OK, so I promised to come back and tell you all about CKU-Chicago…. my report is probably a bit later than many others, huh? 🙂 Well, I don’t know… better late than never 🙂 And, I’m warning you…. when I report, I report…. 🙂 But, there’s a goodie at the end, so stick with me!

Having never been to CKU before, I can’t say whether the new format is any better than the “old” one, but I can say the days just FLEW right on by me. The only wrinkle I personally experienced was the “informal crop” on Wednesday night. The CKU staff relocated the room and I could not, for the life of me, find it. It had a litle bit to do with the layout of the hotel, but a lot to do with the fact that information was not very forthcoming from the CKU staff on Wednesday. After an hour of aimless searching, I finally found the room!!! GRRRRRRRR…. Suffice to say, I could just tell they didn’t have their ducks in a row quite yet. Annoying? A little… but I won’t dwell on it because the rest of the time was fantastic! 🙂

Thursday was my inspiration homeroom day – this was very cool. I went to ONE room, sat my rear in a chair, and had teachers come to ME all day long. How cool is that?? During this day, each teacher instructed us towards completing a two-page 6×6 layout for our CKU album, given to us in our registration bag. In all, I loved all but one of the layout lessons (and I won’t say which one I didn’t love, because I have much love for the teacher, so I forgive Mr. Pickle…. ooops, did I say that out loud?) Thursday night was the opening crop, with Ali delivering a kick-ass speech that really set the mood for the whole weekend. It was about the word “Embrace.” Oh, that Ali and her OLW…. she amazes and inspires me 🙂 I don’t want to say more than that because she’ll be repeating the same opening comments at the next two CKUs this year… I want to leave some surprises!

Friday I had my album track with Jessica Sprague. Now, let me say that making the choice to forgo a whole day with Ali Edwards was very hard for me. And, though I know Ali’s class would have been great, I am *so, so glad* I took the leap of faith and invested my time in Jessica’s digi album track. I learned a TON. Definitely not an elements whiz kid, yet…. but, I at least learned enough to finally be able to make some templates and get around well enough in the program to kick my CM software to the curb…. I think….. again, did I say that out loud? 🙂 I truly love the “Beautiful Evidence” album we started in class (I didn’t have enough time to finish more than half of it, but homework is always fun, too). I can’t wait to get it finished up and uploaded to Shutterfly to see it in print. But, without question, the best part of the day was spending time with Jessica. She has got to be one of the most genuine people working for CK. Easy wit, patience, great direction and explanation, humble as all get out…. yeah, I am in love 🙂 In an admiration and respect kind-of-way, you know? She has truly opened up a whole new world for me to explore with my scrapbooking and that is a debt I am not sure I could ever repay her. OK, I could go on all day about Jessica…. before you all yuke on your keyboards, I’ll move on 🙂

Saturday was two 90-minute classes, followed by lunch, then two more 90-minute classes. My day kicked off with Tim….. oh, Tim…… the man does things to my heart! I know, I know – corny! Can’t help it. I am completely wowed by his talent and his likability. He’s just a cool dood, you know???? 🙂 We made an altered mirror – totally my FAVORITE project of the day. I knew a lot of the stuff he taught because of the awesome Miss Jen Starr….but, I did learn some new grungeboard techniques and they’ll be coming to a Poconos workshop soon…. no doubt! I also had a class with Luxe Designs which was good and a class with Michelle Van Etten for Kaiser Crafts which was fun (and I loved the project in her class, too). Sadly…. I have SOOOO much love for Piggy Tales‘ products, but I was sorely disappointed in my classes with them. The teacher, bless her heart, was very sweet… but in both my Thursday layout class and the Saturday 90-minute class, she failed to “direct” the class well enough to keep it moving forward. Plus, of all their lines, the Saturday class used the papers I like LEAST of all their products…. so, I dunno…. not my favorite thing. But, its all good…. I still have lots of love for them and will STILL buy their products every chance I get! But, should this get back to them, sorry for my brutal honesty – but, I do want you to have the best representation of your product and IMHO, that didn’t happen at CKU-Chicago.

OK, this is getting long…. I’m gonna stop soon, I promise. I don’t want to make a big deal of all the “stuff” you get, because its just not me to focus on “stuff.” But, what I will say is this…. I was OVERWHELMED by all the stuff I got for free. If you’ve ever doubted the value of CKU, I can tell you the opportunity to be taught by experts is priceless enough that it should convince you…. but, if that’s not enough and you are a “stuff” person, I think you’ll be pleased! My suitcase weighed 76 pounds coming home and it was filled 80-90% of just CKU stuff – be it from class projects, goodie bags, drawings I won and the little bit of shopping I did in the bookstore. All that is to say….. CKU IS SO WORTH IT!!! GO!!!! NOW!!!!

OK, so here is the layout I made to commemorate my time there…. I kinda like it! It’s a digi layout (what else?) and it uses a new kit from BooLand Designs called “Diamond.” It’s one of the birthstone series kits. If you like this layout and want to purchase the kit, you can find it here.

Other credits include: bottom circle mat (Melissa Bennett); fonts: CK Ali’s Writing and VTPortableRemington; and the journaling labels which are from Katie Pertiet. Oh, and both the template and layout are based on a Pencil Lines sketch… nearly forgot that’s where I started six hours ago! (like I said, definitely NOT an Elements whiz kid just yet!)

And now, for all you SUPER patient folks who are still reading! This is a template, made available to you for FREE so you can create a page like the one above 🙂 I don’t know if my clipping masks are technically correct, but I can tell you that as long as all your photos are in order in the layers palette, once you merge them down, they will clip to the circle correctly! Took a bit of playing for me to figure that one out! OK, enough rambling from me…. click the preview for your download, and please be sure to leave me a comment here or there. I’m new to the freebie world, but I can tell you it sure does suck to have people take your stuff for free and not even say thank you! Keep that in mind as you wander the net, trolling for freebies, okay? 🙂 Have a great day! Y Tracy