Thursday, October 8, 2009

More from the Close To My Heart Regional Celebration

NOTE: Click on the pictures to see them enlarged and click on the underlined items for a link to my Close To My Heart website to see more about the fabulous products.
Last weekend was the much anticipated Close To My Heart Regional Celebration in Minneapolis, MN! We had a fabulous time! Here are a few of the highlights:

Friday started with an early morning, fellow Inkbuds Darcy and Katie met at my home at 7:00 am to carpool to Minneapolis. When we arrived we received our name badges at registration and fabulous buttons from our senior uplines Jillene Moen and Tina Sutton!




At registration we were also given an exclusive organizer bag, regional celebration charm, and a blinged out purple princess pen.



When they opened the doors to the ballroom we each found a fabulous packet at each space for us. The coffee I picked up during the commute, but the goodies inside the bag were fantastic! It contained the papers and embellishments for our creative sessions.





We each also received 4 brand new stamp sets!





During the opening General Session we watched a wonderful video explaining the beginning of our company, from Jeanette's dime store markers, to DOTS (Dozens of Terrific Stamps) to the fabulous company we now know as Close To My Heart - 25 Years in the making! After a few heartfeld words from Jeanette Lynton we closed and shuffled off to our business classes, had lunch, and reconviened for our first creative session.


During our first creative session we created this It's a Wide World layout using the Cherish pattern, Simple Pleasures.




Technique Spotlight:

Dry Embossing with a template

We used the negative space from the "Wide World" Stickease stuck to the plastic bag from the Stickease. With the dry embossing tool on the reverse side of the chocolate cardstock base, we traced the pattern. Then we turned over the cardstock to the top side and swiped the chocolate ink pad over it to reveal the lovely scalloped pattern.







OK, so you'll have to turn on your left ear to see this one correctly, sorry, I'm picture impared and can't get it to show up landscape.





This lovely garland was created using:





I will be offering this garland as a class in the beginning of December. Watch my blog and newsletter for a class date. Please let me know if you are interested in the class, you can help me pick the date!

After creating these two great projects we were off to find some dinner and freshen up for the evening crop. We stayed until midnight cropping the night away with our new friends! We played games, ate chocolate, oh yeah, and created a few projects on our own. I prepped my create and take project for this Saturday's Home Parties at the Lodge. This lovely Twitterpated card:




Saturday's General Session started at 9:00 am, then we broke out for our business classes, had a fabulous lunch, and gathered together again for more creative sessions.


Now for me, this was the highlight of the Celebration. Jeanette Lynton led us in creating a project all the while answering our questions. She truly is amazing. Everything that Close To My Heart does has us in mind. They all think things through completely before offering us these fantastic products.


Which project you ask? Well we decorated a My Creations™ Journal. This fantastic new product will not be available until January, but we each received one! Here is your sneak peek. I'll have the original at my crop on Saturday, October 17, at the Scrappy Chic workshop for you to check out. It is a spiral bound blank journal with a page protector on the cover, so you can switch out your cover decoration, and it will remain protected. Pretty cool huh!






The last project I created at the Celebration was this fantastic Sweet Home Building Family Memories layout using the Imagine pattern, Role Play.



Technique Spotlight:
Paper Piecing
Stamp your image in 2 different colors, then cut out pieces and adhere them together. We created multi-colored buildings using the paper piecing technique.

Products Used:



There were also several card projects given to us to complete, but I chose to finish the Sweet Home layout and work on my Twitterpated Home Party project instead. At some point in the next few weeks, I'll complete the cards and share them with you. They are really cute!


The last item on the agenda was to announce the winners of the card and layout contests. I won the card contest with my Nativity card. Check out my other post for pictures and instructions. What a great experience. After announcing my name I was whisked onstage to talk about my card. I don't even know what I said. You know, I've had training in Toastmasters (public speaking) but that was about 20 years ago, and it didn't all come back to me, like say riding a bike. I was pretty flabbergasted, to say the least. Thanks again for everyone's votes and thoughtful comments. I appreciate them all!


All in all, we had a fabulous time at Regionals. National convention is in Washington D.C. in July 2010, and I will be there! I am also going to try my best to earn a cruise on the Norwegian Epic! Ask me how you can earn a cruise too!

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