Well, I've gone and thrown more fuel on my calendar fire and decided to start a Yahoo group for Stampin' Up! demonstrators located in the Kaiserslautern Military Community. I know this group will ebb and flow as members PCS in and out of the community but I thought it would be nice to have a forum just for demos in our area. I think there are enough of us in the area that if we banded together to support one another, not only would our businesses be more successful but it would be a great way to meet other demos and possibly draw attention to our orphaned group here in Germany from SU! headquarters to get more support for regional training, etc. We'll see how it goes and how much enthusiasm it draws! I'm excited about getting it going and hopefully there will be enough interest that this can become a real means of support for SU! demos in the area.

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.

This past weekend was the first time I've ever had the opportunity to attend the Kreativ-Welt craft fair in Wiesbaden even though I lived there for three years and I was absolutely AMAZED at the event. It was very well organized and featured almost every kind of craft imaginable: fiber crafting, scrapbooking, rubber stamping, floral arrangements, jewelry making and beading, ceramics, home decor, quilting, felting, sewing, wood working....two floors of crafting goodness right at your fingertips! Of course, I primarily went for the paper crafts but the creative juices were stirred at the variety of other crafts represented. (European flower arranging vendors really sucked me in!) Even IKEA was there, featuring easy and inexpensive projects for decorating your home. I was rather surprised that Stampin' Up! didn't have a booth there since they are trying to build such a strong presence in Europe but Creative Memories had a booth for signing on European consultants, which I wasn't even aware that they were trying to tap into the market here. What's difficult living overseas is the distance between crafting stores, what is offered, and of course, the expense of shopping in euros. In the States you can find a Michael's, JoAnn, Hobby Lobby, etc. in almost every major city as well as a few privately owned paper crafting stores but mega stores like that are just not part of mainstream European shopping. In a way, I think they should be just because there's such a desire for crafting products overseas...much evidenced by the number of shoppers at the Kreativ-Welt over the weekend. People actually brought large rolling shopping bags! There were a couple of products that I purchased which would surely be less expensive purchasing through a website in the U.S. but were things I had never seen demo'd and decided the extra cost of purchasing them here was rather gratuitous since it meant that I wouldn't have to wait! The biggest product I wanted to try was Glimmer Mist, a liquid spray which leaves a lovely metallic sheen on your papers and is perfect for distressing. Got a couple of bottles to try for Christmas projects and perhaps I'll have something to show on my blog later. I apologize I don't have any tantalizing pics to show of the event but I had a brain cramp and forgot to bring my camera. Anyway, it's something to look into attending next year if you're living overseas...well worth going to if you're interested in many different kinds of crafts. We had a great time at this event and even the kids got to purchase a few items. Alex put together her own ribbon necklace and Jordan got us hooked on a wooden table-top fussball type game with magnetic figures that we ended up purchasing for home. Of course, I had to bribe Joe with Sushi World to get him to go but he even admitted to enjoying it more than he thought he would. A good way to spend the weekend, I'd say!