Creative Escape

I recently returned from a great new scrapbooking event called Creative Escape. It was put on in Phoenix, Arizona by Heidi Swapp and Bazzill Basics Paper and was an amazing success. All the classes were great, with wonderful teachers and all the class kits were prepared ahead of time, with all papers cut and ready, by the wonderful staff at Bazzill. Everyone took all the classes and there was a great variety, from complete albums, to layouts, to photography, to using Microsoft Word to format text. We even made a clock and a decorated box. Here are a few of my pictures from Creative Escape.


Not especially in chronological order! The first picture is of the cocktail party organised by some members of the Yahoo group on Thursday afternoon. It was really fun and a good way to start off the weekend. The sponsors even came through with some prizes for this! Here's Shelley drawing some names for prizes.


Next is the opening ceremony, with Heidi Swapp and Doug Jones (a.k.a. "Mr. Bazzill). Following that we had the "Technique Boutique" where we went around to tables and did various techniques we would have to know for the classes, and got more stuff from the sponsors!

I had a chance to meet some friends at Creative Escape that I hadn't met before in real life. I roomed with Jodi (Odio on the CKMB) and was in the same series of classes with her. Here we are with the box we made in Tena Sprenger's class. I also got to spend some time with Janet M, and here we are together at one of the suppers they gave us.


On the last evening, we had a sit-down dinner which started with desert first! Then Stacy Julien gave the keynote speech about creativity which was very inspiring. Here you can see the centerpiece which was on each table and one person got to win this by drawing out the straw with a green-tipped end. There were so many prizes drawn both Friday and Saturday nights during dinner. The sponsors were oh-so-generous! The large group picture is the Yahoo group, with Heidi and Doug joining us of course.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning prior to CE, a tour of the Bazzill warehouse followed by a trip to Scrapbooks etc., a scrapbook store owned by Marti Jones (Doug's wife) was organised for members of the Yahoo group who would be there on time for the tour. I went Wednsday afternoon. The rows of boxes of Bazzill paper of all colours is a scrapbooker's delight! The staff were all very welcoming, the same staff who had worked night and day to prepare our kits. Amy Totty (who works with Bazzill, taught at CE, and was our "tour guide") and Doug Jones seemed glad to pose with groups of us before we headed in for our tour. They also opened up their warehouse sale a week early for us. Amy gave each of us the cute CE visors.


On Thursday morning, a desert hummer tour had been organised by Shelley, one of the Yahoo group organisers. That was so much fun! We went out in 2 hummers and drove up and down some steep hills in the desert, stopping to see cacti and some wildlife. I have loads of pictures from this trip. Here is a view of the desert with a very old Saguaro cactus, me and a cactus, and me with the hummer before we started out.







We were provided with meals during CE. Breakfast on both days was buffet style (here is Saturday's set-up) and we had a choice of several box lunches each day. Supper on Friday was a Mexican buffet, and Saturday the sit-down dinner. We also had pizza as a late-night snack on Thursday and ice cream on Friday. The last picture is from breakfast on Saturday and is of my room-mate Jodi and Kathy (AKathy from CKMB). Kathy had convinced Jodi to come to CE and they finally got to meet at breakfast. What a great time!