This morning we demos received a plethora (love that word) of exciting announcements, which I posted about immediately and then discovered I should not have until December 1st. How embarrassing!!
SOOOO... I am extremely sorry to be a big tease, but I had to take the posts down and I have no photos to show you of the upcoming new products until the first. Thanks for understanding.
Now get offline and call me to book your Sale A Bration show, before the best dates are all taken!!!
I am up to my eyeballs in cards--literally hundreds of them--and other projects for tomorrow's enormous craft show at Maranatha College in Watertown. I am looking forward to it immensely! I hope you can swing by--it's the best craft fair in the area--and I'm not just saying that because I have two booths there : )
Yep, that's duct tape on the one card!! I love my Big Shot. I will have a variety of masculine cards to suit all the men in your life.
I always make a lot of inspirational cards especially for this fair, so I have enjoyed getting out my extremely varied collection of Scripture stamps from all over the place and making cards with those. I always get lots of requests for my "Shadow of the Almighty" cards.
As you can see I have done a lot of heat embossing lately! Last week it was Iridescent Ice, this week it was Brushed Gold. My craft room looks like a Saharan dust storm came through. I just can not keep that stuff in the container and the Powder Pals trays no matter how hard I try to stay tidy!
Since there's so many music majors and music teachers at the college, I always try to have a lot of musical cards made up. I enjoyed using the retired set Musical Manuscript for this set. It's not showing up, but there is a subtle sheen to these cards--the shimmer paint spray struck again!
And while I mostly mass-produce for craft shows, I still have more than 150 single cards, many of which could never be recreated exactly the same way. These vintage cards are made with the Pun Fun set and each one is different and unique. If you like one of a kind cards instead of sets, you will not be disappointed!
Last but not least, I am offering something new this year. I have made up about 20 Mega Tote Bags (see photo tutorial) and will be offering them as a package deal with either a set of cards or a "pick your own" assortment of cards. Fun! Hope to see you there.
I finally got my Orlando Leadership Convention pages scrapped at the all day crop last Saturday. What great memories of a fantastic time with my extended SU family, having four days of fun in Orlando in the middle of January!! I am really looking forward to conference in Phoenix this coming January. Got my flights booked and my hotel room reserved--just waiting on registration on Wednesday and I'll be all set.
Yes, the top spread has pictures of food. One of the perks of this smaller conference as opposed to convention is the fantastic sit down lunches served on real china with linens and waiters--and it was all served so prettily I just had to take a picture.
This Soft Subtles page above was just a bunch of fun pictures of Florida stuff. Those orange flowers were amazing, just draped everything in gorgeous color. I had to take a photo of the lobster deliery card--what a hoot. And who makes a "speed limit 7 mph" sign?
This pink and black quilted page chronicles the intense shopping we did, the door prizes some of us won, and the new products we got to be the first to try out! It's kind of hard to see, but each photo has a different ribbon wrapped around it.
For our yearly Manager's reception, Stampin' Up rented an island at Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure theme park and we had the whole place to ourselves--no lines for the rides, no wait for the fantastic food, those handsome super heroes--all to ourselves! My group all had super hero caricatures drawn (free)--you can see my reaction on the left hand page of this Bold Brights spread--mine was so embarrassing I couldn't look at it! And then at the end we got Spidey lunchboxes with a free stamp set inside.
For a slide show of all my Manager's Reception photos and Leadership news, click here. I don't think I have laughed that hard since I was a little kid. I loved the colors in these photos and was happy to use one last sheet of Kiwi Kiss DSP from the Hoppy Memories kit (now available only through MDS) along with a background color I have NEVER used before--Only Orange. It was a fun page to do.
Yesterday I got some very unfortunate news that has me feeling pretty low. My long-suffering, ever patient, ever encouraging husband Mike is not going to be allowed the time off in April to come with me on the Stampin' Up cruise we earned together last year.
Mike is not only my helpmeet and the fantastic father of my children, but my best friend, and I am absolutely crushed with disappointment not to be able to share this once-in-a-lifetime experience with him, he who earned it just as much as I did, although he's never lifted a single stamp.
The photo below may help illustrate some of the things I love Mike for. He is a far better father than I am a mother. He always has made me want to be better than I am, from the moment I first laid eyes on him. I am fantastically grateful God saw fit to give him to me. It is a great joy when I am able to give him something really awesome like the incentive trip in repayment for a teeny fraction of what he has meant in my life.
