What A Sweet Day at Convention!

From high fives to singing on stage, the first official day of the
"Share What You Love" Convention was SO sweet!

The SU staff lined the entrance to the general session for a string of high fives as 80s dance music blared throughout the room.  The excitement was high and demonstrators could be seen hugging friends, holding signs, volleying giant beach balls, and dancing in the aisles to the Electric Slide. 

The enthusiasm was contagious…so I started dancing and Darla did the YMCA.

We got a chance to listen to the new theme song—it rocked!  You can get a taste of it in the We Like Demonstrators video the corporate staff just posted.  Listen to the words…very cute!  It's the little things like this that make me love this company!  They are so warm and friendly and appreciative! 

During lunch, we visited the Color Confections Sweet Shoppe.  Set up like a candy store, there were hundreds of paper sculpted confections with amazing embellishments, all displayed in pleasing-to-the-eye color groupings.  Look at the detail on these projects—looks good enough to eat!  (click to enlarge)

Chocolate candies and cake…

Brownies, yum…

Sparkly cakes and treat boxes…

Cupcakes and baby buggy treat boxes…

Here's a sneak peek from the Holiday Mini!  Check out the "cookie bars" made from a new stamp, the candy dots that are new glittery brads, and the scalloped treat bags, which are mini brown bags.  Fun stuff coming September 1!

These mini baskets are Cootie Catchers made with Designer Paper and a Dotted Scallop Ribbon Punch handle.

Lollipop, lollipop…

I loved the candy bars…they are end to end and wrapped with Celebrations DSP and embellished with the Basic Birthday Sizzlit Decorative Strip Die.

These are just a handful of all the awesome treats they had displayed!  Too Cool!

Later that night, we attended the Awards Night honoring top demonstrators in sales, recruiting and more.  Darla and I were getting tired and thought about leaving early, until I heard them introducing up-and-coming country artist Charley Jenkins as the entertainment.  We heard honking and saw Charley's tour bus pulling into the auditorium!  The crowd went wild! 

Now, I love country music, and although Darla doesn't care for it, she knew I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.  She said, if we are gonna be here, let's go up front, so we winded our way down the center aisle to the front row.

Think of a cross between Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney and you have Charley Jenkins.  He was fantastic, and cute, too!  He played some old favorites, including an Elvis medley, plus some originals.  One song, "Hero's From Home" was written for his dad—very moving.  He's from Utah and has opened for more than a dozen top artists in country music…maybe he'll be big one day.

My favorite part was when Charley played a special Stampin' Up! song he wrote on a guitar he had decorated with Newsprint Designer Paper and embellishments, which he gave away to a lucky demonstrator.

Darla and I watched the entire concert dancing right next to Shelli Gardner and her family.  I made Darla take my picture…unbeknownst to Shelli…sshhh!

At the end of the show, he asked us to come up on stage and I immediately turned to Shelli and said she should go up.  She shook her head and told me to go up.  We kept insisting back and forth, grabbing each other's arms…"you go," "no, get up there."  I was in a tussle with Shelli!  :-) 

She won, of course, because you shouldn't argue with your boss, and Darla and I ended up on stage singing along with "Sweet Home Alabama."  It was so much fun!  And, even though Darla had said earlier that "Darla and country don't go together," she admitted that she had a "mighty fine time!"  Yeehaw!

It was a great ending to a great day filled with business classes and lots of awesome presentations, some of which I will show you in the coming days!

Angie