All good things must come to an end, they say, and certainly the 2013 Stampin’ Up! Convention did with a bang! Yes, real bangs! Fireworks and confetti! Of course my camera battery died at the exact moment, but with a quick change, I was able to get a tiny video of the sparkle and glimmer!
Glitter and Confetti at end of Stampin’ Up! Convention
(Don’t know how to add a video in this new blog but hopefully this works.) (nothing great, but something!)
Today was travel day and it seemed to take all day since I was up extremely early in order to perhaps beat the other 5000 or so demos leaving today. It actually went fine, I was just SO tired and carrying my heavy SU backpack from Convention with my laptop, a one bag of swaps to look at, catalogs, snacks, etc. It’s fun having something to visibly identify you as a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator because we can easily pick out other demos to chat with and also other people are wanting to know who we all are with the matching bags! That’s a great opportunity to share with them the fun job we have as demonstrators and tell them about stamping. My flight from Salt Lake City to Denver was really fun as I got to sit with two other very friendly demos and we just chatted the whole way about Convention and Stampin’ Up! I felt a little sorry for the people in the row in front of us who probably wondered if we would ever be quiet! After a two-hour layover in Denver I finally made it back to Houston by 4:00. It’s always sad to leave the last event of Convention after all the long anticipation and say goodbye to all the other demos.
We barely had any free time after things got rolling with Convention so I haven’t even looked at my swaps yet! Can you believe that? Downloading all my photos was extremely time-consuming (not sure if the hotel internet was slow or if I wasn’t doing something right) (or else the internet was saying ‘Are you kidding me??! All these photos??’) so I really didn’t get to post more on my blog. But I’ll try to catch up this week.
In a nutshell, Shelli’s daughter Sara presented on stage yesterday. She was wonderful. She has her mother’s personality and smile and the projects she showed were great. They also had the anniversary marches across the stage so I got to walk across for being a demo for ten years! In the last general session Bonnie Thurber from Stampin’ Up!, always a favorite, had us laughing our heads off with her fun demonstration and comments! In the past, sometimes she would sing at Convention but we didn’t get that treat this year.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Shelli presented the Heart of Stampin’ Up! award to a demo who I remember from when I was new to Stampin’ Up!. That award is always a touching one and never fails to bring Shelli to tears just reading the nominations.
We also got to see the “commercials” some demos created. This year they were so good they had to give out a fourth place award. I thought 4th place was so good I couldn’t imagine any others being better, but it was fun to watch all of them and what talent by these demonstrators to come up with these videos! They each won a shopping spree!
The last group of Prize Patrol winners won EVERY stamp set in the upcoming Holiday Catalog….maybe consolation prize for being the last ones! All of us got the Yippee-Skippee stamp set as one last party favor!
There’s so much more to tell but it’s time for bed!