Today I’ll share with you some photos and information about our recent Convention in Canberra.

As always it was great to get away on a 5 day break from the normal day to day family life and spend it with 450+ other women who share the same passion as you. I love Convention and haven’t missed one yet, in fact I’ve already booked accommodation for next year’s Convention which will be held in Brisbane from May 23rd – 25th. Convention to me is not just about the Stampin’ Up Convention but about catching up with fellow demos/friends who you don’t get to see apart from at Convention as you live in different parts of the country or even state. One of these ladies is the lovely Louise Sutton whom I met back in 2009 at the last Canberra Convention and we’ve tried to catch up and have a dinner and drinks almost every Convention since.

Here is Louise and some other lovely ladies we (my travelling buddy & I) spent a lot of time with over the 3 days of Convention.

From left to right we have my good friend, travelling companion, neighbour and fellow demo, Meighan Wheller, then we have Maree Conaghan, Louise Sutton, Leanne Peebles, Michelle Clarke and me on the end.

Another enjoyably part of Convention is swapping. Last year I decided not to make swaps and in the end I was okay with that. I had decided that I wasn’t going to add that extra stress to my life in the lead up to Convention. This year I wanted to do swaps and was hoping to get them done early. Well I still hadn’t got back into the swing of regular creating so in the end I had pretty much decided not to bother again. That was until the Friday night before…..lol. I decided that I would recreate a recent card I’d CASED but change the colours as one of the colours in my original CASED card will be retiring 31st August so with changing the colours the card would be good for at least 12 months instead of 3 months. You can check out my original CASED card here and below is my colour changed Convention Swap card.

Supplies:
Stamp sets: Field Flowers, En Francais, French Foliage
Card: Pink Pirouette, Rich Razzleberry, Very Vanilla
Ink: Crumb Cake, Pink Pirouette, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive
Accessories: Vintage Wallpaper Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Big Shot, Crochet Trim – 5/8” Victoria, 1 3/4” Circle Punch, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Stampin’ Sponge, Paper Piercing Tool & Mat Pack, Stamp-A-Ma-jig.

We received and exciting announcement about a new product coming into our market soon (available now for demonstrators and next month for customers) with the Stampin’ Up staff doing a little song and dance for us. Convention is so entertaining as you never know what will happen next. This is Brian Pilling, Demonstrator Training Manager from the Home Office, along with Aaron Scott, our Australian Business Development Manager and the Australian Demonstrator Support Team.  Our Demonstrator Support Team also opened the first General Session with a song and dance too but I don’t have any pictures of their performance. They sung our Convention theme song “I Am….”

Of course it wouldn’t be Convention without some wonderful projects created and shared in Demonstrations, Workshop Wows and classes along with displays in our Resource Centre. Here’s just a few of my favourites.

Brian showed us these projects he’d created using the Simply Scored Tool.

How cool are they?

Next up is some wonderful Fabric Projects made by Ruth Clarke. Ruth’s creations recently appeared in the Australian Quilters Companion Issue 55 which I’ve just ordered a back issue of. Ruth had a full table of different projects she’d created using the wonderful Stampin’ Up fabrics available. She’s inspired me to get my fabric and sewing machine out and create something which I hope to get to very soon. I do have more photos of Ruth’s work but I don’t think it’s right to share too much of it here when it’s not my work. Try and grab a copy of the Australian Quilters Companion Issue 55 to see the rest.

And the last photo I’m going to share with you is of this gorgeous creation by Beth Stewart.

When I first saw this Bird Die in our current Autumn/Winter mini ….well I won’t say what I thought…..lol. Let’s just say there was no way I was going to purchase it. I thought it was okay for scrapbookers but as I’m not, it really didn’t interest me at all.

I’ve had a change of heart now and although I still haven’t ordered it, I’m considering it now after Beth ‘wowed’ us with her fantastic ideas. You can check out more of what she shared with us and her other work here.

There was many more fabulous creations and ideas share by fellow demonstrators and Stampin’ Up staff, lots of information on some new changes taking place over the next 18 – 24 months and just some general fun. Convention is a wonderful place to meet new friends and learn lots of new stuff whilst having a blast.

I can’t wait till next year and look forward to catching up with many again and hopefully meet some new friends too.

Till next time…