Happy New Year!!! (Extremely LONG POST)

Happy New Year, MLK, Ground Hog, President’s, Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s , Memorial, 4th of July and Labor Day!!! Yep, it has been that long since I last posted. Guess I should have included Thanksgiving and Christmas since we celebrated those 2 holidays since the last post also.


I’m hoping to keep at this blog thing. So, here we go….

I attended CKC-Charlotte almost a month ago and had a pretty good time. I took more classes than normal this year. So, tonight’s post will be a review of those classes. Yes, I know it’s a little late in the year to still be reviewing the classes but my experience this year may help someone in making a decision next year. I took 4 classes and will review them in the order in which I took them.

I took the Material Girl class sponsored by CKC on Friday afternoon. CKC classes aren’t always top of my list but the layout on the registration page is what drew me in. Anyway, this class was designed to complete most of a 2 page layout in class and another 2 page layout at home. There was no way this 2 page layout could be completed in an hour’s time. This class involved template tracing, fabric cutting, fabric quilling, felt cutting, stitching and pom-pom adhering. So, even the speediest crafter would require more than an hour for all of that. We used American Crafts’ Dear Lizzy fabric paper to make the red and yellow flowers. While we used a quilling tool to roll the flowers, it could have also been done by hand for a looser look. The paper we used was from October Afternoon’s 5&Dime Collection and while it is not a line I would have a looked at twice, I ended up really liking these layouts. The instructor, I think her name is Becky was extremely friendly and patient and so she helped the class receive a 2-thumbs up from me. I wouldn’t say that I learned a lot(technique wise) in this class. Using the quilling tool to make the flowers was new to me but I can’t say that I’ll be using that technique again. I will say that after making a total of 4 layouts, I still have PLENTY of product leftover. I still have plenty of thickers, embroidery floss, mini-market stickers and label stickers to use on other projects. This class was $25 which was one of the cheapest classes I took that weekend but I feel like my mileage went a long way. So, all-in-all, I’ve give this class a A-. The grade was based on a friendly instructor, full-color sheet of the finished layouts, a material sheet with item numbers and the extra product. It gets the minus because these layouts were very labor-intensive and there were not written instructions on how to complete the layouts. If I were not able to complete the flowers in class, I’m not sure I would have known how to make those flowers on my own. So, ultimately, I would be willing to take another CKC class if I knew Becky would be the instructor and there was a lovely layout to draw me in :-) Below I have photos of the 4 layouts I made and one photo of the leftover product.

leftover product from the Material Girl class

My next class on Friday afternoon was the Life is a Journey mini album by Technique Tuesday. I LOVE minis and felt this would be right up my alley. This class was $30 and only an hour. It was late in the afternoon and I could tell by the instructor’s disposition. She was tired and I understood. She had taught several classes in a row and unfortunately, she was just downright tired by the time we got in there. In this class, we did a lot of inking and stamping of their tiles. I had bought their tiles last year at CKC but never used them until this class. I like the tiles but they are a bit fragile for me. So, in this hour class, we completed most of the framework of the album. I still had to spend a couple hours at home to complete the embellishing of the pages. I’d give this class a B- because of the tiredness of the instructor and the expense. I can’t really do the math to get why this class was valued at $30. The pages were made of cardstock, the front cover was a piece of the tile and the back cover was a piece of chipboard. We did receive a pack of the technique tiles and used the majority of them in the album. I guess the value of the stamp set “Life is a Journey” is what drove up the cost. I did appreciate they provided full-color written instructions on how to complete the album. Besides using their tiles, I don’t think I learned any other new techniques. I won’t say that I won’t ever take another Technique Tuesday class but I’d rather save my money and take A Button Farm mini-album class. Below is the album and it’s pages and the product that was leftover.

leftover product from Life is a Journey mini album class

Saturday morning was ROUGH for me. I am NOT a morning person and the class I decided to take was at 8:30. It was the only time offered and so I didn’t have a choice since I didn’t take it on Friday morning at 8:30. I did get free street parking right beside the convention center and so that was a nice perk to getting up extremely early. So, the class that beckoned me from the slumbers of my sleep was “Oh So Beautiful”. This was another mini album class and boy is it oh so beautiful. This was my first acrylic class and first class with Clear Scraps. It was my most expensive class at $35 BUT it was worth every penny. I absolutely LOVED this class and this album and can’t wait to take another one next year. I am officially hooked-on-acrylic! Anyway, the owner of the company, Susan is who taught the class and she was nice and very personable. This class was an hour and a half. In that time, Susan gave us a brief intro to the company and a lesson on the different types of acrylic and instructed us in designing one of the prettiest albums I’ve ever made. Yes, this class was FAST-PACED but we did get each page started before class ended. We used Basic Grey’s Cappella line, TH’s alcohol inks and Viva Décor Marbling Silver Ink. We cut pretty flowers from patterned papers and embellished paper flowers with ribbon doilies. I love these ribbon doilies and now have a new way to use them. I definitely give this class an A++. The instructor was great and the album was BEAUTIFUL. I loved the fact that the only cutting we did was when we cut the flowers out of the patterned paper. She had everything precut and each album page was packaged individually with all of it’s embellishments. Our package also included a full-color instruction sheet. While I did not have a lot of leftover product(only the ribbon doilies), this class was still considered the best class I’ve taken so far at CKC. Album and pages are below.

leftover ribbon doilies from Oh So Beautiful mini album class

My last class was EmbellishIT’s 2011 Latest and Greatest witih Basic Grey. This was my first “latest and greatest” class and will probably be my last one. This was the cheapest class of the bunch at $24 and I can’t really say it was worth that. It was extremely fast-paced. I felt like the little girl on the exorcist in that my head was literally spinning. We had the instructor up on a podium behind me and then she’d come down to point to something on the projector screen that was to the far right of me. So, I was constantly whipping my head back and forth to follow her. She was extremely lively and nice and had a cute personality. The problem is that only one of the 4 pages was completed in class, the pages were pretty simple and I only liked 2 of the 4 layouts. The only leftover product was a few pieces from the Simple Stories 100 Days of Summer line(I absolutely LOVE this line) There was a supplemental page pack being offered at the EmbellishIT booth that included the supplies to make the 2nd page to each of the layouts we worked on in class. The lines we used were Basic Grey, Simple Stories and Webster Pages. I did learn one thing and that was how to make those too-cute pinwheels on the Simple Stories layout. I’ll give this class a B- because I don’t feel it provided any new techniques and the format was a bit wacky. It would have received a C if it wasn’t for the perky instructor. So, those 4 layouts are below.

leftover product from Latest and Greatest with Basic Grey class

One perk this year is that in each class I took except for the Latest and Greatest, I won a goodie. I didn’t win any goodies in the Latest and Greatest because she didn’t give out any!!!!! Here are my goodies:

I also made this cute make-n-take at the Clear Scraps booth. It was $5 and I love it. It's a dry erase hanging made from a piece of acrylic.

Overall the classes I took this year were good. I think next year, I’ll definitely take the Clear Scraps class and a Button Farm mini album class. I would still be open to another CKC class as long as it’s a good fit for me. I’m not really into the latest and greatest stuff. So, I’ll just look to the blogs for the latest and greatest. If you actually read this entire post, then I hope some of my commentary will assist you in next year’s CKC decision-making!

Happy Crafting!