TANNER SMEDLEY WAS IN THE HOUSE with the Sincerely Santa Project Kit!!!...

Last night, we had a special gathering at my upline's (Susan Elise Morton) home to meet with a special guest - Tanner Smedley from Stampin' Up!'s home office!  We were all very excited!

Tanner has worn many hats in the company for the last six years, starting in the call center and working his way through Business Development, Strategic Innovation, Product Development, Product Strategy, and Area Management.  He is now a Demonstrator Development Manager and will work with the Demonstrator Council in the Southeast Region which includes our area.  He was incredibly engaging and we were all greatly interested in what he had to say!

Tanner generously brought a Sincerely Santa Project Kit with him for each of us to make.  Woohoo!  This is just a wonderful kit to create tags.  I love kits because you have everything you need and it's quick and easy to put everything together.  That is so key during the holidays, because aren't we always pressed for time?  The kit includes the supplies to make 30 tags - that's 6 each of 5 designs - and a super cute little tin to keep them all in!  All the ribbon and embellishments are included.  You only need the stamp set, ink and adhesives to put it together.  Here are the sample tags I made:

And a close-up of just the tags.  Remember, that your kit will have enough to make 30 tags!  This is just one of each of the five designs.

Thanks for joining us, Tanner!  It was truly a pleasure.

CHRISTMAS BELLS ARE RINGING CARD SUPPLIES:

• Stamp Sets –  Sincerely Santa (W #148933 $21.00, C #148929 $16.00)
• Ink – Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green
• Accessories –
• Sincerely Santa Project Kit (#148029, $22.00)
• Multipurpurpose Liquid Glue (#110755, $4.00)
• SNAIL Adhesive (#104332, $7.00)
• Stampin' Dimensionals (#104430, $4.00)
• Tools – Take Your Pick (#144107, $10.00)

Here's a video of the Sincerely Santa Project Kit!

LOYALTY REWARDS - When you purchase $50 or more, you qualify for my Loyalty Rewards program!  This Frequent Stamper program is my way of saying "thank you" to my returning customers in appreciation of their business and is in addition to other Stampin' Rewards.  Earn FREE stamps with MarieStamps.com!

ONSTAGE HARTFORD EVENT...

This weekend was Stampin' Up's OnStage Local Events.  I attended the Hartford event and had a great time with all my stampin' friends!  I thought I'd share a few of the pics from the weekend!  I will update this post tomorrow with a sneak peek of the goodies we got at the event.  This shot was with my upline, Melody Tess Rollins (back left) and sidelines Marion Swaim, Monica Giberti and Angela Khan.

Too bad my face is so shadowed by sign in this one!  I could have used it to update my profile pic finally otherwise.

Friday night, I attended a business tips dinner with these lovely ladies at Vivo!  It was a lot of fun and I think we all learned from each other.

Saturday night, I gathered with team members for dinner at Firebox, a local farm to table restaurant that was delicious!  I forgot to take pictures of our group, but I did get these two shots of my delicious dinner and dessert....

 

4/9/18 Update:  This is a photo I snapped as soon as I got back to the hotel room showing most of the awesome swag we got at the event.  Spoiler alert!

LOYALTY REWARDS - When you purchase $50 or more, you qualify for my Loyalty Rewards program!  This Frequent Stamper program is my way of saying "thank you" to my returning customers in appreciation of their business and is in addition to other Stampin' Rewards.  Earn FREE stamps with MarieStamps.com!

ONSTAGE LOCAL IN SECAUCUS, NJ...

We had a wonderful time at OnStage Local this weekend!!!  We started the weekend out with a pre-event dinner at Houlihan's Friday night with my Southern Stars sisters!

OnStage Local was fabulous as always!  My upline, Melody Rollins did a presentation at the event.  She does a great job with simple designs and how to level them up for an intermediate level class.  Here are some of the cards she did:

We won lots of FABULOUS prizes including stamp sets, catalogs and more!  Take a look at my haul from the day!  So exciting!!!  I will share the Make & Takes we had later this week.

And those Occasions Catalogs are AWESOME!  You will not be disappointed when you see them!  Let me know if you would like to receive one when they are released.  We finished the day with a little group photo and then were on our way for another dinner at Olive Garden.   Can't wait until April when the OnStage Local will be in my neck of the woods!

LOYALTY REWARDS - When you purchase $50 or more, you qualify for my Loyalty Rewards program!  This Frequent Stamper program is my way of saying "thank you" to my returning customers in appreciation of their business and is in addition to other Stampin' Rewards.  Earn FREE stamps with MarieStamps.com!

STAMPIN' UP! ONSTAGE LOCAL BALTIMORE 2015...

This past weekend, my friends and fellow demos, Sarah Williams and Kelly Fidler, and I went on a road trip to Baltimore to attend Stampin' Up!'s OnStage Local event.  My stalwart hubby drove us crazy stamping ladies there and gave us door-to-door service to the event.  Thanks, babe!  Here is a pic of our road trip crew:

 

We had a great time there!  Of course, the event was FABULOUS!!!  We got to see all the new products coming out in the Occasions and Sale-A-Brations catalogs next January.  And we got to play with some of the them, too -- BEST PART!   So many amazing new stamp sets, framelits and an awesome new tool for the Big Shot!!!  Can't wait to share with you when we are allowed to!  Stamping with friends is always one of the highlights these events.  We didn't make full projects, so I will have to get busy turning our samples into actual cards, etc., to share with you soon.  

