California Pinners Conference

I miss going to Pinners so much! 

It really is a fun conference full of crafty goodness.

I saw it was going to be in California so I shared it in my West Coast Pinterest Parties group to see if anyone wanted to go. I had a few people interested and in the end, my friend Helen and her son were able to go. So..check it out if you ever get the chance to go to a Pinners Conference in your area!

I did feel a bit ridiculous that we drove a bit over TWO hours to get to this. That's what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere, roughly anything is a couple hours away. I was totally spoiled living in Utah and only living 10-20 minutes away from the Pinners Conference (depending on where it was held). Sigh.

I was a bit disgruntled when we arrived to find out that we had to pay for parking - $10! and we could not bring in drinks except plastic water bottles or the Pinners cups that the VIP ticket attendees received. 

We were also not supposed to bring food in but...I utilized my pockets and they do have food for purchase inside the convention center.

Making s'mores with homemade marshmallows. You know that I love marshmallows and s'mores are one of my favorite camping (or not camping) desserts. 

Super pretty temporary tattoos

These mixes were tasty - they had a 5-minute cherry cheesecake one. I didn't buy anything but they had lots of samples.  Loved the little owl towels!

Took a class geared toward travel. Mostly international, airports, but it was interesting.

This was a pretty cool craft. You could buy the kit but it was quite expensive (to me) and you melt tiny grains of plastic? sand? something, on to these metal shapes. Pretty nifty and would make great items to sell on Etsy.

This is the stand you buy and you use a blow torch underneath to heat up under the metal shape and melt all the colors. 

This pocket frame was so neat I just had to get one.

So many options it took me at least 20 minutes hanging out at the booth to decide what to buy.

I wish I had signed up for the class...next time I will know!

I watched a class about brush lettering - pretty cool!

For my last class of the day, I went to one with marriage as the topic. Very good!

Last views before the show floor closed on day 1. 

I know my descriptions of the products I saw were not super great but I will be featuring some in a little more detail and tagging the brands this week on Instagram so be sure to check that out.

I'm so glad I took the opportunity to go. Very fun to learn about new (to me) companies, gets some networking, shopping and learning done.