It’s all well and good to update about Convention, and yes, I will finish Day 2! But I haven’t posted a card in FOREVER!

This is one I made for Mother’s Day (obviously ) with my freebie set from convention, Fabulous Flowers. The colours are River Rock, Cameo Coral and Ruby Red. I’ve attached a tiny green rhinestone brad from the Ice coloured Circle Rhinestone selection, to the middle of the flower, but you probably can’t tell its colour from the photo.

The sentiment is one from the new set Occasional Greetings, which replaced All Year Cheer for me, I do miss that set, but this one is fast becoming a favourite!

Those are Ruby Red brads on the Cameo Coral tabs on each side - I used the Word Window to create those.

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Aaaaaaaah. That felt GOOD!

And now that I’ve managed to upload a photo from my new computer, and do this post a million times faster than I used to be able to on my old relic, I will be back soon to do my convention update for Day 2!

Hoopla! \:D/

This is turning out to be quite an epic! And it was a MONTH ago now!! How the time has flown.

Anyhoo, Day 1 started out with visits to Memento Mall after we collected our bags…

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I absolutely LOVE my Stampin’ Up! insulated mug - I have used it in the car a few times, but I think it’s really going to come into it’s own in my stamping room. Imagine how much LESS tea staining will occur when I clumsily knock it over instead of my usual cup. As I know I will.

And the cap… well the embroidery was so pretty I had to have it. It’s just like the pattern from the Scribble jumbo wheel. And I got my daughters one each too *blush*.

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Of course there is the black Mini Catalogue bag as well, which I mentioned in Part I, but I’m LOVING the Papaya coloured shirt I got, and the white one too - the white has a tiny little embroidered bit on it down at the hem, which you’ll see better in another photo later, it’s the swirly stamp image from Baroque Motifs!

For someone who swore they wouldn’t be getting much at all…. I went back three times!!

After Memento Mall there was the mad mad phenomenon of swapping. It’s kind of strange how you can go up to absolute complete strangers at functions like this, and swap your work for something they’ve made. Imagine trying to get away with this on the street! “Here’s a glove I made… I’ll swap you for a sock or tie!” They’d lock you away! (And rightly so). I think I had about 50 swaps made in the end, so I came home with about 50 new card samples from other demonstrators! The quality of the swaps was fantastic again this year - everyone I swapped with ROCKED!

In comparison to Memento Mall and the swapping, the actual seminar stuff is not blogworthy so I will gloss over it here - if you’re a demonstrator it was all really good information, and very helpful, insightful and full of great tips, but I’m sure you’re not the least bit interested out there!

BUT! There was a photo opportunity at the end of one of the sessions, so Tracey and I went for it!

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Yep, Shelli and us! This is one of the highlights of the whole trip - Shelli is so inspiring and just oozes loveliness…. it’s hard not to bask in her glow!

One of the other GREAT things about convention is what they call Prize Patrol. About 5 times a day they stop and put up the names of 10 demonstrators who’ve won a random prize! And I got one!!!!!!! I won the set Fabulous Flowers, which I hadn’t really considered buying, but now that I have it….. I adore it! Here it is, amongst the other stamp sets I came home with from Convention.

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We all got Fast and Fun Notes and the Happiness background in our Convention bags, and I won Fabulous Flowers in the Prize Patrol….. more on the other two sets later!

Then of course there were Make & Takes at one of the sessions - we made a 12 x 12 scrapbook page, a card using chipboard and a really cute gable box, and got to sample some of the stunning new taffeta ribbon, and use our Happiness stamp - this one is going to very handy!

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The two little cards were from a session on Day 2, so pretend you can’t see them here!

And a close up of the box we made…

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At the end of Day 1 we had an hour or so to kill while some of us waited for the Leadership session to begin in the evening, so we grabbed a quick dinner at an Italian style restaurant at Southbank. Everyone who was Senior Supervisor or above got to go to this session, and learn how to be fabulous uplines. And I have to say that I was surprised, and inspired, and relieved by what they told us. It’s not the huge hard job I was thinking it was!! Phew.

