CKU - Boston Review

[aurora19]

Well I think that I have finally recovered from my CKU Boston experience. It was a fabulous weekend and well worth the $$$$ it cost.

THURSDAY:

Waited in a long line for check in - got my registration materials (class tickets) and a hard-sided cropper hopper box filled with 6 different adhesives, CKU pencil & a copper leafing pen. Also got a canvas CKU bag to carry class supplies with. At this point you could go straight into the Convention Hall for the "product demonstrations" which were really make & takes. The make & takes were a good mix of CKU related projects and everyday projects. They also were a nice mix of mini books, tags, cards and page layouts. My favorites were a tag book from 7Gypsies that you wore around you neck. Making Memories also had a cute matchbook style tag book that came with a lanyard to wear.

I also took a class Thursday night called "Pocket Full of Rainbows" sponsored by Canson paper in which we made a 6x8 album with black pages that had rainbow colored pockets interleafed through it. Very cool - great for holding memorabilia or to give as a gift.

The opening Tailgate Party was very Rah-Rah cheerleader-ish. You got a great goodie bag & a large paper taker. The energy in the room was great and it was the only night that Lisa Bearnson was there so there was an EXTREMELY long line of women waiting to see her. I skipped it because I had to go back to the Seaport Hotel to meet up with my secret sister swap group. (the woman who organized it had a baby on 7/6 and ended up coming to her classes on Friday & Saturday - Yikes!) I did meet up with my fellow disboard members at the Tailgate Party too!


FRIDAY:

Continental breakfast came in a cute red CKU lunch box!

I took Studio Art with Rebecca Sower and made 6 beautiful bookmark shaped tags. Each tag employed a different technique. Very fast past and interesting. She had some shipping problems with her supplies so our class had to donate some items to her Saturday class.

2nd was Scraphic Design with Cathy Zielske - She is amazing. Funny & direct - even though it sounds like a beginning class, it is NOT. There is something for every level in this class. It was also a lecture class so there were no projects but a nice packet of papers in a paper taker were given out.

Collected Memories with Shelley Sullivan of Scrapworks. We made a cute 6x8 album in this class. It was typical scrapworks - loads of bright colors. The album had black pages and the cover was a heavy metal. Very cool. Got to use their new color Rubz (heavier/sturdier than the MM rub-ons) and other hardwear. Only drawback - nothing was pre-measured so lots of cutting with the paper trimmer - so this project was not finished.

Inspired Ideas with Emily Adams of Magic Scraps. We made a minibook decorated with mixed-metal leaf - very cool; a silver tag; and a page layout with cork. All new magic scraps products and Emily was great.

My only disappointing class was Slide Mount Mania. Mainly it is because CK told us that we needed 12 thumbnail sized photos for the project (totally not needed for during class - could have done without that stress). The teacher Sara Horton of Tumblebeasts was very sweet and the project is cute - just not really my style.

The crop on Friday was the dorm crop - I was in a dorm (Scrapping Petals) and it was fun but I don't think that I would feel the need to be in a dorm the next time. It takes up loads of time during the weekend and you get very little free time as it is... although you do get an extra (different) goodie bag for being a dorm member (in addition to the goodie bag everyone gets at the Friday Crop). Also this is the crop that we played games like Bazzill Bingo (wow! did those winners get a TON of Bazzill) and Making Memories had their reach in the ice game.

I'll have to post Saturday tomorrow! I've got to go meet up with my DH!

 

[poohbear1029]

I also was disappointed with Slide Mount Mania....it also was my last class on Saturday afternoon and I was exhausted and did not have the attention span to keep up! Plus I had really scrounged for the photos....and it did not say the photos were optional!

Make N Takes were fun. Met a nice woman, Dianne at the first booth and we went around together. She is from Marlboro. Got my photo taken with Anna Griffin.

Thursday night I had Junkits class License to Scrap. Ithough it would include those create-a plate things, but it didnt. However, between the page I did in class and the matching page from their make n take booth, I have a two page spread waiting for me from CKU. I thought for a crew only in business about a year, they did pretty good!

The crop that night was fun. Got my photo taken with both Lisa Bearnson and Beck Higgins. Sat with Robin and her roommate, Tiffany. It was great! I met up with Robin along the way....recognized her from her Lime green shirt! Met Kimberly that night too!

Friday:

Elegant Album with Mary Lawer, a Canson class. We made a great 6x6 album with great black and gold paper. I still have yet to finish it. Great class!

Words, Words, Words....hot off the press class. I thought it would involve more journalling, but it didnt. We made a small quote book. Not really my style, but it was a fun and fast project.

