Founder's Circle Kanab Facility

I am having SOOO much fun here at Founder's Circle 2011!! I feel incredibly pampered and spoiled. I am terribly determined to make it back here next year. Anyone wanna host a workshop for me?!!??!! : )

Yesterday was go-go-go almost non-stop, so I didn't get to post, but I will be making up for that today! Yesterday morning we got on a bus and drove to Kanab, Utah, where Stampin' Up's manufacturing facilities are. It's kind of goofy but to get to Kanab from St. George you actually go down into Arizona and then east and back up into Utah because of the gorgeous mountains in the way. We are just surrounded by breathtaking scenery every direction you look. I love it!

Not that Stampin' Up demonstrators are EVER at a lack for conversation, but the events ladies had planned door prizes and games for us. I actually won at Bingo twice–and the prizes are all free products, of course! We also were all given the pack of paper for which the buses were named–mine was Timeless Portrait.

It seemed like no time at all and we were there! We all got our picture taken by the rock with the logo carved on it and then headed in for a very interesting Q&A session. I didn't get a great picture of the building. A new camera has now moved up in priority on my wish list to the number one spot! I have had too many priceless ones turn out blurry on this trip.

Even though it is a manufactury, the building is stunning and state of the art as far as "green-ness." The lobby area is decorated really nicely. My favorite part was this neat bulletin board wall. Love the variety of adorable push-pins they decorated. The little cutie is Linda Barnes, my dinner partner from Alaska.
Not allowed to post photos of the manufacturing process at all, but you all should have seen me! First I used this gigantic cutter to chop long rolls of rubber into sheets the correct size. Then in another area I got to lay rubber on the mag plate thingys and stick them into the oven. In no time at all they were done and I got to slice them apart and peel the hot (hot!!) rubber off the molds and trim off the excess that melted over the edge and then lay them out to cool. It was incredibly fun! So if you buy Lovely As A Tree in the near future, you might get a set I worked on!!

We also got to die cut stamps–I worked on a stack of the Blessings from Heaven set! Then you have to assemble the set into the correct cases with the labels. I put together some of a VERY CUTE BRAND NEW stamp set in both wood and clear, and then at the end of the pick line, they GAVE us all one!!! That was so fun!! Then we went around to the warehouse and saw all kinds of cool things, like buckets full of brads and pallets full of stamp sets waiting to be driven up to Riverton. It was just an incredibly interesting day.

But it wasn't over yet! Shelli has a large apartment upstairs and it is decorated to the nines in her signature style. I took tons of photos. I am such a dork I even photographed the bathrooms!!

She had some super cute ideas, like using antique doorknobs as picture hangers, or grouping a bunch of similiar objects together for a lot of visual impact where one piece by itself would be entirely unremarkable, like these vintage landscapes below.

This post is getting sort of long, so I'll continue the Kanab day trip in the next one. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the welcome we got. The employees all came out to greet us and they had signs and they were cheering and hollering for us. It was the nearest thing to a red carpet moment I will probably ever have! They had also all made their own nametags in our honor and I loved seeing their creativity.