greetings from oz…

g’day from brisbane australia bloggers!  it’s been an absolutely amazingly crazy busy week here in a land down under and i’m happy to finally have a chance to sit down to share some of the journey with you.  we left arizona last monday, and with so much kitting and prepping for the upcoming cha show just weeks after we return, we had a little help stay at the studio while we are gone.  thanks to mario III and sara the kitting duo (we got the exciting news that they just got engaged – congrats to them!), and of course joe who found his spot where he likes best…

well after a 35+ hour travel day, cancelled flights, and mario working his magic to book new ones at the airport we arrived in brisbane and immediately headed to the hotel to get set up for the all-day retailer workshop which was starting the next morning.  this trip to oz is hosted by our australia distributor “stamp-it” who have been simply wonderful.  we kicked off our next morning with an all-day workshop with 50 retailers for a workshop i called technique overload.  the next day i taught 2 back to back workshops for some very creative students called artful flight.  so all in all i had taught 150 students in just 2 days after touching down in australia.  thanks again to all of my wonderful students in brisbane!

this weekend we headed to the stamp & scrapbook expo in brisbane where i demoed the entire weekend for stamp-it.  it was great to catch up with a few aussie friends at the show too (rachel from darkroom door, mel from kaiser, and the infamous julie van-oosten from collections) such talented people!   thanks to all of the creative attendees of the show who were such fun to share techniques with…

the food is also quite the adventure here and since vegemite and toast is a “brekky” staple here in oz, i had to give it a try – not bad really.  then each night we headed into the city center for dinner, laughs, and a whole new adventure. whether it was trying some new local brew or reading some of the more interesting menu items, the food here in australia is really good.  of course you know mario, where there’s a city, there must be a starbucks or two and we managed to find them each morning…

so all in all bloggers it’s been a great trip so far and our next stop is sydney tomorrow for another run of workshops and demos.  here’s to the continued journey ahead…t!m

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101