Mall of America Scrapfest Review

I wasn't sure that I was going to attend Scrapfest this year. To be honest, attending events like CKU has made me picky. I am really only interested in big name teachers or manufacturer's classes. My local/regional events have been devoid of big names in the past few years. The only big name at Scrapfest this year was Tim Holtz. I had just taken a class from him at CKU Chicago in April. His classes fill up almost immediately. The other thing that had me turned off was the notoriously long make and take lines.

So, I didn't sign up right away. It wasn't until a few weeks later that I decided to sign up. Most everything had sold out the very first day. Luckily, they added a few more classes, but it was still slim pickins. There were 2 classes on Sunday that were acceptable to me. I thought I might try to pick up another one if someone cancelled that day.

I was surprised that the KI Memories class: Beauty in a Box still had openings. Love their stuff so I took that. Then there was a Birthday accordian album book by American Traditional Designs. Normally I'm not a fan of their stuff, but the project sounded cute and if I didn't like it a birthday book would always make a good gift. A week before Scrapfest. My friend Wendy needed to sell her classes so I picked up her Sunday one: K&Co. Flip Book for the Journey. I took an accordian album with them last year at the MWSA convention and was happy with it.

Sunday arrived and I tried to head down to MOA with plenty of time to get in some make and takes before my noon class. I forgot that traffic is always bad on the road I need to take to get to MOA and that day was no exception. Then of course, there is the walk from the parking area to the Rotunda. So when all was said and done, I got there at 11:30 a.m. one half hour before my first class.

Check in was a breeze - there was no one else waiting. I got my packet. The giveaway was some cute Harvest Daisy D's paper pack in 8x8 size....perfect for fall pix. I looked to see where my classes were. All 3 were on the main level with the make and takes...super convenient...no esculators or elevators. So I had plenty o' time. First, I scoped out all the make and takes. Lots of cute projects. Lines were semi-small. 6-8 people doing the make and take with lines of 8-12 people waiting. It was about 11:45 by the time I'd previewed them all. At the end, the Die Cuts With A View people had a Thank YouDaisy card with their self-adhesive cardstock. Cute card but nothing specatular. I made the card, but left of the Thank You. It was time for class.

My first class was the K&Co class. The teacher was Lynn....she sounded Australian. This was a cute flip book using new blue and green K&Co papers. Super cute project. Great instructions...she was obviously a pro at this. Nice color hand-out. Papers were pre-cut. We completed the cover and about 5-6 pages in class. She did a couple techniques like folding a pocket and cutting a tag with K&Co was very generous with stickers and chipboard letters and flowers. I ended up having to buy a couple more of the papers because there was plenty of pages left in the book to decorate. All in all a good class.

Since the classes were 50 mins. long, I went straight to the Birthday class. I haven't liked American Traditional Designs in the past, but the birthday stuff was cute. It was a 4x6 accordian album. The papers were cute and they gave a sheet of sparkly stickers, a sheet of vellum saying stickers, and a package of cute file folders to complete the project. The only thing they didn't include was the ribbon used to tie the book together(she had on her sample). This was pretty much a beginner project. We had to cut our paper - there were good color instructions, but some people in the class were getting confused by the odd dimensions. The class had a couple of simple techniques - a pull out tag and the file folder on the front. Overall, I thought it was a cute project. The only thing I didn't really like is that if you followed the literal example, there would not be much room for photos. I was pleasantly surprised by this class.

I had an hour between classes so my I joined the make and take lines. My goal was to get as many as I could in between my last 2 classes. I got 4 in. Since it was Sunday, a lot of people who traveled had headed home. I averaged 15/mins per make and take....wait and project completion included. People in line told me they had waited 55+ minutes to do make and takes on Sat. I did a cute tag at the K&Co booth, a Happy Mini CD holder book at the Daisy D's booth, a very cute Halloween Card with a folded no glue envie at the American Traditional Designs booth, and a ok card at the Chatterbox booth. The Chatterbox booth gave you a card, a coordination piece of pattern paper and then let you go...they had boxes of stickers and rub-ons. Most of it had been really picked through by the time I got there so I just found the first suitably saying and slapped it on.

The last class of the day was the KI Memories class. They were very generous with a lime green plastic tote bag full of their new tins...gotta love that. We covered a mini hatbox with stuff from their POSH line. They were generous and gave us stickers, gel candy, hip chip, and chipboard monograms. We cut out circles from the paper and stuck that along with chipboard flowers and monograms on the box. We cut some pattern paper for the sides of the lids. Cute project, but would have looked better on a brown hat box...the white with the paleish papers seemed washed out. Not too much instruction...kinda do your own thing, which was probably good for the end of Scrapfest.

So in conculsion, Sunday seems to be a good day if all you have is one day at Scrapfest. The crowds have died down. You can get a couple classes in and move fairly quickly through the make and take lines.

My strategy for next year is going to be to come early on Friday and devote it to doing all the make and takes. I am curious to see how long it would take to just do that.