CKC Manchester, NH

As promised, more about our time at the CK Convention in Manchester, NH on Friday and Saturday.

First of all, if you've never been to such a thing, it might be helpful if I explain exactly what goes on at one of these conventions. There is a vendor fair that takes place throughout the entire weekend where tons and tons (no exageration!) of scrapbooking product related companies set up shop and sell their goods or services. You guessed it, this is usually the best part of one of these events, and this year's was no exception!

I saw a lot of really cool paper lines and fell in love with Crate Paper's new line called Lemongrass. I also got to meet Angela Moen of The Button Farm (as mentioned in the previous post) and fell in love with her awesome kits. What's neat about the vendor fair is that some/most companies also offer discounted prices on products so you can usually pay less than regular retail price.

On our way to the hotel on Friday, we stopped by The Paper Tree, a local scrapbooking store in Manchester. The owner, Michelle, is super sweet and runs a wonderful store. She has so many great product lines and we loved how the ribbons were divided by color and stored in glass jars.

I didn't get a photo of it, but she has a really nice large section for classes. The whole place is just so nicely set up and there is plenty of room to shop around. She also has a lot of the A Muse rubber stamps, along with a bunch of great card samples to provide inspiration. We met Cassie, her faithful little companion right when we walked in the door. Here she is taking a break on the couch.

Oh, and afterwards we had lunch at Z Food & Drink in Downtown Manchester. Read all about that here.

In addition to the vendor fair, you can take classes offered by various companies and Creating Keepsakes. My sister-in-law and I both took one on Friday evening, and then four on Saturday. The one I took on Friday night was an accordion album class that Angela taught and the album we made was fricken awesome! We could make the title of it whatever we wanted since she gave us an entire package of thickers, so I titled mine "good things" like she had used in her sample. I'm actually going to finish adding photos to mine but I'll have to post photos of it later. Anyway, a really awesome class because she's such a wonderful teacher, provides detailed step-by-step instructions with color photos, and she utilizes a wide variety of interesting paper lines and embellishments. She's teaching classes at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA on June 19 and 20 so I think we'll try to attend one to see her again.

On Saturday, I took classes taught by Creating Keepsakes (actually two by CK - both taught by Marnie Flores - she's awesome too!), Technique Tuesday, and Awesome Albums. Again, like the "good things" album, I'll have to post pics of my finished projects soon. (Hmmm ... maybe that'll be my motivation to actually finish a project ... lol) The only one that I remembered to snap a photo of during class was the album in the Awesome Albums class, which we made using acrylic boards.

The other thing about these conventions is that they offer a crop session each night. We were blown away by the number of people that attended the crop on Friday night! So many women there doing the same thing ... it's an incredible concept.

Both Marina and I managed to finish the projects from our first classes during the crop time. Various companies give away prizes during the crop but alas, we weren't lucky enough to have our names drawn for anything.

Here's a little video I made of the packed space ... quite amazing really!



I couldn't help taking a picture of these adorable ribbon cocktails that were on the front podium. I think they'd make the cutest little favors if you were to host a crafting event at your house. (Hmmm ... must save this idea for future gatherings ... )

To sum it up, a very fun time up in Manchester! I learned a bunch of new techniques, picked up some wonderful new papers to use on cards and layouts, and met some awesome people in the meantime. :)