New England Eeyore
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Messages
- 5,079
Just got back yesterday from my weekend in Manchester. Just like last year, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Overall. Im glad I went, especially because I have family and friends in Manchester and I combine the weekend with visiting them, but the convention didnt knock my socks off or anything. Ill probably go again next year, but maybe just for one day. (Of course I said that last year too! A year from now Ill probably be all gung ho again.)
I took 7 classes over 2 days I didnt want to leave myself too much time for shopping. I still managed to do some serious damage to the wallet, but I think it was a lot less than last year, when I was just wandering those aisles for hours, buying all sorts of junk that is still sitting unused, some of it in its original shopping bags! I didnt do any crops.
Shopping:
I was a little underwhelmed by the vendor faire this year. I try to only buy stuff if it is either stuff I cant find anywhere else or a great deal. There were not too many of either case. I noticed a LOT of booths with layouts for sale, usually around $15 for a 2-page layout (sometimes a lot more!). I dont get that at all to me, the fun of scrapbooking is putting a layout together, and to just slap your pictures on something someone else did? Theres a market for that, Im sure, but Id be surprised if the market is the people who go to these conventions.
The bargain booths:
Deluxe Designs they make those laser die cuts (among other things). I would never buy them in the stores when they could be like $5-6, but at the conventions everything is $1 even the very large ones. They are going out of business so I stocked up. Heres a tip: their website has the same pricing $1 for all their die cuts and tons of other stuff is really cheap! While supplies last www.deluxedesigns.com
www.dollarscrapbooking.net I had never heard of this site, but this probably the most popular booth. Dollar booths are my downfall -I end up buying so much stuff that I would never normally buy because its only a dollar. I tried to be good this year only $22.
The Lil Davis booth was disappointing last year nearly everything was a dollar. This year the prices were mixed they had new product at regular price mixed in with some dollar stuff but most stuff was $2-3. The same bottlecaps I bought for $1 last year were $2 this year!
Rusty Pickle had these really cool rolling suitcases in a variety of colors and patterns that I just thought were part of their display because there were no signs I found out later that you could buy the suitcase and its contents (which was supposed to be $400 worth of product) for $150. Its definitely a good thing I didnt find out about that until it was too late!
The ScrapArts booth lets you load up a cup (3 sizes too choose from) with brads, eyelets and buttons. I did that last year and was really disappointed to see they had the same exact brads and eyelets to choose from this year. Instead I did the button only cup, which was a lot cheaper.
One other thing the US Postal Service had a booth! The owner of the website www.scrapyourtrip.com partnered with the Post Office to create a priority mail box designed just for scrappers 15x15. They were giving them out at the convention, and theyre asking people to go the website to sign a petition to get the post office to issue them nationwide.
Classes:
10x20 Wall Hanging Quick Quotes Definitely my favorite of all my classes. I chose this because it was something different and I wasnt disappointed. You could choose between either Children or Grandchildren as the theme of your canvas (based on the quotes they gave you). I may tweak the final product a bit, but it will go up on my wall eventually. The instructor was really good she repeated everything twice, which sounded odd at first, but was really quite helpful, especially for such a big class. I would take more Quick Quotes classes, except they tend to be topics that I cant use (little kids). I did use the class coupons to buy a couple small kits because I just really like the look of their canvas projects.
Techniques with a Twist Little Black Dress Designs (LBDD) The instructor is the owner of the company and she was my favorite class last year so I decided to take 3 of her classes this year. Shes just really funny and candid and you always end up doing some neat stuff in her classes. Her company wasnt exhibiting at the convention this year, so she gave us a coupon to use at her website and there was a good amount of extra product in our class packs. This class didnt do a finished project per se, although you could have made a tag book out of the tags we made it was mainly going over certain techniques involving paint, ink, chalk, sanding. I definitely got a few new ideas to try.
