The Wendy Experience!

Okay, I've been knocked out with kidney stones and Percocet for the past two days so I have not been able to chat about my classes with Wendy Vecchi. So much better right now. Ready to share my Wendy Experience with you.

As I had posted, my BFF Jacquie and I took three classes with Wendy this past weekend (Friday and Saturday) at the Paper Niche in Plantation. Love that store!

I ofcourse knew who Wendy was and was quite familiar with her beautiful art. I had joined the All Things Wendy Yahoo Group to become more familiar with her work and her products but had not done anything on the group. Just collected her stamps. So when the opportunity arose to take classes with her at the Paper Niche I jumped and took them! And I am sooooo glad I did!!! Not only is Wendy a wonderful artist but one of the sweetest ladies I've met in a long time. She was truly a delight. If you ever have a chance to take her class do not hesitate!!! She may have replaced His Royal Highness Tim in my heart!!!

As I said, we took 3 classes from her. One on Friday evening and two on Saturday. The one on Friday was a project with the awesome art parts! I have never used art parts before and I was blown away by how cool they are! LOVE THEM! They are so versatile and so dimensional! Anything you make with the art parts is there for good. A beautiful long lasting gift for yourself or someone else. All the "doodads" on this project are stamped on grunge and distressed. This was my arts part project:

On Saturday we had a techniques class from 10 am to 4 pm. We did ALOT of tags using a bunch of different techniques and Ranger products. I learned more in these six hours than I have learned in all the time I've been buying Ranger products! LOVED it! I made some really cool tags. These are some:

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Finally we did some absolutley wonderful journal pages using Ranger's new Specialty Stamping Paper. If you do not have it, if you have not used it - RUN AND GET IT! It is just absolutely amazing. I had bought it when it came out just because - well, that's what I do! I BUY everything! But I wasn't excited about it I mean what the hell, it's just paper right? Besides I love my Fabriano! Well, Fabriano has been dethroned! This truly is not a Ranger "gimmick" to get you to buy "paper". This stuff is totally and utterly amazing! These are the pages I made using wonderful techniques using Ranger products and the wonderful Stabilo All pencil.

Now, let's talk about how I almost committed murder this weekend.

You know that at every art event there is always one annoying person (hopefully only one). And OH BROTHER did we have one!!! This woman - who I don't know and who could be the nicest person on the planet - was making me and everyone else around us totally insane.

I have to believe that she has some kind of psychological issue - something that is beyond my comprehension. That woman started talking at 10:00 am on Saturday and did not stop speaking for more than 2 seconds until 8:00 pm that night. I SWEAR TO GOD!!! It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life! She was rude, pushy, obnoxious and had absolutly no connection between the brain and the mouth!!!

There is a filter that we all have between the brain and the mouth. It keeps us from speaking every thought that runs through our brain. Well this woman has absolutely no filter. NONE. It was an ongoing cycle of nonsense coming out of her mouth. It was as if every single thought that went through her brain just automatically came out of her mouth like vomit. She was rude to Wendy, rude to the other ladies and TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS to the vibes around her. Some people are obnoxious and know it - they just don't care what others think. This woman was totally clueless. TOTALLY CLUELESS. I was not only annoyed and frustrated by her constant blathering, but in awe of the fact that she really thought she was interesting and loved. I just diddn't get it!!

Then all of a sudden I GOT IT. This poor woman has some form of tourrete syndrome !! That is why there is no connection between the brain and the mouth - why there is no filter. Wendy was a surgical nurse for 30 yeaers before becoming her Royal Highness Wendy Vecchi so I ran that theory by her. Being the professional that she is she only smiled and said nothing but I saw that "aha" light go off in her eyes! And that is when I decided that walking over and knocking her out probably would not be a cool thing to do since she is clearly unable to control her unnatural behavior! Is that mature of me or what? The realization that this woman could not help talking for 10 hours without saying two things that were worth listening to - that it was not her fault - well, that made me feel so much better about it all! But I WILL tell you that the ONLY reason I didn't walk out of that class is because (a) I love Wendy and (b) it could very well be that I was the only thing that kept Wendy from knocking her out herself!!!

So, there you go - my Wendy experience!!