Tuesday, November 30, 2010

My Adventures at Scrapbook Expo

Scrapbook Expo came to my part of town for the first time ever, and I was so thrilled to take part in this event.  It was very exciting to see all these companies and manufacturers come to sell all the latest products in the industry that I love.  I had the best weekend!

I started the weekend working as a teaching assistant in the Tattered Angels class.  These classes were mindblowing!  So many great techniques, so many beautiful effects, so much shimmer and shine.  The first class I was in was called Glimmer Mist 101 and it was a technique class where they teach you tons of different ways to get different looks from the Glimmer mist products.  Each student left the class with a three ring binder full of over 25 pages of techniques that they got to play with during the class.  This was an excellent learning experience, and everyone in the class had a blast.  Our teacher Nanette was awesome and super fun.

The second class was using the Heidi Swap Fascinations products.  These were products with resist built in and it was like magic in the making.  As you sprayed and wiped, different images just appeared like magic.  The papers were treated with resist images that made the most awesome effects.  It was surprisingly easy to make something look spectacular.  This class was also taught by the gracious Nanette.

After class time was shopping time!  I loved walking through the vendor area and seeing all the awesome products that I had only seen online until that point.  Manufacturers like Creative Imaginations, Pazzles and of course, Tattered Angels were there.  Plus rows of other vendors with stuff from multiple manufacturers.  I went to my hotel room with lots of new goodies to play with.  And play I did.

The next morning, I entered the Expo's Creativity Contest and submitted the desktop plaque that you see above.  It looks like they liked it because I won third place!  I won a Slice die cutting machine, a $149 value!  My very first electronic cutter!  I was over the moon!

That afternoon I worked at at one of the booths for a company called Eyelet Outlet.  This company had a huge variety of colored and shaped brads like nothing I had seen before.  It was amazing to see all the really cool brads.  Plus they are the manufacturers of Quicklets, an eyelet that you can attach with just a pen, no special tools needed.  Really easy. 

I really enjoyed myself working at the booth.  I demo-ed the products and met so many wonderful people, just as excited about papercrafting as I am.  It was so much fun.

At the end of the night, I got to work at the crop.  It was so much fun to be part of the party, for free!  Tons of giveaways, tons of fun.  I had a really good time. 

Can't wait for the expo to come back next year!