GASC!

Last Friday, I went to the Great American Scrapbook Convention with a friend.  It was my first time going, but to her it is "Christmas."  I didn't know what she meant by that, but now I do.  Wow--it was an incredible overload of scrapbooking stuff.  I loved it!

This is the entrance to the event.  There were vendors as far as the eye could see.  I had a plan in my head that I was only going to buy things that had to do with my Italy trip, our baseball trips, or organizational products.  And I stuck to that pretty well, actually.  I didn't go crazy buying paper or embellishments--God knows I have enough of that stuff. 

So here are some of my happy purchases:

From Best Craft Organizer, I picked up this ribbon caddy.  I came home and wrapped up all my ribbon, which I had on a pants hanger (thinking that was pretty spiffy).  I like this a lot.  It's great for fabric ribbon, but today I tried wrapping paper ribbon, and that didn't work as well.  It unwound itself before I could close the lid on the organizer.  I'm not sure how to fix that, but it could be that it's just not meant for paper ribbon. 

I also discovered a favorite vendor, Jillybean-Soup.  I just love their papers and colors and coordinating stuff.  I did a make-and-take at their booth, and that was so cute, too.  I made a card that I actually sent to a friend already.  I could've gone a little crazy at that booth, but I only bought a couple sheets of paper and a pack of this cool paper that is embossed, and when you rub sandpaper over the pattern, it brings out the inner core color.  I dig it.  I just looked up their product line online and found that none of our local stores sells their stuff.  One of my favorite kit ladies does, though, and that's good news to me!

The big thing I bought at GASC, though, is a mosaic tile template system.  I don't even know if that's the actual name of the thing.  Wait, I'll look it up.  It's called Mosaic Moments by Tami Potter.  The friend that I went to GASC with bought one last year, and I watched her create a page using it at our crop back in May.  I really like the look of the mosaic pages, although I'll have to use them sparingly to avoid the "mosaic page phase" that my scrapbooks sometimes take on when I discover a new technique.  Ha!

So the idea is that you use this system to cut your photo into little bits, and they line up perfectly on these pre-marked background cardstock pages.  There is lots of variety to the layouts, so I am excited to try this with some of my Rome pictures. 

Ok, so here's a template above.  On the website, they show the template and how it will look with actual pictures, which I totally love.  Here's what template #59 look like with photos:



I can totally do this.  HA!  I can totally try to do this.  It's something new and different for me, and that's good.  It might take me four hours to do a page, but that's okay. 

If the Great American Scrapbook Convention comes to an area near you, you should totally try to go.  It was an interesting group of people there--some kids, but not many.  Sheesh...we did see a T.I.N.Y. baby there; it couldn't have been more than a week or two old.  That was not cool.  The shoppers were mostly women, but men manned all the booths.  Interesting.  Here's the link to GASC.