Here are some highlights from my 4-plus days in Orlando. I went down to Orlando on Tuesday, just because I like to chillax and acclimate before the event. My BFF, Lynn, joined me on Wednesday, and we headed straight to Cocoa Beach! Here I am relaxing, totally in the shade, just the way I like to "beach"!
Lynn and I had dinner at a great local restaurant on the beach. Isn't this a goregous view?
It's a good thing we took a few minutes to relax because the next few days are FILLED with exciting things to do at the Stampin' Up OnStage event!
Here Lynn and I are posing before the show starts. See how close we are to the stage?!
You've got to get there early and wait in line for hours to get seats like that. Luckily, our friend, and my Stampin' Up downline team member, Annette, loves to get there early. Lynn and I were early-ish, but never as early as Annette! Here's Annette with the stamp set she won during the first prize patrol of the session!
Here's Sara Douglass, Stampin' Up's CEO, and her mother and Stampin' Up co-founder, Shelli Gardner. Both Sara and Shelly are so funny and enthusiastic about stamping and they're both talented artists and demonstrators. The crowd goes wild every time they come to the stage.
My favorite OnStage demonstration is when Sara and Shelli stamp together. They're hilarious! This year, Sara brought two of her daughters up on stage to stamp with her. It's a family tradition.
Another of my highlights was meeting many of the members of the Creation Station Design Team. These ladies are so talented and nice and amazing. Some of us were able to go to dinner together to get better acquainted. We missed some team members who attended the Pacific area OnStage Local.
And I fan-girled all over Teneale Williams, one of my all-time favorite stampers. She came to Orlando all the way from Sydney, Australia. You should take a look at Teneale's work on her blog. I'm sure she'll inspire you as much as she inspires me!!
Every attendee waits for that special moment when the new catalog is revealed and Stampin' Up didn't make us wait too long. They unveiled the upcoming 2019 Occasions and Sale-a-Bration catalogs right at the beginning of the opening session. They also revealed that they are phasing out wood stamps and will offer only photopolymer and cling stamps. The cling stamps are awesomesauce! We got to use them on our make-and-takes (which you'll have to wait for because I'm still working through wonderful items in the annual and Holiday catalogs)!
Here's the tabletop display with all the stamp sets, ink, paper, and embellishments for our make-and-takes. Even the tabletop displays have that special Stampin' Up touch! Each table had a "vintage" photo from Stampin' Up's past. This one is Shelli in a tub full of stamps!
We got all kinds of swag in our convention bag. Look!
And there were several all-attendee giveaways in addition to the Prize Patrols. Here's what we got. The top bag is a tool kit holder and the bottom pouch opens up into a large tote bag!!
See that little note? Everyone got a signed note from Sara and Shelli in our lunches! All 6000-plus of us!!
We also got a new stamp set in our convention bag. Everyone won another set during prize patrol. And there were TWO more sets given away in an all-attendee prize patrol along with a pack of the new Gingham Gala 6" by 6" Designer Series Paper! Stampin' Up is sooo generous to us!
Wow! That's a lot of stuff and a lot of fun, isn't it? I'll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled program of card sharing. I had a whole week ready to go for you that I had hoped would post while I was whooping it up in Orlando. But, I ran out of time to get the projects posted and my computer has been so s-l-o-w lately (hubby fixed it for me!!). I'll be sharing the cards I made to swap at OnStage and then I'll share some of my favorite swap cards I got in return!
See you tomorrow!
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