The Brits were in the house as OnStage Live, Orlando was about to commence. These girls had been great company already, but the excitement was now cranking up. We’d been planning this trip since Easter, but little did they know what secret I’d been keeping.
A good percentage of my Team were heading to the OnStage Local equivalent in Birmingham, UK and by all accounts, they had a fabulous time. Emma Kenyon, one of my long standing Team Members, decided to head out to Orlando just before Registration so enjoyed OnStage Live with me. Emma loves everything Disney and embraced the whole experience … Union Jack Deelie Boppers and all.
OnStage Live General Session
General Session brought about presentations, surprises, Freebies of Prize Patrol and much hilarity. Stampin’ Up! offer not only General Session where they showcase new products, but they also provide us with Make & Takes.
OnStage Live Make & Takes
Never have I seen so many BigShots lined up in one place for Make & Takes. The display boards went on forever, well … 30 years. The company displayed everything from catalogue covers through the years and documented when certain tools or services were implemented. It’s information like this that makes you realise just how far this company has come through the years. We learned of the hard times and we’ve lived through the good and there are many more years of Stampin’ Up! to come. This was just one end of one room too.
This trip brought about another fabulous meet up with the girls from the Creation Station Blog Hop that I’m a member of. These girls are all just fabulous and I throughly enjoyed sharing an evening with them. Until now, most of us had only ever met online. It was a squeeze to fit us all in, but a fun squeeze.
OnStage Live Secret
Finally the time had come for my secret to come out. Keeping a secret like this hadn’t been easy. Traffic was heavy that morning, one of the girls had forgotten her mobile phone and the wall clock was running slow. My nerves were slowly shattering. What better way to sneak off than to tell the girls you were off to the loo. The amusing thing was, when the event started at 9am, I still hadn’t returned and their concerns for me were growing. Little did they realise that I was stood back stage and had been for a good 20 minutes.
The Artisan Design Team are chosen by the Stampin’ Up! Home Office and heads, from Demonstrators across the globe. The company look out for quality photography, blog design, writing and storytelling ability, project and style diversity, original project design, quality workmanship and innovative ways to use Stampin’ Up! products. 
I can not tell you just how proud I feel for having achieved this status. It’s nothing that sales and such like could have helped achieve, but more a blind vote of my work. To be awarded this at OnStage Live in Orlando, after the tricky year we’ve had with family health issues was the icing on the cake for me. Only seven of us Artisans were present in Orlando and my UK counterpart, Emma Goddard, was back home in Birmingham, where news would break the next day.
The company presents each Artisan with a beautiful presentation box that contains a welcome note, a fabulous Tiffany Bracelet engraved with both Stampin’ Up! and the Artisan Logos and the all important personalised Artisan Stamp. Its several weeks later now and I’m still pinching myself.
In just a few weeks, I will start forwarding work to Stampin’ Up! for publication at the beginning of the year. This is my biggest accolade to date and I couldn’t feel any more honoured.
The girls I was travelling with and sitting with, didn’t believe my need for the loo thereafter, always believing it was code for ‘I’m going backstage’.
OnStage Live Party night
Oh my goodness, it had been a long day and we had a long night ahead of us, but boy was it fun! The entire event turned into Party Night, with much fun, laughter, dancing and one very long conga. For Stampin’ Up! to celebrate 30 years in this way, was quite simply the best. I am so very pleased that I travelled all that way to be a part of it. Life is indeed too short to live with regrets.
Don’t forget the last two days of the Stampin’ Up! Extravaganza Sale. 10% off of Tools & Inks for the 27th and 28th only. Use my Club Code, UW46WD3H, at check out on all online orders to receive a Thank you gift from me and secure yourself a copy of the up coming Spring/Summer Catalogue.
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