Stampin' Up! On Stage!!

Well, hello there!  My oh my oh my do I ever have a ton to share with you today!!  I have spent the last 4.5 days in beautiful, sunny Orlando at the fun, exciting 30th Anniversary On Stage event! Awesome, awesome stuff going on right now!  Gosh!  Where to begin?!!  Maybe you should run and grab a drink and a snack because this is going to take a while! I'll wait...

Ready?!  Ok, let's just dive in!  Things started on Wednesday when we made our way to the gorgeous, gigantic (I am talking huge!!) Orange Country Convention center to pick up our bags and name tags. Stampin' Up! always provides a fun bag at each function with some neat goodies on the inside. It is so exciting; like waking up on Christmas morning!  Here are a few pictures from the Convention center and bag pick up:

Stampin' Up! always makes you feel welcome!

This was our bag with a stamp set, several lovely notebooks and pens, a take n' make to complete at home, our prize patrol pins, a lanyard and our name badges.  The name badge holder opened up to all sorts of fun pockets and nooks and crannies to hold goodies. Fun stuff!! 

Shortly after bag pick up we were on our way to an Aspiring Leader's Training that we signed up for.  It included a really yummy dinner, make n' takes and guest speakers.  We were seated at a table with some wonderful new friends too!  It was a really fun evening!

These were our table gifts.

Dinner part 1.

Dinner main course.

Dessert and coffee!

We all really enjoyed this event! Learned a lot, made new friends and anything that ends with dessert (and coffee!!) is win win in my opinion!

Afterwards we headed back to our room for some midnight stamping!  This is what that looked like:

Little bit of crafting chaos!

Midnight snack! Yes, please!

Any time SU! hosts an event there are almost always swaps going on.  Some people organize themed swaps and some people make general swaps to trade.  I participated in both this year.  Here are some of the swaps I took with me to trade:

I signed up for one of my favorite annual swaps!  It was a mini album swap and I got to see (and hug!!) several of my friends from past years and swaps!  This is the little guy that I made for this swap.

It measures 4.25 x 5.5 and has 7  2 page spreads on the inside.

Lots of fun details on the cover.

Page 1

I just love that deer!!  He is one of the new Distinctive stamps; which basically means that you get two shades of one color in each stamp. It is really very cool!

Page 2

These lights are so much fun!  There is a coordinating punch that goes with this stamp set. 

Page 3.

Stamped and then also punched out with the coordinating punch.

Banners made from left over scraps.  I keep scraps just for this purpose!

Page 4.

Page 5.

Page 6.

Page 7.

Love these bright traditional colors together.

Here is the pile or albums I made for this swap!

I signed up for a second organized swap and this was my card for it.

Side view.

Here they are all together.

I also signed up for a tag swap and this was my tag.

I used lots of texture and layers.  I kept the colors soft and used a strip of gold washi tape along the bottom and a gold faceted gem on the top to add a couple of pops of sparkle.

Here are all of my tags together.

I made a pile of cards to swap generally too!  These are fun because you often have more time to chat with the peeps you swap with!  I just love meeting new people and making new friends!  This was the design for my general swaps.

Next, on to the roomie gifts!  Another fun thing we often do at SU! functions is to exchange roomie gifts with the people you bunk with for your stay.  This time I roomed with 4 other besties, but there were 7 more sweet girls in our group (they stayed in different locations).  I wanted to make a little something for everyone though, so here is what I did:

I made a pile of mini samplers in Fall colors.

Here they all are together without their frame.

Here is one with it's frame on!

I made one a bit larger for my roommates.

It looked like this with it's frame on!

I also made everyone a little box to hold some more goodies! Everyone got one with their initial.

I made everyone a little notebook with their initial to jot down any notes they needed to remember.

Here they are all stuffed full with their goodies!

Our group wanted to do a little something to stand out in the crowd each day.  Day one we all wore bright red scarves with lights in them!   

Now I must admit, I was a little concerned about this before we put them on, but they were a life savor all day long!!  It made finding our group so much easier (and in a group of 7,000 peeps every little bit helps!).  Here I am in my lit up scarf!  

Day 3 we all wore our Princess crowns (which glowed in the dark!).  These also came in super handy when it came down to finding each other in the sea of demos!  Day 2 we all wore lovely embroidered shirts with our group name on them!

There are always fun prizes to be won!  Ours was a beautiful stamp set!

Funny story...this is my buddy Kaye and this is the second time we got won the same stamp set! They distribute bags randomly and we both wound up with the same number!

We ate so much yummy food while we were away!  

This was my dinner one night from the Bone Fish Grill.  It was ah-maz-zing!

And then there was dessert......oh my!  There are no accurate words to describe how incredible this was! I was such a happy girl!

The number of gentlemen Demonstrators is increasing with each function!  I thought this was a cute picture and wanted to share it!

Lovely quote!

Since this celebration marked the 30th anniversary of Stampin' Up!  There were 30's everywhere!

I joined the Stampin' Up! family in 2007 and haven't looked back!  I absolutely love being a part of this company!  I have received so much from my adventures with them.  I have grown as a demo, a person and it has allowed me to channel my creativity into so many avenues.  I have made some amazing lifelong friends and I look forward to many more adventures!

Here are a few of the many, many wonderful people I have met and adore and value and I thank Stampin' Up! every single day for them!

Well, I think that is a pretty good random sampling of the hundreds of pictures I took this past week.  I hope I have given you a fun peek into the wonderful-ness that is Stampin' Up!

I am continuing to build my team and embark on this journey.  If you would like to come along on this fun ride with me  I would love to have you! Send me an email or go and read all about it here. >>>>>>>>>>>http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/annmariebryant/jointhefun (and then send me an email!)

I hope that you  have a wonderful day!  I will be back soonest with lots more to share!