A Weekend of Creativity!

Yes, that's ME and Donna Houston (my lovely daughter and owner of Inspired Designs Scrapbooking Boutique, Ft. McMurray, AB) and Leica Forrest (Saskatoon, SK) and Trisha LaDouceur (Edmonton, AB) two of my favorite designers and scrapbook friends.  And this was just one of the great moments I had this weekend at the Memories Wholesale Retailers Event in Edmonton, Alberta this weekend.  One of the things I love the most about this crazy scrapbooking world in Canada are the people I have met and continue to meet.  What amazing, talented, and just genuinely NICE people they are!  Leica and Trisha are two of my favorites and if you ever have the opporltunity to take one of their classes - RUN to register!  Here we all are in the "Good" photo - don't let it fool you!

This was my first Retailer event (supporting my daughter's store) and what an experience it was!  I attened 90 minute workshops with representatives from all the great companies lik Bo Bunny, Ranger Industries (Tim Hotlz) Clearsnap (Cathie Allen), We R Memory Keepers, Copic Markers, Graphic 45 (Diane Shultz)-  all of my very favorite lines!  The following are just some of the amazing things I got to create and the people I got to meet and talk to... Enjoy!

this is Diane Shultz, the owner and designer of all that Lovely Graphic 45 paper, and she is just a lovely in person! And below, standing beside me is her lovely Daughter Aimee, co-owner and Director of Operations of Graphic 45... Can you see the new PAPER line behind us?  It is FANTASTIC!

The following is the paper tag I made using the new paper line - Curtain Call

Then there was the Ranger Class with Tim Holtz (yes in person!)

When I dragged Donna up to get a photo of the two us with Tim Holtz, I asked him if he "had a Mother?" and his repsonse was.... "Not like YOU!"  giggle - too fun!

Here are the tags we did in the two workshops we took:

I learned sooo much in his classes that I will have to do a blog just on these techniques!

Now I have been a follower of (and in love with everything by) Cathie Allen for years!  So being able to take a class with her in person was a personal milestone for me. I don't have any good photos of what I did in Cathie Allen's stamping class, but if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from this Wonderful Woman... DO IT!  she has been in the industry for 20+ years, and here love of, and passion for stamping is contagious.  NOBODY stamps like Cathie and her techniques, (which she shares with everyone) are somthing that will change how you look at your stamps and how you incorporate stamping into your scrapbook pages.  Here is me with her and a photo of one of her stamped cards... just remember that that was a piece of white cardstock when we started!

Here are some of the other projects that I got to start creating in our workshops and will continue to work on over the next few weeks... Enjoy!

This is a photo of the cover of a portfolio we created using Little Yellow Bicycle's new line "Twig" that is totally sold out all over north America, but don't worry we were told that Twig II is coming!

Open and not yet embelished. We started with two pieces of cardboard, paper & hockey tape! WOW!

Now one of my favorite classes was with the lovely ladies from We R Memory Keepers

Here they are, Jennifer Garry & Laurel Mitchell.  I loved both their teaching style and the wonderful tools we got to play with.  watch for the new Brad setting tool - You NEED one! And if you like to stich on your projects you need to try out the Sew Easy! I am getting one for sure!  In our class we used the Cinch to create this wonderful book from just some old cardboard, their new Mexican paper line and some looseleaf with the holes removed...

I will definitely be using this book for my next journal, or maybe Receipts?  We added four divider pages that have pockets to hold stuff and that created sections in our book... LOVED IT! and done in 90 minutes!

Now have you heard about the new Vagabond Die cutting machine by Sizzix?   Well I got to use it!  (and yes, I am ordering one!)  I am a Quickutz Revolution girl, not really a Cricut girl; me and electronics just don't get along, but this baby does all the great things my Revolution does, but you push a button instead of crank a handle!  AND it cuts chipboard exactly the same way.... here is our little project made out of 1/4 inch chip board, and it took about 10 minutes!

Well that's it for now except I did want to share with you some of the layouts that they allowed me to photograph from the Prima Booth.  I just LOVE Prima... Sigh....