Weekend in the Woods Retreat

Oh, but you get Over $300 in FREE SWAG! (It may be free to her from manufacturers, but I count that as part of the registration fee, which is so ridiculously high considering it doesn’t include anything but cropping and classes.)

Holy Smokes! Never heard of these people, but hope they have a good following of folks who would pay that to have to pay to stay at the venue and pay for their own food. Dd lives in Tahoe and food options, other than fast food are not cheap!

No way in hell I'd pay $500 or $400. I am not a fan of "free swag". I'd rather pick out and pay for my own products, take a Shimelle class, and go to Tahoe for an actual vacation.

I have a hard time stomaching shipping charges for my scrapbooking goodies let alone paying almost $500 to scrap at a retreat with some YouTube/instagrammers. I'd rather pay for Ali's story camp where you know you are getting more value for your $$.

I followed retrohipmama for about 10 minutes (ok, maybe a few months before anyone really knew who she was) but realized she was all about her real quick. Her unending amounts of selfies, outfit of the day posts etc. Then came the podcast, the magazine, the retreat. I went into turnoff mode.

At first though I honestly loved her PL process. I love how she organized her photos on her computer and loved her weekly spreads. Then through everything else it all got lost and I became bored.

I can book a hotel room, pack my own snacks and crop in my room for just the price of staying at the hotel...and I'd probably get more out of the experience than what I'd get out of this.

I unfollowed RHM a while ago because I don't follow crafty people to see them posting about their outfits of the day. I follow crafty people to see their craft projects, hauls, etc. I don't mind one here and there, but when more of it seems to be about their daily life than the purpose of me following them, I unfollow. It's people like her that are why I have shit tons of selfies, vacation photos and pet pictures showing up in my suggested feed when literally all I want to see on Instagram is creative stuffs.

In an industry that is shrinking more and more every year, I find it really confusing as to how so many Design Team level people can think everyone who scrapbooks looks at them like Kim Kardashian for scrapbooking. I don't mind people capitalizing on something innovative, but the idea of making a business out of popularity alone (she's not offering much of anything at all unless she's some amazing instructor and I'm unaware of it) just boggles the mind. They see the likes of Ali Edwards and the billboard that is Amy Tan and see dollar signs when they reach a few thousand followers. Not only that, they expect to be this huge thing immediately without any of the real work that it takes to build a brand or a business.

So for $900 I get some swag, five two hour classes, and two free breakfasts included with a two night stay? I go to a crop two hours away and get two free classes with supplies to make 6 pages, two nights at a hotel with free breakfast, and two other meals for $280. The crop is from 5 on Friday until 5 on Sunday. For $5 more I can start cropping at noon on Friday.

We also have lots of crops in the mountains for less than $350 (meals included) or cheaper and people share meals.

For those prices I could buy that Scan and Cut I’ve been eyeing, throw in a Gemini (its in the middle of my want list right now) and still come out ahead. Oh, and it really irritates me that you have to have a Facebook account. Rules me out anyway.

For a four day stay in the Rocky Mountains in a private house that was converted to a sb retreat house with 8 to 12 friends was about $100 to - $150 depending how many people.  We paid a friend to cook and that came out of the $100-$150 or shared cooking responsibilities.  Only other cost was getting there... gas.