Friday, May 30, 2014

5/30 Stampin' Up Bloom With Hope, Countdown to the new Catalog

Good Morning Friends!

The countdown to the new catalog is on!  Can you believe we are ready to go on Monday morning?  Oh, I need to make my wish list still.  Although we can order starting Monday, my countdown is ON for my Catalog Rollout BASH and Quarterly Training Event for my team on June 8th.  This event is open to customers, and downline and this is the one not to miss!

Here's a sneak peek of one of the projects we are making (there are 12 in total)!  There will be an assortment of styles and occasions for this one, from birthday, to sympathy and everything in between!  If you decide to come, you'll leave with two full embellishments (that you use to assemble your cards, and keep the extra), valued over $16 and 12 completed cards.  The raffles will be outstanding!  You can win bundles, or maybe the new Hamburger Box die!  It's the big one!! :)

This event is awesome, because we have the 5 new In colors to play with and so many new accessories!!  Although the event is primarily for my down line to make a whole bunch of new samples, it is open to everyone.  I'm so excited!! For more info on the event, Click Here

This card uses the New Bloom with hope stamp set, and features the brand new In - Color Blackberry Bliss.  Paired with Smokey Slate grey, it's the perfect color combination for an easy sympathy card.  At the class, stampers will mask the bottom of the paper with a post-it note to protect the paper at the bottom and stamp the flowers at the top.  Then they will remove the post-it and stamp the sentiment.  I pre-tie all the bows to make it easy to assemble all cards within the 3 hours we have at the hall.  

Blackberry bliss is so hard to photograph, it almost looks black.  The satin-y striped ribbon is so beautiful and shiny in real life.  

There's only a few day's left to sign up! so click the link above and get yourself registered.  I'll be ordering a full roll of smokey slate ribbon, and a full package of self adhesive rhinestones for each person, so I need to have sign up's in advance.  

How about some fun?  Here's some photos of our last team quarterly event.  








 Double big shot stations!
 Swap by Regina Maginnis
 Swap By Amy Thompson
More fun swaps... Did you make this one?
 

 Amazing food by Chef Leigh-Ann




I hope to see you there!

Love,








Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Stampin' Up Incentive Trip Recap by my 9 year old daughter Alexis

Good Morning Friends!

My husband said when we got home: "It's a shame that more people don't get the opportunity to experience a Stampin' Up incentive trip.  After going to one, I cant imagine not wanting to go to all of them."  I thought that was a pretty profound statement.  He's right, I make it my goal every single year.  Where else can you go on vacation with 700 other people that are all brought together by our love for stamping.

 
With that in mind, my daughter Alexis wrote a report for school about her week long adventure aboard the Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship afloat.  I think she did a great job, and I wanted to share a recap of the Stampin' Up incentive trip through my daughters eyes.




Alexis wrote:



My Caribbean Adventure
by Alexis Kempton

May 4th 2014

On the first day of our trip, we had to get up before the sun came up.  Sunshine and fun here we come!  We finished packing and had Grampy drive us to the airport.  We had breakfast at starbucks, yum!  While we waited, we ran into Tami White and her family, my mom’s friend and waited with them. 
We took lots of selfies with their cell phones.  We boarded on Jet Blue and flew to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport.  When we got off the plane, we claimed our luggage, and found the Royal Caribbean representative, who helped us find our bus.  She also tagged our bags so we wouldn’t have to carry them anymore, and were delivered to our room.  

We took a quick bus ride to the pier, and waited, and waited, and waited.  We finally were able to get on the big boat, about 3 hours later.  When we walked up the gangway (which is the entrance to the boat), there was a shopping mall right there when we got on, complete with a FREE pizza place, a cupcake shop, shopping galore.  We found out that it is the Largest Cruise ship on the Seas.  It holds 6,300 passengers, and 2,500 crew members.  The ship SO big, that it had neighborhoods including Central Park, The Boardwalk, The Pavilion, the theater district, the Royal Prominade and more.  I don’t think we even got to see the whole ship!  