Strano Designs Ribbon Mini Book the company is based in MA, so this was unique to Manchester. I wasnt really crazy about the finished product and some of the stuff they had us do, but their product is really cool RibbonStiff you can use it as an adhesive for ribbon, or coat the ribbon with a layer of it and let it dry, it will not fray when cut, and you can even punch die cut shapes out of the ribbon, plus emboss and stamp and all kinds of other stuff I dont do. They werent exhibiting at the show, so I will definitely be ordering a bottle of that from their website.
Everything Embellished LBDD cute little accordian album designed to use up your scraps from other projects.
3-D Mini Album SEI The album we used is not even available commercially yet an album enclosed in a box where the top of the box is a frame and you can have the top lie flat on the box or stand up on top of the box. Very cute. I took this class because I had heard such rave reviews of SEI classes. I see why she was clearly the best instructor of them all so clear, concise and organized, with fantastic color step-by-step instructions. They give you a good amount of product in the class pack and everyone got free alphabet stickers on the way out. I realized though, that I just dont really like SEI paper. I didnt adhere the pages we did in class to the album, so I think Im going to use it for something else.
Treasured Secrets Composition Book Deluxe Designs Katherine Brooks was one of my favorite instructors last year and I was disappointed that she wasnt teaching this year, but the instructor was very sweet. This was a class that was added to the schedule really late so not a lot of people knew about it there were only 6 people in my class! It was such a refreshing change to have tons of space to work! The project was cute an altered composition book, covered front and back. Nothing revolutionary in terms of technique, but I will definitely use the finished product. They always give you free goodies too.
Tool Time with Tina my last LBDD class and my favorite of the 3. I really liked the sound of the class description using items from the junk drawer in scrapping. We made a masculine themed mini album (outside only) it involved washers, zip ties, and refrigeration tape and it was totally cool. She also mentioned my good friend drywall tape.
I was hoping to maybe get to a couple local scrap stores while I was there but I only got to one Talk, Paper, Scissors in Manchester big disappointment. The store was TINY. I bought some Bazzil because I felt like I had to buy something but there was really nothing special about the store.
Buffy and SIOH- I got your Disney Board Book kits! Ill try to send them out to you this week. They are cute I picked up one for myself too!
I took 7 classes over 2 days I didnt want to leave myself too much time for shopping. I still managed to do some serious damage to the wallet, but I think it was a lot less than last year, when I was just wandering those aisles for hours, buying all sorts of junk that is still sitting unused, some of it in its original shopping bags! I didnt do any crops.
Shopping:
I was a little underwhelmed by the vendor faire this year. I try to only buy stuff if it is either stuff I cant find anywhere else or a great deal. There were not too many of either case. I noticed a LOT of booths with layouts for sale, usually around $15 for a 2-page layout (sometimes a lot more!). I dont get that at all to me, the fun of scrapbooking is putting a layout together, and to just slap your pictures on something someone else did? Theres a market for that, Im sure, but Id be surprised if the market is the people who go to these conventions.
The bargain booths:
Deluxe Designs they make those laser die cuts (among other things). I would never buy them in the stores when they could be like $5-6, but at the conventions everything is $1 even the very large ones. They are going out of business so I stocked up. Heres a tip: their website has the same pricing $1 for all their die cuts and tons of other stuff is really cheap! While supplies last www.deluxedesigns.com
www.dollarscrapbooking.net I had never heard of this site, but this probably the most popular booth. Dollar booths are my downfall -I end up buying so much stuff that I would never normally buy because its only a dollar. I tried to be good this year only $22.
The Lil Davis booth was disappointing last year nearly everything was a dollar. This year the prices were mixed they had new product at regular price mixed in with some dollar stuff but most stuff was $2-3. The same bottlecaps I bought for $1 last year were $2 this year!
Rusty Pickle had these really cool rolling suitcases in a variety of colors and patterns that I just thought were part of their display because there were no signs I found out later that you could buy the suitcase and its contents (which was supposed to be $400 worth of product) for $150. Its definitely a good thing I didnt find out about that until it was too late!
The ScrapArts booth lets you load up a cup (3 sizes too choose from) with brads, eyelets and buttons. I did that last year and was really disappointed to see they had the same exact brads and eyelets to choose from this year. Instead I did the button only cup, which was a lot cheaper.
