Laura Vegas

Carlie Robertson (Close To My Heart), Megan Hoeppner (Creating Keepsakes), Karen Burniston (Sizzix), Me (Bella Blvd), Linda Barber (Lawn Fawn), Kristine Widtfeldt (Close To My Heart), Annette Hardy (Creating Keepsakes)

I spend this past weekend teaching at CKU San Diego and had such a great time. It had been almost a year since the last time I've taught at a convention, and it really nice to get back out there in the classroom. Since I taught at CKU San Jose last year, it was really nice to see so many familiar faces.

Since this was the first time I was designing my own class, I ended up putting a lot of time and work into it over the last few weeks. Which is one of the reasons I've been more absent around here. But all that hard work paid off, as I heard from so many students saying how much they loved the class and the projects, and how they learned so many techniques and ideas that they were excited to try on other projects. If you were there and took my class, I thank you for spending that 90 minutes with me!

And they didn't just get those ideas from my class. We had a fabulous group of teachers (seen in the photo above), with a great range of projects. Two amazing album tracks to choose from, and four fun core classes that everyone took as well. These ladies were so much fun to hang out with and we had a great time re-visiting and catching up with each other (for those of us that already knew each other), or getting to know each other (for those of us meeting for the first time). There was so much laughter shared between us, and so many great stories that I know will make for great memories. 

I had one of my closest friends, Deneen, come along with me. She was looking for a weekend away, and I had a room to share. She enjoyed some quiet downtime while I taught during the day, and joined us at the evening crops. She was even sweet enough to volunteer to help out taking down the bookstore and counting product that got packed up. It was nice to have more time to chat with each other, since we're usually doing little 5-10 minute phone chats inbetween working and family stuff. We stayed up WAY too late each night, and got WAY too little sleep!

And now I'm back home and trying to recover. I was so exhausted by the time I got home, and had to get straight to work on Bella Blvd stuff. Daycare kids were back today and luckily, they took it pretty easy on me, as I was still super tired and not quite my usual self.

There are still three more CKU's coming up, and I'll be teaching at all of them. CKU Louisville – August 8-10, CKU Stamford – September 5-7, and CKU Dallas/Fort Worth – October 10-12. You can get all of the details and register RIGHT HERE. I'd love to see you there, so let me know if you're going!