CKU recap (way overdue)

CKU-Anaheim (in late JUNE)

okay, so i'm WAAAY behind on my blogging. i'll try to keep this as short and interesting as possible. CKU was AMAZING!!! thursday was full of various manufacturers at separate tables, where we made 6x6 pages at each station so we had a full album at the end of the day. friday was my favorite day. ALL DAY in one class...an album class taught by Ali Edwards. We made an album all about a week in our life. (and i got to meet a mentor!) the table i sat at was full of wonderful people...including one person i REALLY hit it off with. we just clicked. and it was nice to make a new friend so easily. we were inseparable the rest of the day, spent much of the next day together when possible, and kept in touch after that. here is a pic of the two of us:

so, back to the class. wonderful. i realized that this was the first time as far back as i could remember now that i wasn't thinking about anything else except what i was creating. no inner monologue in the background, no "to-do" list checking off in my head. it was wonderful...peaceful. necessary.

motto for the day: "it's okay." i found myself repeating this phrase over and over again, when i found myself complicating the situation and trying to make my scrapbook pages "perfect"...when they already were just that.

many of us ended up staying LATE to work on our albums. as for myself, i stayed there till 11:30 that night. no joke. we had started at 8 that morning, and i think i took a break for dinner. other than that, it was continuous "work." (and i loved every minute of it.) (side note...i am STILL not done with that album. bummer.)

saturday was more hectic. 5 different classes that went by so quickly that i didn't finish ONE project in any of them. so now i have homework to do... but that evening came the best surprise of all. we had our "commencement ceremony" in which we all "graduated" from CKU. lots of prizes were given for the various contests held...including one for the best layout. There were 3 different categories: photography, journaling and best overall.

AND I WON FOR BEST OVERALL LAYOUT AT CKU ANAHEIM!!!

I couldn't believe it!!! i heard them announce the name of my layout before they said my name...and there it was up on the screen for people to see. i walked to the front of the room to collect my prize (a boxful of supplies worth a LOT of $$$), blinking back tears. and all i could think was "i hope they really called MY name, cuz otherwise this is going to be VERY embarassing..."

luckily, my new friend had followed with my camera, so i got some good pics out of it, including one with Ali again. I collected my prize and made my way back to my seat, still in disbelief. along the way, several people stopped to tell me how beautiful the layout was. the best compliments were the ones from the editors and other published artists of the magazine, including jessica sprague. she asked me if it was an all-digital layout and when i assured her it was, she told me it was even MORE beautiful now.

i SWEAR that one of the editors told me to stay posted...that they would be contacting me to sign a release form so they could at least post the layout on their website. unfortunately, i am still waiting... so, we'll see. but, since my fingers are still crossed that this might happen, i won't post the layout here at the moment. (sorry.)

but if you EVER get the chance to attend a CKU...it is WELL worth the $$$. i still daydream about that weekend. sigh.  : )