Aug 9, 2010 | My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages, Stampin' Up! Convention, Stampin' Up! Events |
I am continuing to work on my Convention album in My Digital Studio. Apparently I did not do a good job this year of taking pictures. Part of the reason a couple of days was because my battery for the camera died so I couldn’t. And then the other days I guess I just wasn’t thinking clearly about some of those important moments.
This year I earn two special things – one was VIP status on check-in day to get early admission into the Memento Mall. Did I take any pictures of that? No. Not of the sign, not of the inside of Memento mall displays (although I did remember on the last day but it just wasn’t the same then). The VIP status was for getting a recruit at the beginning of July – Thanks Sherri!
The second thing was earning a special Breakfast on Friday morning with Shelli and the Corporate Team and about 200 other demonstrators. That was for being part of the Recruit Crew training program and getting a new recruit during the training – Thanks Stephanie! Did I take any pictures of me at the breakfast, or my table of new friends – Nope. The only pictures I have were of Shelli when she was talking to us. On top of that we got to enter the main stage area from a special entrance early. I should have been taking pictures then too. I’m not sure where my brain was – several special opportunities that may never happen again and no pictures for my scrapbook.
I did get some pictures from the Stampin’ Up! website and Facebook page and my roommates from the Opening Session on Thursday morning. So I created a scrapbook page in My Digital Studio for that and I’m sharing that today.
This year Stampin’ Up! actually closed the home office and had all the employees at the Opening General Session. In the big picture you can see all the employees line up on each side of the entrance in white shirts – two rows on each side to cheer as we came inside. I did not take that picture it was one from Stampin’ Up!
To start each convention when get to hear the new theme song and watch it being performed. I don’t remember who the performers were but I really like the song this year. Very hip and current. And then there were some young dancers on the stage too. Very exciting and fun and we were all standing and cheering the whole time.
For some details about what I did in My Digital Studio – I created the page using one of the photo layouts. You can pull in a photo layout but then it is still fully customizable and you can change anything that you want. I moved one of the photo blocks and then deleted one and replaced with a punch and a text box. My background is from the Happy Birthday Designer Kit – I think it was paper 2. I noticed as I made this page the elements actually coordinated with some of the decorations and things they used at convention on the stage and in the lights and images that they flashed on the walls. I added some embellishments that also came from the Happy Birthday Designer Kit. And some brads too.
One fun thing about My Digital Studio is adding text right on top of your pictures. The text block is actually clear so you can put the text write over the photo and still see the photo. On the page where I have the journaling I used a punch to add a piece of designer paper behind my words so that they would be easier to read. The background was too busy for the text. My photos and my punched piece are all matted with a thin white mat.
I hope to be finished with the whole album later this week. Have a great week!
Aug 5, 2010 | My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages, Stampin' Up! Convention |
I have been working on a My Digital Studio project the past couple of days. I decided to take the pictures I have from the Stampin’ Up! Convention and create an album in My Digital Studio that I can show as a slide show with the Share What You Love theme song playing in the background. I have about 6 pages done and love it so far. I thought I would share one of the pages with you. This is one of my favorite ones so far – these are pictures I took of all the flowers and gardens at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Every year we want to go there but never have time. So this year we decided not to plan anything for the day we arrived – which was Tuesday – and use that time to walk around and visit Temple Square.
I just love all the pretty flowers. The photo in the center of the bottom row is of a family of quail (I think that is what they are). Michele, Diane and Becky stopped to talk to someone and as I turned around I notice this large group of birds waddling across the sidewalk from one section of the gardens to another. Well you know me I had to go check it out. I got over there with my camera just in time. About half of them were already through the bushes and I only got a picture of the last few before they disappeared.
This page was very easy to create in My Digital Studio. I am working with a 12 x 12 album and I started with a blank page. I added a background paper which is the Designer Series Paper in Pear Pizazz Wallpaper print. Then I added a photo layout on top. In the Resource Palette it is the 5th button over and when you hover over it it says – “Click to Access Photo layouts”. Click on that and it brings up a selection of different layouts to choose from. I picked the one I wanted and it adds it to my page. Then I Click over on the little camera (the 1st button) to access my pictures. Browse to the folder on your computer with the pictures you want to use. Then I just click and drag the photos into each box. I normally go back and select each one to adjust the crop to show the portion of the full photograph that I want to see on my page. Last I added a text box with my title. My Digital Studio uses fonts that are loaded on your computer. This happens to be one that I downloaded for free and is not a standard font.
I hope to post the entire slide show to my blog when it is finished. So hopefully I can figure out how to do that.
