TCC - Day 3 (Saturday)

(Part 1, 2, & 3.)

Saturday was the last day of The Creative Connection. It began with a VIP Breakfast Panel of women entrepreneurs. Breakfast was sponsored by McDonalds and consisted of fruit & walnut yogurt and oatmeal. There were cute table decorations of rolled oatmeal and coffee beans in glass containers.

Our roundtable panelists were Karen Walrond, Melody Ross, Janine Vangool, Kelly Rae Roberts, Leigh Standley, and Susan Branch.

Nancy Soriano, Karen, Melody, Janine, Kelly Rae, Leigh, and Susan

There was so much goodness in their discussion.

- Settling into your own voice (Leigh)
- You're not everyone's cup of tea (Melody)
- Believe in your heart that you are someone special (Susan)
- There's beauty in different (Karen)
- Explore your options. There are many ways to do something. (Leigh)
- Sometimes opportunities present themselves in the form of challenges (Leigh)
- No matter where we are we're always pushing against our personal edge (Kelly Rae)
- To have a creative business you can't just be creative. You wear many hats. (Janine)
- Karen shared a great quote from Brene Brown, "Don't try to win over the haters, you're not the jackass whisperer." LOL.

Classes resumed after breakfast with my next one, Making a Living as an Artist with Traci Bautista.

Traci provided much content and information and answered all our questions. Isn't she a doll?!

My afternoon class was with Melody Ross, I Have An Idea vintage canvas. Melody is just as sweet and adorable in person as she is in the Brave Girls Club videos! Here's a picture of the example canvas and the Melody's soulbook from Friday's class.

Our class working on our canvases.

The conference wound down with a cupcake farewell.

Afterwards I went to dinner at Pazzaluna to reflect on the conference. The spaghetti carbonara was to die for!

I have to tell you, if you're able to make it to The Creative Connection next year, it will be the best investment in time and money you can make. I met the most lovely and supportive women and received so much applicable business and personal wisdom. Even if you don't have a business the class selection was amazing. I would have loved one more day to enjoy more of the class offerings.

I hope you've enjoyed hearing about my incredible experience at TCC!

TCC - Day 2 (Friday)

(Part 1, 2, & 4)

Are you enjoying my TCC posts?

The TCC Handmade classes started on Friday. I was scheduled to take Laurie Meseroll's The Poetic Painter class but unfortunately she was unable to make it and our class got cancelled. Fate brought me to the class of Jenny Holiday and Aaron Nieradka from Everyday is a Holiday, Hooray for Cake. What a blessing to spend the morning with them! 

Here's our class working on our canvases. 

This is Jenny and Aaron's sweet display in the classroom.

This is my piece:

I have to say, Jenny is such a cutie and rocked that pink hair! 

The keynote luncheon featured BlogHer cofounders Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins as the guest speakers. Of course there was fabulous table decorations and more gifts!

And featured a lovely Brave Girls Club inspirational bookmark.

And a sweet little journal from Art is You.

Can't forget the carrot cake!

Elisa and Jory talked about social media as a solar system with your blog being the sun and other forms of media like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr being the planets. 

After lunch they opened up the TCC Market Place. I snapped these shots of  Tinsel Trading's vintage-inspired booth.

After lunch was the Brave Girl Soulbook with Melody Ross where I met the most amazing group of women. We had such a blast creating our soulbooks. I didn't have enough time to finish it so I'll post a pic in a later post.

My packet had, "love deeply" on it and I just happened to have a heart stamped on my hand from the market place.

Here is a picture of Provo Craft's booth and the flower clip I made with their Cricut.

The evening autograph cocktail party was the highlight of my week. I met Holly Becker who signed a copy of her book, Decorate for me.

I met the sweetie that I call "my mentor from a distance" Kelly Rae Roberts! I brought my copy of her book, Taking Flight all the way to MN for her to sign.

I met Tim Holtz.

And Traci Bautista.

I also met Susan Branch and Becky Higgins but I can't seem to find those pics on my iphone. There were many more artists, crafters, and authors but I was exhausted at this point and called it a night. I must have been really tired because I forgot to take pictures of the beautiful buffet spread!

Tomorrow I'll share the final day of TCC before I traveled back home.

XOXO,

TCC - Day 1 (Thursday)

(Part 1, 3, & 4.)

The first day of The Creative Connection was BlogHer Handmade day. The day started with a continental breakfast sponsored by Starbucks.

After breakfast we participated in a "speed dating" concept where we had 1 1/2 minutes to connect one-on-one with another attendee to exchange business cards and learn briefly about each other. I was a little nervous about this but it ended up really fun and we made 10 new friends in the process.

We went on to breakout sessions on topics like social media, community building, and monetization. This picture is of the moderator Erica Mauter and roundtable panelists Kathy Cano-Murillo, Stacie Tamaki, and Nancy Malay.

Each meal brought a beautiful table display, delicious foods, awesome freebies, and wonderful speakers. Lunch did not fail in any of these departments! The keynote luncheon speakers were Nora Abousteit, Becky Higgins, and Stacy Julian.

Nora talked to us about being stubborn and not giving up on our dreams. Becky gave amazing take-away tips including to be grateful and express gratitude and to put family first. Stacy talked about cultivating relationships.

Jo Packham giving welcome speech

Nora Abousteit

Becky Higgins

More breakout panels followed with the closing session on the intersection of craft, passion, and sustainability.

I could hardly wait for the Welcome Dinner that night since two fabulous speakers would take the stage, Cristina Ferrare and Holly Becker. This is a picture of the crowd waiting for the doors to open and dinner to begin. And yes, that is Tim Holtz and Claudine Hellmuth!

The tables were decorated so beautifully and check out the swag bags hanging on each chair!

Dinner was yummy as was the cheesecake!

Cristina mentioned something in her talk that so hit home with me - recognizing when you start to self-sabbatoge. Oh have I been there!

Holly is just the sweetest, most eloquently spoken woman and I thoroughly enjoyed her talk. I took so many notes from her words of wisdom such as there's always someone looking to you to be a role model, rejection = motivation, and I loved what she said about toxic people in your life; "weed your garden."

Nancy Soriano, Cristina Ferrare, and Holly Becker

I dreamed of dreams that night!