Traveling Class
Mireille Divjak
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Scrapbook Mate’s
Retailers Weekend
Part 1
I am part of Scrapbook Mate’s Design Team.
Scrapbook Mate is Europe’s largest distributor of scrapbook supplies. They supply
local scrapbook stores from Norway to Spain and every country you can think of (in Europe) in between.
Because of that, they have a multinational design team to represent a few countries in Europe.
There are girls from the Netherlands, France, Germany, an American girl living in Germany, a Brazilian girl living in Sweden, a Swedish girl,
and a few girls from England.
In October, it was Scrapbook Mate’s fifth birthday and to celebrate that Heidi (the owner) organized a retailer weekend.
She flew in all the design team girls that were able to work that weekend (ok, I didn’t “fly in” since the store is in Amsterdam and approximately a 1 hour drive from my house)
to teach master classes to the retailers there.
It was a 3-day event that was SOOO super fun!
First of all, it was great to meet “my girls” in real life. Since we all live so far apart we talk a lot online
in forums and through mail, but chatting face to face is something that doesn’t happen
often.
Sas drove me to Amsterdam right after we got the kids up and ready.
When I arrived there Emma (from England) was already there with Heidi and we picked up Lucy (from Sweden) an hour later from the harbor. She came from the airport by train and then the ferry. It was so fun to get to hug and talk
until our faces hurt.
We got to sit upstairs in the warehouse where there was a special area made for cropping.
We had a blast walking through that giant warehouse and see all these delicious goodies in real life stocked to the ceiling. So great to walk in a scrapbook area where you can actually get lost.
We all made our projects for teaching in advance but Friday was our day to put the kits together and go through some final things.
For me, the final thing unfortunately meant creating a new album. The line I designed this project with was fairly new and stocked to the ceiling when I picked it up three weeks before.
But, as it sometimes goes in this industry, all of a sudden there had been a “run” on the products and there was simply not enough to create kits with.
So, I needed to redesign the Christmas album again with different papers and embellishments.
Lucy worked on her project. Emma was in the middle of putting kits together. Then, Jessica arrived from Germany. She had her car filled with American goodies for us since lives on a base it’s easier for her to get them.
She brought me Reeses, which I really, really love.
Heidi invited us for dinner at her house, so we had a lovely meal in the center of Amsterdam. Just sitting together, spending some time, meeting Heidi’s husband and children made this so totally special (not to mention the lovely food she made for us!) I even had
Caesar dressing for my salad,
something that I had not had in 12 years!
After dinner, we drove back to the warehouse and cropped together
- for hours and hours. Heidi went with us and scrapbooked a little, too,
which was so special since she normally did not have
time to play. Besides, it was mega fun for us to be able to spend some time with her.
When it was way past midnight, we went to our “Botel”.
It was a hotel on a boat, which kind of felt like we were on this “scrapbooking cruise”. Lucy, Emma and I shared a room together and we had a blast. Felt like teenage girls, yapping, giggling and laughing out loud, sharing crazy stories.
Absolute highlight of that day was sneaking outside at half past 3 in our pajamas to support a bad habit while Lucy taught us a real Brazilian Samba.
Can you imagine the face of the doorkeeper on nightshift seeing these three “girls” sneak out in their pajamas and then dancing a Samba in the moonlight?
See you next month for part two of Scrapbook
Mate’s Retailer weekend. If you are “bored” in the
meantime you can have your
daily dose of inspiration by Scrapbook Mate’s
Design Team.
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