Scrapfest in Review

First of all, lemme say that the primary reason I wanted to go to Scrapfest was that I had heard so many wonderful things from gals that had gone in prior years. Also, when I looked over the list of vendors it blew me away, so I thought it must be grrrrr-eat! Well, sometimes when you hype yourself up like that, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment.
My gal, Carol and I went together and that alone was fun. I don't get alot of girl, scrapbooking time, so that part was super fun. We flew to MN due to the outrageous gas prices these days. Carol was kind enough to use her frequent flyer miles and get us there in an hour and a half as opposed to 7 hours in the car. Thanks again Carol!!!
When we got to the Mall of America, I was blewn away by the size of the mall. It is humungous! I thought Woodfield Mall was big! But then, I was shocked to see the classes were right in the middle of the mall!!! Crazy! There were people just walking around, shopping, wondering what the hell these ladies were doing with paper and hammers.......musta been weird to a non-scrapbooker. I thought it was weird though too, while I was in class in front of the Macy's I couldn't help but feel like I was on display. Here is what the classes looked like in the mall.

The Mall itself was pretty cool. Award for the most unique shop....PB Loco. A peanut butter sandwich store. I couldn't help but be curious. I mean, how many different types of pb are there besides smooth and crunchy? Well, apparently, there were seven different types.....even Curry Peanut Butter. We ate lunch there on Saturday and the Cina Nilla, I have to say, was delicious as the nice teen promised. It was Cinnamon Raisin peanut butter, vanilla cream cheese, caramel and sliced apples, all toasted. Yummy! And their cookies were also so sweet and tasty. Also, the colors in the store were very KI Memories and I loved that too!!

The mall was set up with about 20 different Make and Take projects from all the vendors. Some vendors brought some great samples and others did not. Disappointment. Plus, the lines to do the projects were outrageous. I had to wait about 35 minutes for one of them. There really needs to be a better system! I have come up with a better idea and will happily pass it on to the Big 'A' for a nominal fee. Most of the projects were pretty cute, some cheaper than I expected. Also, would have been so less crowded had each vendor actually sold something. More people would shop while others Made and Took. For one of the projects, I was standing in line about 15 minutes when I just knew I had to pee. I know as an adult I should be better able to predict these things, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. So I went in search of a potty, fast. Unfortunately, I had to go all the way into Bloomingdale and when I returned back in line with Carol, the women almost chewed me up. They were pissed! You would think we could all just be a little nicer.....it is SCRAPBOOKING!!!

I was lucky enough and brave enough to meet quite a few famous faces:

Shannon Tidwell, Garden Girl and KI designer

I said to Carol, "You know who lives in Minnesota??? Cathy Zielske!!!" Saw her in front of the Old Navy with Margie Scherschligt...BONUS! I got up the courage I was lacking at CHA and met her. She is as cool as I thought. Down to earth, friendly and Margie is the most smiley friendly gal from Minnesota. When I was off buying little Max something at the Lego store, I ran into Cathy again and we chatted briefly about the pain in the neck legos really are, blah blah mom stuff. So cool!

I saw Sandy Genovese at the Mrs. Grossman booth. She was also teaching classes, but I didn't take any of those.

Heidi Grace was hanging out at her booth on Saturday and she is so nice. Her new line is so different than the last, very cute papers with raised hearts. Got some this weekend.

Didn't get to see Melody Ross, but I did see Christy Tomlinson. I ran into her after her Chatterbox class. I didn't get into any of those because they were booked by the time I registered. I was sweating in Disney that week! Damn!

This is Michelle Hill from Lil Davis and she is like my long lost sister. Oh wait, my sisters are nothing like me....She is like the sister I always wanted! She has 4 kids (can you believe that??) and she is te happiest person I have met in years. So nice, so girly, so my new pretend best friend. I took her class, It's All About Me mini book class.

This is Jen Maguire. I was reading the Designing with Paper Book on the way out to Minnesota and then Sunday, right before we left, there she was!! She is a designer for Hero Arts, Autumn Leaves and a Garden Girl. Very talented!! (and super cute!!)
This is Carol, me and Starbucks. This was the last day. We went to the mall in hopes to get to the few projects we didn't have time for in one hour. It worked out OK.

In front of the Big 'A' in Mall of America. Didn't seem any bigger than the one here and the lady who checked me out on Friday, who was also the store manager, was a total wanker! Horrible customer service!! I asked another girl Friday how much the new Rob and Bob paper was and I got "I have no idea." That was it. No other answer. Good grief, no wonder I only spent $13!


At the EK Success booth, they were handing out these pom poms to promote their new Varisty line of stickers. I of course went crazy with them. Perfect photo opp!

I don't think it was overall worth a trip all the way to MOA and I don't think we will go next year. But, it is so awesome to meet those girls and just get away. I barely did any regular shopping which was a shame because there is no sales tax on clothes there but I had fun with Carol. I think it could (should) be better, they have a good basic idea, but it could be improved on easily and made better. I also think the classes or some of them have to be longer than 45 minutes. That was nuts! You pay $20, got $7 in product and 30 minutes of instruction....there should be more!! The Chatterbox classes were chock full of goodies but the classes I took weren't...figures. I wish that some of those classes were held at some of the Expos around here! Oh wait, I just heard that CKU is coming to Chicago....but that's a whole other ball o' drama!!! Do I want to deal with that??
**I will take pictures of some of the projects and post those tomorrow**