One of the benefits of taking so many classes was that you get free entry into the vendor faire and early entry into the vendor faire on Friday morning. So…since my first class on Friday wasn't until 11:00, I was going to take full advantage of the early entry to get some shopping done.
As I drove up to the Convention Center at 10 minutes to 9:00, I saw a mass of women standing outside the building. "Oh no," I thought, "…It's going to be a mad house in there", but honestly, was I expecting anything less? Not really. So, I took the bare essentials, headed towards the doors and who do I see, but Lisa Bearnson (founding editor of CK) signing autographs. I snap a few initial pictures – you didn't really think I'd go without a camera did you... and find the end of the line. No sooner had I done that did I hear that the power was out in the convention center and they had no idea when it would be back on (hence, Lisa was outside signing autographs, which was very nice of her).
Resigned to our "fate", some of us stood in line waiting to meet Lisa, others chatted with their friends and others burned over-priced gasoline sitting in their air conditioned cars. I don't know how long it really took for me to actually meet Lisa, but I'm pretty sure it was at least 45 minutes…and still no power.
So, we continue to "hang out" in the ever-increasing heat and humidity….waiting. I chatted with several different ladies and just took everything in. For so many women being kept from scrapping and/or shopping, not a one was cranky, feisty or in a bad mood. It might have been the free ice cream sandwiches that the folks from Skinny Cow were handing out. Who can turn down free ice cream at 10:00 AM?!
Another hour passed and they finally let us in. We were all admittedly drained from the heat and giving each other a pass on not being as "flowery" as we would normally be. Given that it was already 11:00, I was headed straight to class as opposed to the vendor faire, but after I got into class, I was so glad to be there, as this was a really cool one.
It's All About You Ruler Book (5 out of 5)… Our instructor was Debbie Hill – lead designer for Junkitz – and she was just plain cool. She had us laughing from the get-go, insisted that we get excited if we won a door prize and took us step-by-step through a GREAT project. It helped that we had two hours to complete it, but my thoughts are that each class should be at least an hour-and-a-half.
In Living Color (5 out of 5)… They warned us that the Bazzill + BasicGrey class was fast-paced, but it was nothing compared to this one. Despite the circumstances, you couldn't help but feel for our instructor… She had just come back from CHA, so she had probably been home for all of two minutes – just enough time to switch the clothes in her suitcase. It took her 22 hours to get from CA to PA and when she arrived the power in the hotel was out, so she had to sleep on a sofa in the lobby. And… to top things off, her new boss provided her with the ideas/supplies for kits, but hadn't bothered to put the kits together. So, her assistants were building them on the fly. The great thing was it somehow worked. As crazy as things seemed, we made six layouts in a little over an hour and all I have to say it keep your eyes out for the new Scrapworks paper because it is BEAUTIFUL!
Accordion Mantle Book (5 out of 5)… When I walked into class, I was exhausted from the day's events, but encouraged to see Debbie from my other Junkitz class was our instructor. Secretly, I was doing jumping jacks as I loved her class from earlier in the day. In this instance, she had asked for some help, so several of us volunteered to get things set-up, which, if asked, I recommend doing because as I quickly determined you get free supplies as "payment".
Despite the crazy start, Friday was by far the best day out of the three and I had to laugh at my appearance by the end of the day. I had somehow managed to get ink all over myself – it was even on my arms – so I resembled the name of the ink we had been using all day – black soot. No worries though, because I had two altered books and six layouts to show for it!
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