Class Blocks

I am so behind schedule right now. Yesterday was a busy day, but it went by really quickly. At this very moment I am sitting here listening to Jessica Sprague explain how to use brushes to create your own embellishments. The entire class is alive with noise as people’s heads explode with such an AWESOME idea. But I digress, this isn’t what I am supposed to be telling you about.

Day three was our Class Blocks. Four different classes set for an hour and a half each were scheduled throughout the day with an hour in between for lunch. Meg and I were in class block A. Again you were able to select the blocks that you wanted. This way you could make sure that you sit with your friends all day.

The first class was with Tim Holtz. Can anyone say, “Whoo HOO”? This was the class I am most excited about. He is pure technique and working with really cool tools. I will not bore you with an explanation of every tool again. But I do have to say I was extremely glad that I didn’t go ahead and buy all of the implements I shared yesterday. Tim surprised us at the end of class. Shhh! The class was really fun and lively. It was a project I would never have chosen to make simply because it is more home décor and not for a scrapbook. I do like how it turned out.

Our next class was in a FREEZING classroom. Little Yellow Bicycle and their gorgeous Vita Bella line paired up to create an acrylic album. I am using it for my brand new niece’s album. The foiling on here is so eye catching, I just love it. Meg and I were going like gang busters to finish this project. We managed to get close to finishing.

Then it was lunch time. Today was a chicken salad and sun dried tomato sandwich wrapped in a spinach tortilla. I had to stand up and dance around while I ate in order to keep my fingers warmed up. Otherwise they would be numb from the cold!

After lunch, I ran by Jessica’s class with a little “Pick Me Up” to see if she needed any teacher’s assistants. She was fine, so Meg and went and found a table for the Piggie Tales Cutie Pie slide book. These albums with sliding reveal windows is a cute idea if you are thinking an ABC book for kids. I liked the train set she had for us to look at.

Finally, we were back in the frozen tundra area for our last class. Michelle Van Etten was teaching us how to create these graduated frames. She had some delivery issues and only got half of the materials she needed for the complete class. So she set us a challenge. What could we come up with using these two papers, flowers, and some bling. Go Nuts Time. People were folding, ripping, cutting, painting, and just plain creating with what they had. There were dragonflies and intricately cut out swirl patterns. It was an interesting class. Meg was not pleased with the orange and blue combos (it seemed that orange just haunted her the entire weekend). But she got really creative and figured out so many different ways to make it work for her.

Today’s pace was much easier on us. We didn’t sit in one spot for very long and the movement helped keep our brains awake. I didn’t feel exhausted at the end of the day like I had yesterday. We were going to meet up with the Yahoo group at Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It was so fun to sit Rose and Nancy and Wanda, the Katy gals Kate and Jane??? , Leslie and Lynn. The restaurant was super busy and we were on a tight schedule. Apparently Margie Romney-Aslett was to do something special for us tonight. We hog tied our waiter and made him give us our checks as soon as dinner came over. It was a good thing that I found out only today that Tim Holtz’s assistant, Mario, got sick at this restaurant on Wednesday. None of us got sick, thanks be.

We rushed back to the room to pick up cameras and cropping supplies because we had two more bonus classes tonight, plus a talk with Cropper Hopper people. The night started with a ton of free product handed out at the door. Do you know I even got a free mini tote caddy. It’s pink, but I love it! The cropper hopper folks were upbeat and loved to give away stuff.

After an hour of that, we were treated to Micaela Zoeller showing us the ways through this cute month-by-month coaster book. It was strange being back into paper scrapping. I felt the urge to spread! Don’t ask me why. Picture a whole table of similar minded people and you got our group last night. Product and trimmers and little bits of scrap everywhere!

The last workshop was run by the Rusty Pickle people. They were making a Pirate page from their Captain Jack line. Lots of cutting, that one.

Around 11 o’clock, we came to a good stopping point. So Meg had a great idea. We knew that our album track tomorrow would probably not be product heavy (Hey, it’s DIIGI, no mess!!!). If we packed tonight we could relax on Saturday. We spent an hour going through all of the tools, stickers, paper, brads, metal, ribbon, stamps, books and etc. Yes, an hour. I had to organize it all into piles, figure a way to pack to within an inch of my life and then see if it all worked. On a good note, it did. I won’t have to leave anything behind like a sad lost sock. Bed was calling by 12:30. I left Meg up to read and I passed out!

Dear Mr. Anonymous,

This is a message from your wife. She says she'll be home tomorrow. Until then make sure you keep your feet clean!