I don't blame the school--though I wish the Executive Council's decision had been otherwise, rules are there for a reason, and the timing really did stink. I am thankful my husband has a good job with insurance in this economy, and he loves being a college teacher. I just let myself get my hopes too high and the crash back down to earth has been painful. It has been discouraging. I am not sure I will even try to earn the Alaska trip right now as it would fall in the final full week of May 2011.
Being down about this accomplishes nothing, yet I seem unable to pull myself out of the funk just yet. Bear with me, my friends. I'll be back with my attitude adjusted shortly. Thanks for listening to my ramble.
We had a fun little swap at our demo meeting on Monday night, with the theme of small candy items rather than cardfronts. I am always amazed at the variety my ladies come up with when I give them a theme! We got lots of cute ideas for little gift items for this time of year. I thought for sure someone would make the peppermint patty spiders, but no one did, so I will have to make some up and post about them, as they are really just too adorable even if you hate spiders in real life!
These are kind of goofy things for a person who doesn't celebrate Halloween to be posting, but "Inconsistency, thy name is Lyssa." A club member requested this Frankenstein card (seen in SO many locations on the internet, I am unable to credit the original creator) so I made him up for this Monday night's Incredible Cards Club. He WAS kind of fun.
Then, I had the teeny-tiny spider stationery set that I made up a few weeks ago just to have something cute to show customers who really get into Halloween. They really were adorable and the googlie eyes just make you laugh. The spiders are all slimy with a coating of Crystal Effects (and yes, I'm aware I am addicted to the stuff, and no, I have not found a 12-step program for CE addiction yet). The box is made from two Scallop Envelopes, Sticky-Stripped together, a cute little holder I use a lot.
The pumpkin tote was a project from my new So Ya Wanna Be A Big Shot club and great fun to make with the Top Note die, Sweet Stems Embosslit, and Big Shot. The easy, easy Tall Box pattern (used as a bag with ribbon handles here) can be found here. If you wanted to, you could add a cute pumpkin face to this bag in nothin' flat and have a cute Halloween treat bag. Otherwise it makes a really nice fall/Thanksgiving gift--just add instant cocoa or hot cider packets, a cinnamon stick or two and a little baggie of ginger snaps or homemade peanut brittle for a great pick-me-up gift for someone special!
(Laugh!) No really, I am. Splitcoaststampers.com has a monthly WICKED cool stamper challenge for demos only, and I am the featured WICKED stamper for October. Not sure what they were thinking choosing ME, but I am honored to be in that fine company anyway!
If you are a demonstrator and logged in to SCS, click here to be taken straight to the forums and see my three challenges. The Haiku Box photo tutorial below is part of it.
You can do one, two, or all three of the challenges if you like, and post them in the gallery with a special keyword so we can all see them. Challenges are a great way to expand your stamping horizons and you get guaranteed a lot of comments on your uploads. Give it a shot today!
I just figured out that it's been one year this month since I started my blog. At the time, I figured I would post for a week or two, and then the posts would get further and further between, and finally I would stare at my computer one day and not even be able to remember the blog address, I hadn't been on in so long.
I am pleased to note that over 70,000 visitors later, not only do I actually have regular readers, I have not missed more than a couple days in a row at any one time for a whole year! My blog has officially surpassed the lifespan of most Hollywood marriages.
I was really amused to go back and read my original post introducing myself. All those things are all still true except we're all a year older and my customer base and downline doubled. I'm still just as crazy about this dream job as I was a year ago. And what a year it has been! Full of fantastically exciting things--and so many of them directly related to the blessing that Stampin' Up has been to our family.
Well, in honor of the occasion, I think it's appropriate to give away some blog candy! Don't you?
I just so happen to have something I think you are going to really want!
The randomly drawn winner on October 1st will receive one of these adorable recyclable shopping totes from Stampin' Up! You can win the hottest bag on the market just by leaving me a Happy Anniversary comment below, and checking back to see if you won on October 1st!
Thanks for making this past year so fun and rewarding. Here's to many more years of stamping inspiration to come!
Lots of Stampin' Up demos I know are looking for a positive chat site "home" on the internet right now. I recommend Stampin' Addicts for lots of reasons. I thought you demos out there might enjoy an excerpt from one of our Business Builder challenge threads this week:
"....This week's [I]From the Home Office[/I] note is short and sweet: Together, Everyone Achieves More. How true that is! Anyone who has participated in a fundraising effort or a boycott understands this principle--there is power in numbers. Yes, one person can make a difference--but ten people can make a bigger one.
