Month: July 2013

  Hello there again! I’m back with some more convention highlights. Today I thought I’d show you one of the swaps I made for convention. This one was a card I made for one of my recent card classes (I have card class on the last Tuesday of every month — another one is coming up on Tuesday, July 30!) I made 40 of this swap and used it for an organized swap with the Ronda Wade Creating Success team. The theme was to create a swap that was easy enough to demonstrate in a workshop setting, but still packs some “prettiness.” I thought this one fit the bill… I love the new In Colors — I used Pistachio Pudding, Coastal Cabana and Strawberry Slush on this one. I also used the Flower Shop Stamp Set and matching punch. I love them!  Here is another photo of the swap — a little closer up… So tell me what is your favorite color from the New In Colors? For me it’s Coastal Cabana — hands down! 🙂 Did you know that I’m on Facebook? Be sure to look for me by searching for “By the Shore Stamping” or you can click

Hello there! I’m back again with some more stories from convention 2013. Our theme for this year was “Be the Difference.” I really love that Stampin’ Up has always been so committed to making a difference so this theme was really nice. Especially considering we were asked to take part and a really sweet community service project while we were in Utah. This is a picture of the inside of one of the 2,000 birthday kits we put together for the Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. It’s a super cute little kit designed to help the 10 or so patients each month that celebrate their birthday while in the hospital fighting for their life. They showed us a really sweet video with pictures of some of the kids and a video about the “Wishing Wall” Stampin’ Up previously donated to the hospital. I don’t think I got a picture of it, but it was a cute wall with two little kids (a boy and a girl) and a tree made up of all scallop circles. Each circle had a different wish written on it from either one of the children or their family members. It was sweet.  

One of the highlights of every Stampin’ Up event is the many display boards that are up for photo-taking. What was even more exciting for me this year was that I had submitted 10 projects for the Artisan Award (sadly, I didn’t make it to the finalists), which means I was on the look-out for some of my submissions on the display boards. It’s like a little scavenger hunt! Not all 10 of my projects made it to the boards, but several did! (I’ll have to show you the others in another post). In this photo you can see my scrapbook page in the upper left-hand corner. I have to say this was one of my favorite entries this year. It may not be the most ground-breaking as far as design is concerned, but it really meant a lot to me personally. As many of you may know I lost my Mom last year (you can read more about that here) and we had to sell her house. So I made this layout in tribute to the house where I grew up. It was the only home I ever knew as a kid — I was born there and lived

Hello There! I so wanted to blog while I was at convention this year — I even brought along my computer so I could. But you know what? We were so stinkin’ busy for those three days I was completely wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel room. I know, I know that really shouldn’t have been an excuse! 🙂 But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. However, I am going to make it up to you by doing a series of posts about my trip to the Stampin’ Up Convention in Salt Lake City. Here is a photo of what the hall looked like after the end of our first general session. Were you looking for your Stampin’ Up demonstrator last week? I think I found her! There were 5,800 of us attending this year. It is our 25th anniversary so there were more people attending than I think ever before. We even had demonstrators from other parts of the world — like Australia, New Zealand and France. Pretty cool. Anna and I arrived early afternoon on Thursday, which was the first day of convention. Our opening general session started at 5:30 so

Well hello! Long time no talk. Sorry about that… I thought for my Top Five Tuesday post this week (heck, this month!) I would explain why I’ve been absent for so long here on the old blog-o. So here goes… 1. The dog ate my latest crafty project and I didn’t think you’d care to see it after she was done with it — oh, wait! I don’t have a dog… 2. The extreme heat the past few weeks melted the rubbah on my stamps and I had to reorder all of my products again… Nope. That doesn’t sound right. 3.   I was grounded for coming home after curfew… Not likely. 4. All my ink dried up and I had nothing to stamp with — yeah, um… have you stamped with the new firm foam ink pads — if so, you probably don’t believe that either. 5. I was too busy daydreaming about convention? Will that work? It’s sort of true — although I haven’t been daydreaming… I’ve been planning the trip and prepping my soon-to-be enormous pile of swaps! In all honesty, I don’t really have any set reason for why I haven’t been visiting the old blog of late. I am