Such Fun

Hello my darling dumplings I trust that you are all having a Superb Sunday. I had a Fantastic Friday and a Sensational Saturday courtesy of my affiliation with Stampin’ Up and the InKing Royals.

On Saturday I, along with 159 other Stampin’ Up demonstrators, attended an event at the Cobb Galleria put on by Brian King (my upline) and his SU upline Pam Morris. The event was called “Brian’s Spring Stamp-Along. There was stamping, games ( unfortunately I lost, Miss Hammie is lovable not athletic) and presentations of great projects by several extraordinary demonstrators, including Julie DiMatteo, Candy Ford, Amy Koenders and Brian King, that I CASE and learn new tips and techniques from on a regular basis.  Don’t let me forget to mention the swaps. There was a regular swap and after the event ended Pam Morris held a Shoebox swap. By this point Miss Hammie who had been up until about 2:00 preparing for the weekend activities had run out of gas so to speak. I did more chatting and laughing than I did stamping and creating. I have to say all the cards that were created for Pam’s swap were beautiful. To the ladies there Miss Hammie wishes she had some of your creativity. While we at the Shoebox Swap were stamping, creating or in Miss Hammie’s case running the old mouth-a-rooney, others who qualified by promoting to Silver Elite level or above were partying at CentreStage. It was an 80’s themed event. I was going to include an adorable picture of Brian in his MTV tee shirt, but for some silly reason I enjoy breathing. Seriously all kidding aside he wouldn’t care one teeny tiny bit, but your mind’s going to conjure up a funnier picture anyway. So dumplings create a mental picture of someone 6’5” in shorts, tube socks and a MTV tee shirt. I’m actually planning to print and frame that picture and hang it in my craft room for inspiration.

Then came Saturday and the main event Stampin’ Up’s OnStage Local event. It was also held at the Cobb Galleria. I was reading comments about the venue and tried to reason out the why’s.  The Galleria is 1. Large enough to accomodate an event of this size. 2. It is basically surrounded by hotels. 3. It’s close to the highway for easy access from surrounding states and 4. Except st certain times the traffic isn’t really hard to negotiate.  Then I thought about venues in “the City of Atlanta” and Fulton County. The World Congress Center, or the International  Convention Center are both large enough venues. So I thought some more about other factors. For example proximity to hotels, or traffic. Miss Hammie loves her hometown, truthfully I can only think of one other place I might want to live and it’s in another country. However that disclaimer being stated even though there are sufficient hotels downtown that are relatively close to the WCC, the traffic is horrible and parking leaves a lot to be desire. There’s plenty of it, but it’s difficult to negotiate.  The ICC probably has enough parking and there are quite a few hotels, but you’re a stone’s throw from the airport which equals noise and traffic.  Now hold on to your hats because when OnStage Local returns to Atlanta, and it will, there’s going to be a new venue that will be everything that anyone could want, and it will tick every box. It will be part of what’s in the works, on paper at least, near the new Mercedes Benz stadium.  Now back to the subject that I veered so far from OnStage Local. Registration, which is actually the picking up of your event identification and your “swag bag” since we actually registered and paid in January I think, started at 7:30am ( people line up waaay before then). Then you find a place to sit either with friends or people who look fun that you want to be friends with. There’s an introduction, there’s advice on business building, there are presentations and all of it was GREAT!!! However when you attend the April OnStage, there’s a November OnStage too, you get to be among the first to receive a copy of the new Annual catalog to see, hold, touch, and drool over.  You get to see new stamp sets, new ink and paper colors basically all the new products. Most importantly though is PRIZE PATROL where they give you, that’s right Miss Hammie said GIVE YOU, new products. You  even get to make cards using some of the new products. The bad part is while we’re practically bursting to share all we learned we can’t, at least not until tomorrow. Stampin’ Up did issue a challenge that I can tell you about as a way to help demonstrators build their businesses. It’s a 6 months challenge where we challenge ourselves to do better than we did a year ago in sales and recruiting. Now some demos will attempt the challenge others won’t, but who doesn’t try to improve each year. When I was teaching it was how many of my students made Honor Roll or Principal’s List or who made a better grade in a subject second quarter than first. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll try, probably.

Aaah, real life is calling so I have to answer. Be good my sweet dumplings I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

TTFN

Author: Miss Hammie's Crafts

I am an Independent Stampin' Up demonstrator. I enjoy paper crafting and teaching various types of crafting to others. View all posts by Miss Hammie's Crafts