planning makes perfect…

1i know it’s been a while, but as always we’ve been crazy busy around here prepping for a couple of retailer workshop events i have this month.  i wanted to share highlights from our most recent one in orlando, florida this past weekend.  i was there along with fellow ranger designers dyan, dina, and wendy teaching various ranger workshops to store owners.  for my class, i had this idea to teach a spooktacular mixed-media configurations project “halloween reliquary”.  i knew this would be a huge undertaking (pun intended) to have 96 students complete a project like this in just the 3 hours i had to teach them.  in order to make this happen i needed a plan to prep this kit to assure every detail would be taken care of, and all i can say is – thank goodness for friends…

prep1mario started the prepping madness during our visit to ranger last month.  while i was in meetings, etc. he was busy cutting and scoring 1000+ pieces of paper for the kits.  considering the measurements we’re within 1/8″ of one another it was no easy task, but of course every piece was done perfectly…

prep2when we got back home it was time to tackle the next part of the project which included cutting lots of textured surface pieces including burlap, cork, corrugate as well as fabric strips for the project.  since these were all thicker materials we had to cut them one by one, never a dull moment…

friends prep3 prep4then it was time to bring in the back-up help of our good friend joy who flew in from california to help us over labor day weekend.  we were busy working from morning to night opening packages of findings, brooms, mini pumpkins, cutting ribbons, and sorting everything into individual kit bags.  we literally spent all four days of her visit prepping and kitting since we had to head out to the event just a few days later.  we definitely couldn’t have done it without her help – thanks again joy…

airportearly saturday morning mario and i headed down to the airport on our way to orlando with suitcases full of supplies and boxes full of kits (talk about down to the wire).  lucky for us everything arrived in orlando baggage claim and we made our way to the hotel to meet up with everyone from ranger…

prep5the following day at the hotel mario and i spent the afternoon making even more kits of all the idea-ology products the students were getting to use.  since advantus/idea-ology is in florida it didn’t make much sense for them to ship the product to arizona only to have us ship it back to florida again.  we managed to get the last of the kits put together in time to meet our friends for dinner and then back to the hotel to get the classroom set up for an early morning start…

class1thank goodness for mario who literally crawled around on the floor for over an hour taping down extension cords to each table, it was a good laugh and as always he did it with a smile on his face.  then with the help of some friends (thanks anita, colleen, and stephanie) we got all of the tables set up with tools, supplies, products, and kits to tackle this very ambitious workshop…

class2 class3finally it’s monday and the students made their way into the class with halloween tunes playing and a table filled with creative goodness.  we jumped right into the project altering our mini configurations book using distress spray stains, paints, inks, mediums, layering stencils, papers, textured surfaces, fragments, and all sorts of halloween trinkets.  i’m happy to say our hard work paid off as the students completed their own halloween reliquary in record time – sure made it all worth it…t!m

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101