CKC-Charlotte Review

CKC-Charlotte is over. It was good, but something I’m not sure about repeating exactly.

• All About Me mini-album by The Paper Loft

I found the first class OK, wasn’t crowded. Daughter and I each had empty spots on the side, with us sitting next to each other. It was warm in the room, but not overly warm since it wasn’t a room full of people.

• Simple Summer Album by Creating Keepsakes

The next class was warmer, much fuller than the first class, double class-room too. Besides being warm I was feeling OK, which made it tolerable.

That was it for the day, except for doing some looking in the Vendor Faire (no buying until Saturday.)

• Deliciously Different Recipe Book mini-album by The Button Farm

On Saturday we got there just in time for our class, and had a hard time getting two seats together, like we needed. There were about 3 seats available, and three people, but no seats together. I had to make a class helper help me get people to move so we could sit down. I was about to just say forget it, get our kits and leave.

We got seated somehow anyways, to my detriment. I’d have loved to just “do the kit” myself. It was extremely hot in that filled-up to the brim class. The seats we had were towards the back a couple of rows forward. The women in the back were chatting constantly, the teacher of the class had no microphone. We couldn’t hear her very well. We could hear them too well.

Not too far into the class the teacher talked about Zip Dry glue, and anyone who had some got it out. That included me. I glued down the first page to the acrylic page and prompty put the glue away. It made me very, very sick. It’s very stinky, horrible. It was so hot in there already and it seemed there were more than a few using it behind me. Me quitting using it made little difference.

Anyhow, I was fighting a migraine coming in that morning, and with everything from stress to heat to stinky glue, noise, stress … I got very ill and fought just standing up and leaving. Instead I muddled through the project and messed a few things up but not too many (paper cut too small or something like that, glue on edges of paper instead of center) and just plain didn’t do certain parts of the project for each page.

First off there was less room than there should have been. The people on either side of my daughter were disgruntled to some degree and didn’t move their stuff into their own space, so I was fighting a migraine, suddenly very sick feeling migraine, and fighting for space to just plain open my ruler on my cricut personal cutter so I could cut the right size. I couldn’t keep direction on top of the pile, I had to root around for everything, plus help my daughter know what to do, cut things, etc.

All in all it was a nightmare, and it was the class I was so looking forward to.

I liked the project still, still do, and would love to do more Button Farm projects. I didn’t really need to be there to do anything. I didn’t learn anything, it was simply “follow directions” and I’d have done better sitting at home with the kit for sure.

If I hadn’t been sick then I’d have enjoyed the class more. If we’d gotten there earlier (we tried!) then we’d have been set up closer to the front maybe. But all in all Zip Dry Glue is not my friend. Who’s friend is it? You need great ventilation in the room when using it. How about 20 people using it at the same time, probably more people than that???

It was enough to have made me sick probably. With or Without Migraine help. I’m sensitive to chemicals. I just didn’t think ahead at how bad it would be with multiple bottles of that stuff in use in a stuffy room.

Vendor Faire

We went to the Vendor Faire after that Saturday class. I felt miserable and never felt better until much later, after we were gone from there. I bought some things, nothing small. I wanted some things I could do stuff with, ended up with a 7Gypsies 4×6 printer tray in black. Vinyl 12×24 sheets in several colors, a pack of 12×24 different colors of cardstock. A Cricut Cartridge, Robotz. A Pioneer 12×12 album (Warren Kimble flag graphic design). 2 Clear Stamp sets from Tattered Angels.

The cardstock and vinyl were from cardstockonline.net … and I wanted to get a bunch more paper in 12×12 size, but with my headache I couldn’t figure out what to do, what it all meant, whereas it was simple to get the pack of 12×24 paper, special size, special price. The vinyl was priced per piece, easy peasy.

So I came home with good things, but nothing good to work with outright. I mean, no small (ha ha! 12×12) paper to cut up or use for anything. I wanted some good white paper. A lot of it. Other colors. Patterned paper. Just so much you can do with a Migraine sometimes.

I guess I need to find another Vendor Faire somewhere else to make-up for my pathetic buying at CKC-Charlotte.

Also I guess I’d like to get some kits from The Button Farm … but her website is terrible. I wasn’t into shelling out $52 for a bigger Recipe Album kit, or other things … I mean I had only so much and I wanted to get product to use, not just one project, though maybe I should have … she had a cute “cat” mini book, also a gorgeous “Christmas” book. Printer Trays with paper and embellishment kits. But I got a plain tray and that’s that. No special paper, just the special sized paper to use with my Cricut from cardstockonline.net. (Their site is merged with Couture Cardstock & I find it just as not what I want to shop as my trouble was at the Vendor Faire with a migraine…)