Welcome to the Home Office

Firstly I would like to apologise - this post had been scheduled for yesterday but appears not to have posted.  I am sorry if you visited yesterday looking for a new post or if it gets to you twice!  Anyway I have added today's post to it so you have an extra long one!  Grab a cuppa and enjoy ...

One of the things I was most looking forward to about the Incentive Trip to Utah was the visit to the Stampin' Up! Home Office in Riverton.  I was not disappointed as we had an amazing day there.  

As we caught our first glimps of the offices a huge cheer went up in our bus - but that was nothing when compared to the wonderful welcome we recieved

The cheers and waves of welcome went on and on and on and I felt humbled, excited and somewhat overwhelmed!  Everyone in the offices made us feel so welcome.  Here are a couple of photos of me looking a bit over excited in the atrium of the offices.

We were taken on tours of the office, our group lead by the lovely Brian Pilling.  Everywhere you looked there were beautiful cabinets crammed with samples.

This is Kathy Pitt (the lady who designed the first Stampin' Up! Stamp Set I ever purchased - Lovely as a Tree) explaining how she and the team design stamp sets for us - sometimes drawing on screen

sometimes on paper

Here we are being shown how colours and patterns are picked - using inspiration pictures and swatches.  Did you know that the Designer Series Papers are made in big sheets like this?  It was something else I learned too!

Getting the colours right is very important and when new colours are developed lots of samples get tried before the final colour is agreed - this is the swatch of samples as Pistachio Pudding was being developed.

We met the concept artists whose job it is to make the samples we see - I was so overawed by their wonderful selection of supplies I forgot to take a picture!  

We saw Shelli's Office - apparently when the building was being built she did not want a separate office and only agreed to it if there was a glass wall so she did not feel too distant from everyone else.  We were also told that actually she spends most of her time in meetings rather than in the office.

We also got to see how orders are dispatched.  When they go down to the warehouse a box in made for each one with a special label that contains all the picking information.  This machine seals the bottom of the boxes.

Then they are transported to a picking line.  The boxes stop where there are things to be put in them!  The system is designed so anyone can go and help and when things are busy that is just what the office staff do.

Then this machine puts air in bubble wrap to protect them.  Everyone in our tour group came away wanting a bubble wrap machine!!!!

Then after a quality control check the boxes are sealed and transported straight down to the lorry.

We also saw the Heritage Room, which introduces people to Stampin' Up! and tells the story of the company.  This cabinet showed some of the philanthropic work that Stampin' Up! do, in this case helping those impacted by 9/11,  and the Tsunami.

There are also beautiful room sets showcasing some of the products.

We were treated to a lovely lunch - how beautiful are these place settings?  I love the attention to detail that Stampin' Up! put into everything.

After lunch there was some training and some stamping.

We even got to try one of the latest products in the US - the Undefined range which allows you to carve your own stamps.

Now I am not very artistic and I can't draw to save my life, the kit comes with templates you could use, but I went free hand anyway - so don't laugh, but here is my stamp ...  I think the jobs of Kathy and her team are safe for the moment!

I hope that these will be coming to the UK and as soon as I hear anything about it I will be sure to let you know as I am sure you will find them as fun as I did!

It was an incredible day and I really appreciated the chance to understand more about what goes on behind the scenes at Stampin' Up! and to get to know the amazing people involved and to see first hand the love and care they put into their work on our behalf.  They really are an inspirational company to work with.

I am going to leave you with one last photo - when I told my guest Katy that we were going to tour the offices she asked if I meant being shown things like the photocopier ... so here she is with a photocopier!

If you want to see any of these pictures in more detail either click on them or visit my facebook page here.

Happy Stampin'