A Little Sunshine

Whew! After a crazy storm this week with five inches of rain, we are back to glorious sunshiny days. I can't wait to get back to my walking routine after CHA this week. 

Speaking of sunny we made the CUTEST sunny card for the Ronald McDonald House project at Leadership. This was simple, but may have been my favorite stamping project because I just loved the bold & bright look. 

They taught us a little trick with the Scalloped Border punch to make that little wiggly strip of Poppy Parade - you punch one side, and then just offset it when you punch the other side. So cute and such a different look with that punch!

The stamps are from Mixed Bunch, which we got at Leadership. I love that bold flower. All the flowers match the Blossom Punch.

The little center of that flower is from the Blossom Builders Designer Printed Kit - SQUEE! We got this at Leadership and it comes with PINK RHINESTONES!! EEEP! You know you want to order that. :)

Tomorrow come back here for my live CHA coverage!

Loveyameanitbye.

In Summary - Human Pretzels and Lee Greenwood

I finally downloaded my pics from my camera today from Leadership. A lot of my live coverage pics were with my Iphone, so I know they won't be hitting National Geographic any time soon. I thought I'd share a few you haven't seen yet that are a little better quality.

First, Manager's reception. This is only the second time I've been, and it was wonderful. Don't worry if you didn't come to Leadership or qualify for this or anything else. I've been having fun for ten years - this is just a bonus, really. So keep having fun - it pays off :).

We got to see some incredible acrobats from China. I held my breath nearly the whole time because I truly couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here are some of the crazy antics. (I'm translating from Chinese.)

Oh hi - please bring me a chair - this tower I built out of chairs isn't tall enough to scare these demonstrators!

 I am not scary enough standing on a wobbly tower of chairs, I must do a handstand.

WAIT - BRING ME MORE CHAIRS. THERE IS ONE PERSON WHO HASN'T FAINTED.

 

 Please, bend yourself into a pretzel so that I may balance teacups on your feet and chin. 

Next, we really had an adventure, thanks to our friend Sue Farrant. She happened to get us tickets to the filming of the Extreme Home Makeover Christmas Special honoring the military. It was an incredible experience. We got to meet the veterans on the show, many of whom had terrible injuries. Very humbling. To begin the event, we had the privilege of having Lee Greenwood sing God Bless the USA 15 feet from us.  I can't even really describe how amazing that was.

He was very kind and gracious, too. What an amazing moment.

Then we got an absolutely unbelievable performance from these Australian tenors and got to see Paige and Ty.

 Here we are teaching them how to say y'all.

 Roger Clements spoke and signed a few baseballs for the auction benefiting Helping a Hero.

 If you want to do something charitable, this is a great organization, so be sure and check out their site. These brave young men and women deserve a roof over their heads.

Then we were off to stamp and be stamped! Here are some of the cute projects from main stage. I think most of the ones I picked are from Shelli's demo.

I didn't even want this set until I saw this cutie.

 Um. Adorable. I love zig zags. I love this paper. I love these colors together. I love this. Is that clear?

 CUTE feathers made from leaves.

 Thank goodness the edgelits are on their way to me as we speak. I need to make exactly this card!

 Love the rhinestone on the typewriter key.

 Framelits make the 3D hearts on this CAS number - LOVE it.

I will be posting from CHA in a few days and then I'll finally get to come home and STAMP!! I miss it! :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Why She Buys

I'm baaaackkkk......

Leadership was a BLAST! We had some amazing classes in addition to all the stampy inspiration.

I think my favorite class was Carrie Cudney's "Why Women Buy." It was a really cool exploration of how marketing messages are tuned to men or to women successfully. She pulled a ton of information from this book, which I will be buying today:

It had these great stories in it about the differences between men and women when it comes to shopping - including a HILARIOUS map of a man's trip to the mall to buy a shirt at the Gap and that same trip with a woman. The woman goes into every store - the last one is the Gap. She spends $800. He walks in, goes to the Gap, buys the shirt, and leaves.

But all the information about the psychology of a female buyer is AMAZING and I highly recommend it. I can't wait to get it on my Kindle.

I thought that I would share a real picture of one of my Make & Takes at Regionals instead of an Iphone pic. This card was SO easy and fun to make!!

To make the flower, we used the largest of the shapes from the Triple Blossom punch - I adhered the first one flat, and then curved the second one with my bone folder. The center was stamped in Calypso Coral - it's the polka dotted kite from Send me Soaring, then we punched hearts from it with the itty bitty heart punch. The DSP is from the Sweet Shop suite.

Cute, eh?

I'll be back with more tomorrow! :)

Thanks for hanging out with me during Leadership. I had so much fun meeting and hanging out with a lot of you. Can't wait to see you again!

2012 Leadership Live Coverage begins NOW

If you came here for live Leadership coverage, you're in the right place! Watch as our adventures in South Central Texas unfold!