One other thing the US Postal Service had a booth! The owner of the website www.scrapyourtrip.com partnered with the Post Office to create a priority mail box designed just for scrappers 15x15. They were giving them out at the convention, and theyre asking people to go the website to sign a petition to get the post office to issue them nationwide.
Classes:
10x20 Wall Hanging Quick Quotes Definitely my favorite of all my classes. I chose this because it was something different and I wasnt disappointed. You could choose between either Children or Grandchildren as the theme of your canvas (based on the quotes they gave you). I may tweak the final product a bit, but it will go up on my wall eventually. The instructor was really good she repeated everything twice, which sounded odd at first, but was really quite helpful, especially for such a big class. I would take more Quick Quotes classes, except they tend to be topics that I cant use (little kids). I did use the class coupons to buy a couple small kits because I just really like the look of their canvas projects.
Techniques with a Twist Little Black Dress Designs (LBDD) The instructor is the owner of the company and she was my favorite class last year so I decided to take 3 of her classes this year. Shes just really funny and candid and you always end up doing some neat stuff in her classes. Her company wasnt exhibiting at the convention this year, so she gave us a coupon to use at her website and there was a good amount of extra product in our class packs. This class didnt do a finished project per se, although you could have made a tag book out of the tags we made it was mainly going over certain techniques involving paint, ink, chalk, sanding. I definitely got a few new ideas to try.
Strano Designs Ribbon Mini Book the company is based in MA, so this was unique to Manchester. I wasnt really crazy about the finished product and some of the stuff they had us do, but their product is really cool RibbonStiff you can use it as an adhesive for ribbon, or coat the ribbon with a layer of it and let it dry, it will not fray when cut, and you can even punch die cut shapes out of the ribbon, plus emboss and stamp and all kinds of other stuff I dont do. They werent exhibiting at the show, so I will definitely be ordering a bottle of that from their website.
Everything Embellished LBDD cute little accordian album designed to use up your scraps from other projects.
3-D Mini Album SEI The album we used is not even available commercially yet an album enclosed in a box where the top of the box is a frame and you can have the top lie flat on the box or stand up on top of the box. Very cute. I took this class because I had heard such rave reviews of SEI classes. I see why she was clearly the best instructor of them all so clear, concise and organized, with fantastic color step-by-step instructions. They give you a good amount of product in the class pack and everyone got free alphabet stickers on the way out. I realized though, that I just dont really like SEI paper. I didnt adhere the pages we did in class to the album, so I think Im going to use it for something else.
Treasured Secrets Composition Book Deluxe Designs Katherine Brooks was one of my favorite instructors last year and I was disappointed that she wasnt teaching this year, but the instructor was very sweet. This was a class that was added to the schedule really late so not a lot of people knew about it there were only 6 people in my class! It was such a refreshing change to have tons of space to work! The project was cute an altered composition book, covered front and back. Nothing revolutionary in terms of technique, but I will definitely use the finished product. They always give you free goodies too.
Tool Time with Tina my last LBDD class and my favorite of the 3. I really liked the sound of the class description using items from the junk drawer in scrapping. We made a masculine themed mini album (outside only) it involved washers, zip ties, and refrigeration tape and it was totally cool. She also mentioned my good friend drywall tape.
I was hoping to maybe get to a couple local scrap stores while I was there but I only got to one Talk, Paper, Scissors in Manchester big disappointment. The store was TINY. I bought some Bazzil because I felt like I had to buy something but there was really nothing special about the store.
Buffy and SIOH- I got your Disney Board Book kits! Ill try to send them out to you this week. They are cute I picked up one for myself too!
I also took Up to Date and Magnetic. The project is really cute, but we didn't get to finish it in the time allowed so it will probably never get finished 
. The last class I took was Disney Delight. That was my favorite (for obvious reasons!). We didn't do anything too over the top, just some cute layouts using color blocking.
I'm going to try not to let that happen this year!
