WCMD2016 – A Recap of an Amazing Day

As many of you  know, Pam (my amazing upline) and I have hosted a World Card Making for the past three years.  This past weekend marked our fourth.  While World Card Making Day is the first weekend of October, we pushed back our event a month to coincide with Stampin’ Up!’s OnStage event here in Atlanta.  Almost 200 demonstrators showed up to our event – today I’m sharing a quick recap in pictures.

Let’s start with a cute shot of Pam and me in our Selfie Frame:

Demonstrators came from all over the United States to attend our event, and we couldn’t be more grateful to welcome them.  Guests were introduced to lots of great stamping tricks and techniques by a panel of hand-picked demonstrators (an incredible crew).  Here’s a picture of our amazing presenters:from left to right:  Pam Morris, Candy Ford, Lynn Kolcun, Shawn de Oliveira, Linda Heller, Kimberly Van Diepen, Susan Nygaard, Brian King

Pam and I kicked off the event with introductions and fun announcements.  We had lots in store for the day, so we hit the ground running.  Pam shared some great ideas for working with the Merry Medley stamp set, along with some really fun techniques.  She also had a lot of fun with her presentation:

I shared a quick demonstration of the Diaper Fold technique to create a little pouch for candy (you can read more about that technique here).

In my little pouch, I stuffed a 100 Grand candy bar.  That led to our celebration with Mary Fish, who would be honored the next day for reaching $1 million in career sales.  Incredible, huh?  Ten 100 Grand candy bars = a million, right?  We asked Mary to come up and presented her with a special gift – a picture frame she can display in her new craft room:

Who wouldn’t love such a sentimental and beautifully crafted gift?  🙂

Candy Ford wowed us last year with her ideas for wrapping and sharing Halloween candies.  This year, she shared some amazing ideas for holiday gift-giving and decorating – from crazy-awesome ways to wrap candy to creative ways to dress up items from the Dollar Store, Candy shared some amazing ideas.  Candy brought a bottomless box of amazing ideas, and we loved each and every one.  Here she is (very seriously) showing us some ways to dress up inexpensive Christmas ornaments:

Candy’s blog is stampcandy.net.

Linda Heller shared some amazing ways for finding inspiration for the layout of a card.  She showed us, step-by-step, how she made a card with an idea from gift wrap paper.  She shared tips for CASEing with thoughts about “copying” someone else’s cards vs. being “inspired by” their work.  Such great perspectives on the layout of cards!  Linda shared some really great techniques, too!  I could watch Linda all day long.

Linda’s blog is WhereTheRubberHitstheRoad.com.

Kimberly Van Diepen is such an artist!  She shared her amazing tips for adding texture and dimension to cards.  Kimberly adds so much texture to her cards with beautiful ribbons, paint specks and washi tape.  She shared some great ways to accent a card with doilies and embossed images.  AND she maintained an energy level that kept everyone on the edge of their seats.  What a thrill to have her with us for this event!

Kimberly’s blog is StampinByTheSea.com.

Lynn Kolcun shares some great insight into finding color combinations in our “language of colors” around us every day.  From needle points she has created to trees by the road to an abstract painting, Lynn sees Stampin’ Up! colors everywhere.  She showed how she pulls inspiration for color combinations from all of these places and how they translate into a card.

Lynn’s blog is Avery’sOwlery.com.

Shawn de Oliveira is the master of clean-and-simple with a graphic edge.  I asked Shawn to talk to us about creating backgrounds and to offer some tips for quick-and-easy watercoloring.  He delivered.  This was Shawn’s first time stamping in front of a large group – I have a feeling it won’t be his last.

Shawn’s blog is ShawnStamps.com.

Our final presenter was another treat for this room of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators.  I asked my dear friend Susan Nygaard, a Stampin’ Up! Million Dollar Achiever to share her story of how she started small and worked to way to large parties and classes and themed get togethers for her customers.  Not only did Susan leave the room wanting more of her wit and charm, but she left us inspired and feeling like we could tackle the world.  At one point during her presentation, Susan donned a Mardi Gras outfit to show us how adorable she is.

It might seem like our World Card Making Day event was just one presentation after another.  What would be wrong with that when you have such amazing people to share, right?  Well, we also had some fun games and swaps with the group.  We hosted a 3-D Holiday Gift Swap where each person brought one item – I’ll be sharing my project with you soon.  The swaps were amazing!  We also hosted a card swap with some of the best cards I’ve ever seen.  There was a lot of talent in that room.

Oh!  There were also games.  The most memorable?  Two people held a collapsible trash bin on their heads while their teammate tossed Stampin’ Sponges.  After 30 seconds, we counted the sponges in each bin.  It was quite a super-fun 30 seconds!  Here’s Linda Callahan, trying to catch the Stampin’ Sponges that were being hurled at her head:

The day wrapped up with a really fun Make-and-Take (I’ll share more about that later), and several people returned the next day for a Shoebox Swap.  What an incredible day!  It was so wonderful to catch up with friends and to make new friends.  I love to entertain and was “in my element” for so many hours that day.  Thanks to all who helped make it so very special!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brian

Tomorrow is the last day for me to receive cards for the Holiday One-for-One Swap – if you haven’t mailed it already, you’ll need to just drive over and drop it in my mailbox.  🙂  I can’t wait to share these amazing cards with you.