Day Two

A Full Day of CKU!!

Apparently yesterday was only a trial run for a day at CKU. Today was the first full round of classes and events and crops and pictures and goodies and and and. I can see y’all now covering up your eyes so you don’t have to read any more! But I am going to torture you. MWAHAHAHAH.

Not really. I thought this over and decided not to take pictures of all the projects and cards and classes and stuff. Part of the fun of CKU is oohing and aahing over all the cool papers and acrylics and sketches. Right?

But I will tell you how the day progressed. I can tell you that I started at 6 AM blogging about the first day. I couldn’t sleep and hadn’t had a chance to blog at all. So I got the writing done. I didn’t post it until later when I could catch a break for 20 mins and post. Sorry for making you wait so long.

On to the good stuff. Meg and I started out with a Venti Vanilla Latte each and trotted off to our Homeroom. A little explanation is needed here. Each person selected their homeroom assignments when they registered. The choices ran from A-G. Meg and I chose G for “Georgia”! Then we settled into this one room to spend the entire day creating an album of our experiences here at CKU. All of our materials were in the tote that we received on registration (YAY ME, I called it yesterday). So the instructors didn’t have to drag around all of these boxes of materials with them. They did however bring all of their own favorite tools for each of us to use. The teachers in charge of the first and last pages of the album start off with Homeroom A. Second page in B and so on. We were in G, so we started with our last two page spread for the album.

It was taught by Margie Romney-Aslett, the longest name in scrapbooking. She had this cute journaling idea where the page folded over for a flap element. She also had us tying ribbons onto big conchos. Of course I poke myself within five seconds of the class. You would think after four years of scrapping I would know better. I don’t. Ouch.

The second class of the day was given by Brandon from Piggy Tales. She was showing off her new product called Barn Doors. Really cute idea for an interactive element on your layouts.

Then came ALI!! Of course I was out blogging with y’all. Which made me late to class. You would not believe the look I caught from the teacher. OOOOH, I was in trouble. HA. Ali was more like, “Where have you been, Mister?” Ali’s layout had us making this cool journaling block.

Tim followed right behind her dragging all of his really cool tools with him. I have a shot of how a working station would look like. I have to explain all of these cool tools so I can put them on my wish list. He started off giving out these craft mats that were like Silpat mats. You can ink, stamp, glue, adhesive, emboss, and heat on them with craft irons. Those are like $20 for one. I wonder if the $6 Silpats will work as well? Of course he had his Ranger inks, but he came with a blending tool where you had to pat onto the ink pad. Start in a circular motion and work onto the paper to blend in the ink. It was so awesome to watch how the more you rubbed the darker the ink would blend onto the edges. As you worked further into the paper, the effects became more subtle. Ultra cool! That tool is $6, but you have to buy extra pads for it. I hope I am not boring you. Here’s one more and then I will move on. Tim has this little round tool with notches into it. Set inside each notch is a titanium blade. You use it to distress the edges of papers or ribbons, or chipboard. These are like $5.99.

One of the funniest moments of the day came when I went to hunt down DiAnn and Dave to give them their name badge holders. I found them in their homeroom and didn’t notice what Dave’s hat said right away. As I got closer it dawned on me. It read “I’m not GARY!” That is awesome! See, the thing is, with all of my swaps and stuff with the Yahoo group any male scrapper at CKU this time was mobbed with tons of questions. There were four other men scrappers here at Houston so the ladies had a lot to chose from. Poor Dave and ‘the other’ Gary had to suffer through constant streams of people coming up to them saying, “Can I give you my cards now?” “Did I already pay you for the badge holders?” “Are you Gary?” So naturally Dave needed to wear a sign that said, “I’m not Gary.” And wear it he did, all day.

Here I have to stop and discuss the lunch. CKU provides lunch for us each day of the event. I wasn’t expecting much, having been at a lot of school conventions. But let me tell ya! The sandwich was a ham and cheese on croissant. Really good. They served ice cold lemonade. The usual chips and banana was included. What won my heart though were the TWO large chocolate chip cookies that had been dipped in chocolate. GAAAH!

