West Philly Stamper

Tea Time

 The theme for the Founder's Circle retreat - The Tea Shop! Our central gathering place at the hotel was decorated in a Victorian/vintage theme with hand-stamped items, tea cups, pillows made with our gorgeous new fabrics, etc. The night of our first dinner we each had a tea cup at our place, with three roses and we get to take that tea cup home too. I arrived back at my hotel room to find a pillow gift too! A nice sturdy chocolate colored box that holds Big Shot dies, and it was full of supplies for our make and takes!  

My very own hotel room!

For Founder's Circle, Stampin' Up! flew us to St. George, Utah, and booked individual rooms for us at the Marriott. Here is a picture of my hotel room door, my dinner group from the first night, and the meal we ate together - filet mignon wrapped in bacon! It is an honor and very inspiring to be spending so much time with Stampin' Up!'s top demonstrators! There are many women here who sell stamps and recruit demonstrators 4 times as much as I do! We are always sharing ideas and comparing notes on our businesses just casually hanging out and relaxing together. 

Kanab is where they make the stamps!

I'm in Utah through Sunday at the 2011 "Founder's Circle" retreat with the top 100 demonstrators. They are pampering us soo much! Today we had a trip to Kanab, to see the facility where they actually make the stamps. I got to die cut a sheet of stamps, and see the process of how a stamp set is made start to finish. It revealed to me the value of our products! There is so much that goes into the process before it ends up in a box that arrives via UPS to my house. 

Here I am sitting in the playground in a lovely town park, which Shelli Gardner's family built up years ago. What am I sitting on? Bits of recycled rubber from the stamps! Now that'd be a safe landing for any kid who fell from playground equipment. (Heaven forbid!) 

Kristin and I got to go on this trip together this year. (Last year she was on her own, as this is my first year earning this trip). I liked what she said today - "we are here because of each other." I'm sure she's going to cry when she reads this post.  

The Kanab facility is a fairly new building, so bright and cheerful. The employees LOVE working there. This is a big group of them waiting for us with signs as we got off the buses today. They gave us high 5's and clapped for us as we walked in for our tour:0) 

Peace Within

Peace Within is a great set. I like the Adirondack chair. I'm headed to the Adirondack Mountains soon for a vacation! My family lives up there and they have a reunion around this time of year. The sponging is just on the edge, and I left the middle uninked, so that it is sort of highlighted. 

 

Love and Care stamp set, one last sample...

This card was one of the 10 in a recent "10-10-20" card class I organized in July. A 10-10-20 is a class of 10 cards, which take 10 minutes or less each, for $20. That pretty lace border is one of our new punches. The colors are Pool Party and Lucky Limeade. 

Love and Care stamp set sample by Chris

This was Chris Lauth's swap card from a Philly Inkers meeting a little while back. She embossed the image in white on white card stock, and then sponged ink over the image which resisted the color b/c it is embossed. The card won the swap contest at that meeting :0)   

Love and Care stamp set part 3

This card features the rock and roll technique, with one ink pad. (I stamped the flower image off once, and then went back for more Pacific Point ink, just by rolling the image's outer edges in the stamp pad.)

 

Love and Care part 2

The jury is still out on this card I made with the Love and Care summer mini hostess set. Black-eyed susans, (or something). Happy weekend! 

 

 

Love and Care summer mini hostess set

This set is so fun for rock and roll technique, as well as the brush marker technique of coloring different colors on a bold image stamp before stamping. For the rock and roll on this card, I used the same color - Rich Razzleberry. I stamped off once and then went back for more ink just rolling the stamp's edges in the ink pad before stamping. (Usually with rock and roll you stamp with two colors.) 

The scooter

This is the scooter image from the stamp set I mentioned in Thursday's post. And the new Houndstooth embossing folder. I love the sentiment with this set - Every Day is the Perfect Adventure. 

The card below is a case of Dawn Olchefske's On the Grow card. The flower is from this brand new punch.