That night, we set sail at 5PM and went to a private party for my mom’s company at the boardwalk.  We saw a show called OceanAria.  They had acrobats high jumping into a pool.  They compared it to a Las Vegas Show, but reminded us that the pool doesn’t move in Las Vegas.  We sat under the stars and moon, and watched the most amazing light show as a part of it, and they took a group photo, with all 700 people from our group in it.  We had squish together to fit everyone in. 
__
Day 2
The second day we spent at sea.  I was very excited to go find out what the kids club was all about.  Mom and Dad had a meeting to go to, so I was able to go explore the kids club to see what it was all about.  There were all kinds of new friends to meet there, and we played all sorts of games like ga-ga ball and crazy tag!  We had so much fun there.  My mom and dad went to the “formal dinner” that night and I wanted to stay with my new friends in the kids club, so they got a date night.  We hung out at the boardwalk and tried out the ice cream stand.  Then I went on the Carousel that was right there.  The carousel was amazing because all of the animals were carved by hand!  They had some strange animals you wouldn’t expect on a carousel like a frog, a tiger, a cheetah, a leopard and some horses.  It was just so much fun!
--



Day 3
The third day, we arrived in Labadee, Haiti.   My mom, dad and I went on a boat ride to a private island.  We got to sample fruit punch from the island and went swimming there.  We found all sorts of fun sea shells, and took pictures of a sea urchin and everybody gathered around to take their own photos.  There were local people on the beach selling their artwork.  My mom bought a painting to match her art studio.    When we got back from the private island, we went into Labadee for lunch.  We tried some local food and my dad bought me a flute that someone carved from bamboo.  We pulled out of port around 5 PM and enjoyed the ship for the evening.    That night we ate at a sushi place on board the ship and the food was really tasty.  


Day 4  The fourth day of our adventure we arrived in Falmouth Jamaica, mon. We went on a bus tour to Montego Bay.  The bus driver told us as we stopped along away, people would try to sell us things and told us to say “me no want”.  We went to a really cool catholic church there and went inside to take pictures. Inside there was a really amazing picture that when you look at it from the front, it looks like a picture of a worker, but if you look from the side, it’s Jesus.  The pews inside the church were raised.  The pulpit in front of the church stood high above the parishioners so the priest could see if someone wasn’t paying attention to the service.  The lady inside told us that the pastor will often call people out who are doing something that they shouldn’t be.  (like sleeping).  I bought the coolest hat ever outside the church, and it helped to keep me cool.  It was so hot there!  After visiting the church, we stopped at place called Pier One.  We sampled local banana bread and my mom let me try my first sip of coffee.  It was Jamaican Coffee, called Blue Star.  I was still very hot from the weather there, and we ordered frozen strawberry drinks just to cool off.  We continued on to Montego Bay, where they had lots of shopping.  The sales people really wanted you to buy stuff, and they followed you around and wouldn’t leave you alone, so we decided to get some lunch at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville.  When we got inside, we ran into mom’s friend Onie from Australia (who also works for stampin up) and we all had lunch.  After a 2 1/2 hour bus ride, we were very hungry, and it was SO good!  We got back on the bus and went back to the port, then we walked through shops and boarded the ship.  I got to go back to the kids club that night, and we had a ga-ga ball championship.. I won a bronze medal!  


Day 5
On day five, we slept a little bit late, but then headed down for Stampin’ Up service project. We didn't get any pictures, but we all got matching orange shirts.  Everywhere you turned, you saw someone with one of the shirts on.  We all walked laps around the bottom deck. It was a Walk-A-Thon for project hope.  The goal was to raise enough money to build some houses for the people of Haiti.  Haiti suffered a really bad earthquake, and many people lost their houses.  Many are still living in temporary shelters.  It costs $6,000 to build a house for one family and there are so many families still without a house.  My dad said that we raised enough to build 6 houses for the people of Haiti.  At 5 PM, I got to go to a cupcake decorating class for kids.  I learned how to make waves in my frosting and decorated a beach scene cupcake.  So fun!

