We had a marvelous time~ at least that's what I keep telling myself! Despite the negative energy surrounding us that is~ or as we referred to it karma. It truly was biting us all weekend but we drudged through it! I'm typically a very positive, upbeat person, there's something about these weekends for some reason that usually gets me into a funk, whether it's service we receive or just some random thing that makes us go hmmmm.
To start off the trip, we left at 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning to get up to Minneapolis by 8:30 in time for check-in. The time flew on the way up, non-stop girl-gab helps! My sister and I don't get a whole lot of talk time in during the school-year since she's a teacher, so we had to make up for it! ;0) We arrived at the Mall of America right at about 8:35 a.m. to find a very long check-in line, karma check-point number one. Once we got checked in, we decided to make our way through to the make-and-take lines. The lines really weren't all that bad in the morning, we stood through quite a few lines and made some cute lay-outs and cards. Bo-Bunny had a really cute school layout and they gave us extra to make a second layout to go with it~ BONUS!! 2 Points for Bo Bunny!! Me & My Big Ideas had a cute Halloween layout as well as Prima, goodness gracious that have such cute paper, flowers and now adorable little pearls and gemstones to adorn the middle of the flowers. I could have created at their booth all day if it weren't for the other 120 people in line! Who else is worth mentioning from the Friday morning hours~ oh, Reminisce, they always have cute projects, a cute little Gingerbread house with their Christmas line~ they also receive a shout out because they were doing give-aways to every group! LOVE YOU GUYS~ and they're from IA City!! We wrapped up the morning and headed to Tucci Benucci's for lunch! My sis and my friend Rebecca had some awesome Sweet Potato Gnocchi~ still kicking myself for not getting that!! I had some Cheese Tortellini with mushroom cream sauce. It was quite tasty as well. Then came dessert~ I had Creme Brulee- not just Creme Brulee but Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee, oh went straight to my thighs goodness that was! My sister went with the Tiramasu and Rebecca had some yummy looking chocolate cake.
Me & My Big Ideas Make and Take Layout:
Prima make and take layout (too cute!!):
The afternoon consisted of more make and takes and one very long line I might add to make the Melody Ross necklace! I love to make jewelry so I was willing to wait the 1 hour and 45 minutes in line that it took just to learn how to use the stuff all to have it ruined by some little Archiver girl later in the evening (I'll touch on that in a bit.). Sorry this is getting long at this point we went to check in to our hotel before our evening crop back at the mall. But first we had to stop and get pillow pets~ all of our children had to have them so we made sure we got that out of the way and we couldn't buy anything else the rest of the trip because they filled up the car! ;0) Not really but close!
Friday evening consisted of the Cosmo Cricket crop at the Mall of America store. It was great fun those Cosmo Cricket people know how to have a good time! We met Julia and Lindsay the owners of the company and they had a great package of goodies for us with some adorable layouts and cards for us to make. They also showed us some techniques on how to make different flowers to decorate our pages with. Karma check-point #2, my number for prizes was on paper everyone else's number was on plastic, therefore I was never guaranteed to win so who would pick my paper number? No-one, it was a running joke for the evening. Silliness started to kick-in, couldn't quit laughing, lack of sleep does that! The Cosmo Cricket folks also gave us all an awesome 12 x 12 paper stack!! LOVE THEM!! Shout out to the Cosmo team, you guys were great! Back to the hotel to crash.
Cosmo Cricket Layout:
Cosmo Cricket 12 x 12 Paper stack they gave us (sorry sideways):
Saturday morning, up bright and early to head to our classes that started at 9:00. We all took classes, really nothing to brag about, except for one of mine, the company was October Afternoon and I absolutely loved they album they had come up with it was called Thrifty Nifty and it was a mix of vintage and floral patterns. Very cute! See pics. We did a little shopping and then more classes and then ended our day at the mall with a late lunch and some margaritas. Then off to Ikea before our Saturday evening crop. Ikea was amazing, never been in the store, always look on-line. Wow, it's overwhelming, I need a full day to look around in there at all of the stuff, just crazy!
Our evening crop was in Woodbury, like 30 minutes away from the Mall. Basic Grey hosted this night. Nothing thrilling to discuss except for the fact that I probably offended the smoker next to me that tried to pass off the smell onto her friend that supposedly smokes. Whoops! I do have to say the girls at this Archiver's store were the friendliest most polite, attentive group that I've ever experienced at an Archiver's. Typically this isn't the experience I have so I embraced it and was pleasantly surprised. Then we got a few layouts done and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.
Sunday morning we woke up early checked out and headed home. With a re-cap of events on the drive from Minneapolis to Ankeny, it was all in all a great trip with great people and lots of laughs. Just glad we made it home safe! Amen.
Now, on to fall, looking to get the house decorated this weekend with my fall decor and Halloween stuff. I love Halloween.
Now for some parting gifts, pics of projects from Scrapfest 2010.
October Afternoon Album:
Loot from the Archiver's crops (not as good as last year~ bummer):
Scrap it Swanky Sister~