Have a great day – I spent most of it shopping with Kyle to get him ready for college. We had a long list of little things to buy – an alarm clock was at the top and I made him get a little hand held vacuum for keeping his dorm room clean too.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jul 31, 2010 | Stampin' Up! Convention, Stampin' Up! Events |
One of our favorite classes at Convention is the Make ‘N Take class. In our convention bag we get stamp sets that we use to make our projects during the class. This year for the first time we got to choose if we wanted Wood stamp sets or Clear stamp sets. I think everyone was happy to have the choice. Do you wonder what I chose? It was Wood. I really like the feel of the wood blocks, but I do love the storage of the clear mount – so I go back and forth and have a mixture right now.
I wanted to share some pictures of us real quick. I didn’t actually take pictures of what we made – stupid me. So I’ll have to do that later and put those in another post. We had one other person at our table that took our picture for us – I can’t remember her name but “Thank You” for doing that. I also took some of us individually working on our projects.
Becky
Diane
I think every picture I took of Diane I have three versions – the first and the second one either she is making a weird face or has her glasses on and then the third one I get a good one without the glasses and a nice smiling face!
Michele
That’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by.
Jul 30, 2010 | Big Shot, Cards, Punch Art, Stampin' Up! Convention |
My Bobble-head Dog card was very popular at the two meetings I shared it at. He is really cute in person. First I made them for a full-card swap for the UDI dinner and then I also used it as my demo at the Udderly Awesome gathering. I told everyone at my demo that I would share some more details on how I made the punch-art dog and the card since they didn’t actually get one. Everyone also wanted to know where the inspiration came from so I wanted to show you that too. Here is the link to my original post during convention – CLICK HERE – there are more pictures and some of the creation process on that post.
The swap for the UDI dinner had some specific guidelines and based on those I was thinking of ideas in my head. Every day I walk into the house from my car and past a metal dog that hangs on the wall – that became my inspiration for this card. Looking at him gave me the idea for the Bobble-head – after I had my idea I just had to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted.
Here is a picture that Sandy took of me doing the demonstration at the Udderly Awesome gathering – I got there late so if you left early you missed it. I didn’t even remember Sandy taking the picture but I was looking directly at the camera so I guess I knew it was happening at the time.
The head on the dog bobbles or spins or whatever you want to call it.
I created a separate Cherry Cobbler panel that I punched a small circle in using the new little circle in the punch pack.
I used a jumbo brad and put it through the hole. Because it isn’t tight it wobbles around in the hole.
I attached this panel to the front of the card with Stampin’ Dimensionals to keep it raised so the brad could move.
The dog head is glued to the top of the jumbo brad – I used the Tombow glue for this. The dogs body is then attached to the card with Stampin’ Dimensionals so that it tucks behind the head.
Here are some details on the punches I used to create the dog. All the white pieces were sponged with Black StazOn ink.
Head = Wide Oval punch
Tongue = end of Wide Oval punch (then add chunky red glitter)
Snout = Jumbo Heart punch – with the point folded over
Nose = tip of Jumbo Heart punch (then add chunky black glitter)
Eyes = large circle punch from the Crop-A-Dile and white gel pen
Ears = Modern label punch – with one end rounded
Body = Wide Oval Punch
Legs = Modern Label punch – cut in half – mark toes with black marker
Tail = thin strip of black card stock cut on the paper trimmer and curled around a skewer
Big spot = piece from the butterfly punch
Small spots = random pieces of card stock or black marker
Bone = Modern Label punch – trim out the insides to make it skinny – words were printed using My Digital Studio on card stock and then punched
I hope that answered the rest of the questions that people had about this card. I was so excited that everyone loved it so much.
Thanks for checking in with me today!
Jul 29, 2010 | Stampin' Up! Convention, Stampin' Up! Events |
One of the best things about the Stampin’ Up! Convention is all the friends that you get to make. I saw friends that I have made from earlier events that I only see this one time a year, and made new friends almost everywhere along the trip including at the airport on the way and at the airport after I got back I ran into another demo who was also trying to find her luggage from our canceled flight.
I felt really special when someone recognized me from my blog! That was the highlight for me to have someone say “Your Monika Davis!” It always made me feel so good – thanks so much to everyone that came up to me at convention! Here are some of the pictures of new and old friends from convention this year.
Michele, Diane, Becky and Me - Roommates 2010
Michele and I met at my first convention – I needed a roommate and found her through one of the demonstrator groups – we met for the first time in the hotel room we shared that year. Two conventions later she brought Diane along and I brought Sue (who couldn’t come this year) and the four of us roomed together for a couple of years. Since Sue couldn’t join us this year I put out a note that we were looking for a roommate and Becky answered so we met her this year in the hotel room we shared. Michele and Diane are both from Iowa and Becky is from Ohio. The four of us had a great time together this year.
