Nashville Creating Keepsakes Convention August 2011

Yesterday, my friends Carolyn, Kathy, and I traveled to Nashville for the Creating Keepsakes Convention. None of us had ever been to a scrapbooking convention and were excited and counting the days until we could go. We wanted to be there in time for our early pass at 9:00 AM. This allowed us to shop with the vendors one hour prior to the doors opening at 10:00 AM and was granted to anyone that attended three or more classes. We left Cullman Alabama at 5:30 AM ready for our day in Tennessee. The convention was scheduled for two and a half days and would go from Thursday afternoon through Saturday night. We debated on spending Friday night in order to attend classes on Saturday, but Carolyn had a family birthday party to attend on Saturday so we planned our trip just for Friday. We had planned on taking a small roll around to hold our class supplies and goodies we would be buying, but upon reading our emails, these were not allowed. I really didn't think it would be a huge issue, but before we even attended our first class at 12:30 PM, my shoulders were killing me and I had a slight headache from carrying a heavy tote bag in one hand and another one on my other shoulder. Carolyn was the only smart one in the bunch. She brought a backpack with wheels. If we attend next year, you can bet I will have one too! We all attended three classes and lucked up on getting in our last class together. My only issue with the class schedule was the extreme short time allowed for each class and that the papers used for all of my classes were older and most likely discontinued.  Also with only having two and a half hours to shop and have lunch prior to our first class, it just did not allow us enough time to look at everything and we ended up rushing to our first class. We all agreed that if we attended next year we would go for two days. The first day just to shop with the vendors, attend the Friday night crop, and take all of our classes the following day. This would allow plenty of time to see and do everything. All in all we had a wonderful, fun girls trip. 

                                                 Kathy, me, and Carolyn

                                         

                                               Carolyn and me upon arriving at the hotel

                                               A small area of the huge vendors area

                                             This was from our "So Very Beautiful" class

                                                          

                                Trying to get this rotated, but this was my favorite class project.

                                                                 Signs were everywhere!

                               The Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center was beautiful