hey there bloggers! what a great weekend we've just returned from up in massachusetts for a rep show. i spent the time with retailers from all over teaching ranger workshops, doing make & takes, and of course a trade show day. i taught 3 workshops the first day, one with the 12 new colors of distress ink (a repeat of my cha workshop) where we created grungepaper roses in a frame, then next was an idea-ology class where we designed and created wearable art using the new idea-ology adornments, and also a studio project using claudine hellmuth's studio line from ranger and created this hinged artful village. i had such a great time with these classes and sharing all of the cool techniques and possibilities these products had. the stores in the workshops got the opportunity to work hands-on with these products, ask questions, and learn, learn, learn. after all…it's what it's all about!
in addition to that, yesterday i taught an all-day workshop with the talented and amazing jennifer mcguire from hero arts. the two of us collaborated on a project we taught to 100 retailers all in the same room at the same time! we did tandem teaching where both jennifer and i each shared a different perspective on the function of the various hero arts stamps, and the unique techniques each of us taught with ranger's extensive product line. it was titled "creative chaos" and that it was…in a totally fun way! the students had the opportunity to create 22 technique tags that assembled into 2 12×12 canvas, one with the colorful (what i called "skittle-like") palette jennifer did, and one grungy (what jennifer called "storm cloud") version i did. each of us used the same size tag, the same ranger product, and often the same hero arts stamp, but in a completely different way on each tag – total fun, and total creative chaos! here's a video on jennifer's blog of the weekend and the chaos class (thanks todd)…
i'm back at ranger for the rest of the week to test products, work on education ideas, and hopefully get a chance to share some behind the scenes pics with all of you too. until tomorrow…t!m
