We had the best time this weekend at the WI Stampers Regional Conference in Madison, WI. Everyone arrived safely despite some truly wretched weather for those coming from Minnesota on Friday. It had all the hallmarks of a Stampin' Up event: fabulous stamping demonstrations, My Digital Studio presentations, business talks, Social Media tips, swapping, Make N Takes, way too much good food and way too little sleep! I had so much fun catching up with old friends, and meeting some new ones, too. My Founder's Circle friend and fellow Wisconsinite Kelly Acheson joined us with 17 members of her team as well. And we were very well taken care of in the Crowne Plaza's beautiful Odana Room.
We all ageed, this needs to be an annual event!
My very favorite part of the whole event was the last activity on Saturday. Demonstrators had donated well over 1,000 cardfronts, plus cardstock bases and adhesives. We were able to give two huge boxes each to a breast cancer patients' relief organization, and a group that provides ready-made cards for deployed soldiers to send home for free. Our organizer-in-chief, Lori Brausen, had gotten donations from local companies as well for envelopes and other related costs. I was dying to get a total count when we were done, but there was just no way. We know there were 900 envelopes, and after we ran out of those, another box of cards held almost 400. It felt SO AWESOME to know we would be really making a significant difference for those two organizations.
We'll all be getting professional pictures that were included in our registration fee, but I couldn't resist posting a few cuties I managed to snap with my camera. I could have spent a couple hours just looking at the retired cardfront samples brought for the charity project alone! It was a hoot! Since many of the demonstrators who supplied them are members of my extended Stampin' Up family, we had a good laugh when someone would run across a card made by themselves eons ago. Some of us have gotten a lot better at stamping since then : )
One of the most amazing parts of the day was this cute little video greeting that Lori had secretly requested from Stampin' Up. It blew us all away–what a fun and thoughful thing to do! Love our fabulous Home Office team!
Love the pictures and recap! It certainly shows in our faces how much fun we were having! We SHOULD do it every year! 🙂