Stampin Up Convention 2011

I feel so blessed to have been a part of this amazing week's festivities.  It has inspired me to start blogging again.  I love Stampin' Up!  I love everything about it!  I had an amazing time at convention a few weeks ago.   This year it was July 13-16th.  Wednesday I had an opportunity to visit Riverton where the SU headquarters are.  It is a beautiful place.  I couldn't believe it when I saw the waterfall in the middle of the lobby. 

This is the driveway view.  I wanted to stay forever!

I do have to say that it was a very happy and calming place to be.  ALL of the Stampin' Up! employees were so nice and every time I asked someone if they loved their job the answer was a YES with a huge smile to go with it!   Here is a picture of the distribution center where Stampin' Up! has the country flags of where all the employees are from. Here is the Mexican flag representing my raza! Loved that! 

The first morning we were greeted by all of the SU employees.  Shelli had all of the employees from Riverton bussed in to greet us on Thursday morning.  They were all lined up on each side of the entrance and high fived us as we made our way into the event.  That was a wonderful moment, I even teared up a bit.

I bonded with a fellow demonstrator Charlene, she is so sweet you can visit her here.  We shared a lot at convention, we even shared the ride home!  We have decided to motivate each other and work together to go grow in the Stampin' Up! family.  Here she is hard at work on her make n' takes at convention.

The stage was gorgeous and I even got to walk my way across twice.  Once for first time convention attendee and then for recruiting at least one person in the previous year.  I was fortunate to have two recruits this past year.

View from the line to walk across and get recognized.  I think almost everyone that went to convention got to walk across the stage at one point or another, LOL. 

I also got to meet Shelli Gardner.  She is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I have ever met.  I believe getting a picture with her after the awards ceremony was awesome.  We caught her in the hall and there was no line waiting to take pictures.  She was so gracious, I am still in awe of that moment.  Here's my picture.  Don't I look happy?

I just love her!!!

I swapped a few cards, next year I will be more prepared for that, it was crazy swapping.  Here's the card I made to swap.  I will post some of the swaps I received in a later post. 

I am so happy I went to my first convention.  I haven't even mentioned all the great stuff I got for "free".  6 stamp sets, a MDS content CD, the great bag and catalog in a binder.  I spent way too much at Memento Mall.  It was all worth it, all of it.  It will be a yearly event from now on and I'd better start saving now.  Oh and making swaps!  I am going to try and figure out a card that I can easily adapt when the next years catty comes out. 

and that's what it's all about...