The Maui Stamper

Fantastic day – but oh, my feet!

Crystal and I stayed up past 2am last night – that’s only 10pm Hawaii time so it was ok – planning and comparing notes and laughing at the dumbest things.  It was a little grim getting up this morning but we made it to the Opening Session this morning with time to spare.  Found seats with our new friends Tara and Shannon:

The always charming, always stylish Shannon West shared Halloween projects from the new Holiday Mini (live to customers on August 1st!) and she did it in Shannon West Style:

Sorry, this is shot from the video screen – don’t you LOVE her??

Before she left the stage – and I’ll be sharing some photos of her projects another post – she shared a sneak peak bonus available to new Stampin’ Up! demonstrators in August.  Buy the completely customizable $99 demonstrator kit, get a discount on all your Stampin’ Supplies, and get a kit with everything you need to make this project:

We had great morning classes – the presentations by the Stampin’ Up! home office have been wonderful.  Brian Pilling did a great job sharing leadership skills in “I am a Leader” and had us all cracking up with his examples of bad leadership style (“I am in charge.  I can do what I want because I learned it.”)

From Brian’s class we went to Karen Hauley’s “I am earning an Incentive Trip” panel.  We were ALL EARS as we listened to three successful demonstrators share their tips – but before they started, Karen shared her personal “I am” story.  She  told us of getting that dreaded telephone call from her doctor and showed us her new favorite tee “Of course they’re FAKE; my real ones tried to KILL me”!  A sense of humor is essential in life, but as Karen told us, she’s a survivor!

We took a break for lunch and spent some time looking at the AMAZING project samples.

I have a lot of project photos and will do my best to share as many as possible over the next few days!

After lunch it was back to Shannon West – the QUEEN of FUN.  Who else could run the I am having FUN class?  She had us dancing in the aisles, sharing what was on our nightstands (talk about an ice breaker!) and laughing at her Back-Street-Boys-Groupie stories.  Her message was a simple and to the point – keep it fun!

Our final session of the day was Main Stage presentations.  The highlight was Shelli’s stamping presentation, and everyone’s favorite project was her gorgeous altered book.  Because of the personal nature of the book she said she wouldn’t display it in the Demonstrator Resource Center, so I took photos from the video screens.  It’s similar to a Smash Book, if you’re familiar with that concept, but she designed it as a creative journal:

This is the cover – complete with a tulle rosette (tulle ribbon coming in that Holiday Mini!) She covered an old book in gesso and then inked, spritzed, and stamped it to get that shabby chic look.  This photo doesn’t do it justice.

Shelli shared a few of her interior pages with us – and I’m telling you, she moves her hands around a LOT when she is showing a project!  I think 75% of my photos have one of her hands blurring through the middle.

She took her photo from our Convention workbook (a masterpiece in and of itself) and added it to a page.  Her personal style is as distinct as she is, and it’s always fun to see what her projects look like!

Try as I might, I couldn’t get a decent photo of this page – she was so exited about it her hands were flying!  She cut out the largest heart framelit and used it to mask the right hand page, then spritzed like made to get this look.  I loved how she took advantage of the written page and how she allowed the elements to layer – the book was very chunky.

There’s so much more to share – I would use the word SATURATED right now to describe how I feel.  I’ll leave you with a few final thoughts:

• Stampin’ Up! is an amazing company that puts service to both demonstrators and customers as a top priority
• Our experience at convention is colored in every way, shape and form by the people and relationships we encounter all day and well into the night – these are lifetime friends
• There is more creativity in this Convention Center than I have ever seen in one place at one time
• Shannon West has it right – We ARE fun!

Tomorrow is the last day – we are going to bed before 2am tonight!