Classes at CHA

I wrote this post as a member of the Guest Design Team at Flamingo Scraps and wanted to share it here.

In addition to seeing all the fabulous new products on the CHA show floor, I also attended six classes. What fun! I learned so much and am really excited to share it with you all! Here are the highlights:

Tombow Certification, taught by Marie Browning:

For years, I've known and loved Tombow for their adhesives. I had no idea they make pens! In this class, Amanda and I learned all about the new Duel Brush Pen sets. Each pack has 9 gorgeous colors and one blender pen. We got to work with the set called "Jewel."

Marie taught us how to make a splash background, add rich color to white Primas, use a blending palette, create two-tone pen strokes, and much more. The class was wonderful. She is a great instructor and I left inspired to play and experiment. Expect to see more from me in the future using these great pens!

Here are some peeks at part of what we did!

Bella Boulevard's "We are Family," taught by Suzy West:

Long story short, Amanda had a ticket to this class, but Julie and I had to wait in a stand-by area in hopes of getting in. Eventually we did get in, but we missed the first half hour of a two hour class. The classes at CHA are fast paced, as most attendees are very experienced crafters, so missing 1/4 of the class means that it is nearly impossible to catch up. After struggling for awhile, I decided to abandon hope of following along and instead use the materials in my own way. I'm so glad I did, as I absolutely love my finished album!

Technique Tuesday, taught by Eileen Collins:

While Amanda was busy meeting with vendors and crunching numbers over the phone with Suzanne and Susan, I got to play with ink and stamps and paint! Doesn't sound fair, does it?! This class was incredible. While I've been stamping for years, I don't really know what I'm doing, so it was great to take a class from such a fantastic teacher. We worked with the most adorable stamp set featuring fruit. (See, I told you fruit was trendy this year!) I will be using this stamp set over and over. Isn't it cute?!

Smart Marketing for Retailers, lecture by Sandy Ghezzi:

Although not nearly as fun as playing with scrappy goodness, I did enjoy this lecture and am glad I went. Sandy is the Vice President of the Craft and Hobby Association and obviously knows the industry inside and out. Since I have no experience with retail or marketing, I learned lots of new things. Sandy's talk sparked some ideas that I passed along to the Flamingo Scraps ladies!

Advanced Social Media, lecture by Georganne Bender and Brian Basilico:

All weekend I had to answer Amanda's phone, navigate, and send texts while she was driving. She was clearly surprised that I had no idea how to do any of those! If you ask anyone they'll tell you that I'm a technological dinosaur. So the fact that I attended something called Advanced Social Media is pretty funny. But I have to say that these instructors were incredible! They were so inspirational, so informative, and so helpful. It was clear that I was not the only one in the room who struggles with the latest technological advances. They really pinpointed why and how social media is so important in the scrapbook industry. Fortunately for Flamingo Scraps, Amanda is awesome and already doing 90% of what they recommended!

Elegant Glass Etching, taught by Pat Davenport

After staying up past 1:00 AM for four nights in a row blogging, networking, and debriefing, Amanda and I were a bit bummed to have to leave Evelyn's house before 6:00 AM in order to fight the LA traffic to attend a 7:00 AM class. Fortunately, the class was great and well worth the lost sleep. Pat was an outstanding teacher and the project was really fun. I've done glass etching once before, but this was Amanda's first time doing glass etching. I had no idea how Pat was going to work glass etching into scrapbooking, but the finished album is absolutely adorable. Check it out!

The bride and groom are etched on a small glass mirror.

I'm so glad that I got to attend these classes. It was an invaluable part of the CHA experience. I'm so inspired to retreat to the craft room and create!