Convention Recap!

Hey Guys!

As you know, I'm at Disney World right now! I'm having so much fun hanging out with good friends, eating great good, spending time at the pool every day, and finding out all about the new products and designs Close To My Heart is offering in their new Idea Book! It's super motivating for me, which means I brain is full of new ideas for new projects for my Etsy store, new kits for you, and tons of great crafts! There are a lot of changes this year, and I'm super excited about almost all of them. So, let's get started.

First, Close To My Heart is offering a new Jewelry Line! This line is called Base and Bling, and is composed of different jewelry bases, including a necklace, cuff bracelet, hair clip, and more! 

There are also different collections of flowers and embellishments, as well as a kit with fabric to enable each piece of jewelry you make to be completely customized and personalized, and there are also tons of great ideas for making the jewelry interchangeable (think velcro hooks, magnets, and more!). I'm so excited about this idea and I can't wait to get some and start playing around with them!

The second hugely exciting thing they announced is a BRAND NEW CRICUT CARTRIDGE!!! You guys. I can't even tell you how excited I am about this. I use my Cricut all. the. time. I love it. With this new cartridge, called Artbooking, you can create overlays, mini albums, and even do paper embossing. I can't wait to buy it and try out all of the fantastic options! As always, the cartridge comes with three D-size stamp sets and coordinating chipboard shapes, and let me tell you, I love these stamp sets. There are some great shapes and designs in there. This cartridge, like everything else in the new idea book, is not available for order until August, but if you pre-order it from me by July 31st, you will receive free shipping. Contact me for more details or to pre-order the fabulous new Artbooking Cricut Cartridge.

I'm also super excited about some of the changes they have made to the Workshop on the Go program. These kits now come with a D-size stamp instead of C-size stamp, and are still the same price, so the savings for you is about $10 per kit. There are some beautiful new paper packs and workshop stamp sets, and they are even more of a terrific value than before.

And now, some photos. Because I know you guys are just dying to see my vacation pictures and don't really care about all the cool new products, right? That's what I thought. :)

My sister-in-law and I found this donkey and we just had to take a picture with it.

We also found Mexican Donald, so we had to take a picture with him, too. Quick story. My husband and I came to Disney World for a long weekend shortly after we were married and I found every single Donald in the park to take a picture with because he is my favorite. So when I called Jeff after this photo was taken, I told him something awesome had happened and his first guess was a picture with Donald. Because I love him that much.

My sister-in-law, my good friend Elizabeth, and I after the awards banquet, at which we were served some absolutely fantastic food...

...including this adorable and amazing Mickey Mouse head chocolate hazelnut mouse thing. It was so good I wanted to steal another one off the server's tray as they walked passed, but because I am an adult (I think), I refrained.

One of the perks of Convention this year was a twilight pass into one of the parks, so we went to Epcot because it is my favorite.

Our hotel consists of several very large buildings which surround a lagoon, and I'm pretty sure I have a picture across the lagoon from just about every single point on the lagoon. It's pretty beautiful.

The pool has these 'Aztec ruins' or something which looked really cool especially after dark. These had water flowing down them and into the pool.

That's my trip so far guys! Stay tuned for some more convention news on Monday, as well as July specials and some photos of some of the awesome projects we made at Convention. Wednesday, Party Kits! Also coming this month: class schedule for the next six months, kits for make it yourself projects, and, since it's my birthday this month, 10% off everything in my store! Stay tuned for all of these exciting details!

Be Crafty!

Meredith