Croptoberfest 2011 RECAP

Croptoberfest came and went about 10 days ago.  My November workshop is right around the corner.  I did a little recap of the event.  It was a roaring success.  The November preview products were a BIG hit - LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of prizes were won - many pages were completed.  Albums and calendars were finished up in time to give as holiday gifts this season.  Border and page ideas were copied.  Storybook 4.0 updates got loaded onto computers, we all lost a lot of sleep - it was AWESOME!  Here are some highlights...

The paint chip chain link tutorial from the photo above can be found here on my craft blog.

I put tags on bags and gave them to my guests as part of their gifts.  I will have an upcoming post called "we're talking tags" in November.  Check back, you won't want to miss that one!

I included two Reflections additions packs in my guests goodie bags.  Then, I displayed ways they could use the projects in a traditional scrapbooking style.  You can find more detailed posts about the lessons I taught using these two items by clicking SPRING AND SUMMER or AUTUMN and WINTER.

I also taught a lesson on the Autumn Additions pack that many of my attendees had purchased when they came to my September workshop.  I made up a bunch of designs to show how several of our cM tools are used.  I posted a lesson on that as well.  Click here for the Autumn Additions post.

After a lesson about the new border maker tool, I challenged my croptober attenders to CREATE their own design using the Create It paper pack that Creative Memories provided for us to utilize at our event.  There was a vote and several attendees won prizes for their ideas.  Here are some of the favorites and winners.  Aren't these gals talented?  LOVE IT!

A big hit at the event was the Chocolate bark.  I made two varieties.  The first I call Halloween bark.  I found this recipe. but I found the directions a bit tricky so  I slightly adapted how I made the bark which I found much easier.  It was a sweet and salty sugary treat.  The Halloween bark is the one made with white chocolate.

I made a second bark recipe adapted from this one.  The dark chocolate bark wasn't quite as sweet.  It was the one I preferred.  I made it in the same way as the Halloween bark.  I did a little blog post about it and included the recipe over at my FlyTheCoopCrafts blog.  Check out the Halloween bark here and the Dark Chocolate Pistachio Bark here.

My attendees are an awesome bunch - they work hard, but manage to have a lot of laughs and a lot of fun.  And did I mention there were A LOT of winners?  Thanks everyone for attending and happy Croptoberfest!