We did get to visit with our mama/upline Melody Rollins and our sidelines Monica Giberti, Kathy Winters, and Lyn Carroll which is always fun.  Our upline lives in the DC area, so we don't get to see her often.  Lyn and Kathy came to dinner with us Saturday night as well.  Here is a shot of our group along with one of the Stampin' Up! event people who was so nice to take photos of all of us with our many phones and cameras.  He was awesome!

This was our third trip to Baltimore for Stampin' Up! and this time we stayed right by Little Italy, so that we could take advantage of the delicious restaurants there.  We love Italian food and the restaurants we went to (Sabatino's and Dalesio's) were only a few blocks from the hotel.  It was so nice to be able to take a short walk through Little Italy to our dinner and back to work off some of the calories!  Can't wait until we come back again!

Update:  Couldn't share this pic until the catalogs came out, but here are all the wonderful things we received at the event!  So much fun!

LOYALTY REWARDS - When you purchase $50 or more, you qualify for my Loyalty Rewards program!  This Frequent Stamper program is my way of saying "thank you" to my returning customers in appreciation of their business and is in addition to other Stampin' Rewards.  Earn FREE stamps with MarieStamps.com!

SNEAK PEEK, Sweet Friend Card from Charlotte Regional...

Today I have another Make & Take from the Charlotte Regional to share with you.  This one has more of a Vintage feel--very different from yesterday's Love Card.  I love that Stampin' Up! included the envelopes for us to stamp to match as well.

Once again, I pretty much stuck with the design - shocking!  But, it was a cute card and a little different from my regular style, so nice to have something different to show.  Hope you enjoy it!

REGIONAL SWEET FRIEND CARD SUPPLIES:

• Stamp Sets – You Are Loved (W#123777 $31.95, C#123779 $23.95 beginning Sept. 1), Good Grid (#122630, $9.95)
• Card Stock – Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler Textured, More Mustard Textured, Old Olive Textured, First Edition Specialty DSP
• Ink – Soft Suede Classic, Cherry Cobbler, More Mustard, Old Olive Stampin' Write Markers, Tea Stain (from the Distressing Essentials Kit)
• Ribbon – Cherry Cobbler 1/2" Seam Binding (#120992, $6.95)
• Punches – 1" Square (#124094, $15.95 beginning Sept. 1)
• Accessories – Vintage Trinkets (#118764, $5.95)
• Tools – Crop-a-Dile (#108362, $29.95), Distressing Kit (#118762, $19.95), Stampin' Dimensionals (#104430, $3.95)

CHARLOTTE, NC REGIONALS...

Back from Charlotte finally!  It was a long, windy and RAINY ride home, but we had a FABULOUS time at Regional yesterday!   We learned so many fun techniques and got so many giveaways!  I'll have lots of projects to share with you this week from the event.  Weekends like this are just one reason why I LOVE being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator!!!

We started the day off swapping and swapping!  I learned not to have both your daughter and you swap as you end up with duplicates!  By the time I realized and tried to swap the duplicates, most were done swapping, but now I know...  Lots of cute ideas to be seen though.  They changed the seating to a classroom seating, which I loved!  So much easier for everyone to see now.

After Shelli's initial talk and stamping demonstration (a sooooo cute bat box I will show you soon), we were on our own to visit demonstration booths, make our two Make & Take cards, take pictures of the display boards, etc.  And I finally got my picture with Shelli!  She hasn't been at the last couple of Regionals I attended, so I was thrilled!  Isn't she adorable?  Here is a shot of Jenni and I with Shelli:

At noon, we had a delicious lunch and then there were presentations from Stampin' Up! staff (Shannon, Carrie and Dawn).  There were some definite ah-ha moments!  We had a ice cream break in the afternoon with yummy Magnum ice cream bars.  After that we got two more kits to make at home.  One was a Creativity Journal kit and included an ART JOURNAL!  Woot!  The other was for a coupon book using the Petite Pocket Die.  So cute!  Prize Patrol was active throughout the day, but no one from our group won.  :(  However, everyone got one of the adorable Stampin' Card Keeper!  YEAH! 

We were so sad when the day ended.  For dinner, we went to Mama Ricotta's.  It was so delicious, the dessert was fabulous and the service was wonderful!  If you ever find yourself in Charlotte, NC, you should give them a try!   After dinner, we all went back to our rooms and died!  Well, most of us.  It was a FANTASTIC, but tiring day.

This morning, we had the breakfast buffet in the hotel and were on our way.  The weather was awful - rainy almost the whole way.  And at one point the wind was so bad, I thought we were going to be swept away Dorothy-style!  But, now we are home and my bed is calling to me...  Check back throughout the week for samples on what we saw and made including a special offer tomorrow!