Make It From Your Heart - Recap: Friday

Friday morning came waaaaaaaaaaaaay too early. I woke up with a panic thinking it was 9am and I was running late! I asked my roommate what the time was and it was only 5:30am. *stupid bloody early sunshine streaming through a barely opened window* I went back to bed and woke up a few more times before I really had to get up. When I did get up, I had a massive case of bedhead!

A quick shower, dress, and breakfast later, I was ready to roll out the door and head to the Plaza Ballroom! When we got there, it was packed with sister consultants waiting to get inside and find a table.

While we waited, several people started swapping cards and goodies. I did a bit of swapping with those around me and got some lovely pieces in return! One of the WA girls made me a badge to put on my lanyard. All the blog hoppers were to wear one as a lil badge of honor. This was made using Fundamentals paper, Slate cardstock, and one of the Cricut cartridges.

My coffee buddy Gloria made Ellie badges for her swaps. I love mine and promptly put it on my lanyard.

The doors opened for the first General Session and it was a stampede to find a table. Every table I had my eye on was snapped up so I hitched up my dress and RAN to the far right side of the room and found a table. My group lost sight of me so I climbed up on a chair to flag them down. After they found me, I went in search of more swapsies and ran out within minutes. Must make more cards for next year!

The session started and everyone took their seats to see what corporate had in store for us. The theme this year is Make It From Your Heart inspired by the movie Up. The corporate staff are such good sports and dressed in character for a presentation.

 Monica and Brian dressed up as the dog and the explorer scout from Up.

At certain points during the presentation, there were key words called out that matched the words on our base&bling necklaces. A couple ladies at my table won prizes (a complete Dapper Giraffe kit, a complete La Vie En Rose collection, Fundamentals goodies) and then I won something! I won a Beautiful You PictureMyLife kit!

The general session giveaways finished and some NEW products were leaked. Planner lovers, don't buy a planner for 2016 just yet. Watch my website for more details on the new 2016 Planner range coming December 1st! Paper lovers and die cut lovers, there's 3 new limited edition paper suites coming in January AND there's thin cut dies coming with new coordinating stampsets! HOORAY! After morning tea, we had some fantastic business training from sister consultants and corporate staff alike. All that information to take in takes a toll on you and we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we got to start our creative session using the upcoming Charlotte WorkshopsYourWay kit. Australasia Convention 2015 delegates are the ONLY consultants to get their hands on this worldwide! :D This new format of paper and embellishments is stunning! Charlotte WYW kit makes 3 double page layouts, 1 PictureMyLife layout, AND 9 cards! Each WYW kit will make a different amount of layouts and other goodies.

The creative session finished and we headed back to our hotels to get ready for our team meeting and creative showcase. My roommate wasn't feeling well and decided to have an early night. I scarfed down a sandwich leftover from lunch and repacked my bag for the night. After I got back to the ballroom, I showed several pages, cards, and my White Pines advent calendar.

My layout competition entry. I missed the memo that the title of the piece had to be "make it from your heart". Oops.

Traditional selfie with Monica Wihongi CCO of CtmH.

After the showcase ended, we had a team meeting and plenty of awards were given out. I won an award for most number of events in my calendar from October 16-New Year's Eve. I have 20 events, with a 21st added in at the last minute.

I tied at 1st with one of the top ladies from WA. Tied!

I had a copy of my workshop schedule in my bag and had to count twice. :p

My prize was a certificate and a mini stamp. I <3 this company!

The meeting ran late and we were starving! After a quick pack up, my team headed to southbank and decided on $10 fish&chips for tea. I cleaned my entire plate I was so hungry! Another quick march back to my hotel later and I was out for the night.

Shop with me today!


Stay up to date with all the fun, join my community!
twitter - instagram - facebook - pinterest

Make It From Your Heart - Recap: Thursday

Ah, the wonder of a good night's sleep in your own bed. Much better!

Here we go, a recap of the incredible weekend known as Convention 2015! :D

Thursday, my upline picked me up and we drove to a sister consultant's house. We offloaded into her car and were chauffer driven by her husband (thanks F!) to our hotel in the city. Yes, we live in the greater Brisbane area. Yes, we could have stayed home each night. No, we didn't want to bother with that so we chose to stay in for the weekend. The Mantra was lovely! With under 5 minutes from our hotel room door to the Plaza Ballroom inside BCEC, it was well worth the extra cost to stay in the city.

We met up with our 4th sister consultant in the lobby and checked in. Our rooms were down the hall from each other. My room over looked the city and the Queensland Conservatory in particular.

After settling in, we headed to find our group check in area. We registered and got our delegate packs before finding the Olio Cafe onsite.