See Thru Scrapbooking. Emily Adams was very entertaining! Such a nice woman. This was Magic Scraps. Made some fun Slide Mount shaker boxes and a few other little things. I didnt finish all the projects...lots of homework!

Point of Departure - Bazzill Basics..great class, won a pack of Bazzill paper that matches Chatterbox. Great page there that I didnt finish....are you sensing a theme here...I tend to get sensory overload when things get harried and loud! Not that the projects were hard...but it is better for me to just observe and come back to them when I have quiet time.

Inspired Ideas. Another Emily Adams class....same theme as Aurora explained above. Cant wait to find some of that metal shavings stuff...that was fun! Showed us great leather look paper that would be perfect for an Animal Kingdom layout!

Another crop that night....didnt bring any crop stuff...I was too worn out and that was the night I really wish I had. We stayed until 11pm as they were still giving prizes away. I won a smaller sized Xyron Machine and refill.....one size up from the little X machine.

I'll post my Saturday to tag onto Kimberly's when she posts!

 

[aurora19]

Ok Now for Saturday:

Continental Breakfast today came in a handled paper bag but it included a cute CKU themed Ruler from Die Cuts with a View

First Class: "Designing, BH Style" - we made pages for a 6x6 album of "Loves of our Lives" - very nice project. Project pages (for photos/memoribilia) are supposed to interleaf with solid cardstock pages (for journaling). Becky Higgins was very down to earth and friendly - telling us all about the products she loves - showing us unpublished layouts. Got a nice goodie bag of her favorite products. All great - except I went to a backstage party with BH at the Manchester Convention and this class was exactly like the backstage party except it included the project to do. Still I'm glad I took it.

Next was "Aged to Perfection" - a Bazzill class with Eva Flake (who we found out is pregnant with her 5th child!) I took this class mainly to see using crackle medium on cardstock. Like the look! We distressed our supplies and made a 12x12 layout. I will definately use the things I learned in this class but the layout was a bit busy for me (very collage style). Bazzill was very generous with its door prizes (but I did not win)

After Lunch I had "Mad About Metal" a Making Memories class taught by Margie Romney-Aslett and Jen Jensen. Very High energy and fun. The project was a tag booklet but you could use the tags seperately. There were a few door prizes but not a ton (from what I heard - friday's class had door prizes for every attendee - probably game everything away at the friday night crop). MM class projects do come in really cute paint cans and they tend to give you whole sheets of product when you only need 1 small bit of it for the project you are working on. Margie did a fantastic job considering she filled in at the last minute for Emily Waters (who has left MM).

"Stampbooking" was a Hero Arts class taught by Jennifer (Ditz) McGuire and Cathy Blackstone. Made a pretty color blocked layout that we stamped. I thought this class was pretty basic and was described as being more advanced. Did stamp flat buttons with Staz-on ink (using text stamp) - looks really cool! Gave out nice gift bags to every class attendee. Had nice door prizes (I did not win)

"Creative Journaling" with Rebecca Sower was my final class and she is wonderful. Even if you do not like her scrapping style (very artsy/follows no design rules) she has a wonderful sense of telling a story and having your pages reflect what is important to you. She has photo albums (with slide in pages) that she records facts about the event covered BUT she only scraps a small amount of her photos - ones that relly speak to her. Usually her journalling is about her own feelings on the event - e.g. she showed a photo layout of her son's first day of school (her youngest child) and the journaling touched on how he was excited to meet new people and to have a desk of his own but she also spoke of her mixed feelings at watching him meet this milestone and ended with "I'm going to miss sharing my lunch of peanut butter sandwiches with you." She does not believe that journaling should state the obvious and describe the photo/facts (her recommendation is to put the facts on the backside of a layout).
She also spoke about her index box that she keeps with tabs for each member of her family where she records particular ways they speak of funny/profound things they say. She then dates them and files in the index box so she can go back to it once she finds a photo that fits or she may do a layout "Drew at 6" and use these quotes as part of the bullet journalling. Needless to say if you can take ajournalling class with Rebecca, make sure you do so!

Saturday night ended with Commencement and a slide show of the weekend and awards for layout contests and such. The crop afterward was "informal" and most people did not stay for it.

Sorry so long but I wanted to do the experience justice. It was so great to meet so many of the people I have talked to on-line!

 

[LindaBabe]

Aurora and PoohBear! They are just the kinds of information a person needs to decide if they want to attend one of these weekends.

