Inspire. Create. Share......A lot!

These past few weeks since Joe has returned from Afghanistan have been full, full, full! Enjoying family time, volunteering at the high school, working on various home and crafting projects, and just trying to readjust to having my honey home again have made for a very busy time but all worth it, believe me. With Joe gone for the majority of this year, it made "me" time difficult and Joe has always supported my interests, especially my crafting, because he knows how much it helps to keep me de-stressed with the amount of time he's elsewhere. Well, it was announced in September that U.S. demonstrators stationed with the military overseas were being given the opportunity to attend the first ever European Stampin' Up! Convention and I was just dying to go. It's difficult for U.S. demonstrators overseas not to feel a little estranged from the training and support available to us if we were living in the U.S. (which SU! is improving on all the time so I really shouldn't complain!) so what demonstrator wouldn't want to be a part of a such an amazing event?! Anyway, Joe made sure I paid for my registration as soon as possible and this week was the big event. I am on a euphoric cloud of experience ecstasy and I never want to come down from it!

For those of you not familiar with Stampin' Up!, it was co-founded over 20 years ago by Shelli Gardner and her sister, Vonna. I'm pictured here with Shelli Gardner (eek!), who is as sweet and lovely in person as she is in every photo I've ever seen of her. The European Convention was a PHENOMENAL experience and one that I'm so glad I was there to witness.

Called Paper, Pad, and Marker, this ice breaker event helped me to jump right into the flow of things and start talking to ladies while I made a helpful tool to use in workshops. I was welcomed to the room by none other than Pam Morgan, our Vice President of Demonstrator Relations, who asked for my information to possibly set up an event at Ramstein for military demos living overseas!! I hope that comes to fruition because I am beyond excited that we could have an event for our group.

I met many lovely, friendly women from France, Germany, Great Britain, and Scotland. (Pictured here is a group photo of the demos from the UK) It was amazing to see how the love for crafting and stamping brought all these women together, sharing ideas, inspiring each other, and making new friends. It was a momentous occasion and probably did more to promote international awareness and peace than any meeting of the U.N. has ever done. Maybe if we all got together and crafted, the world would be a more peaceful place :) I felt a little out of place at first since there were only a handful of U.S. demos attending but that didn't last for long as ladies allowed me to sit with them and were welcoming and friendly. One of the things that touched me the most was how many ladies shared swaps with me, even though I didn't have the time to make any before going to convention. I have many, many photos of projects to share but it will take me several days to get them all in order so I'll just past a few for now and then post more as the week progresses. Here's just a few highlights:

What a lovely way to present a box of sweets! Each flower was so detailed and could be a card embellishment all by itself.

One of the highlights of convention is the number of samples available for viewing. How can you not be inspired after viewing so many beautiful cards, scrapbook pages, and 3-D projects?

This paper is no longer available in the U.S. Stampin' Up! catalog but it's still one of my favorite papers. The colors are so bold and what a delightful color combination.

This is a PAPER birdcage! Can you say WOW!! Talk about vision and creativity to create something so intricate. It certainly surpasses anything I've ever thought of creating. I have oodles of photos to share but wanted to share just a few to get you drooling for more. I'm so thankful that I have a husband who is willing to support trips like this to re-charge my creative batteries and enjoy the things that interest me. And I'm beyond thrilled that Stampin' Up! so generously gave me the opportunity to be there for such an exciting event.
Keep on the lookout for more photos this week!