This year, lots of consultants were heading to convention on their own and didn't know many people. As we often refer to ourselves as a family, or a sisterhood, a plan was devised and we had several ladies designated as Ohana Leaders. Ohana was picked as the name for our catch up sessions at the Olio Cafe. No one wants to go to convention on their own and not have a convention buddy to pair up with! Everyone needs buddies, and Ohana was for people to meet their convention buddies. If you're familiar with the movie Lilo&Stitch, you know that "Ohana means family, family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten". We got stickers to add to our badges to show we were in the Ohana group and open to meeting new people during breaks. It was comforting knowing that if I felt like meeting someone new, all I had to do was look for an Ohana sticker and approach them for a conversation. :)

I found my convention buddy Gloria at Ohana and we headed off to find some Starbucks. We've had many a late night chat on facebook discussing our businesses and helping eachother out with tough stuff. Gloria said she owed me a coffee so we took a walk from BCEC across the bridge to Starbucks.

We had a good chat about all and sundry while we enjoyed some caffeine and aircon.

It's sooo good to catch up with mates in person after a year of just facebook chats! We headed back to BCEC and met more convention buddies at Ohana. I left to go find my team at our hotel. Half of them were in the hotel spa, the other had just gotten dressed for dinner.

A quick shower and change of clothes later, and we all met to find something for dinner. If you've been around me for any length of time, you know that I'm a rather picky (I prefer the term "selective"!) eater. I like what I like and that's pretty much it. We whittled down the choices and found that 2 of the 3 places were closed! Option #3 it was, Ginga. We had a very nice dinner of teriyaki beef, teriyaki chicken, and chicken yakisoba with shared bowls of rice. We also had a good long chat about our businesses and life in general.

My roommate wasn't feeling up to dessert so we sent her off to bed and then sought out dessert at Gelaré.

A large waffle cone with java chip and cookie dough please! I've got a long day ahead to prepare for and I want some sleep!

Shop with me today!


Stay up to date with all the fun, join my community!
twitter - instagram - facebook - pinterest

Convention 2015

Wow, my head is spining with all the fabulousness of the business training, product giveaways, new product sneak peeks, new product creative sessions, and the food. Oh my, the gala dinner food. (YUM.)

Check back tomorrow for a full recap of all the adventures from Convention 2015!

Shop with me today!


Stay up to date with all the fun, join my community!
twitter - instagram - facebook - pinterest

The Artistic Adventure: Brisbane, New Goodies, Surprises and Dubai

Oh wow, what a weekend!

My upline picked me up on Thursday and we headed to the home of another sister Consultant. We swapped cars and her husband drove us in to the city to their hotel. Once they were settled, we walked to the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Center to find the registration area and meet up with my roommate. We got our registration packs and went our separate ways with plans to meet up for dinner later that night.

All my bags are packed...

Last minute replacement sunnies.

Oh yeah, I've got my title back!

My roommate and I headed to our hotel and I got settled and charged up my phone. Seriously, how do phone batteries just not last any more!?

It's 5 o'clock somewhere...

We took a stroll down to the Mantra and met our crew. Standing outside was the fabulous Monica Wihongi and some more of the head office staff. A joy to speak with her and catch up again!

Home sweet home for the next couple days.

On my way to dinner!

My team and I took a walk down Grey Street to find a restaurant that we'd all enjoy for dinner. I'm a picky eater so a lot of the places were "Nope, next!" or "Maaaaaaaaaaybe?". We found the Ghandi Curry House and settled on having our dinner there. Oh my, it was so yummy!

After our rather yummy tea we walked around and had dessert at Gelare. YUM!

We went back to our separate hotels and called it a night. In the morning we had a lovely cooked breakfast in the hotel lobby. The sausages weren't that good though.

A couple block walk to the convention center and we were greeted with a sea of faces all decked out in CTMH logo wear. I found the lady I was looking for and bought my new sapphire blue shirt from her. Then after a bit of a quick change, it was time to swap cards! I made two designs (12 each) and swapped for all of these!

Soon after the swaps, the convention center Great Hall doors opened and we were off and running to find seats! Shortly after we found seats, the show started off with Come Fly With Me! The US and AUNZ head office teams then announced the new products with a couple fun Amazing Race-themed skits.

Just before morning tea, we were all told we'd be getting our own brand new CTMH bag and copy of the new Seasonal Expressions. We RACED out the door and found where the bags were. Guess who got the first one? ME!

My brand new bag! Can be worn as a shoulder bag or as a backpack. So clever!

After morning tea, we filed back in to the Hall and got some hands on play time with TWO new paper ranges!