I share with PB the tendency toward sensory overload and, in fact, have just recently been able to actually do a few pages at a crop at my LSS. (Before that I could only socialize and shop but not concentrate enough to work. )

For me, based on your reviews, I think CKU and Camp Memory Makers are going to have to wait a few more years.

 

[RRBB]

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since CKU-Boston and I'm just now getting around to posting my take on the classes I took...

Friday
1) Scraphic Design (sponsored by Simple Scrapbooks magazine)
taught by: Cathy Zielske
Absolutely amazing class. I'd heard wonderful things about this class when I was in Nashville and I was NOT disappointed at all. In fact it's one of the main reasons I went to Boston.

C.Z. has a great sense of humor and even though this was a lecture class it was not boring, like lectures sometimes have a tendency to be. She showed lots of examples of how we as scrapbookers are actually graphic designers. She also suggested that we use ideas/layouts that people are paid big bucks to design for magazines. She didn't get much into color - she said that could take her days - but did touch on it a little.

2) Designing by the Decade (sponsored by Creating Keepsakes magazine)
taught by: Tracy White
Another class I really wanted to take in Nashville but couldn't squeeze it into my schedule. Tracy was really funny, putting on music and wigs of the era. Went went through the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Tracy talked about the influences of color, shape, fonts, etc. of each time period. We then had a small project for each. I definitely came away from this class ideas for all those photos I've ripped out of the "magnetic" albums my mom used when I was growing.

3) Write From the Heart (sponsored by Creating Keepsakes magazine)
taught by: Tracy White
Another very good class by Tracy White. I’d heard it was a real tear-jerker, but to be honest I left the room with dry eyes. I suppose all the mothers in the room shed a few tears though. Tracy really made a good point about expressing the emotions behind the photos/layouts rather than just stating the obvious facts. Basically she pointed out that someone looking at our albums could get rather bored looking at page after page of “little Johnny at the park”. But if you express why that moment was so important to you, what you were thinking and/or feeling those that look at our albums in a year, five years, fifty years will have a better insight into who we are.

4) A Different Perspective (sponsored by Making Memories)
taught by: Heidi Swapp
I’d never thought to use the MM Perspectives, but this class had some nice ideas how to use/alter them. This was only a one hour class though and Heidi spent half of it talking/showing pictures of her work. That left only a half hour to work on the projects so they were very rushed and I didn’t get any of them completed in class. Everyone in the class won a prize – I got an alphabet foam stamp set.

5) Innovative Cards and Tags (sponsored by Scrapworks)
taught by: Stacey Sattler
This wasn’t my favorite class, but I can’t put my finger on why. I think it’s because there wasn’t really anything new to learn in it – no new techniques or products. It was still fun though. We made 4 or 5 tiny cards using scrapworks paper and products.

Evening) License to Scrapbook (sponsored by Junkitz)
taught by: Stacey Panassidi
Fun, fast-paced class. We made a layout with a pocket using a zipper, license plates, zipper pull, etc. that coordinates with the page made at the make-n-takes. They’re really cute CKU pages in the “official” CKU colors.

Saturday
1) Studio Art (sponsored by Creating Keepsakes magazine; Education sponsor: EK Success)
taught by: Rebecca Sower
This was another fast-paced class. We made 6 tags using different techniques. Because the class packs for our class never arrived we basically used whatever supplies R.S. was able to scrounge together for us. So some of the tags didn’t really match the “theme” we were going for. But the main point was to learn the techniques anyway. (CKU is supposed to send us the class packs that we missed out on.)

2) Great Things in Small Packages (sponsored by Making Memories)
taught by: Heidi Swapp
In this class we worked with the MM 6x6 mini album. It was a cute project with lots of ideas. But once again Heidi spent a good bit of the class time talking about her work and showing pictures rather than getting into the project. We should have finished several of the pages in the project and I didn’t even get the cover done. And the pages we worked on, I got bits and pieces done but not one is finished. I guess the good thing about that is I can finish up however I want. Another thing about this class, the instructions that came in the paint can for the project aren’t for the same kind of album, nor do they have dimensions for cutting purposes. But overall, I like the idea of this type of album and we did learn some neat techniques. (Only a few people won prizes in this class. I wasn’t one of them.)

3) Mad About Metal (sponsored by Making Memories)
taught by: Margie Romney-Aslett
We worked on a mini tag book in this class, using several different techniques with metal. This was a fun class, and although I didn’t finish all the little projects I got most of them done. Margie is an absolute hoot and made this a fun class. She spent very little time at the beginning on an intro, instead waiting until the end to go through the “sales pitch”. We got lots of different metal pieces (full packages in most cases) to work with. MM is very generous with their product for their classes. (Once again only a few people won prizes in this class. This time I was a winner.)

