Monday, August 23, 2010

Scrapbook Expo

This last weekend was the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles Il. I missed it last year as I was moving my daughter into her dorm for freshman year but this year she is attending community college so she's living at home.

I had such a good time at the Expo. Julie Creek from Creek Bank Creations asked me to work in her booth but this year I decided to take off and play instead of work so since my son Erik, 22, has worked at a scrapbook store I volunteered his services. I think he enjoyed it! She said he did a good job. That's my boy! Friday I spent the time perusing the booths searching out the deals and found some good ones. At scrapbuck I bought pop-dots for $1 each!!! Who doesn't need more pop-dots!!! Of course I bought a cute die cut "Dance" album from Creek Bank. They can laser die cut anything so contact them if you need things. creekbankcreations.com I did a few make-n-takes and had to buy some templates for some inter-active cards. Great for some classes for the November crop!

On Saturday I took some classes. 2 were taught by SEI and the other was taught by My Monster's Creation. I always like taking SEI classes because they have such great directions and are so coordinated, unlike moi!!! My wedding album is the Twitterpated 8x8 book in a box. (of course it took me 20 some odd years to actually make an album....) We made an acrylic album in one of the classes and it is so pretty. The other class was making an envelope album. In the My Monster's Creation class we started making an album with an acrylic cover and I used glimmer mist on the other pages. I really need to practice with this medium. I need to use a lighter hand is what I need to do!

I think my favorite part of the expo was catching up with friends I haven't seen for a while! Friends from Archivers- fellow employees as well as customers, Facebook friends, Yahoo group friends, customers I sold Cricuts to at Costco!!! Students from my classes. Wonderful surprises!! My friend Chris and I were talking about our other friend Dell, who we hadn't seen in years and later I was on the phone and who was standing there staring at me???? DELL! Spooky!!! But a very good kind of spooky! Made some great contacts for Cricut classes. I really had a great weekend. I hat dinner Friday night with Linda Holland, a wonderful person I met while doing a demo at Costco. We have since become friends and partners. Her basement is Heaven and I am blessed to be able to teach classes there. All kinds of classes. Cricut, technique, projects, etc. Linda is a rep for The Angel Company and is Copic certified and has so much knowledge that I'm looking forward to lots of fun things. Saturday I met up with Karen Klos, Marissa Crome and never found Denise Britton. I help Karen with her crops at Eaglewood in Itasca. We have one coming up in November. Karen does such a great job with the crops. She puts so much work and love into them that is shows. Then I had dinner with my Yahoo girls who happen to work for Pazzles! I've known Klo and Stephanie for a very long time, before I knew what Cricut was and I worked in their booth a few times. I also ran into some Circle Sisters like Kris! So, overall I had the best weekend thanks to this wonderful hobby!

Oh, I bought a t-shirt that says:

Scrapbooking started out as a hobby.....Who knew it would turn into this!!!

Right???

Monday, August 2, 2010

Provo Gala

Let me just tell you this!!! My poor body is so exhausted after 2 very full days at the CHA SuperShow ! I had received an invitation from Provo Craft to attend their Launch Gala where they introduced their new machine the IMAGINE!!! This machine is just amazing. It not only cuts the images from the cartridges but it will print them in colors or patterns too! The printing capability was designed by HP so you know that they know what they are doing so that won't be a problem. There is an touch screen where you do all kinds of things with more functions than the expression. It is compatible with the Gypsy and the Jukebox but they are still working on the software for the Design Studio and hope to have it up and ready soon. PC also had entertainment! David Garibaldi. He has large black silk canvas' set up and he paints to music. He does portraits of famous people in less than 10 minutes. It takes you a while to figure out who it is but they are amazing!!! The talent this man has is mind-blowing. He did John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Martin Luther King and then he did Albert Einstein---UPSIDE DOWN!!!! You'll have to go to YouTube and check him out. Of course he also made the Cricut and he was cute!!! Everyone who attended, company reps, retailers, blog owners, press, and some Cricut Circle members each received a certificate for the new machine!!! Am I excited???? YES!!!! So once it comes I'll be playing with it and posting lots of info.