Creating Keepsakes Convention-St. Louis - Post #2

The first class that I took was 2010 Latest & Greatest with Basic Grey.  The classroom set ups are usually long banquet style fold up tables that are covered by brown kraft paper.  Chairs are set up right next to each other, and the room is usually in a meeting room of the convention center.  Depending on the popularity of the class, and if the class was sold out or not, there is a chance that you can be basically shoulder to shoulder with people on either side.   In addition to the closeness to other people, you need to make sure that you have your basic supplies out and handy.  There is normally one instructor in the front of the classroom, and she (or he) may have one, two or three helper volunteers.  These are folks from the local community who are able to get into the convention for free after volunteering for a class or two or whatever.  The speaker may nor may not have a microphone; may or may not have a  color copy of the instructions; may or may not have a PowerPoint presentation.  The room may be hot, may be cold, may be just right.  

The classes are generally very very fast.  It's important to not get hung up on any level of normal perfection.  If you don't want to move so fast, you can probably just be sure to listen to the instructor, and take notes.  For the most part, this scrapbook convention is a hands on learning experience at  all levels. 

There were four layouts in the class.  Each packet of layout materials, embellishments, and paper were all hermetically sealed separately.  This was a really nice bonus in order to keep the pieces and scraps altogether, especially if we ran out of time in a class to finish any or all of the layouts.

I like this first layout that we did.  The light brown swirly piece of paper on the right hand side was actually that size (we did not have to cut it in half), and the wholes were pre-perforated, just had to punch out the holes.  The swirly design on the lower lefthand side is from a small sheet of chipboard stickers.  

Simple, clean lines, but pretty.  On the title "Grow", the 'o' chipboard sticker is turned on its side to add a little oomph.  The buttons are actually faux..they are puffy stickers with ribbon threaded through the holes and tied.

The tan colored oval is a piece of paper glued down, and then the light blue border and the reddish flowers are actually on an oval-shapped overlay transparency.  I have used some transparencies, but not a lot since I am never quite sure how to adhere them to a page or a project without adhesive showing or using a stapler.  With this, the instructor just had us use a couple of mini glue dots, and stick them so that the floral design on the overlay will hide them. 

This one is pretty with the black background paper.  The flower and the bird are stickers, with the flower actually being pieced together with sticker pieces.