Fun with Sandy Allnock at Impress

I'm a big believer in education.  As people close to me know, I spent a long time in school and I really loved it.  Even though I've been out of school for nearly 20 years (so hard to believe it's been that long already), I've never really stopped learning.  I've taken community college classes on everything from landscape maintenance to stained glass.  It's not been any different since getting into scrapbooking, Project Life and card making, I've watched a lot of You Tube videos by talented artists and have taken a number of classes, mostly online since there's not a lot of live offerings near us.

I've been following Sandy Allnock for quite some time.  Her talent to make beautiful things with copic markers is amazing.  I found out a few months ago that she teaches classes at a rubber stamp store called Impress in Tukwila, Washington and I really wanted to take a class.  It's about a four to five hour drive from here (depending on traffic) so the time and day of the week of the class became a very important consideration.  Then I saw that she was teaching an introductory class to copics using Lawn Fawn images and it was on a Saturday morning!  Well, it was time to bite the bullet, but what people who know me might be surprised about is that I actually get a little nervous about doing things like going someplace I've never been before and don't know anyone.  I'll do it, but it's not my first choice.  So I was delighted when my mom and sister agreed to go with me.

We turned into it a great overnight girls' trip by driving up Friday afternoon after Mom got back from her casino trip and I finished up a conference call at work.  We picked up Michele and spent a lot time in traffic (when did it get that bad) heading up to the big city.  After a wrong turn and night with horrible Wi-Fi, we packed off to class. 

Oh my goodness, it was so much fun. Sandy is as much fun in person as she is on her YouTube videos!  If you don't already watch her, go check out her channel here (or https://www.youtube.com/user/colourfulvideo).  You won't regret it. 

So there was an extra special surprise during the class.  Sandy got a text from none other than the amazing Jennifer McGuire (another of my absolute favorite people to watch).  See her videos here (or https://www.youtube.com/user/jennifermcguireink).  Sandy took a picture of us and sent it to Jennifer who sent back a picture of her waving to back to us.  What an absolutely surprising extra!

Also it was so much fun because Sandy got to share with us the next onlinecardclasses.com class subject (but they still have many classes available at a work at your own pace right now).  Now, I already knew what it was going to be because I took Stretch Your Stamps 2 and they announced it as a surprise at the end of the class, so if you took that class too, you already know, but what you might not know is how absolutely excited Sandy is for it.  It was so neat to see how excited she is.  I just love her positive, cheery personality. 

I also got the opportunity to talk briefly with a couple of the other women in the class.  They were really nice and I'm even following a couple of them on Instagram so I can see what beautiful work they do.  It made me comfortable that I could even go by myself if I had to next time.

I had a fabulous time and, even though it's a really long drive, I know I'm going to do it again and hopefully soon.  If you get the opportunity to take a class with Sandy or at Impress, do it.  You can find Sandy's online and in-person class schedule here (or http://sandyallnock.com/icse/) So go get your class on!