We all got a little surprise at the end of this hour long session - the biggest, richest, chocolatiest (hmmmm new word!) brownie style cake with fresh cream I have EVER seen. I confess I couldn’t eat it all :O !  AND that’s not all they had for us…. that’s how I got the Garden Whimsy stamp set in the photo above! Everyone at Leadership training got the set! How generous is this company!?

I won’t bore you with the late night swapmaking antics, and how the frozen slushies chock full of vodka tasted…. but I will share with you the tattoo I went and got after Leadership training, down at the Southbank Night markets….

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And before you ask… YES it’s real.

It’s a real spray on tattoo! You can probably guess where it was…. I couldn’t be too risque as we were out in the open with spectators gazing on!

Much drinking and talking and stamping and not much sleeping followed this expedition to the markets… Day 2 to follow soon!

Dad’s ok! I finally got a text message on my way to work that the surgery was over and looked like being a success. I was so glad to hear that news! Of course he overdid it the first day after the surgery and was exhausted by Day 2, but he was discharged from the hospital on Friday last week, and now that he’s actually getting some sleep, he’s doing really well.  Hospitals really aren’t the best place to be when you are sick.

Thankyou so much for all your comments and emails wishing him well, it really helps to know that others are sending positive vibes

Now where was I??? That’s right…… convention……

My Dad is in surgery right now, having an operation on his spine, and I’ve tried doing housework to keep busy and distracted while I wait for news, but it is just not cutting it! The thing with housework is that it is so mindlessly BORING that your brain actually has MORE time to think about other stuff ie. Why haven’t I heard yet? …. what’s going on down there? ….. when will we know if it’s been a success??

I don’t feel the least bit like stamping, then it hit me! My blog! My poor neglected blog! How can I think about Dad’s surgery while I’m writing a post hey? Brilliant!

What this means for you is….. you will finally get the next update in the Convention 2008 Trilogy!

HOOPLA!

OK so where were we…. I think we had just been awakened by the dulcet tones of a jackhammer somewhere around 5.30am ish - we leapt immediately from bed and started to sing that old song from a Judy Garland movie “Good morning! Good morning! It’s great to stay up late….” And if you believe that you’ll believe anything!

Actually, we eventually dragged ourselves out of bed for a quick brekkie and shower, got dressed and packed our swaps ready to go. Registration started at 8am and there was no way we were going to be late! We had shopping to do at Memento Mall for goodness sakes!

Thanks to Tracey, we only had a short stroll down to the Convention Centre where we joined the queue to register… there were some excited squeals from the front of the queue - Kerri, Claire and Yvonne had all received Demonstrator of the Year pins! Pride swelled my chest like the infamous waterbra could never achieve… definitely a proud Mum moment to see your downlines achieve so much! I didn’t make the cut this year *sob* but never fear, I am working hard to get up there with them next year!

Now, this seems like it’s getting a bit long and not a photo to be seen! I can’t have you straining your eyes all this time without some photographic reward for reading my drivel can I?

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 This is our Bashful Blue convention bag - I love the clear window at the front for displaying the catalogue or scrapbook page or selection of cards. My convention name tag is on there too, along with my Recruiting Pin yay! The big E on the tag was made by one of the girls from the wider group I belong to, Elite Stampers. We wore them so we could identify each other, as mostly we’ve only met online before! Thanks Teneale for making them so beautiful!

The little black bag beside it is one I bought in Memento Mall, and it also has a clear pocket at the front for putting a Mini Catalogue into - it’s my handbag at the moment

And can you believe I have to get ready for work now? AND I STILL HAVEN’T HEARD ABOUT DAD! :O  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

I’ll be back to post Convention Day 1 Part II in the next few days….