Day 6
On the sixth day of our adventure, we got off the ship early so that we could go swim with dolphins!  This was my favorite part of the trip.  We boarded the bus with our leader Jose, who told us to FIND HIM when it was time to come back and not to go with anyone else unless we wanted to live in Mexico forever.   We boarded the bus and went to Chankanaab National Park, Cozumel, Mexico.  It was a beautiful day!
 
Our whole group got fitted for life jackets and headed down the pier to the dolphin cove.  Our dolphins name was Emilia, and she was so fun to hang out with!  We went down the stairs in the cove and they had a chain link fence for us to stand beside so we wouldn’t float away.  The water was about 4 feet deep, so my mom and dad had to keep one hand on me so I wouldn’t float away.  There were a bunch of tropical fish floating around at our feet and I got nervous they were going to take a bite of me, which they did not!

First, the trainer had the dolphin swim by us so we could touch it’s skin.  It felt cold, slick and smooth.  Next, the trainer had us take turns.  He asked my mom to go first!  You had to put your hands out in front of you, like you were receiving communion, then the dolphin would swim up to you and put his nose on your hands. 
 
At that point you could lean forward and give him a smooch.  We had a photographer right there that took all the pictures so after we kissed the dolphin, we had to look up at the photographer to take our picture. 
 

 
Next, we got to dance with Emilia.  To do this, we put our hands straight out.  The dolphin came right up to me and wiggled her fins back and forth and we danced. 
 


Finally, the dolphin did one more trick for us.  It was called target. 
 
 
You put your hand straight out in front of you and raise it up, and the dolphin comes up to meet your hand.  What a smart dolphin we had.  After all the tricks were done, we spent a little more time in the cove, and the photographer took more pictures while we watched the dolphin do jumps.  She could swim so fast, from one side of the cove to the other in seconds. Then, she did a big jump over our heads.  It was so awesome.  I will never forget it!  Here’s a photo of me and my family at the cove.

After we met the dolphins, we took showers and headed to the sea lion show.  I got to touch the sea lions.  All the kids at the show moved down, to front row and got splashed as part of the show. 
We didn’t mind, it was so hot we were dry in no time!   

 For lunch, we went to senior frogs and had two servings of their fresh made guacamole.  They made it at the table.  That night, you would think we would have been tired, but we went back to the boat and I went to the kids club.  My parents tried to pick me up early and I begged them to stay late because it was awesome being around so many other kids playing.  We stayed up until 1AM, but I wasn’t tired.  Mom says I was a chatterbox when I came back to the room, and fell sound asleep, mid sentence.  (maybe I was a little tired).  

Day 7

My mom had a business meeting in morning, so dad and I took off to the pool!  The pools and water park on the deck were so cool.  

The first area of the waterpark had a baby splash zone with warm water, the rest of the water park had cold water.  In that waterpark area , there were sprayers that had motion sensors, so it splashed me as  I walked by.  Another pool was like a wave pool and overflowed onto the ground.  The third pool was just a regular pool that you could swim around in.  There was a giant whirlpool that looked like a giant donut, about 15 feet across.  The whirlpool had a current that went in one direction, so you could put a float on the water and just float around in circles.  They had a pool where you could surf, called surf-rider and they had another one so you could boogie board.   There were two hot tubs that had shades so you were out of the sun.  



After the pool, I went back to the kids club for some night time fun!


Day 8
The day you have to come home is never fun, but we went to the 16th floor for breakfast at a restaurant called the windjammer. We waited for them to call our number so that we could leave the ship.  There were so many people on board, they had to do it in sections.  After we got off the boat, we took a bus and waited, and waited, and waited.  About 5 hours in total at the airport.  Mom passed out and took a nap right there while we waited.  By this time, I was really missing my friends and thinking about coming back to school the next day.  