Recently my husband and I took some steps to try to foster that sense of team-ship with the workers in our children's club. After thirteen-plus years of running it, there is a definite sense of burnout. We think we can do better working with these underprivileged kids if we have a clear mission statement, review our goals to make sure they reflect what we're trying to achieve, and work together as a team to accomplish those goals. As a result, I am more motivated and excited about this year than I have been in a long time. I no longer feel like I am in this alone.
Our workers are more involved, take more initiative, and feel more like they are part of a very worthy goal. It's a small shift in perspective, but a fundamental one. We're no longer individuals doing our own thing. We're a team, a greater whole.
Fostering the idea of team-ship is something every upline should try to do with her group. The benefits are myriad--not only will they pay off in purely physical senses like increased sales and recruits, but ideas will flow more freely, time will be given more generously, and friendships will be made more readily.
The issue of taking a group of disparate women, all different ages, all different social levels, all different intellectual and artistic abilities, and drawing them together to form a team is one that even big-time demos with mega-downlines will tell you is not an easy task. In fact, the work increases the more downline you collect. But it is very worthwhile.
Team building is one of the few ways to actively maintain your retention rate. You can't do much about the various reasons people might leave Stampin' Up, but you CAN build a network around recruits that makes it difficult to just melt away quietly.
Easier said than done, as usual, right? Here's a couple of tips, collected from various sources, on ways to foster team spirit in your group.
[B]1. Play a game [/B]at your meetings. Break the ice. Get them laughing. Have them work in teams of two or three rather than every man for himself. I will be posting to this thread a compilation of games I have collected, and feel free to post your own game ideas here for others to share.
[B]2. Send a card.[/B] It's crazy, but I send very few cards, although I literally make thousands of them a year. But you know how it makes my day when an upline sends me a card? It makes your DL's day, too. This year I am committed to sending my entire DL a card once a quarter. If that seems too much, at least send one to the members who don't regularly attend your meetings. If you always ever only send to the top sales or recruiting members, most of your group will never get a card from you.
[B]3. Encourage personal sharing[/B]. My grandmother belongs to a club of ladies that have been meeting since their husbands were all away at WWII. At each meeting, they go around the circle and everyone gets five minutes to share what has been going on in their life since the last time they met. It keeps every one up to date, ensures that Chatty Cathies don't drone on and on, and makes sure everyone had at least a little time in the sun at every meeting. How much would you learn about your group if you did a "Take Two" at the start of a meeting each month?
[B]4. Have food. [/B]Seriously. Have GREAT food. We have a silly saying in my church: "you can't fellowship without a fork." Sharing a meal together bonds us on a level we don't really understand. Make one of your meetings a potluck--not just snacks--and really sit down and eat together. Or, host a barbecue for the entire family--get those husbands together to commiserate about their crazy wives.
[B]5. Brainstorm together.[/B] If someone brings up a situation, think it through with them out loud. As the more experienced demo, you can guide the discussion, but be open to the fact that others may have suggestions you might not have thought of.
[B]6. Get involved.[/B] In last week's challenge, I talked about picking a charity and holding a fundraiser. This is where team-ship shines the brightest. Once a quarter, instead of making two projects for them to take home, make one, and have the other be donated to a worthy cause. Or hold and event together with your downline--an all-day crop, a 4x4, or just an open house.
These are just a few small, duplicatible ideas. . . . "
For the rest of this article and many more informational, encouraging and enthusiastic demonstrator-only threads, as well as product and technique challenges and swaps open to everyone, visit www.stampinaddicts.com and say hi when you "see" me--I go by Lyssa there.
I have had a fantastic mail week this week! First I got my convention swaps back from my convention buddy Shelley--can't believe she carted those all over the U.S. for me! Then I got my new soft and cozy Stampin' Addicts' t-shirt so I can spread the word about that fun and positive chat site. Then today I got this package from Stampin' Up, containing my sales award pin, my cruise pin, and the ribbon that would have gone on the bottom edge of my convention nametag had I been able to attend, which would have identified me to all as a cruise acheiver. Wish I could have gone to convention! Next year for sure! Wonder what the pin will look like for ALASKA?!
