ScrapFest

This past weekend I went to ScrapFest. It's a three day event put on by Archivers in Minneapolis/St Paul area. Most of the event is at the Mall of America. I had not attended this event before, but thought it sounded fun, so I convinced a couple friends to go with me.

Cliff notes: Fun, hectic, tiring, learned some new stuff, didn't get much
done... Overall, I enjoyed it and would go again.

Overall class comparison - better projects and more probability of learning new techniques than from MWSA convention classes. Some classes I would rank with CKU level. The big prob - all classes are 45 minutes. So I had a 3 hour class condensed into 45 min, and I had a 2 hr class condensed into 45 min... Get the trend?? Not much completed, lots of homework. But I prefer that to a "true" 45 min class where you learn nothing, just paste this, paste that, and the projects are boring. I would highly recommend to Archivers that they offer classes of various lengths - maybe 45 min classes and 1 hr 45 min classes. I enjoyed all classes and projects besides one that will remain nameless, as it is very unusual for that particular vendor to have a not-so-good class.

Most of the vendor classes gave lots of extra stuff, so when I got home, Greg made some comments about me taking so much stuff - he didn't realize that I didn't start out with nearly that much!! Quickie class notes: Heidi Swapp and MM had the most extras in class kits. I learned cool things to do to acrylic embellies in HS class. K&Co and Li'l Davis had the best, most intense projects, with lots of stuff needed - and both had great teachers. I learned a couple new tricks in K&Co too - yahoo! Tim Holtz - I thought his class and project were fun - not sure I'll ever do it - you use paper with chipboard pictures, wings, crowns, words, etc., distress it all, and layer it between two pieces of thing glass and put into metal frames to make jewelry (or large charms) - kinda bizarre, but definitely fun and funny. I may just stick to his alcohol inks which I LOVE!!!! My other three classes were average - I did learn stuff in all of them tho.

MnTs - all were free. Some were neat, some pretty boring. I did some of each, but didn't even try to do all of them. Lines even on Friday were long, and Saturday it was horrible.

I had been to the Mall of America many years ago, but it still amazed me with the size of the place, and the very unusual stores that are there. I really didn't have time and take the time to really look around at all the stores - and since I don't like to shop, that was ok. I didn't even go into the huge IKEA store next door - I've never been in one of those, and so many scrappin' folks love their stuff!

Carrie and MK got into the Friday night After Dark Party (only 200 people! and $50 pp) - I was crushed that I hadn't gotten in. Well.... now I'm glad. It was the first year they tried that - and at first it was apparently fun, but it got boring and people got upset, etc. They only had nachos for food, there were two MnTs, there was one contest that not everyone had equal amount of time to work on. They did something weird with the prize giveaways, that made it look very suspicious, like it was fixed or something. LOTS of very upset attendees!!

My crop Friday was at Archivers in Eden Prairie and was sponsored by KI - crops all cost $40. Well, we had a great Chinese buffet meal with at least 6 main entrees, egg rolls, wings, rangoons, etc. Everyone received the same goodie bag from KI - 6 of their tins that are valued at $5 or $6 each. Plus they gave us all a MnT kit - a tin (again) with paper and embellies - VERY cute! Archivers also had goodie bags for everyone - people got to select their bag (kinda). I did great there - 12x12 Sarapapers worth $15, Heidi Grace flowers worth $25, plus a bunch of other stuff. Archivers and KI each had a grand prize too. WOW! Oh, plus they gave snack bags to everyone, and had cake later in the evening. This crop was a pretty mellow crowd.

The crop all 3 of us went to Saturday was at Archivers in Woodbury and was sponsored by MM. Our meal was Italian: meat lasagna, meatless red sauce pasta and meatless white sauce pasta (nummy) with bread and salad. Again, snack bags and cakes (plural) and cookies later. They were really good there, encouraging us to help ourselves to beverages from their frig, and even bringing sodas around to give refills. The MM and Archivers staff ALL were high energy, kept us pumped, very fun. Again, everyone received goodie bags from MM - good stuff - several different types of pkgs, and it was the luck of the draw as to what folks received. And Archivers also again had goodie bags for everyone - Carrie and MK were drawn early, so they got good stuff, my name was drawn late, and there wasn't much left - it seemed like some of the stuff was years old, or cutesie for kids, which obviously doesn't work for me. Oh, and we did get a MnT kit from MM too - a cute clipboard - and of course they gave extra stuff with it. MM is always so generous with their goodies! This Archivers gave THREE grand prizes and MM gave one too!!!!

Even tho everyone thinks I'm so lucky... no winnings for me. I think Carrie won in classes at least twice. I don't think MK won anything either. But I guess in a way I did win once - at the MM class, they were short on supplies and asked for volunteers to not get the entire class pack. There were lots of volunteers, so they drew names, and my name was drawn, so I should get a goodie bag from them in the mail. Yahoo!!! I still learned the MM class techniques. All I didn't get were two items; I got all the rest of the class goodies. And now I'll get more cool stuff! ;D

This picture is awesome!! Left to right, it's Mary Kay, Carrie and me. They had the "world's largest scrapbook page" at the MOA. It is lifesize. So anyone who wanted to do this - you pay $5 per person, get your picture taken "in" the page, and then you receive an 8x10 photo. I think a cute souvenir like this is well worth the $5.

And me.... well, shame on me.... I skipped out on work today. My head is still fuzzy... I'm taking Benadryl at night right now, due to an allergic reaction. But apparently I accidentally took two last night, or well, I'm not sure. I went to bed around 10pm. I kept hitting the snooze button this morning, finally shut the darn thing off, and just kept sleeping. I finally got up around 11:45. And like I said, my head is still fuzzy feeling - kinda creepy crawly, yuck! It feels really thick and dumb and dense.

Anyway, as I said, ScrapFest was overall a good time, and I would go again.