Here I am, a day late and a dollar short (because I spent so much at CKC!) on posting about my adventures at the Charlotte Creating Keepsakes Convention. First let me tell you that I have never found any of the previous five or six conventions to be this educational! I learned sooo much this last weekend and THAT was super exciting to me! Of course I did have more opportunities to learn than usual - I took seven classes!
MFK (Kathy), Pat, Suzanne and I departed Aiken early Thursday afternoon. We drove to Charlotte, checked into the Westin (which fell several notches from their pedestal due to poor service) and then we meet up with Susan F., our friend from Seneca, SC. The five of us picked up our registration packets, hung out and then went out to dinner.
Friday morning we arrived at the Convention center shortly after 8:00 am. I had an 8:30 class and needed to check my rolling tote into the volunteer storage area AND hit up Starbucks! My first class was a Technique Tuesday layout class designed by Ali Edwards (no relation! LOL). We completed two of four layouts with lots of materials and instructions to continue on our own. I won an additionL Ali Edwards stamp set at the end of this class and that excited me.
Between classed I ran down to the vendor faire to get the lay of the land. I had a small shopping list of three items I needed for Saturday's classes.
My second class was Sophisticated Style, Expanding Layouts with SEI. I liked the techniques taught in this class and the paper sets and embellishments are so pretty. However... I felt a need to change a few of the layouts to add more "pop" and photos. I also won another door prize in this class!!! Woot!
My third class was Copic II - a technique class in using Copic markers. I really liked this instructor and the various Copic techniques she taught. She was so direct and so easily understood.
I had a long break at this point and managed to part with some money in the vendor faire!!
My final class of the day was a Tami Potter's Mosaic Moments class. If you have followed my blog you know that I have already used some of Tami's products, but I wanted a greater understanding of how to use the products as I felt I was not reaching the full potential. And yes indeed, I was correct. I learned so much on how to further use Tami's great products! And yes, because this was an evening class their was a special vendor area set up and I purchased quite a bit of additional product from Tami at half-price.
Saturday was another busy day. I started the day in the vendor faire. My plan had been to fill my time with lots of classes so as to spend less. Ha. That almost worked - NOT!
My first class was BasicGrey's Latest and Greatest. I take this class every year. It is taught by Shelby and I so enjoy her teaching style and her enthusiasm. She teaches four different layouts with varying degrees of difficulty in one hour. The layouts always feature the latest lines of BasicGrey papers.
My second class on Saturday was by Quick Quotes. The QQ classes are always fun with lots of new ideas presented. Of course Quick Quotes does want to teach us to use their products on our projects, but I do so like their classes! I won a package of vellum travel quotes, which is great since I have a cruise in two months!!
By late Saturday afternoon I was feeling tired and potentially broke! Suzanne had a late class so Pat and I made our final purchases and strolled around the vendor faire. There was a great make and take sponsored by Scrapbook Creations. For $2.00 you created a great card while learning to use: Copic Markers, Just Right Stamps, Flower Soft, Glue and Glitter stamping, Popped dimension stamping, and glitter pens. I suggested that Pat complete this make and take. Scrapbook Creations was offering what I thought was the best prize of the show, a weekend scrap retreat for the winner and number of her friends. Pat and I added our names to the drawing and I added MFK (Kathy) to the drawing. The winner had to be present to win.
By the time Pat completed her card we had been joined by MFK and Suzanne. We waited an addition ten minutes for the drawing. To make a long story short, MFK (MY FRIEND KATHY) won the free retreat weekend!!! Above is a poor quality photo of Kathy with the sweet lady from Scrapbook Creations!! We are hoping to take our trip next winter or spring - working around various weddings currently underway in a number of our lives!!
Our trip home included a stop at McAllister's Deli in Rock Hill and lots and lots of retreat talk!!
If you are still reading this post you deserve an award!!! Thanks for stopping by today.