Sweet Stack Swap & Day 1 of Inspire Create Share 2015

So..if you truly know me you know that I'm always looking for a bargain.  There was no way I was going to fork over big bucks for my hotel room so I Hotwired it an got a huge price cut (which made me oh, so happy).  However that meant I had to do a lot of walking since I was 5 blocks from the convention center.  If I was a step counter I would have been in "step heaven!"

On Wednesday before convention began I participated in my first of 4 organized swaps---a new stamp set swap.  I had to make 41 of these babies.  When I signed up I forgot to pick a stamp set from the catalog and by the time I remembered there weren't many sets left to pick from.  As I looked at Sweet Stack, which is the set designed to go with the Cutie Pie thinlits and Sweet Stack kit, I thought I could come up with some kind of banner with the triangular piece.....yep....easier said than done.

I can't tell you how many ways I tried this and just couldn't get it to my liking.  Finally ended up with this:

I used the Cherry on Top paper to get my theme and went from there!  Daffodil Delight (it's supposed to be crushed curry, but it's just not bright enough for me), bermuda bay with the zig zag embossing folder, Then I stamped and cut out the watermelon wonder banners, mounted them on whisper white and cute again.  I stamped the banner again in pool party and cut out the "of" and added it to the watermelon wonder banner piece.  Add your whisper white baker's twine and then tie a ton of bows (which I added with 1/2 of a glue dot).  Final touch was 3 rhinestones in the corners of the banner.

The inside looks like this:

I used the set Fabulous Four and punched a couple more banners from glimmer paper and Cherry on Top paper (love this design--so bright and cheery) then stapled them on.  Swap #1 Done.

Here is a picture to give you and idea of the chaos that you see when you come into the convention center (especially the first morning).  Trying to find friends in the midst of all this is crazy!

Then we are herded (a bit like sheep) into the area where we have general sessions-- and controlled, fun chaos ensues:

The highlight of the morning session was the reveal of our awesome new Holiday/Fall Catalog!  There is so much in there you are going to want!  I can't wait until I can show you starting Sept. 1!

After the general session we had lunch and 4 different informational classes--mine were on building the business with kits, demonstration theater, making videos, and the compensation plan.  I got great ideas from all!  

I had my second swap that evening before supper--a WOW card swap.  So I made 51 of these gems (and stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before to get them done):

And the inside of the card:

Very vanilla, blushing bride and gold embossing powder added to the butterfly framelits and Cottage Greetings brought this all together!  I really intended to put gold thread under each butterfly, but it was too time consuming to get done for all 51 in the time that I had to work on them.  

The day finished with Awards night and the after party--but to be honest, I was so pooped from staying up late to finish the swap that I couldn't enjoy this like I wanted to!