Simply Sara Stampin' ~ Sara Hoogendoorn: French Foliage Lansing Regional Card Swap Winner!!!

Today's card is extra special in a few different ways for me, so I'm afraid this post is going to be a LOT longer than normal, so just hold tight and read fast! lol Saturday I went to Lansing for a Stampin' Up! Regional...my first time ever to any Stampin' Up! event. My upline Glenda had sent out an email to her downline the Red Hot Stampers saying to get the true regional experience we should participate in the swaps. I really didn't know if I wanted to so I kind of put it off...but if I did do it I wanted to do something that was simple and quick to make, yet looked elegant. Well on Friday at 12:30 just after lunch I decided I wanted to do them since it was going to be the card the Red Hots did in a shoe box swap the night before the regional and I really liked it. :) I asked my daughter to help me and we got BUSY (btw I had two hours to make about 30!) Well, the poor girl found out I was very particular and finicky! lol But she helped anyway ($$$ is always a good incentive!). So how did the swap go? Just fine...after one of my fellow Red Hots dragged me out there to get my butt busy swapping! lol I managed to swap all my cards and get a lot of nice ones in return - which I'm sure I'll be posting in the coming weeks. :) Anyway I found out we could put one of our swaps in a basket and Shelli would pick out a few of her favorite swaps from the day. For those of you who don't know who Shelli is, she is the co-founder and CEO of Stampin' Up! Well, I had actually traded all of my swaps. However I had a few extra cards left over from our shoe box swap and had decided to make them up after were were done making each others cards. Glad I did because I traded one of them, but still had one left over and decided to enter it. After having a long, but fun day Shelli concluded it by showing the cards she had picked as her favorite swaps. Lo and behold, mine was the first one that she held up and flashed on the screen!!! Oh my word!!! I actually have NO idea what she said after I saw the picture of my card, but there was a lot of racket going on at the Red Hot's table!! I found out I had to go to the front to get my gift right from Shelli! Yikes! I don't know how I made it up there with all those ladies watching, but at least she didn't make me go on the stage...whew! I probably would have tripped going up the steps! lol Well, as great of an honor as that was for me, the story doesn't end there... As I was walking back to my seat Shelli showed the second card she had picked out and I had to turn and check it out... The second card she had picked was made by a fellow Red Hot Stamper too!! How awesome is that!!! Two of us from the same table out of 800+ ladies (not sure on the number of swaps entered though). Believe it or not, quiet Sara actually let out a yell and cheer because I was so excited for her too! lol (I hope to show a picture of the two of us with our cards and will add it when I can). I'm sure I'll never have another experience like this if I ever go to another regional, so it's a day I will always treasure. :) So thankful for my upline Glenda who made it so easy for all of us to be able to go, and for the group of ladies she has brought together through Stampin' Up!

Thanks for taking the time to read this special post! And now here is the pile of swaps and a close up of my card....