4) Point of Departure (sponsored by Bazzill Basics)
taught by: Pam Black
The point of this class was to show that you don't have to use just your photos/colors in your photos for layout inspiration. We should draw inspiration from everyday items as well, like billboards, magazines, fabric, art, etc. For the class project we worked on the inspiration was a magazine ad. It was a 12x12 page, but really just focused on getting a really neat pull-out element complete where several photos/journaling can be hidden. The rest of the page is just basic matting, but this element was rather tricky to do. And everyone in the class was given a 6x6 pad of all the new colors of Bazzill paper – really cool.

5) Creative Journaling (sponsored by Creating Keepsakes magazine; Education sponsor: EK Success)
taught by: Rebecca Sower
My last class and by this time I was pretty brain-dead. This was another class that was basically all lecture, and another class on how to make journaling more meaningful. The gist, don’t just document the “who, what, where, when” because that’s boring and doesn’t really tell what they layout is all about and what you want others to know about the people/places/events in the photos.

Overall CKU-Boston was an awesome experience. The sponsors were very generous at the crops and in the classes. And the big “names” are all so friendly and down to earth.

I read that some people were disappointed with the amount of "stuff" they took home. They felt they didn't get enough. Well let me tell you, I came home with tons of stuff. The sponsors of all my classes seemed to be quite generous. Sure, in one or two I just had leftover paper/cardstock to use later on. But for the projects... And the goodies we got at the crops was great. I do think that the same people seemed to get their names pulled for the drawings at the crops for door prizes, but that's probably just my imagination. (I didn't win anything at them.) Honestly though, the most important thing I got from my experience at CKU was the ideas and techniques I learned, the friendships I made - especially aurora19, poohbear1029, paulinewdw and my roommate - and the other wonderful people I met.

My advice, if you have the opportunity to attend a CKU it is well worth your time and money.

 

[eeyoreforever]

Sounds like you guys had a great time. Thanks for sharing about all the classes as I had no idea how one of these actually worked. One question though, are there any children at these or is it strictly for adults?

RRBB posted that she read some people were disappointed with the amount of "goodies" they took home. As I was reading this thread, I was thinking to myself, "Wow-they got a lot of stuff to carry home-do they need an extra suitcase?"

Hopefully one day, I'll be able to attend something like this.

 

[RRBB]

There are some kids that attend CKU, but I believe they have to be at least 12 to participate. There are some women that bring their infants with them if they were nursing. I saw it at both Nashville and Boston. I didn't have any of them in my classes so I don't know how they handled that. Personally I would forego CKU until baby was older if it were me.

(Oh, in Boston there was even a young boy that came with his mother and took classes. I think a friend of hers was supposed to go and couldn't so the son took the friend's place/schedule.)

Yes, I've taken an extra suitcase both times. In Nashville all my luggage was totally stuffed but I think that was because I had dorm stuff to deal with also. I took a suitcase packed inside a huge rolling duffle bag going and had them both filled with all kinds of goodies coming home.

 

[aurora19]

RE: Kids
I don't think they allow kids under 12 because it is such an intense experience. Most kids under 12 would have a hard time maintaining attention for 15 hour days.
Most of the nursing Mom's had another adult to stay with the baby during the classes (saw one woman who's mom came along - another had her husband there.)

RE: Amount of Stuff you get
I was not disappointed with the amount of stuff I took home & I did not win any contests/drawings/door prizes. You do get a ton of stuff. Most of the class sponsors are very generous - if you need 1 or 2 of an item, they give you the whole package. That said, some sponsors are known to be more generous - like making memories.

The crop goodie bags came in paper takers which was nice (can always use more of those)

Lecture classes usually give you a small amount of goodies as a thank you (For Scraphic design we go the current issue of Simple Scrapbooks and an assortment of paper)

Basically the free amount of stuff you get will have a MSRP of at least $250 - but you may not love all of it - and if you take certain classes or win stuff, your haul could be closer to $500-600 worth of stuff so you absolutely need to bring an empty suitcase to carry the stuff you get.

Another thing to think about: if you do go, make sure to get familiar with the sponsors products and try to choose classes sponsored by your favorite manufacturers. Basically if you don't like the manufacturer's product - even if you think the class description is interesting, you may be disappointed in the class/project. Conversely, if you like the manufacturer's product - even if the class description seems simple or ordinary, you'll probably like the project and you'll definately learn at least something in the class that you didn't know before.