi

A Couple More Swap Cards

I decided to give myself a little more time to write about Convention, so here are a couple more quick swaps I created for Convention.  I was limited on time, so I pre-cut and stamped everything and put them together at Convention.  They gave me an extra 20 cards to swap!

Quick Birthday Cards created by Tammi Verbarendse

Birthday Card created by Tammi Verbarendse
Bring on the Cake Stamp Set, Marina Mist CS & Marker, Tangerine Tango CS & Marker, Polka Dots Parade DSP (Marina Mist), Summer Smooches DSP (Tangerine Tango), Whisper White CS, Basic Gray Ink Pad, Daffodil Delight Marker, Subtle Brads (Marina Mist), Apothocary Framelits, Big Shot

Birthday Card created by Tammi Verbarendse
Bring on the Cake Stamp Set, Real Red CS & Marker, Island Indigo CS & Marker, Summer Smooches DSP, Whisper White CS, Basic Gray Ink Pad, Daffodil Delight Marker, Brights Brads (Real Red), Apothocary Framelits, Big Shot

I promise the next post will have plenty of pictures from Convention!!

Tammi