Stampin' Up! Convention 2011

 I am home from Salt Lake City, exhausted, but whoooo, what a good time! Pictured here are my roommates Catherine and Sue and a new friend Mike.  Sue bumped into Mike at O'Hare, swapped cards and chatted, then ended up sitting with him on the flight. He was traveling to convention alone, so he often found us to sit with for the big presentations and meals. What a fun guy!

There is a good reason that I never let anyone shoot my picture.I had  no idea my hair was all smooshed under my glasses, and after I had worked on it with the curling iron and everything! Oh brother. I will have to stop doing that when I take them off.

One of the most thrilling things to happen at convention is prize patrol.  After each major new product introduction, they call the prize patrol to run out and give away stamps and tools and paper to attendees, based on your wristband color. Here, Sue won first, scoring a gorgeous large flower stamp set and a spool of new ribbon.  Next, Catherine's color was called and she won a super Christmas stocking set and the matching          

 punch!  There are a lot of prize patrols, but not everyone wins. Not even half the crowd wins, so we were doing great, having half our little group win!  But that wasn't the end, oh no. Next, Mike's color is called and he scores a stamps set and ribbon!  Well, I am so happy for my friends. And who wouldn't be, right? They're so lucky! And I'm soooo happy for them! Sure 3/4 of our little group win an extra stamp set and embellishment to take home!  Suffering succotash. $%%#@!!!

Well, I have to tell you, I am really happy for them, but I don't know why I wasn't the lucky one! Oh well, there's always next year!  And if you could see all the great stuff Stampin' Up! gave me, you would certainly call me ungrateful.  We all came home with 8 new stamp sets, a new collection for the "My Digital Studio" program, mini catalogs for the Holidays, 4 gorgeous cards and a beautiful box to keep them in, what, did I mention. . . 8 new stamp sets? What a fabulous haul!!!

We stayed at the Marriott and had a nervous moment when they couldn't find our reservation. Catherine Healy had become hesly and they kind of thought maybe there was a hesly that would show up later and what her room. Finally, with Shelly Gardner, founder and CEO of SU standing right there, on the right, the hotel manager thought it might be a good idea to give us a room, and damn fast!

It is always such a thrill to get to talk to Shelly! It's like meeting a movie star!

I have so many cards that I swapped, you need to come over and look at the variety and fabulosity of all these projects. Call me, let's make some cards together!

Happy Stamping!
Dee Tollaksen