Loving Valentine's

A couple of days ago I realized I was running short on time to do my grandchildren’s Valentine’s gifts, so I asked Sara if she could design a fun Valentine’s treat container. Inspired by one of the winners of the So Shelli Creative Contest last month, she came up with this darling Valentine.

And she didn’t stop there! Not only did she come up with the project, she actually stamped and cut out all the pieces for me, so all I had to do was assemble them—one of those benefits of having a stamping daughter!

I assembled these during a couple of meetings this week, a great way to keep my hands busy and my mind engaged!

And a quick PS: For those who are wondering if I decided to add the bling to the Love banners for my girls. . . What do you think? Of course. . . couldn’t resist.

Hope you’re all preparing for a heart-filled Valentine’s Day!

A Day with Dad

Yesterday I spent the day with my dad! I haven’t seen him since the holidays, so it was a wonderful opportunity to spend precious time together. What brought us together wasn’t necessarily happy—he had a cousin whose wife passed away, so we went to the funeral. I enjoy funerals because they’re unique opportunities to celebrate people’s lives and to gather as family and friends to express love and support.

But beyond that, I enjoy spending time with Dad, especially when we’re alone--and driving to and back from the funeral allowed plenty of alone time. He always makes me feel special, and he loves to share what’s going on in his life. He is such a character! He loves to talk, and even if you never say a word, he keeps the conversation flowing. (But those who know me, know that the conversation was definitely two-sided!)  I love that he’s always chasing a dream and that he shares those dreams with me.

As I dropped him off at the airport for his flight back home, I was exhausted—and so grateful. I don’t know where it gets it all; he’s an amazing man. I sure love you, Dad.

And the Winners Are. . .

We’ve been talking about them for weeks, and I’ve been thinking about them for weeks—and now it’s time to announce the winners of the Workshop of a Lifetime Challenge!

We’ll be posting the winners on Stampin’ Up!’s Demonstrator Web Site tomorrow. The winners were actually notified last week, but we had to do our due diligence and make sure all the guidelines were followed, and now we’re ready to make it official.

I’ve known for a few days where the winners are located, and I’ve spent hours mapping out routes that will make sense with the other business and family responsibilities I have.

As I look at the next three months, I’m certainly excited—and a little nervous. I’ll be doing more workshops than I have in my life, but I can’t wait to meet our demonstrators, along with the guests and potential demonstrators who will be coming to these workshops.

For the next week or two, I’ll be wrapping up as many things as I can at the home office and preparing to be gone a good deal more than I usually am. I’ll also be working on the Make & Takes and demonstration samples. And you can bet I’ll be doing a practice workshop or two in preparation as well!

I’m sure I’ll be posting plenty about these workshops, as well as showing the projects—you’ll probably see more projects from me in the next few months than you’ve seen over the entire last year and a half! And I’m certain the coming weeks will be memorable, fun, and exciting! 

Who Said Meetings Were Boring?

I’ve spent the last two days in all-day meetings with Stampin’ Up!’s corporate team members. These meetings are part of ongoing meetings we’ve had the last several months as we’ve worked on focusing our resources on efforts that will be most beneficial to the company, our demonstrators, and our customers.

I have LOVED these meetings. I’ve learned so much, both personally and professionally, as we’ve worked through the process and realized what is most important to us. It was interesting as we worked to identify our “True North,” or what motivates and guides us as a company, to discover that we’d already identified it years ago—our Statement of the Heart. But somewhere along the line we’d lost sight of the fact that we truly exist to love what we do and then share that with others, helping them enjoy creativity and worthwhile accomplishments.  

Using the Statement of the Heart, over the past few months we’ve identified five areas (profitability, product, business model, relationships, and service levels) that we want to focus on moving forward. After receiving more than 100 project ideas from our different departments that fit into these five areas, we realized we needed to tighten our focus even more. So late last year we decided that we would laser focus on two things—recruiting and service levels.

The meetings we’ve had the past two days have been to determine specific things we can do in these two areas. I’ve enjoyed being part of the stimulating discussions that have taken place, and am especially looking forward to what I think are very exciting things as we work to improve our relationships with our demonstrators and share Stampin’ Up! with more people.

I won’t go into details right now, but in the coming weeks and months, I’m certain I’ll share more specifics about what we’re doing. I’m already planning to post one idea we had, once we’ve shared it with our employees first in a couple of weeks. How’s that for a teaser. . .. .

To Bling or Not To Bling

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was working on my Valentine’s gift for my girls—a hand-stamped Love banner. I’m a big fan of stamping home décor and giving it as gifts, because I don’t have to worry about whether my style matches the recipients'. If they hate it, they can hang it up for a few days and then tuck it away in a box and not have to look at it for a whole year! (smile)

Of course, I’ve given my girls enough home décor items that, whether they like the style or not, at least they have things that look great together, because all the projects share a similar style.

I got the idea for this Love banner when I saw the OnBoard Heart book in the Occasions mini. I noticed it had eight pages, and I thought, “You could get two ‘LOVE’s out of one book. That’s a pretty inexpensive gift!”

Mom Pat was visiting when I was working on the banners, and she liked the idea but didn’t have the time to make a banner for all seven of her grown children, so she made each page into a hand-stamped “ornament” for each of us. You’ll see on her ornament that she added a little bling to the outside edge of the heart. It was easy to do—just use the larger circles in the Scallop Circle #2 die, and put one each behind the upper circular parts of the heart, then cut out the inside of the third scallop heart and snip the inside edge to make a long scallop strip for the “V” part of the heart. Did I lose you? Try it, you’ll get it.

I was going to add the same bling to the hearts on my banner, but I forgot until tonight, as I was getting ready to post the blog. Now I have a dilemma: I was so excited to have this first banner done and in the mail to Shalae so she could get it before Valentine’s day, and I don’t have the “oomph” to add the bling tonight—I need to go to bed! So do I keep the banner a day or two longer and add the bling, knowing that every extra day I take is one less day that Shalae will have it? Or do I just send it off as it is? What do you think?

Either way, I’m thrilled that the banner is either done, or almost done. I’ve finished the components for the other five banners (one for each of the five girls and one for me, of course!), so they’ll go much more quickly.