Spellbinders Design Team Retreat (long and photo heavy)

Alright, I promised I'd share some details regarding the Design team retreat put on by Spellbinders. There is SOO much to tell... and so much I can't tell! :) VERY exciting time, so much fun stuff coming up...

I left home at 3:15am on April 6th. After arriving at the airport, I was informed that my flight was delayed by 1 hr. I could have slept in... Yeah, right! :) So my wonderful Hubby went to Tim Horton's and got us breakfast! Then at 6:45 I was away. I couldn't stop grinning... I was beyond excited!!

I arrived in Phoenix Arizona at 11:30am. I was picked up by Cathy and Kim and off we went to the hotel. Since I was the first of the team to arrive, I had a few hours to kill. Sleep... sweet sleep! I got settled in the hotel room and crashed for about an hour! This is the view from the hotel room. Desert and mountains. It was so beautiful! Cloudy... but beautiful! :)
Thru the next 3 days, we were treated like royalty!! SPOILED ROTTEN! We were fed amazing food... both in the hotel and at some beautiful restaurants! Some of the snacks and desserts that were brought in were to DIE FOR! They almost looked too pretty to eat!... almost! And I was informed that there are no calories in the food in Arizona! I think I want to move there! LOL!
The people... I feel so honored to have had the opportunity to meet these girls in person. The 11 other team members are all AMAZING! I laughed harder than I have in YEARS!! We had so much fun! Here are some shots of the gals I had the honor of hanging out with and getting to know... They are all incredibly talented and have fantastic personalities! Each one is so unique and has something different to add to the dynamics of the team. We had 2 Canadians... Lesley Langdonand myself, and one gal from the UK, Christine Emberson. The rest were from all across the US. 4 were returning members from the 2010 team, AJ Otto , Judy Hayes, Kimberly Crawford and Latisha Yoast. And the remaining US teamies were Gloria Stengel, Michelle Woerner (My table mate), Shanna Vineyard, Tonya Dirk and Windy Robinson(My roomie).

The team that put together the retreat... they are amazing! They put SO much work into every little detail! Check out the room where we held our meetings and classes...
It was FULL of beautiful girly touches! Flowers hanging... real flowers on the tables... balloons... it was so beautiful and made us feel so special! And here is the star of the slow... the Spellbinder Grand Calibur!!
This is an AWESOME machine!! It needs no plug... it can cut several dies at a time due to the large plate it can run thru... and it applies even pressure through the entire plate to give a fabulous cut every time! I am in LOVE!!
Want a peek at the die templates that Spellbinders was generous enough to send us home with?
WOW eh? SO many sets of die templates to play with!! And the Grand Calibur AND the brand new not yet on the market Presto Punch! I'll share more about that in the next couple of weeks! Stacy and Jeff were SOOOO generous!! Can you believe this stash?
Want to see some more of the fabulousness we brought home... I will warn you... it is jaw dropping...I feel so unbelievably blessed... and the only reason I am showing the entire stash is to show you how HARD the Spellbinders team work to support their team... they work HARD to provide us with amazing cross promotional partners and the best of product to work with!!
Each team member was presented with this HUGE collection of ColorBox Cat Eye Chalk inks! Every color we could imagine! We nearly died!!! :) You should have heard the squeels of excitement!
And check out the bling...
Want2Scrap has partnered up with Spellbinders to bring you some Nestabling... bling shapes to fit the Nestabilities!! AMAZING! This is just the first shipment of bling from this EXTREMELY generous company!!
Alright... want to see the entire stash? Well... there are still 5 or 6 companies still to ship... but this is the majority...
And this photo does it no justice... there are things in bags still not spread out... but do you get the picture? GENEROUS and I'm SO BLESSED!!
At this time I want to take a minute to say THANK YOU to the companies who have partnered up with Spellbinders for cross promotion! You are AMAZING! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Graphic45 Paper
Donna Salazar
Flourishes
Flower Soft®
Gina K. Designs™
Heartfelt Creations™
JustRite® Stampers
Layers of Color™ Art Stamps
Local King Rubber Stamps
Magenta Stamps
Our Daily Bread Designs
Penny Black® Inc.
Quietfire Design
The Rubber Cafe'
StampingScrapping™
Technique Tuesday®
Unity Stamp Company
WaltzingMouse
Want2Scrap
Anna Griffin®
Bazzill Basics Paper®
Beacon Adhesives
Best Creation Inc.
Buttons Galore and More
Craftwork Cards
Canvas Corp.
Clearsnap
Cosmic Shimmer
Cosmo Cricket™
Creative Impressions
Echo Park Paper
Fancy Pants Designs
GCD Studios
Glue Dots®
Imaginisce®
Jillibean Soup™
KaiserCraft
My Mind's Eye™
Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker
Scor-Pal®
SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES BY 3L™
Sparkle N' Sprinkle
Want2Scrap
WorldWin Papers®
Artistic Wire
************************************************************************
While in AZ, we did more than just have classes. We also had a TON of fun!! One of the neat things they did for us was this...
You've all heard of a piniata? Well, this is the Spellbinders version... it's called a "DIE-iatta". When this baby broke, it was filled with die templates, and lots of other fabulous little goodies from our partners!! You should have seen us crawling around the floor like a bunch of children! It was so fun!!
A few more photo's...
Corporate office... lots of fun secrets seen in there! But I'll never tell...
I got to see real cactus! I even had to go out in the rain to get my picture taken with this one! LOL!
And check out the beautiful double rainbow we seen that night...
Here's the team...

What an amazing journey this was. I am blown away at having been given this opportunity! I feel so unworthy... but so blessed. Thank you Stacy... thank you Spellbinders. I can't wait to see what all this next year has in store...
Never in a million years would I have dared to dream that I would be given an opportunity like this. But I was. And for that I am so thankful! So always work towards your dreams... because you just never know what tomorrow holds.
Thanks for sticking with me thru this LONG WINDED post! There is so much more I would love to have told you, but I think this is lots... for now! LOL!
I have a project up on the Spellbinder blog today... it's not brand new, but it's there if you want to check it out and say HI! :)
Until Next time... Happy Scrapping!
~Tina~