After lunch we had Lisa Bearnson come in and help us put together a two pager that uses a fun stamp. It was shaped like the female character on the restroom. I was able to turn it into the male by skipping the edges of the skirt. Hey, it worked!

Our final class of the day was actually our first cover page for the album. This was taught by Stephanie Kropp from Little Yellow Bicycle. Better known as Deja Views. Well, LRB is a division of DV that markets to the independent stores. She was showing off her new product line with this cool metallic accented paper.

By this time it is 3:45 and we’d been going for six hours. I had to nap because of all the tossing and turning I did last night. I went upstairs and left Meg to roam around in the mall. I had to break the news to her after she returned with gifts for her kids that she had a present in the room. Her hubby sent her a special bouquet full of Peruvian Lillies. Did I mention that he already stuffed her suitcase with a daily note of inspiration for his wife? Oh, and hid a pack of rainbow twizzlers and skittles in her craft case. I officially hate him. I need to have him write out a primer for some people.

We discussed dinner for a bit and decided to find a Tex Mex restaurant. The concierge recommended this place called Escalantes about a mile away. Meg warned me about the Texas heat, so we cabbed it over. The food was really good. They will come and make fresh guacamole tableside. Some of the plate combinations were interesting. BBQ ribs and enchiladas. Hmm? I ordered an empanada, enchilada with Chihuahuan cheese and bacon wrapped shrimp. The bacon had this amazing grilled crust on it. Oh, forgot to tell you about the Pomegranate Margaritas. It was a great meal.

We cabbed back and rushed upstairs since it was already 6:30. I had to grab all of the gift boxes for the instructors, plus the boxes of Christmas card swaps, my supply case and my camera. Then we got to hang out in the hallway waiting for the elevators. Ugh, definitely something to put on the worst part of the trip. We squeezed in at the Rhinestone Crop Girls’ table right before the speeches started. Meg and I grabbed our camera and went to sit up front on the floor for better angles.
They started the festivities off with the Dorm Contests. We were treated to a rounding rendition of ‘We are the Scrappers’ by the Isle of Scrappers. And then came a skit by the SPAGA group (Super Paper Artists Galactic Alliance). They were being harassed by that evil, naughty, awful Ms. Purrfectionist. We had to decide through the Clap-O-Meter which group would take home the grand prize. The Isle won by a slim margin so everyone got a goodie prize.

Next Tim came up and introduced Ali (as if we didn’t know HER). It was sweet though. Ali talked to the whole group detailing what she has come to realize about her reasons for scrapping. Part of her slideshow included a shout out to all of the instructors. What she did was really cute. She put up a baby picture alongside the instructor. I am definitely going to have to do that with the Peaches!! It was a touching moment for all of us as we shared in her personal memories and learned more about why we scrap as we made connections to what we were seeing on the slideshow. All of us scrap for different reasons, but we all scrap to celebrate life.

Then Lisa came on stage to walk us through this album that focuses only on us. What are our stories, what are our favorites, what are the memories we don’t want to forget. I ran into a problem here mainly because the album and papers were mostly done in pinks and oranges with flowers everywhere. If I am really going to make an album to showcase me I am going to have to wait and work on this at home. I think I’ll cover the album and pick a different paper line, but use the sketches because the idea is well done.

Right about now it is 8:30 and the Yahoo group had planned to do their group photo together at that time. I went up front and asked if we could use the stage for this purpose. It took a bit of doing, but we got about 50 people up there. Problem. We are all scrappers and we all came armed with our cameras. I promised to create a Snapfish account and upload these pictures to there for the group to access. I am writing this to remind myself of this one last responsibility. ***THING TO DO***

The last Bonus workshop of the day was given by Stacy Croniger from Paper Crafts. She of course had us working on a card pack. I am currently trying to make up my own collection of card ideas because I am always making cards for some reason or other. I pulled apart all my old CK mags looking for card ideas and by the end I had a huge stack. These card ideas tonight were really great and can be adapted for almost any occasion.

Right now it is 12:18. Meg is still working on finishing up her Lisa Bearnson album. Remember she has small children and actually completing this when she gets home is probably slim to none. The gal from CKU events team is up on stage calling out names for door prizes. Apparently we have to scream really loudly if she calls our name in order to claim our prize. I have not won ….yet.