Greetings again from the center of the known universe!
Today was a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG day!. We started out by going to the convention center to get into the Memento Mall before the madding crowd. As a presenter, I was able to get in 30 minutes before they opened, with all the make and take helpers and other presenters. And since Wendy was my transportation, they let her go in too!
I had steeled myself not to buy so much this year. Well, I did not buy as many bags as I usually do. But the total still made me gulp!
If you look in the sidebar of my blog, you will see my TwitPic feed and you can see photos of everything I bought. In addition,the convention bag and the catalog binder that came in it. Good swag, my friends! The convention bag is just like the demo business bag, but prettier! If you want to get my tweets, including pictures, be sure to sign up to follow me! I only really tweet for convention and a few other times per year.
After we shopped, we went into the Gathering Place and did some hanging out together, as well as a big shoebox swap that Wendy's group organized. I made some very pretty projects before I had to cut out to go to the Stampin' Addicts Meet & Greet at Little America, where I pretty much just ate, did a little circulating and then had to run back to the convention center to get ready for my presentation. It was very exciting!
My name...not in lights, but still! This was my booth for demonstrating.
Here I am with my sign wearing the T-shirt I got for free from the Memento Mall for presenting.
Here is the result of weeks of work. All of these projects will be on my blog in the coming weeks!
Here I am getting ready to present. There was a huge angled mirror above me to help people see what I was doing. I also had a headset with a microphone. I felt like Lady Gaga. Although I looked nothing like her. Mostly, our similarities end at the point where you say, "these are both women." After that, we widely diverge.
After we set up, we got to go eat at the staff dinner. Let me tell you, they eat well! None of us could eat much because we were keyed up and didn't want to feel logey from eating too much. There were 8 of us presenting. My presentation was on backgrounds, incluing background stamps and embossing folders.
The other presenters were Brandi Wiggins, Fran Sabad, Lisa Freeman, LeeAnn Greff, Susan Campfield, Linda Heller, and Lyssa Zwolanek.
We each had to prepare a 10 minute presentation, which we repeated for 2 hours. I had a pretty good crowd around my booth most of the time and I enjoyed meeting many of my readers. Thanks for all the positive feedback during my presentation! It made everything easy! I was not even nervous. If you saw my hands shaking, you should know I have an essential tremor, which kicks in when I am tired, under stress, overcaffeinated, or have been carrying lots of heavy stuff, and I was almost all of that! I really felt totally at ease! It was a miracle!
It went by very fast and it seemed like I had just gotten started when it was time to stop again.

Wendy came to help me clean up my booth.
Carrie Cudney came by to give us all a thank you card. I was allowed to keep some of the stuff they put at my booth, like my apron, paper cutter, etc. Another nice bonus!
So, would I do this again? You BET! It was fun, I got a lot of free stuff, free convention, and reimbursement for expenses. But even without all the free stuff, it was just a good time all together and an honor to be asked. But I am TIRED and my feet are KILLING ME! So I'll be staggering off to bed shortly.
I am not going to leave without showing a card! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Cherish Friendship; Paper - Kraft, Pool Party, Whisper White, So Saffron, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso; Other - Stripes Textured Impressions Folder, Brayer, Cherry Cobbler Dotted Scallop ribbon, Early Espresso marker, Watercolor Pencils, White gel pen, dimensionals.
This was one of the techniques I demonstrated tonight and it was also the most popular, I think. Basically, you ink the Stripes embossing folder with a brayer and emboss the white cardstock, then reink the embossing folder again, turn the cardstock 90 degrees, and emboss it again to get this cute gingham background! GOJUS!!!! (YILM!)
Well, I'll be back again tomorrow with another project to show and more convention pics! Ta!
