My Inspiring Team

First ~ Sorry about the long post.. There is MUCH more artwork below, so don't forget to scroll down!

This Sunday was my team meeting... It was an absolutely glorious day outside and I secretly thought.. ugghhh.. a team meeting... I really only felt that way, because normally we have 10-12 people in attendance and there's a buzz about the room.

About every 6 months or so, I do a shoe box swap in lieu of a regular meeting. So, everyone brings a prepped card and we either pass the boxes, or we get up and move to the next station. Everyone leaves with every card that was designed by their team mate. A lot of times, I will have it at the pizza place near my home, Romano's, because there just isn't enough room in the studio for all of us.

Some of my adopted downline are in Florida (the rats ~ I'm so jealous! ~ in a good way) and it was a little quiet around the studio.. There ended up being six of us. We listened to my crazy ipod.. I swear I deleted the Christmas music, but we listened to some of that to show tunes, Celine Dion and more... Everyone brought a little something to share. Cheese and crackers, drinks and ...my husband is still talking about Anne Marie's fantastic fudge brownies. Some had a little wine (an ounce at a time with the small cups we had LOL) and others drank iced tea. More importantly, something special happened. There it was. 6 women from all different walks of life coming together and inspiring one another with personals stories, sharing stresses and personal triumphs over major obstacles.

Instantly I felt a giant shift in the way I felt about my meeting. I was so happy I had it, and a little happy that it was so intimate. We all sat around the table and had a glorious conversation. Being inspired by one another on so MANY levels other than stamping... and I couldn't help but sit back and smile after everyone left and think...

YEA, that's it. That is why I do what I do. What a wonderful group of caring, loving mom's, sisters, wives and friends... this is where it's at.. Somehow I missed getting a photo of Deb's awesome card.. Hopefully she'll stop by so I can take a quick picture. I wanted to share with you some of the talent from my team. If you have a team of demonstrators, no matter how big or small ~ I recommend getting together once a month. It might just make a big difference in YOUR life, the way the ladies on my team make such a big difference in mine.

Speaking of being inspired by friends... My card, shown above, started off as a case of my friend Robin Merriman. I called her up and asked her if I could case her card exactly for my team meeting. When I sat down to make it, it looks nothing like her original.. funny... but I did use her idea on the placement of the stamps and my butterflies. You can check out her original by clicking here.

I really wanted to show the awash with flowers stamp set to my team, because hostesses can get this set FREE with a $350 workshop in the month of April!

Here is Ann Marie's gorgeous creation. She said that she thought about doing the flowers that went with the set, but that punches were a more simple way to achieve the same look. She punched all the flowers out for us ahead of time, and this AWESOME creation went together in minutes! Wouldn't this make a wonderful workshop card?

Christine Miscia is the newest addition to my team of inspiring ladies! Chrissy made this adorable pink and brown card. Do you see the top note peeking through inside? She used this as the insert for so folks could write on that instead. I wish when I was new to stamping that I was making creations like this! Clean and simple ~ Gorgeous Christine!
Karen Bernier made this next adorable creation! We used markers to color the main image, but we used a blender pen and water color crayon to color the base. Makes it look more like real chocolate! Next, we topped off the main image with a two way glue pen and dazzling diamonds! I love that the photo picked up the glitter! Awesome job Karen!

And Miss Gina~~~ That is Regina Maginnis... The first card she made is for the shoe box swap.. She's always bringing me other cards to see, and I always seem to want to photograph them for future use. Check out Gina's cards!!!

First, this is the one for the shoe box swap. Gina shared that contrary to the "never touch the glue dot" rule, she finds it easy to peel a glue dot off, stick it to the paper and then attach the felt pieces from the mini! Excellent tip! We also attached the brad, then used the craft and rubber scissors to cut the back of the brad so you dont see the pieces coming through. Before coming to the meeting, she used the circle scissor plus to cut all the circles for us! Adorable card Gina!
Here's another card miss Gina had to share. Clean and simple, I really love the rock and roll on the flowers~ Beautiful work as always!
This next card by Gina blew my socks off! Hey~ I know that sketch!! This is last week's Stamping 411 sketch. Although she plays along she doesn't have time to post or photograph her artwork.. Such a shame! I know I would follow her blog!
I hope you have been inspired by some of the artwork I've shown here. If you like what you've seen, please leave the girls a comment! Maybe we'll inspire some of them to start their own blogs! I think they should all be blogging.. look at the talent!