ckc continued…
were did i leave off..oh yes, the vendor fair! it’s huge, seriously HUGE! Let’s see, there was an SEI booth, basic grey, scrapbookpal.com was there, rusty pickle (my favorite!!), li’l davis had a booth where most everything was $1…yeah, the line was around the block, couldn’t get in that one! it’s just overwhelming! product everywhere! what we did notice was that several large companies were not there, and neither were their products! no 7gypsies anywhere, very little heidi swapp, NO chatterbox at all! AND all of the new products everyone is excited about? nowhere to be found. I actually only spent a few dollars-got some fancy pants chipboard, a few sheets of paper, and a tshirt. i remember the first year i went, i spent over $400 at the vendor fair! maybe i’m growing as a scrapper :OÞ
so after hitting the vendor fair, we met up with my darling SIL who took us to dinner. it was nice-she has 2 teenage daughters and karen and i got to talk to her about raising them (our daughters are 14 & 15, hers are 16 & 17) and dealing with certain things that mothers of teens have to deal with :O) it was nice to have someone with experience to bounce things off of!
after dinner, we hit the Lloyd center to find presents for those aforementioned girls…my DD loves Hollister-it’s such a cool store! It reminds me of the inside of an old fashioned airplane hanger-the music is loud and it is just cool! I ended up picking up some perfume-at least i know DD will like it, and i don’t have to return it because it doesn’t fit :O) It smells good-i know because when holding the sampler bottle, i turned it on it’s side to see the name on the bottom, and it just pouuuured down my arm…i smelled so good all day, LOL!
so, back to the convention center, we loaded up the cart and headed in-I didn’t have a crop ticket for this night so I was helping in the booth. about halfway through i was wishing i was croppin’! it was a smaller group of ladies, but just as enthusiastic as the first night. they gave away lots (and lots!) of prizes. did i mention earlier that since it’s a creating keepsakes convention they give away magazines? every person in attandance gets the most recent CK and simple scrapbooks magazines. they have stacks and stacks of them…and the goodie bags, I forgot to mention the goodie bags! I got one the first night! first of all, it’s a huge bag! i’ve gotten one every year I’ve gone, and they come in so handy for toting around scrapbook supplies from crop to crop! every year there’s a different sponsor-this year I got an s.e.i. bag. Inside were packages of glue, embellishments, paper (rusty pickle, yessss!) stickers, lots and lots of stuff. this year’s bags were the best for product by far. loved it. also, during the crop, they have volunteers handing out stuff that didn’t get there in time to be put in the goodie bags. we got cards of fibers, sheets of vintage stickers, coupons, etc. love free stuff :O)
so, after what seemed like a looong night of not cropping (bummer!) we packed it up and headed for the hotel. we DID remember daylight savings and set the alarm to get us up and out early, so we could shop our way home :O) after coffee and pictures (see my last post-the pic of me standing by the water :O) we headed over to old navy. i got DD some flip-flops (again, don’t have to worry about them not fitting or her not liking them-she LIVES in her old navy flip-flops! at 2 for $5 you can NOT go wrong!) and some tank tops too..she also lives in her tanks :O)
We stopped at some really great scrapbooking stores on the way home, got some good deals and lots of ideas, had a wonderful lunch at applebee’s, and even stopped at ben franklin’s, which i had never been in before! One of our customers and friends just had a baby boy-when i saw this…I knew I had to get it for her!
How cute is that? a onesie for the baby, and a miniature onesie to scrap! love it, she liked it too :O) he’s 2 weeks old today, and won’t fit in it for 2 months, but i couldn’t help it, too stinkin’ cute! oh, as for the ben franklin store, they had some neat stuff, but their prices were high-about 20% higher than they should have been by our figuring. (example-something we know retails for 9.99 was 12.99 at their store.) maybe it’s a chain-store thing?
anyhoo, we made it home and mercifully, karen dropped me off at home straight away. she said she would get her DH to help her unload the product and put it back in the store. it was a fun experience, and karen’s thinking about actually doing a booth in the vendor fair. that’s a lot more work than the two of us can do, so we’ll be recruiting girls to help us! it’s something we’re thinking on, i will surely post if we decide to go for it!
happy scrappin’ days all :O)