Thank you for letting me share my adventure with you.  
Love, 
Alexis Kempton, Age 9

Friday, May 23, 2014

Grow!!! A training series for demonstrators.

Good Morning!

I'm so excited to be working with my friend Ronda Wade on a new training series for demonstrators! I have been training with Ronda for over two years, and have been her online assistant for a year and two months now. 

When you start any business, there's going to be a learning curve.  I've tried other trainers that didn't work for me or the way I want to do business.  For those of you who know me, you know that I put my whole heart in everything I do.  Ronda, just helps me to make sure I take my brain along so that when I am doing business, I can really serve others.

The biggest thing that I've learned from Ronda is that God wants me to be profitable, so that I can continue to serve others with my passion, stamping.

As a result, my business has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two years and I am so very grateful! The girls on my team have also tremendously grown.  It has been an amazing turning point in my business.  It seriously changed EVERYTHING.

I have caught Ronda's passion for training and want to share with you my experience on how to grow your stamp clubs!  Here is the excerpt from Ronda's blog for the upcoming training series.  I hope to see you on the calls!

GROW Teleconference series 

Grow your classes, clubs and downline! All in ONE awesome series! 

GROW! that's the theme for this new series! Finish this year as strong as you can to set you up to meet all your goals and dreams for next year! 

In 3 weeks time we will be giving you duplicatable practical tips on how to grow your clubs, classes and downline! Ending May and June strong can lead to success next year! Growing the events that you are already doing is a sure fire way to increase your sales and profit!

*Growing Classes: -Learn ways to increase attendance in a few short months! Running the same classes with more customers is a sure fire way to work smarter and not harder! 
*Growing Clubs: Hear from Selene Kempton on solid ways to increase your clubs! In the past 6 months she has added on over 14 Club members running over 3 days!  She will teach you all her tips and secrets! Adding just 5 club members can increase your sales by over 2,000 in one year! 
*Growing your downline: Learn tips on recruiting and growth within your team!  New Recruits lead to promotions and bonuses! But you have to start now to impact next year! 
All calls will be recorded, so you can listen when you want for up to a year form the live call!
Individual rate: 25.99 for THREE Full weeks of training! 

Grab your downline and sidelines and if you have 5 or more you each get a discounted rate!~ 20.99 for THREE full weeks! 
 
Series starts on May 28th-June 11th:

CLICK HERE to register! 

UPDATE: Great Question Kathleen, All the date and times are on the registration page, link above.
All calls are recorded, so if you can't listen live, you can download and listen any time.

the call dates are
May 28, June 4th and June 11th.  The live call is at 1 pm EST.

Sincerely,




Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Stampin Up! Endless Wishes Photopolymer Stamp Set

Hello!! 

I am so grateful, having just returned from an amazing vacation because of you, my Stampin' Up! customers and friends.  Below is a photo of my family at the dolphin cove in Cozumel Mexico. 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do things I would never be able to do while being at home for my daughter when she comes home from school and taking her to dance classes.  My Stampin Up business helps pay for her education at a really great local school and dance lessons, extra's that I never got to do as a child.  For all of that, I thank you! 
Today, my good friend posted some information about a brand NEW stamp set that Stampin' Up! made available!  I am putting one on order for myself.  In the past, the photopolymer sets have sold out in just a few weeks, and this is one that I most certainly want to add to my collection!

Introducing Endless Wishes Photo Polymer  Stamp Set!

Hip hip Horray! The font on this set is so super cute and it can be stamped with a multitude of combinations.  It's completely clear, for perfect placement every single time!

I love the cute wood cuts and champagne glimmer paper shown in this sample.  It's so easy to recreate the look shown here in a short amount of time! 

The Photopolymer insures perfect placement every time and that makes this stamper so happy!

Here's a closer look at the stamp set so you can see all the awesome detail!



 The possibilities with this set are endless!






Thanks so much for all you do!  If you want to snag this stamp set up, here is a link to get your Endless Wishes Set today!

Sincerely,