Prima Art Venture Anaheim 2015

At the beginning of January, I was lucky enough to be in Anaheim, USA to teach for Prima at their biggest event. Art Venture Anaheim.

It was held at the Hilton, just next to the Anaheim Convention Centre which is where CHA is held. It made it really simple for all of us Scrapaholics to do both!

When I got there, I had a wee holiday first with some friends (must do a post on that! We had so much fun!), and so it was quite surreal to walk in after a day of fun and see the announcement board with details of the Prima event on it.

You know that feeling when you know something's happening, but then you SEE it and it all becomes so much more real? That was this for me. Although to be honest, it happened a number of times over the event! LOL!

Another one of those times was when I went downstairs to help set up and Denny pulled out the huge posters to show people what room each teacher was in.

Uh huh! That's little ole me on that there poster! I had to bring it home with me. It's going in my scrapbook room! And that's a story for another day!

And yes, we had a lot to set up and prepare for. I was lucky to have my friends help me later in the day.

Lucky for two reasons. One, we got finished so much quicker and two, they kept me laughing! Check this out!

There are just rows and rows of boxes! I think there was something like 150+ students at the event, and we had to repack the kits for each one of them.

I know we like to keep all the nitty gritty behind the scenes, but so much work goes into an event like this I thought it would be nice to see some of that!

And this is just what happens right before. Months before you're creating classes and writing instructions. Mine were 10 pages long!

Uh huh! Lots of tips and tricks as part of what I do.

Aren't the boxes delish?!

And yes, I did do some work too.... in my old smelly work out clothes.

I like to set up each class so it looks inviting and pretty. Welcoming my students.

Who spots one of my hand made goodie/prize bags? I love to give things away. So when I have stock left over, I put it aside, then when I have classes coming up, I make a bag, decorate it and do a prize draw in class.

And we all know what a prize draw in class means right? Oh yeah! Lots of shouting and whooping and clapping and fun! As usual when I teach somewhere new everyone was wondering what all the noise was about. Making it all the more fun when they finally joined the class and learnt the secret!

I also like to treat my students with home baking or when I'm overseas, NZ lollies/candy/chocolate.

So once the classroom was set up, it was time to teach. I created my projects with lots of little tips in mind. The idea being that people here in NZ/Aussie like to get a lot of layouts done in one class. Plus I was trying to give the students a point of difference, in that I knew no one else was doing layouts. Due to the time frame, it made each individual layout quite 'simple', but you get a lot done in a short time and more importantly, you get lots and lots and lots of tips to help you as you continue to create.

This class was not planned as a big indepth project. But as lots of little bits to have fun with.

This was by far my favourite layout. I loved how I used a stencil, glue and beads to create an amazing pattern across the page.

This one was all about design placement. Groups of items, design triangles etc.

This one was great in learning how to get more from your paper stash.

And this one was a bonus because I didn't think three layouts was enough! Gotta love a freebie.

Of course no event is complete without the people. Here's a few photos of the 'people'...

The organizer extraordinare...from Prima. Denny!

My friends Michelle and Pip with me.....

And checking in at registration....

During class.....

This clever lady on the right was worried about her language skills so brought an interpreter along to help out. I think we have another scrapbooking convert!

Lovely ladies.

This group of amazing ladies, traveled from all over the globe to meet at Art Venture and have some wonderful times together. Just LOVE it!

The very last class of the event. This is the 'brown' group (each group was a colour). I have to confess I was a little worried about the last class of the event. We'd all been working so hard, that I wasn't sure how it would go. People were tired! But we had a WONDERFUL class. We had many laughs and while I don't think we got a lot of the class done, it was fun and the learning continued.

And that was my event. It was a lot of fun and I met some wonderful people. Thanks everyone for making it so much fun! I'm so pleased to have been given this opportunity. And hope that one day I will get a chance to go back and teach again.