 After our sessions ended for the day, we hoofed it back to our hotel to drop stuff off and get some dinner. My roommate and I had cheesy bacon breads and drinks in our hotel restaurant before walking back to the convention center for the evening. There was a consultant creativity showcase and I showed off my most recent pages, cards, and mini albums. We also got to make a new base & bling cuff.

 Another yummy hotel breakfast, another walk to the convention center. A couple business presentations and training sessions, morning tea, and then it was time to play with more new products! We made mini albums featuring the Chalk It Up Picture My Life kit and a specially designed Convention only stampset.

After lunch we had a chance to view all of the Page Layout Competition entries. Mine wasn't all current product so I wasn't in the running for a prize. That's ok. I wanted to show off my work! (I also liked seeing my name up in print!)

 We headed back to the Great Hall for the last session of the day and it was an extra half hour of waiting to get in. Little did we know that we were in for a HUGE surprise. The founder of CTMH herself, Jeanette Lynton, was there! She's been there all weekend, just hiding in the VIP room! She's not well, and made the huge effort to come down from Utah and surprise us. Wow! She was interviewed by Monica and told us a bit of her story and how we in Australasia were an answer to prayer. She was an answer to ours!

Finally, after a great auction to benefit Operation Smile, we collected our layout entries and headed back to our hotels to get all dolled up for the Gala Dinner & Awards Presentation. Our convention agenda said semi formal attire for the dinner. Well let's see here... what do I have in my wardrobe that's semi formal? My LBD (little black bridesmaid dress)! My roommate and I each got ready and charged our phones up before making the walk back to the Great Hall. When the doors opened, the room looked lovely. All weekend, the various presenters had been using the giant autocue/teleprompter screen hanging above the Hall's sound desk. Our table was #46 and it was set very nicely. At each place was a little wrapped gift. Another exclusive stamp, just for convention attendees! Seriously, SO SPOILED!

We were told to take our seats and drinks were brought out while the awards presentation was started. I got the "ham salad" appetizer: salad of jamon iberico, charred asparagus, pepperdews with labna, caramelized onions, salsa rossa. Who are we kidding? I had the bread and butter and put the jamon iberico on top!

For mains, I got the chicken! Breast of chicken, chicken lollipop, caramelized fig compote, celeriac puree, foraged vegetables, rosemary glaze. Again, I had the chicken and glaze. The compote was nice, the celeriac puree was not nice.

The entertainment for the night between award presentations was one of the 10 tenors, Sebastian Maclaine. Holy moly, what a voice! Any time you walk out to a room of 580 ladies (with a few gents scattered throughout) you're gonna get wolf whistles. He sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. 'Nuff said!

The entire night definitely felt like a tv awards show. Glamorous gowns, handsome men, fabulous food (especially dessert!), and amazing awards. I recognized a few of the ladies that won. Each time the presenters stopped mid sentence, we all got super excited and tried to guess who was about to have their name called. The buzz in the room was electric! The head of the big team I'm in won top team sales with 1001+ downline, with $5.2million in sales for the last year. THE LAST YEAR! Wow! Go Team Bonded Hearts!!!!!!!!!!

When the awards were nearly over, dessert was brought out. Mexican three milk cake, churros, dulce de leche, malted milk sorbet. Oh my wow. SO GOOD! The LeftRight Game (similar) was played and the prize was the table centerpiece. I won it! :D A live band played for the rest of the night and the dancefloor opened. I got a few photos taken with Monica and the Brians.

While dancing I decided to take my shoes off and put my things aside for a while. I turned back to see my stuff where I left it and a US head office lady standing there. I looked back again a few minutes later and she was gone. I went to pick up my things and there, in my shoe, was a giant Sticky Boy! Much yelling and whooping and hollering happened, I won't lie. Finding a Sticky Boy is a very rare and special occurance. Head Office staff hide varying sized Sticky Boy stamps around the venue at corporate-sponsored events (convention, etc). He's usually hiding but this one found me! I looked ALL weekend and couldn't find one. Imagine my surprise and delight to find him in my shoe!

My very own Sticky Boy!

A long walk back to our hotel, and my roommate and I were knackered. So much excitement and information to take in over the weekend! We crashed pretty hard. The morning came all too early and we packed our bags before heading down to breakfast. We checked out and didn't have long to wait until our rides arrived.

Now, I've only ever been to one other business convention and this one? Hands down SO MUCH MORE FUN! And the best part? Convention 2015 is in Brisbane! And the bestest part? The next incentive trip is to DUBAI!

A 7 day cruise from Dubai, including round trip flights for two (Sydney-Dubai-Sydney), and a host of other surprises I'm sure.

I *so* want to go to Dubai and to get there, I need your help.
Place an order, book a gathering, host a gathering, book and come to a workshop, become a consultant and join my team! Every lil bit helps! Want more information? Contact me!

Shop with me today!