Craftcation Conference Fun ~ Day 1!

Like last year, my friend and I went to Disneyland before heading to Ventura. I'll recap that in a different blog post. Heading towards Ventura on Tuesday evening we got to enjoy a very pretty sunset. 

This is the Airbnb my friend reserved. I slept on the couch. It did fold out but I was fine sleeping on it as it was. Plus it took up less living room space. It was an interesting spot, connected to an events center and there was a big party on Friday night with music, food, and dancing.

In N Out is right across the street from the Mariott where the conference was being held, so you better believe that's what I got for dinner on Tuesday evening with my friend LaWanna and her roomie and new friend Cassie from KY who had never eaten at In N Out before!

  Wednesday was a volunteer day for my friend and me. I had volunteered in March as well but had 1 more day to do and I figured the opening day would be a good one.

Upstairs at the Mariott

Fun decor above registration. And a fun fact - I got those letters cut out for the paintbrushes but I don't think I attached them when I was working in the warehouse nor did I decorate the paintbrushes with colors.

A great team of talented ladies run the Craftcation conference. 

Fun colors and art everywhere ... check it out!

Constant Contact was one of the sponsors and this was their booth - how fun! Another item I decorated at the warehouse was the accordion walls, I helped put the white vinyl cutouts all over (in an orderly fashion) on the cardboard. Had to glue most of it down with gluesticks because it kept trying to pop off the background.

Arcade and sticker area among other things. Fun fact? I put together the lights in the arcade sign with some last-minute help from LeAnn. The lights were so hard to push through the board material but it turned out looking so cute! I also cut the vinyl for the "The Spoonflower" part (Spoonflower..another sponsor)

The sticker machines were very popular. I had fun collecting a few stickers at them (there were 2) during the conference.

Feeling swaggy? My swag bag was full of so many awesome goodies!

My favorite was from Snack Club - the Toffee Peanuts - what. is. going. on....

THEY WERE AMAZING! and I already ordered more from Amazon (affiliate)

I'll feature the rest of what was in my swag bag in a separate post I think, if there's interest. Or, might just do it even if there's not interest. hehe.

I helped wrap the yarn around those vases. I should have taken a close-up picture. This area was pretty popular once the conference got started.

I LOVED this entrance to the pop up shop!

I had a few classes in these rooms plus it's where karaoke took place and Ironcraft as well as the fashion show among other things like the opening and closing ceremonies. 

Fabric area outside of the sewing classrooms. I did not do any sewing classes this year but the fabric sure was cool. All from Spoonflower!

Another one of the Craftcation sponsors - Oliso (affiliate)

These irons are so cool and pretty too!

This one was my favorite colors, for sure. I entered to win one (didn't know until Friday I could have been entering it daily) but never did win. Maybe next year!

Create Room was a sponsor here with the DreamCart and Replica Surfaces

I did take 1 class - polymer statement earrings. So fun! I can't wait to make more, for reals. I have soo much polymer clay that it's not even funny. I got to volunteer in this class as well. There were 4-6 toaster ovens plugged in around the area outside we had for the class and when attendees were getting ready to bake their clay, the ovens would not work! I guess we blew some fuses or something. We ended up being able to use only 2 of the toaster ovens but managed to make it work. 200* for 15 minutes. Give or take depending on how big your clay pieces were, how thick, etc. I am going to give this a try again in my toaster oven in the she-shed.

In the evening there were some make and takes and I tried, keyword tried to make this Mobius ball and it ended up in great failure. I think I will redo it.

I also stitched my nametag...kept it simple.

We went downtown for dinner and there had been a street fair or something that had gone on and this was left up. Got a fun picture in it taken by my friend Christie

My friend LaWanna and I shared the taquitos but there were things we didn't want and requested most things on the sides. The sauces were pretty spicy or weird tasting so I opted for dry taquitos, unfortunately. The insides were good at least.

WONDERFUL day 1 of Craftcation and stay tuned for more!