Crop am Rhein 2014
Time flies - and boom, four weeks have gone by unnoticed - you know how that goes! (You, do right?!) Almost exactly four weeks ago today, I was pretty much a nervous wreck and super excited in the best way all at the same time. Why you ask? Well, I was booked to teach two workshops at a fun weekend crop/retreat called for paper crafters "Crop am Rhein" (that's the happily excited part) - just my car decided to go on strike and eventually died on the road just a few weeks before. YIKES!
I did many test drives and spent countless hours a day in buses and trains to get to and from work and/or school until I finally settled (Yes, I say settled! It's sure not my dream car but it works.). When the sales person promised I can have it two days before the workshops, I was actually a happy camper. I even made it through the bureaucracy of registering to get a super cute and short number for my license plate. Then the car people called to say "maybe next week?"… you can imagine my frustration. To keep it nice and short: The car came - on the morning of the workshop day! Enter: me, as the nervous wreck ;-)
Anyway, I still made it to the location a couple of hours before showtime! … and was greeted by sweet people everywhere, was given a site tour on the spot and even got to enjoy a yummy dinner together with the participants and the event host, Barbara, before preparing for the workshop. I'm still sad I missed my fellow SC girl Paige Evans, though, who taught an amazing scrapbook layout workshop earlier in the day.
These are some photos from the card/letterpress workshop on Saturday evening:
Excuse the flattering lighting ;) This is me, explaining the letter pressing process and how letterpress came into being in the first place. We got work with Studio Calico exclusive printing plates and there were even some participants from the SC forums present during the workshops. So fun to meet people from the online world in reality, like Katharina and her sister Hanna in the picture above.
The next day, right upon waking up I was rewarded with this stunning view...
… which was just out of my hotel room balcony. Now you know why this retreat is called "crop at the Rhine river" ;-) Gorgeous, isn't it? Later in the day, after breakfast with the lovely ladies from the various scrapbook stores that were present, I found this:
A candy bar! YUM! If you love Haribo as much as I do, this is heaven on a counter :) Since I was free to explore (and work on some online course projects for SC) on this day, I only met the girls again in the evening. They - by which I really only mean you Eva T. :) - talked me into attending a "cult" event after dinner: BINGO with Ingo, the hotel manager himself!
The voice and patter of that guy (combine of the one or the other cocktail...) made the evening!!
On the next day, a Monday, I had another group of over 30 lovely ladies who, after three days of crafting, still wanted to craft and learn for a whole day. Amazing! I had prepared a small, simple to reproduce and very versatile mini book using Studio Calico Office Hours scrapbook kits.
Completely enjoyable, especially with all the sunshine coming in, lots of chatter with and amongst the participants as well as the beautiful and inspiring scenery outside of the windows.
As I previously mentioned, I was happy to teach two workshops, both with the help of Studio Calico as my sponsor. I will show you my workshop projects over the course of the coming weeks here on the blog. It's just too overwhelming to have it all in one but I will leave you with a peek of my mini book project:
I can be a tease, I know ;) Thanks for visiting and have a great day!
