1:31pm- on my way to a BIG Stamp and Scrapbook Expo in Anaheim. More to come!

Eeeeeek! Look at that line!

This is a big deal!

Now I can say…. “been there, done that, bought the sweatshirt to prove it!” Lol

This is only Wednesday! This day was the scheduled Mega Make and Take. There were 12 projects to be made. They give you a kit when you walk in with everything you need to complete the night. You don’t have to do all of the projects, so you can sit there and crop or make cards if you want but I opted to do the projects in hopes to learn new techniques.

New techniques I did learn too! I have never made cards before, but with all of the cut outs already made all I had to do was piece everything together. These photos below are a small sample of what we made.

Made a cute little pillow box that can be used for gift cards

These had some intricate cut outs but turned out really cute!

This is a banner we made that has frames to insert pictures.

This is a background to attach pictures and then put into a scrapbook.

This is a cute little box we made that they even included some wint o green mints for us to put into it.

Another cute pillow box but the flower was done with vinyl outlines.

This card had some very intricate cut outs as well.

This is the inside of same card.

What an adorable camera card! My first shaker card ever!

Another background done for a scrapbook.

I just love this jewelry! I cant give away the secret to how its made though. This COULD be lucrative! lol Ask me about it though, Im looking to sell these!

There were more projects that we did but I didn’t get pictures of those.

The next day I went, there was a card swap that I had signed up for. In this event, you make 16 cards to take with you. One card stays with the show so they can highlight it and put it not only on the website but in their magazine as well. The other 15 you leave on your table for others to choose. Before we did that though, we went around the room and talked about how we made the card and mentioned any tips we may have for future reference of others. This is the card I made below:

I did a watercolor background but I didn’t do it with a brush. No, I used…. my (middle) finger. Using my finger gave an effect that definitely cannot be achieved with a brush. Plus it was pretty fun remembering all the way back to kindergarten when I did it then too. After the background dried, I attached some paper flowers to the one corner and made a bee from my Cricut machine. They have an image in their design space that I purchased to use for this. Overall a pretty fun card to make and when I left it on the table, it got snatched up pretty fast by the other women that were there.

So now we have given our tips and tricks and talked about our cards. Now is the time I have been waiting for. It’s finally time to get out of my chair and go around the room to pick out 15 cards that I want to take home with me. Yes you read that right! I got to take home 15 hand made cards. The pictures below do not do these cards justice and these aren’t even the ones I got to bring home. I was just trying to get pictures of these ones so I can try to do them myself.

Part of the fun of making all of these cards is the possibility that you might get crowned best card!. Unfortunately, yours truly did not win this honor. But here is the card that did and boy is she so deserving of the title!

Overall, it was a great weekend I got to have and I learned a lot. I can’t replace the memory I have of my first Stamp and Scrapbook Expo and that is just fine by me. But what I CAN do is build on this memory by attending every expo I can and bringing to you all of the yummy nummy information and fun that I have!

That is all I have for now, I hope that somewhere in today’s post you find inspiration and decide to get crafty as well. Have fun and see you all soon!