Katy
We met Katy and her group on the bus ride over to the Stampin’ Up! corporate office. We continued to see them throughout the week. I thought we had a picture of their whole group but I couldn’t find it – I think what happened was that we took pictures of their group with their cameras not ours. If I remember correctly they were from Tenn. And Katy was one of the Rising Stars this year – an award that new demonstrators can earn during their first full year with Stampin’ Up!
Me and Maxine
This is my first time to meet Max. She is a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator and an employee at Stampin’ Up! (how fun is that!). She has a group called Utah Divas International which I joined earlier this year to share ideas and business tips. I met many new people in the group at a dinner and swap we had on Friday night.
Becky, Nancy, Carolyn, Libby, Michele, Diane, Monika, Carole and Brenda
We got together with some of the ladies from the STARZ group for dinner on Saturday night. Nancy and Carolyn I met a few years ago and they brought Libby for her first convention – they are all from Texas. Carole I have also known a couple of years and she came in from California. Brenda was a new friend that Becky met earlier in the day that came to convention alone and was staying alone in a hotel so we invited her to join us for dinner – friendships are easy to find at a Stampin’ Up! convention. We all have something in common! Brenda is from Florida.
Sandy and Me
This is me with Sandy Hancock. She is my 4th level upline and lives in California. Her group is the Udderly Awesome group and she had a gathering on Friday night. She asked me to do a demonstration for her gathering and I was so honored. I’ll have another post with more on that.
Robin and Me
This is Robin who I met for the first time in person this year at convention. We have connected online over the year and I was very excited to meet her in person. She is one of the top demonstrators for Stampin’ Up!. She won many of the awards at awards night, was one of the ladies doing demonstrations at the Flower Power Party and was selected for the 2nd year in a row to server on the advisory board for Stampin’ Up! and honor given to only 8 demonstrators each year. She is a Stampin’ Up! Idol!
Becky, Shannon and Me
This one is Becky and I with Shannon West – she is a demonstrator and works for Stampin’ Up!. She was one of the class instructors and did a product demonstration on the main stage the last day of convention. I have met her a couple of time before – she is so nice and loves Diet Coke – can you tell?
Tricia and Me
This was Tricia who I met at the Recruit Crew Breakfast. She is from Canada. We sat together during the morning general session after the breakfast. I met so many other demonstrators – these were the ones I had pictures of. I’m trying now to find the business cards and swaps that I exchanged and see if I can add my new friends on Stampin’ Connection. I’m so excited to have so many new friends! Someone else said that it didn’t matter what airport you were at in the US you could find a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator that could come get you if you were stranded – I guess you just need your computer with you so you can send out the plea – I almost had to do that in Salt Lake City on Sunday but most of the demonstrators were also trying to get home.
Jul 28, 2010 | Stampin' Up! Convention, Stampin' Up! Events |
On the Convention Check-In Day we had a fun Flower Power groovy party. I brought tie-dyed t-shirts and groovy flip-flops for my roommates and I to wear.
Becky, Michele, Diane, Shelli, Sterling, Monika
Stampin’ Up! had all different booths – several demonstration booths – with Demonstrators showing us their creative projects, face-painting, Twister, Hula-Hoop, dancing, games for prizes and a chance to try out for the annual game show that is on stage on the last day of convention. In the past they just picked random demonstrators but this year we had to try out for a chance. They usually model the Stampin’ Up! game show after a real television game show but add a Stampin’ Up! twist to it. The game was the Win it in a Minute – and to try out we had to do the cup stacking (I don’t remember the name exactly). Michele and I decided to try out…
You had to move the Red cup all the way through the stack in under 60 seconds to qualify and then they selected the top 15 times. It sounds easier than it is and some practice would have been a good helpful.
I got mine done in 55.43 seconds – yeah! But nearly good enough to qualify for the on stage game show. Michele took longer and didn’t get in under the minute.
The games on stage were very funny. One was Ribbon Roller – you had to use a Stampin’ Write Marker to wind up a roll of Stampin’ Up! ribbbon and the first to finish was the winner. Another was the cookie one where you move the cookie from your forehead to your mouth using only your facial muscles – hilarious! Then they had the one where you shake a box that is tied around your waist and knock out in our case wood stamp blocks. I think on the real show it is cotton balls or something like that. There were several more games that resulted in one final winner – I think she ended up with $250 Stampin’ Up! Shopping Spree and the other ones that played got $50.
I don’t know what they have in store for us next year but what ever it is it is sure to be fun!
Thanks for stopping by!
This year Stampin’ Up! actually closed the home office and had all the employees at the Opening General Session. In the big picture you can see all the employees line up on each side of the entrance in white shirts – two rows on each side to cheer as we came inside. I did not take that picture it was one from Stampin’ Up!
