Open House Fall-out

The Open House is over, and I am in break-down and set-up mode all at once! I am breaking down all the display stuff, samples, papers, stamp sets, yada yada yada from the Open House. Then I get to set up the Dining Room for Sunday's workshops. Hey, it keeps me off the streets! I'd have this all done in a day except for that durn Day Job. KIDDING! I like my job (hi, Lisa!), I just wish I had more time to devote to my craft!

Lucky for me I was in such a creative frenzy last week, because now I can select 5 cards off my display walls and call it Sunday's workshop! Yay! Then all I will have to do is make up the kits. I am scheduled to be home on Wednesday because I am having some handyman-type work done - by someone besides me, because in the 10 years it took me to build the list I have never done any of it! - and it involves him doing a lot of going in and out of the condo. Sooo, I will be here to keep an eagle eye on the cat so she does not decide to sneak out and have a kitty adventure. Wednesday will undoubtedly end up being my break-down and set-up day, as long as I do not trip up the handyman!

Believe it or not, as a Demo I get as much out of my Stampin' Up! events as my customers and potential customers do, and probably more! Sure, an Open House lets me show off all our new stuff and try to make the attendees want to covet it all themselves, but I also learn from them. For example, in a last-ditch effort to add some dimension to my display walls (and yes, to fill them up some more), I made a few of the cute lanterns I saw on the Demo side of SCS and hung them up on my display. They are too easy to make, and I was thinking 'holiday decorations' for those who celebrate holidays for which you would decorate.

Here is a very bad shot of two of the lanterns. Bad lighting, bad angle, poor photograph(er), etc. But you get the idea, which may be the best I can do here... (Directions are below.)

One of the new faces in my group is a Kindergarten teacher, and she was looking at EVERYthing from a different point of view. Where you or I (or most of my customers, for that matter) were thinking about making the lanterns out of the double-sided Christmas papers, she saw black & orange for Halloween to decorate her classroom. And, the kids could actually make them, to boot! Never even crossed my mind! So now I am looking at things that would work in many ways; not just for a card, for example, but could a particular planned project be mixed up a little and made into something completely different? Hmmmm... a little mind exercise never hurt anyone! At least I am exercising SOMEthing! LOL!

And on the subject of cards, one of my make-and-takes was a 3x3 card that used the Thank You from the Short & Sweet set. I almost always leave the stamp sets out on my project stations when I do an event, which serves two purposes. One, it lets people see what else is in the set that goes with the stamp(s) they are using; and two, it lets them switch out a sentiment or image more to their liking, or they can add an additional image to their project (some do something on the inside, because I almost never do.) I think the flexibility this provides helps to mix up the creative juices. After all, my samples are only a Serving Suggestion, as I call them.

So this long, hot-air, round-about paragraph of spew actually takes us back to the Thank You sentiment. One of my customers was checking out the other sayings in the Short & Sweet set because, as she said so calmly, "I do not thank too many people." Too funny! As I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, she continued, "I am really not all that grateful. Hey, people should be thanking ME!" What a hoot! It may have been the highlight of my day! (Thanks, Ruby!)

So that's all for now. I will go select the five lucky projects for this weekend, and start reclaiming my Dining Room. It beats cleaning!

Directions for making a lantern: Take 12 strips of 1x6 paper and stack them on top of each other. Punch holes at either end with your Cropodile. Knot a piece of ribbon and thread it through one end so the knot will show at the bottom of the lantern. Thread it through the other hole. Pull so you start getting a "U" shape with the papers. Knot the other end close to the lantern, but make sure you have enough extra ribbon on it so you can hang it. Then fan out the strips of paper to make the lantern.