// Michaels Makers Summit 2016

Another year of the Michaels Makers Summit has come and gone! It was such an exciting 4 days in Carmel Valley, California. I can't even begin to tell you how scenic and beautiful it was (Hopefully the photos below do it justice!) It was so cold though! I'm very familiar with the climate in that part of California, but it's still a shock when you're coming from 94 degrees with 93% humidity! haha I figured I'd just walk y'all through the event by breaking it up into days... Here we go!

Day One - Sunday, September 11th

I hopped on a flight bright and early in Nashville, and flew to LAX and then San Jose. Luckily some of the gals from last year spotted me in Baggage Claim because we had no idea where our driver was. Once we all got settled in on the bus, we had about a dozen or so Makers. That helped make the 1.5 hour ride to Carmel Valley a bit easier. We stayed at the Carmel Valley Ranch and WOW! That's really all I can say about that haha It was so great to have everything in one place this year as opposed to having to commute to the Summit location last year. Most of us from the bus were pretty famished so we sat down for a quick bite. I had that insanely delicious French Toast. My mouth is watering just looking at it. Afterward we all settled into our rooms (actually they were suites... that we had all to ourselves! Whhaaaa! I hope y'all saw the room tour on Snapchat!) and played it cool until it was time for our Welcome Dinner. Michaels always knocks it out of the park with the styling and the menus. That night I took advantage of the huge bathtub... and then again and again and again. I know, the bath snaps were overkill, BUT Y'ALL! IT WAS SO BIG! AND THE WATER WAS SO HOT! If only my tub at home was as big!

Day Two - Monday, September 12th

Monday was the first full day of the Summit, and the 4 classes we had scheduled were for the Makers only. (In case you missed it/forgot: This year Michaels chose 50 sweepstakes winners to join us for the Summit! They came on Monday night and joined us at dinner.) The classes we had were so much fun. Jane Davenport's Mixed Media was probably my favorite of the day. I loved seeing how easy and simple shibori dyeing can be, too! Nicole Farb from Darby Smart led that class. In our Cricut class I made a cute little shadowbox to store fun photos and moments with my girlfriends. Also - how about the decor, right?! Everything looked so so stunning. The macrame "walls" were my favorite! Dinner on Monday was really fun because we all had assigned seats and the sweepstakes winners were there. We also had a very special guest... Sarah Michelle Gellar! She told us all about her new biz Food Stirs and she was positively charming. Monday night included a lot of Chardonnay haha! And of course more of that amazing bathtub. #sorrynotsorry

Day Three - Tuesday, September 13th

So I don't have any personal photos of Tuesday and I'm really bummed about that. I woke up really sick and I just did not feel like myself all day. At first I thought "What?! Am I hungover?! How?!" but it became pretty apparent after not too terribly long that nope, I just had some icky virus. Most of the day I felt like I was just going through the motions, and there were so many great classes that day! The one I was most looking forward to was the Macrame class with Annabel Wrigley. She taught our Weaving workshop last year, and she's just so kind and patient. And a little side note here: Holy macrame is HARD! My brain is totally not used to working that way (I'm just not a very mechanical/analytical person. Wahhhh) Pretty much everyone else in my group was leagues ahead of me and I finally just grabbed my piece and went to lay down. I was so into learning, but my nausea was not having it. I had a steady rotation of shower / bath / bed until it was time to go down for dinner. I wasn't sure I was even going to go, but I had heard it was totally beautiful so I went. Oof. Bad idea. Once we all got seated on our poufs and pillows (ha, yes!), the food started coming out. Once the Cauliflower Soup Sip came out, I was done for. I headed down the hill to wait for a shuttle back to my room where I zonked out to sleep off whatever was happening to me. Luckily I felt right as rain on Wednesday morning (Thank goodness, since I had to fly across the country. Womp!)

via themrseverything_

The Summit was such a wonderful experience. I swear when I leave I feel so motivated, inspired, and lucky! How I'm one of the 45(ish) Makers is beyond me. The women at the Summit are truly so remarkable and talented! Definitely pinching myself to be surrounded by so many wonderful people. And the winners that I met were equally as great! It was just a really cool experience overall.

I'm super stoked to get started on this year's Dream Tree, too! This will be my third year participating so if you have any awesome themes or ideas for a rad tree, send 'em my way! I'm rackin' my brain trying to come up with something awesome :P

A HUGE MAJOR WHOA NELLY THANKS goes out to Michaels, Jillian, and her entire team. It's such an honor and privilege to be part of something so neat.

xo KB