CKC Buffalo was a blast

I got home last night from our two whirl winds days at CKC Buffalo. I didn't sleep enough but I had a blast.

On Friday morning my MIL came over to babysit the kids and off I went with Holly and my sister in law, Avril. We got there and did a tour around downtown Buffalo to find the hotel. We eventually got to the convention centre at 11 am. We checked in with the volunteers so we could get our day passes and we went and did a bit of shopping before we had to volunteer from 12-4.

The volunteering was so much fun and we got our free day passes for the two days and then $30 to spend at the CK booth. Holly and I were stationed with Denise from Quick Quotes for the four hours. We had to take the tickets, hand out the page kits and then get supplies out they needed, give out coupons and instructions, hold example layouts for the ladies to see (sometimes I felt like Vanna White) and help the ladies out when they had problems. We came in at the end of one class but then ended up staying until 6:30 pm (for an extra $20) and so we did a total of 4 classes. The classes were very quick paced so we were all over the place. Denise was a sweet heart and gave us a page kit for each class we helped with. So in all we got the passes ($12 value), $50 at the CK and then the page kits worth almost $15 each.

So Friday was booked up with the volunteering and then we went to the crop on Friday night. It was fun. They did have this awesome contest that Scrapworks sponsored. Each table got a goodie bag to make clothing out of the papers and then they would vote on the best costume at the end of the night. It was hilirous! The Supercropper costume did the best but there was also Scrapbook divas, shopping bags/jewerly, crop aprons, etc. Our table did do one too but no where near the caliper that the other ladies did. The one lady at our table made all the stuff and we contributed ideas while we cropped. We tried to do items from around the world. There was a fan for Japan, bikini with thong for French, feather headgear for an Indian, anklets and wrist bracklets for Africa. I did get two pages done at the crop even though there always seemed to be someone talking on the microphone ( I think next time we would do our own thing at the hotel). I was wired after the crop so when we got back to the hotel I did four more pages until 3 am. Gotta take advantage when you have no kids I guess.

Saturday we had an ordeal to find my missing keys before heading to Target for some quick shopping before our classes with Lisa Bearnson and Erin Lincoln. Apparently, we got directions to Target after we came in from the crop on Friday night and I left my keys at the front desk. We did make it to Target eventually to shop for about 45 minutes and to Micheal's for about 15 minutes. We then made it back to the convention centre, handed in my CK and SS magazine entries and got to our 11:10 class called "Simple Becoming Who you are" with Lisa Bearnson. It was a mini album tied with ribbon. I love the book and so awesome to learn more about Lisa IRL. We had some lunch with the S! ladies at the show and then did some shopping before our next class with Erin Lincoln. Erin was nice but the two page layout wasn't all that great (at least I thought). The class was called, "pages from the heart" and was all about telling the stories in our scrapbooks. It was still fun but poor Avie got picked out to answer questions about her life and didn't win a prize for being put on the spot.

After our class, we found out that VickiS! and JenniferS! had one prizes for the scrapworks "colors of" contest. I did a page for it but then read afterwards that it was supposed to be a two page layout OPPS!! The pages I saw were amazing so I really didn't think I would win. but there always seemed to be someone talking on the microphone so it was hard to scrapbook. Vicki and Jennifer did awesome pages but I was really partial to another one. It was of some kids playing in the sprinkler and it had coloured stitching up the layout to mimic a sprinkler on black cardstock (high contract and just fabulous) and journalling between the hand stitching. It was amazing!!

We then helped out Scrapbooks and Stickers tear down their booth after the show on Saturday and she gave us $20 in free stuff for helping for only an hour. Just fabulous free stuff we got and then the big haul of the night was when we went out for dinner with the 2Peas Pub girls. They had contacted all the manufactures to see if they would donate some free stuff as goodie bags. We'll since they were mostly pubsters they donated a lot of stuff. We got at least 2 inches of pp, two large mulitcoloured packs of cardstock, about 6 things of ribbon, stickers, etc. It was amazing all the stuff we got. Well over $150 dollars of stuff in there and all I have to do is create at least one layout and post it on the 2Pea gallery.

So I thought I'd show you the little $60 US of stuff I purchased at the booths compared too the over $250 in free stuff that we got. I had to compact the free stuff to be able to get a picture of it. You just can't imagine it all.

And Holly was so awesome to get a deal at the hotel (since her friend works there). The room was an valued at about $160 US/night and she got it for $49 US (so $14 per person). Thanks Holly!!

Apparently, they are going to do it again next year so I can't wait.