Friends. I returned a few weeks ago from creative heaven, aka Altitude Summit.
The moment I walked into the Grand America hotel, there were fun stylish ladies chatting in the lobby and a huge smile crept onto my face (I’m not kidding about the smile, I’m sure I looked a little creepy). These were my people. They may have been strangers, but they were creative, go-getter, entrepreneurial woman who have many of the same creative passions and creative struggles that I have. I was beyond excited to run upstairs, change my clothes and get to my first dinner with some of them! The stunning Bing wall. Words do not do it justice.
I had to share once more because I was so honored that the amazingly talented Melissa Esplin wrote out “so creative” for me at the Bing calligraphy area. If you are not following her, you should be.
Bing had two different photo and smile booths. They were such fun. One was this beautiful floral wall with a remote to take our pictures.
The other one was taken by the amazing photographers provided by Bing. I would die to have a backdrop like this installed in my home!
Miss Joy Cho from Oh Joy was the first day’s keynote speaker. She shared her story of starting as a graphic designer and slowly starting to do designs for big companies but always designing for other people. She knew early on that she wanted to create designs for herself and brick by brick she laid the foundation to create the Oh Joy empire (my words, not her) with lines at Target, Land of Nod and many other amazing projects on the horizon!
Here I am instagraming a picture of Miss Joy!
I attend a very interesting session called Blogging by the Numbers by Ryan Stern and Ashlee Prisbee.
Ryan shared about different experience levels, typical hours worked a week, how many paid posts should be typical a month, etc. It was so helpful to be able to see where you were as a blogger and then see goals for getting to the next tier. Here is her full report.
Ashlee then spoke about Google Analytics. Wow, do I have some work to do. Such a wonderful blogging tool and Ashlee did a great job of explaining some of the intricacies.
The next session I attended was given by Alice Yoo and Eugene Kim of My Modern Met on Growing Your Community. They left us with many tips and action items for growth of our brands. They have such an inspirational story.
At lunch, Oh Joy shared the most adorable party hats and party bowls with us! They will be available for purchase in your local Target stores this fall.
And both of our lunches were honestly so delicious. I have never had such tasty conference meals!
My fun friends, Katie + Caitlyn + I, wearing our Oh Joy hats at lunch!
AH! Amber Housley spoke at one of the roundtable sessions and this lady knocked my socks off. She shared how to automate business tasks so you can spend more time being creative. I took probably three pages of notes and have already put many of her items to good use! So so good.
Along with Bing, there were many other amazing sponsors at the conference. One of them being, Silhouette. Here I am chatting with the social media director, Megan.
This display was so gorgeous. Some of those black squares were actually 3D pyramids. Those Silhouette folks are creative beyond words.
My girls.
More eye candy from the lovely Bing display.
That evening we all bundled in our “dinner at the park” attire (it was freezing, so I ended up wearing the clothes I had worn on the airplane!). This amazing chalk art helped guide us from the hotel to the park.
We were greeted at the park with a lively break-dancing crew, which many Alt ladies joined in!
There were three delicious food trucks and tasty local cookies to nibble on.
I made another fun friend while waiting in line for food, Annie from Annie Reeves. She’s so sweet and likable, you must check out her lifestyle blog!
And then I saw Alicia from Whimsey Box! Her and Alison’s weekly Whimsey Box videos make me laugh (I even got a shout out in this video). I made her do a “W” for Whimsey Box, I’m pretty sure she loved it.
I shut down the party and headed back to this amazing view from my room on the 18th floor. Ah, dreamy Salt Lake…
